Worth upgrading from GTX 760 to GTX 970 ?

[TameRacingDriver]

I'll probably hang fire for now as suggested. SLI not an option unless I replace my motherboard.

[MissChief]

You could also try finding a second hand GTX 780ti? Still a fantastic card and likely 1/2-2/3rds of the price of the 980ti?

[silvagod]

Shiv_P said:

A 390 is a better bet than the 970

I've got a Dell 34" 3440 x 1440 monitor and have just upgraded my graphics to a 390x.

Project cars plays fine for me, as does GTA5. I haven't messed with settings or anything, but straight 'out of the box', super smooth.

There again, I'm a crap gamer! :P

[TameRacingDriver]

MissChief said:

You could also try finding a second hand GTX 780ti? Still a fantastic card and likely 1/2-2/3rds of the price of the 980ti?

They seem to be about the same as a second hand 970 and about the same speed but the 970 is more power efficient.

[Monty Python]

Thing with PCs and PC components is you can end up waiting forever for the "next big thing" to arrive, only to find that a year or two later something better appears. I've taken the approach that if I want to upgrade I'll buy the best I can afford now and not bother what might come next year and what might happen to prices.

[maxdb]

I have a 4k monitor and a GTX 970. I can run fairly high settings and get decent framerates - I get about 70fps average in the Dirt 3 Benchmark.

The only issue with the GTX 970 is the ram. Only 3.5gb is usable, which is annoying as it should be a 4gb card. It does do the job with current gen but I think it will struggle a bit with next gen.

I would wait until the Pascal cards come out next year. You should benefit much more with a 6gb-8gb card (think Pascal will be 16gb cards) and they will be much faster. It's only 6 months away so seems a bit pointless spending £300 on a card now only to want to upgrade it a year later.

[Monty Python]

maxdb said:

I have a 4k monitor and a GTX 970. I can run fairly high settings and get decent framerates - I get about 70fps average in the Dirt 3 Benchmark.

The only issue with the GTX 970 is the ram. Only 3.5gb is usable, which is annoying as it should be a 4gb card. It does do the job with current gen but I think it will struggle a bit with next gen.

I would wait until the Pascal cards come out next year. You should benefit much more with a 6gb-8gb card (think Pascal will be 16gb cards) and they will be much faster. It's only 6 months away so seems a bit pointless spending £300 on a card now only to want to upgrade it a year later.

...and they're likely to be expensive, given the use of HBM2 memory.

[TameRacingDriver]

Well, I've done the upgrade (got one for £200) and although I've not done any scientific tests it has made quiet a difference. Project Cars slows down less on higher settings, FC4 is smooth at Ultra settings, and even games I expected it to make little difference seem faster and more playable. Nice upgrade.

[julian64]

okay project cars up and running to test the 680 with an i7 3770K running overclocked at 4.2 with 16GB on win 10. All video settings up to max, only on one screen rather than the three as I'm set to individual screens at the moment rather than spanning.

absolutely playable, no tearing, and no obvious stuttering/slowdown just from playing. Anyone know how to get an FPS in the game?

[Monty Python]

julian64 said:

okay project cars up and running to test the 680 with an i7 3770K running overclocked at 4.2 with 16GB on win 10. All video settings up to max, only on one screen rather than the three as I'm set to individual screens at the moment rather than spanning.

absolutely playable, no tearing, and no obvious stuttering/slowdown just from playing. Anyone know how to get an FPS in the game?

FRAPS

http://www.fraps.com/

[Digby]

julian64 said:

okay project cars up and running to test the 680 with an i7 3770K running overclocked at 4.2 with 16GB on win 10. All video settings up to max, only on one screen rather than the three as I'm set to individual screens at the moment rather than spanning.

Anyone know how to get an FPS in the game?

Or if not with FRAPS and you are on STEAM...

http://kotaku.com/steams-new-fps-counter-makes-it-...

[MissChief]

You can set the GeForce experience program to display FPS as well.

