Deciding between a GTX 770 and a GTX 960

[userv.1256]

Im thinking of getting the gtx 770 for $70.  But i might be able to get the gtx 960 for a similar price. 

 

Which one should i choose?

[Jurrunio]

Prefer 770, it's the faster card and has less value to lose.

[aisle9]

770's going to be marginally more powerful and more power-hungry. If this is a one-year holdover, go for it.

 

960 will sacrifice a little power, but if this is your "once every  3-4 years" GPU purchase, that's the way I'd go. Maxwell will have driver support for at least a couple of years after Kepler goes away.

[Droidbot]

960. Slightly slower, but longer driver support. 

 

Now that Fermi has been cut Kepler is next on the chopping block. 

 

Get a 4GB version if you can, 2GB 960 is pain. 

[Streetguru]

46 minutes ago, Zenophius said:

Im thinking of getting the gtx 770 for $70.  But i might be able to get the gtx 960 for a similar price. 

 

Which one should i choose?

Get a 7950/R9 280/R9 380 instead, especially the 30, far better cards to buy if you're just picking something up off ebay.

[Fasauceome]

You could shoot for winning a bid on a 970 at that price range, shouldn't be that bad to give it a few goes

[ImActualTrash]

On 9/30/2018 at 11:46 AM, Streetguru said:

Get a 7950/R9 280/R9 380 instead, especially the 30, far better cards to buy if you're just picking something up off ebay.

amd cards tend to bottleneck more depending on what series like the rx and the r9 series even though they aren't overpowering, i would know this because i used to have a rx 480 and it bottlenecked on a low end i7

[SteveGrabowski0]

I would go 960 all the way unless you're looking to play very old games. When I checked techpowerup's review for the 960 from early 2015 the 770 was 12% ahead at 1080p in their testsuite. By mid 2016 in their 1060 review its lead had dropped to 1-2%. I can't imagine that trend has reversed itself with the way Nvidia has abandoned Kepler in its driver optimization. On top of that a 770 is likely to be a much older card than a 960 you get used. The 770 is also a power hog, the thing uses almost as much power as a 980 Ti or 1080 Ti. I wouldn't go 770 unless you could get it significantly cheaper than 960.

[ImActualTrash]

2 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

I would go 960 all the way unless you're looking to play very old games. When I checked techpowerup's review for the 960 from early 2015 the 770 was 12% ahead at 1080p in their testsuite. By mid 2016 in their 1060 review its lead had dropped to 1-2%. I can't imagine that trend has reversed itself with the way Nvidia has abandoned Kepler in its driver optimization. On top of that a 770 is likely to be a much older card than a 960 you get used. The 770 is also a power hog, the thing uses almost as much power as a 980 Ti or 1080 Ti. I wouldn't go 770 unless you could get it significantly cheaper than 960.

I currently have a 770 and it outperforms the 960, except it chews more power and has shorter driver support, oh and by the way we have the same ram sticks

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

A cheap 970 or R9 380 might be in the cards

[Streetguru]

5 hours ago, Pumpkinboat746 said:

amd cards tend to bottleneck more depending on what series like the rx and the r9 series even though they aren't overpowering, i would know this because i used to have a rx 480 and it bottlenecked on a low end i7

What are you talking about? in what way would it bottleneck?

[userv.1256]

5 hours ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

A cheap 970 or R9 380 might be in the cards

a 970 is twice as strong as the gtx 770.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Just now, Zenophius said:

a 970 is twice as strong as the gtx 770.

...And similarly priced. Seems like a no brainer

[userv.1256]

Just now, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

...And similarly priced. Seems like a no brainer

yes, but the majority of Kijiji ads I've seen. The price of the GTX 770 is usually 1/3 of the price of the GTX 970.  I might be getting mine for $80 CA.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

2 minutes ago, Zenophius said:

yes, but the majority of Kijiji ads I've seen. The price of the GTX 770 is usually 1/3 of the price of the GTX 970.  I might be getting mine for $80 CA.

Oh nice. In that case go for it

[ImActualTrash]

8 hours ago, Streetguru said:

What are you talking about? in what way would it bottleneck?

I had a rx 480 and ran it on my system, it ran like crap and my cpu was overclocked, i even ran this on my brothers system and he has an I5-8400 and it still ran terrible, we then later found that it wasn't the cpu, it was the actaul card itself apparently bottlenecking even though the cpu could handle it

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Pumpkinboat746 said:

I had a rx 480 and ran it on my system, it ran like crap and my cpu was overclocked, i even ran this on my brothers system and he has an I5-8400 and it still ran terrible, we then later found that it wasn't the cpu, it was the actaul card itself apparently bottlenecking even though the cpu could handle it

I'm about 99% sure that's not a thing and maybe you just had a bad RX 480

 

your GPU will only affect what resolution or quality settings you can run a game at.

 

your CPU will affect what your max fps with a given GPU can be.

 

For example if an Athlon X4 CPU could get a 45fps average in GTAV with a 1080ti at 720p, it would be able to get 45fps all the way up to 4k high/ultra(barring CPU intensive settings), for simplicity.

[ImActualTrash]

Just now, Streetguru said:

I'm about 99% sure that's not a thing and maybe you just had a bad RX 480

 

your GPU will only affect what resolution or quality settings you can run a game at.

 

your CPU will affect what your max fps with a given GPU can be.

 

For example if an Athlon X4 CPU could get a 45fps average in GTAV with a 1080ti at 720p, it would be able to get 45fps all the way up to 4k high/ultra(barring CPU intensive settings), for simplicity.

a bad rx480? i had an asus 8gb

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Pumpkinboat746 said:

a bad rx480? i had an asus 8gb

Anyone can make a bad GPU, wouldn't be able to figure out the real issue without the card in hand, unless it was only having issues in 1 or 2 games.

[ImActualTrash]

yeah, it was struggling to run forza horizon 3 and that card is in the recommended section, and struggled with gta 5