Upgrading GPU: GTX 970 vs 980

[Deep Delver]

I'm looking to upgrade my GPU for Witcher 3, Dark Souls III, and Doom 4. Currently running a GTX 750 and an i7 processor. I'll be playing at 1920x1080, hopefully at 60fps. Should I go with the 980 or will the 970 be enough?

[CursedPanther]

Depends much on your budget. 980 is arguably the better choice for 2016 since it doesn't have the gimped VRAM.

[_I_]

gtx 970 is fine for 1080p gaming at 60+ fps in most games

980 will be better for 1440p 60hz or 1080p 144hz
980ti for 1440p 144hz

[nigel]

Also right now the 970 is arguably the best bang for your buck graphics card.

[CursedPanther]

Ҡiwi님이 먼저 게시:

Also right now the 970 is arguably the best bang for your buck graphics card.

It appears as a good deal only when you don't factor in the gimped VRAM issue. Yes the 970 will absolutely eat 2013/14 games for breakfast, but it's begun to struggle for the latest triple A games.

[banzaigtv]

The gimped VRAM in the GTX 970 is now showing its true colors in games like The Division and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Get the GTX 980 now or wait for Pascal.

[Azza ☠]

GTX 970 is most optimal at 1080p, depending on the model, it can actually performance very well. Just note it's a remodel of the GTX 780 (which is also a beast), but has 3GB video memory. It's tick/tock development cycles - so more performance, while using half the wattage requirements.

The GTX 970 has 3.5GB video memory, with a 0.5GB slower memory pool reserve (making it 4GB for free). At 1080p resolution, even on very high to ultra texture quality, most games won't go over 3.5GB video usage (most will only use 1-2GB), however if it does use the slower memory pool (perhaps if using the DSR feature - forced higher resolution scaling or similar), you might get a very slight performance drop. Lots of people (and AMD fanboys) scream about this, but it's not as bad as most make it out to be. Just consider the GTX 970 as 3.5GB (not 4GB) and it will perform extremely well. While they might call it gimped, it's a glass half empty or half full, the fact is they gave you a freebee 1GB for no extra cost.

GTX 980 is most optimal at 1440p, and really starts to shine here. It doesn't have that memory issue, with a full 4GB or 6GB. I would highly recommend it, if you can afford the difference and possibly planning on a future monitor upgrade. Or if your 1080p monitor is very high refresh (120/144Hz). The Ti model adds another additional 10-15% on top of that, but even more costly.

Comparing the GTX 980 vs GTX 970 at 1080p 60Hz, you won't notice the full performance of a GTX 980 to make it worth the price difference. GTX 970 is the best performance to cost ratio graphics card of 2014, and still hasn't shifted from there.

From GTX 750 to a GTX 970 - you are looking at roughly 3.5 times the performance or more.
Where as GTX 980 would be approx 4.5 times the performance. Either would be a serious upgrade.

Pascal would be complete overkill for 1080p or even 1440p resolutions, and costs even more.

[Deep Delver]

Azza ☠님이 먼저 게시:

GTX 970 is most optimal at 1080p, depending on the model, it can actually performance very well. Just note it's a remodel of the GTX 780 (which is also a beast), but has 3GB video memory. It's tick/tock development cycles - so more performance, while using half the wattage requirements.

The GTX 970 has 3.5GB video memory, with a 0.5GB slower memory pool reserve (making it 4GB for free). At 1080p resolution, even on very high to ultra texture quality, most games won't go over 3.5GB video usage (most will only use 1-2GB), however if it does use the slower memory pool (perhaps if using the DSR feature - forced higher resolution scaling or similar), you might get a very slight performance drop. Lots of people (and AMD fanboys) scream about this, but it's not as bad as most make it out to be. Just consider the GTX 970 as 3.5GB (not 4GB) and it will perform extremely well. While they might call it gimped, it's a glass half empty or half full, the fact is they gave you a freebee 1GB for no extra cost.

GTX 980 is most optimal at 1440p, and really starts to shine here. It doesn't have that memory issue, with a full 4GB or 6GB. I would highly recommend it, if you can afford the difference and possibly planning on a future monitor upgrade. Or if your 1080p monitor is very high refresh (120/144Hz). The Ti model adds another additional 10-15% on top of that, but even more costly.

Comparing the GTX 980 vs GTX 970 at 1080p 60Hz, you won't notice the full performance of a GTX 980 to make it worth the price difference. GTX 970 is the best performance to cost ratio graphics card of 2014, and still hasn't shifted from there.

From GTX 750 to a GTX 970 - you are looking at roughly 3.5 times the performance or more.
Where as GTX 980 would be approx 4.5 times the performance. Either would be a serious upgrade.

Pascal would be complete overkill for 1080p or even 1440p resolutions, and costs even more.

Thanks, I think I'll go with the 970 for now, maybe upgrade once the 980 is cheaper.

[banzaigtv]

DSR is a revolutionary feature which essentially assumes the role of SSAA. The GTX 980 does a lot better at 4K DSR than the GTX 970 does. Even if you need to limit the DSR setting to 1620p or 1440p in some games, it makes a difference on how games look. It's better to get a GTX 980 now than to upgrade to it later.

[Alexalmighty502 Sup Acc]

I've never had a problem with vram even with 2 970s for 1080p a gtx 970 is all you need