GTX 770 vs 960 vs 1050 Ti. (HELP!)

[Modzy]

Hey everyone. 

So I have been racking my brain over the past several weeks trying to working which of the following GPU's today is the best options if you where planning on running them for the next 2 years. 

GTX 770 2Gb  or GTX 960 2GB or GTX 1050 Ti 4Gb

This is the issue I am having. All of these cards performance almost identically when you compare average FPS across multiple games. 
 

How do i know this. Well i own both a reference 770 2gb & asus 960 2gb turbo. Steve over at Gamers Nexus did a handy revisit look at the 770 in late 2016.
Video Here
So currently my partner has the 960 is her machine, but its starting to have major FPS drops in newer games, even when turning down the visual quality. So I took my 770 our of my lounge room racing rig and chucked it into her machine. This fixed the FPS issues and resulted in a better overall expereince as there was no more FPS drops. (eg game runs at 60,  then drops to <30 randomly).
 

The issues is the 770 consumes double the power, runs a lot hotter as its the nvidia reference blower cooler model. And given its a card from 2013, driver optimization over the coming years wont be very good. 
So I also went and confirmed the 960s issues on my racing rig which has a faster cpu and more system ram, the cards indeed is tanking fps randomly and no visual optimization seems to be fixing it. even lowest quality settings. So i went and confirmed online that other people experience similar issues especially in newer 2017 games. Now every time I fiddle and disrupt my partners workflow with system upgrades, i end up living with the devil incarnate until she can go back to her regular usage... 
 

Now my partner is heading overseas for 3 weeks over xmas. And I've been given a deadline of her return to have everything back to normal. So I need an outcome that will last 2yrs minimal. (for reference, the rest of her system is only 2yos old and not at all needing to be upgraded. The gpu is the oldest part in the system.)

SO.. 

Option 1: Sell the 960, and buy this 1050 Ti 4Gb (linked).. (Keep in mind A 1060 3Gb is just out of reach for the very limit budget I have, Christmas related things and all.) The 1050 with 4gb vram will provide better flexability for ingame settings and the being newer much better driver support.

Option 2: Keep the 770 in her system and hope driver support will keep relevant for at-least 2 years. But put up with much hotter rooms temps & higher power draw. And use the 960 in my racing rig (which only plays iRacing 1-2 times a week)

Option 3: Keep the 960 in her PC, the 770 in my racing rig. And put up with an unhappy wife screaming at me until something from Volta comes out for the sub $250AU price point.

Option 4: "insert your suggestion here"

I am also looking at second hand options in the 970/980 range if I can find one for a steal price.

Also i know some of you may suggest AMD cards like the 470/570 which are that is a valid suggestions. However we have a full Nvidia echo system in our house with 3 Nvidia shield devices. Which my partners regularly uses to stream her games to play in different parts of our house. (1 shield portable, 1 tv box & 1 tegra note 7 tablet)

[dragoon20005]

if you can afford second hand GTX 980s or even 980Tis are always on sale on ebay and gumtree

 

 

the GTX 1050Ti isnt a beefy GPU for 1080P gaming esp for racing games.

 

the GTX 770 and GTX 960 on gumtree will still fetch a bit of money

[Modzy]

1 minute ago, dragoon20005 said:

if you can afford second hand GTX 980s or even 980Tis are always on sale on ebay and gumtree

 

 

the GTX 1050Ti isnt a beefy GPU for 1080P gaming esp for racing games.

 

the GTX 770 and GTX 960 on gumtree will still fetch a bit of money

To add a note then she has 2 monitors, her main monitor is a 1920 x 1200, and secondary is 1680x1050.
 

980/980ti from what i can see are just outside the budget i have here in AU. they fetch around $300AU if your lucky, where as i have max $250 i can spend.

[Jurrunio]

What are the 960's temps? Could be dry thermal paste causing thermal throttling.

 

I'd look for used 970s. Just dont see the point in getting the same performance from an upgrade (like, not even an upgrade at all)

[dragoon20005]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

What are the 960's temps? Could be dry thermal paste causing thermal throttling.

 

I'd look for used 970s. Just dont see the point in getting the same performance from an upgrade (like, not even an upgrade at all)

970s will not be a major upgrade from his 960

 

also it has only 3.5GB of VRAM

3 minutes ago, Modzy said:

To add a note then she has 2 monitors, her main monitor is a 1920 x 1200, and secondary is 1680x1050.
 

980/980ti from what i can see are just outside the budget i have here in AU. they fetch around $300AU if your lucky, where as i have max $250 i can spend.

what if you sell your two GPUs can you stretch your dollar?

 

 

[Jurrunio]

8 minutes ago, dragoon20005 said:

970s will not be a major upgrade from his 960

 

also it has only 3.5GB of VRAM

1

At least it's something, unlike going from 960 to 1050ti.