[julian64]

MissChief said:

You can set the GeForce experience program to display FPS as well.

Do you know how this is done, I'm not a big fan of fraps after last night

[MissChief]

julian64 said:

MissChief said:

You can set the GeForce experience program to display FPS as well.

Do you know how this is done, I'm not a big fan of fraps after last night

I'll post up how to when I get home.

[crazy about cars]

I currently have the old Asus 2 Extreme mobo with i7 920 CPU. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll get to upgrade any further without new mobo/CPU.

Currently have GTX 670 GPU and wondering if it's worth just upgrading the GPU? Thoughts?

P/S: I have a Samsung 4K monitor UD28D590

[Digby]

crazy about cars said:

I currently have the old Asus 2 Extreme mobo with i7 920 CPU. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll get to upgrade any further without new mobo/CPU.

Currently have GTX 670 GPU and wondering if it's worth just upgrading the GPU? Thoughts?

P/S: I have a Samsung 4K monitor UD28D590

As decent as that CPU is and as much as a GPU upgrade will definitely provide you with a nice jump, there comes a point where newer GPU's will crave extra horsepower to give their best. That said, I ran that same overclocked CPU with a 670 and the jump to a 970 was pretty impressive. I would always suggest a GPU over a CPU if the CPU is still decent and you just want extra fps.

I also ran two 670's in SLi so that could be a cheap way to gain something extra from your current rig before you make the upgrade leap? You won't really be playing much in 4k mind you if that were your aim, but I certainly enjoyed my 670's running 1080p and some 2k stuff so long as you are prepared to fiddle with options a little.

It's also worth mentioning that not everything is playable in 4k with all details maxed or tweaked even on some of the real top-end machines. It varies a great deal from game to game in my experience.

[Monty Python]

crazy about cars said:

I currently have the old Asus 2 Extreme mobo with i7 920 CPU. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll get to upgrade any further without new mobo/CPU.

Currently have GTX 670 GPU and wondering if it's worth just upgrading the GPU? Thoughts?

P/S: I have a Samsung 4K monitor UD28D590

What do you use it for? 4K gaming is out of reach of almost all but the top end GPUs.

[crazy about cars]

Thanks for the replies all! I mention 4K but realistically I'm aiming to game at my monitors native res (3840x2160) with most settings turned up and still hit 30fps.

I normally play strategy games which I know are CPU intensive (SC2, Simcity, Cities Skylines etc) but also play WoW, Fallout 4, SW Battlefront, DiRT, F1 and looking into going back to CoD.

I only have a single monitor and not looking to go dual monitors. Looking at some prebuilt SLi water cooled setup which looks awesome but is north of 2k...

I've looked at some LGA1355 6 core i7 Extreme CPUs which would fit my mobo but they are around 600 quid. That plus a decent 980GTX and we are looking at a grand...

[MissChief]

MissChief said:

julian64 said:

MissChief said:

You can set the GeForce experience program to display FPS as well.

Do you know how this is done, I'm not a big fan of fraps after last night

I'll post up how to when I get home.

OK, in the GeForce Experience program, click 'Preferences' then FPS counter and choose the position on the screen. And that's it.

[Monty Python]

crazy about cars said:

Thanks for the replies all! I mention 4K but realistically I'm aiming to game at my monitors native res (3840x2160) with most settings turned up and still hit 30fps.

I normally play strategy games which I know are CPU intensive (SC2, Simcity, Cities Skylines etc) but also play WoW, Fallout 4, SW Battlefront, DiRT, F1 and looking into going back to CoD.

I only have a single monitor and not looking to go dual monitors. Looking at some prebuilt SLi water cooled setup which looks awesome but is north of 2k...

I've looked at some LGA1355 6 core i7 Extreme CPUs which would fit my mobo but they are around 600 quid. That plus a decent 980GTX and we are looking at a grand...

Are you sure it's an LGA1355 socket?