 

8 minutes ago, dragoon20005 said:

what if you sell your two GPUs can you stretch your dollar?

It's two GPUs in two PCs, so selling both means one of them is not playing games.

[Modzy]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

What are the 960's temps? Could be dry thermal paste causing thermal throttling.

 

I'd look for used 970s. Just dont see the point in getting the same performance from an upgrade (like, not even an upgrade at all)

Nope i doubled checked & did fresh application. temps are all good, and using afterburner there is NO throttling going on. its more like the games are running out of vram and are forced to use system ram. (has 16gb)
 

But even know the 770 has the same 2gb vram buffer it doesn't have any fps drops. both cards sit at around 1840mb vram usage in the new mass effect for example. 

[Modzy]

16 minutes ago, dragoon20005 said:

970s will not be a major upgrade from his 960

 

also it has only 3.5GB of VRAM

what if you sell your two GPUs can you stretch your dollar?

 

 

Selling both GPUs is not an option as i need 1 of them for the racing rig. 970 is an option, but they are still selling for over my budget. 

I know i will be spending $$ on the same level of performance. the issues is i need the best outcome for 2yrs. so for me if spending $200 now gives me that its worth it. rather than put up with the 960s issues.

[Jurrunio]

8 minutes ago, Modzy said:

I know i will be spending $$ on the same level of performance. the issues is i need the best outcome for 2yrs. so for me if spending $200 now gives me that its worth it. rather than put up with the 960s issues.

4

Then look for 960 4GB models, if you dont mind having the same performance.

[Modzy]

I am currently watch several ebay auctions got 970s. but the trends have been around the 280-320 mark. so maybe ill get lucky. if not I might just get the 1050 ti as its the newest card, and will have better driver support for the future.

[dragoon20005]

2 hours ago, Modzy said:

I am currently watch several ebay auctions got 970s. but the trends have been around the 280-320 mark. so maybe ill get lucky. if not I might just get the 1050 ti as its the newest card, and will have better driver support for the future.

the GTX 1050Ti will only be like 17% faster but not a big jump

 

Gumtree should be one of your options as well.

 

Tech Yes CIty always find great deals online and with some haggling you might snag the GTX980 at least

 

the GTX 980 will be like 80 percent faster

 

the GTX 970 is wrong here because that is a 3.5GB card and the 1080P performance is somewhere under the GTX 1060 3GB

 

[Modzy]

14 hours ago, dragoon20005 said:

the GTX 980 will be like 80 percent faster

 

the GTX 970 is wrong here because that is a 3.5GB card and the 1080P performance is somewhere under the GTX 1060 3GB

 

 

You are correct actually. as shes games at 1920x1200. So the full 4gb vram really does make a difference here. i'll keep an eye out for a 980. 

I've only got 3 weeks to find one. but for now she is using my 770, in fact ive done some further A/B testing last night and found that the reference 770 i have is notably faster in the main games she plays. For whatever reason the Asus GTX 960 Turbo is just not holding its own at all. 

[dragoon20005]

3 minutes ago, Modzy said:

You are correct actually. as shes games at 1920x1200. So the full 4gb vram really does make a difference here. i'll keep an eye out for a 980. 

I've only got 3 weeks to find one. but for now she is using my 770, in fact ive done some further A/B testing last night and found that the reference 770 i have is notably faster in the main games she plays. For whatever reason the Asus GTX 960 Turbo is just not holding its own at all. 

 

that is just weird but i guess why some older cards still hold up well

 

because GTX 770 just have more in-efficient cores than lesser more efficient cores on the GTX 960

 

the only reason why the GTX 770 is holding back is the VRAM limit

[Modzy]

2 minutes ago, dragoon20005 said:

that is just weird but i guess why some older cards still hold up well

 

because GTX 770 just have more in-efficient cores than lesser more efficient cores on the GTX 960

 

the only reason why the GTX 770 is holding back is the VRAM limit

I originally picked up the 770 purely to use for iracing which only uses like 1gb of vram. So the 2gb buffer wasn't an issue.

[dragoon20005]

4 minutes ago, Modzy said:

I originally picked up the 770 purely to use for iracing which only uses like 1gb of vram. So the 2gb buffer wasn't an issue.

hmm iRacing is light on the system requirement

 

try Project Cars 2 or even Forza 7 and your GTX 770 will struggle

[Modzy]

I used it with Assetto Corsa from time to time and it seems to handle it at 60fps+. But with racing games I always turn down the all the "bling" and target a stable 60fps minimal. I have tried project cars 2, but again i just tuned the game to run at 60fps with a mix of setting. But my TV is only 1080p so its not hard to drive.