Worth upgrading from GTX 760 to GTX 970 ?

[TameRacingDriver]

I just bought myself a 34" super wide monitor, which runs at 2560x1080, and I have a nagging feeling that it may be slightly too much for the 760 to handle in terms of optimal frame rates, and I found myself having to drop settings slightly in Project Cars as it was sluggish in places. I've also been playing Far Cry 4 and Modern Warfare but plan on getting a lot more games on this rig soon.

I want to be able to get ~ 60 fps with details either maxed out or close to it, but my budget doesn't really stretch to the 980 Ti, so was wondering if the GTX 970 would be a good upgrade and would allow me to get the most out of this screen I have just bought. The 760 seemed fine at 1920x1080 but this just seems to be a little too much for it to handle.

I've looked at benchmarks but wondered if anyone had any practical real world experience.

[Monty Python]

I've not tried 2560x1080, but this would suggest the R9 390 is a better bet:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2...

[TheEnd]

The benchmarks show the 970 at close to double the performance, so it should be a decent upgrade.

[TameRacingDriver]

Monty Python said:

I've not tried 2560x1080, but this would suggest the R9 390 is a better bet:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2...

Thats a good shout, shame my monitor doesn't support Freesync, but the R9 390 does seem like a quicker card in most areas and its cheaper.

[Monty Python]

The only thing you need to bear in mind with the R9 is the slightly higher PSU recommendation - 650W compared to 500W for the GTX970.

[TameRacingDriver]

I think my PSU would cover it, but I did notice that the Radeon draws twice as much power (and also a fair bit more heat by the looks of it) so I think for that reason I'd prefer to stick with the GTX 970.

It looks like it would do the trick either way. I'm a little shocked that my current card which cost me ~ £180 just a year ago is pretty much only worth about £70 now, but thats the way it goes with PCs!

[julian64]

I have a 680 and have never bothered to upgrade as there doesn't seem to be anything it can't do

I play titanfall fallout BF all at the highest settings and on a 5780/1080 triple screen setup and it only has 2GB of ram

My two sons have 970gtxs and theres bugger all difference.

[130R]

julian64 said:

I have a 680 and have never bothered to upgrade as there doesn't seem to be anything it can't do

I play titanfall fallout BF all at the highest settings and on a 5780/1080 triple screen setup and it only has 2GB of ram

My two sons have 970gtxs and theres bugger all difference.

I'm guessing you are not very sensitive to frame rates, at that res with a 680 you must be playing at about 15fps ..

[Monty Python]

Those three games aren't that taxing, and a GTX680 will handle them fine. If you stuck Project Cars on at ultra settings it'll fall over.

[TameRacingDriver]

Monty Python said:

Those three games aren't that taxing, and a GTX680 will handle them fine. If you stuck Project Cars on at ultra settings it'll fall over.

I'm pretty sure I was playing Project Cars "only" on "high" on my GTX760 at 2560x1080 and it seemed to be struggling a little at times with that. I'd like to hope the 970 will handle it at Ultra?

[TameRacingDriver]

No wonder its struggling when I look at this, VERY demanding!

http://kotaku.com/project-cars-benchmarked-brutal-...

[julian64]

130R said:

julian64 said:

I have a 680 and have never bothered to upgrade as there doesn't seem to be anything it can't do

I play titanfall fallout BF all at the highest settings and on a 5780/1080 triple screen setup and it only has 2GB of ram

My two sons have 970gtxs and theres bugger all difference.

I'm guessing you are not very sensitive to frame rates, at that res with a 680 you must be playing at about 15fps ..

Unlikely, its almost identical only 1-2 FPs behind the 970's. I could try project cars, but out of interest what is the tech that makes you think the 680 will fall over.
Later cards have software availability for DX that an earlier card doesn't but even for very new games like the Battleborn beta I was a tester for a few weeks ago everything was turned up full with no lag seen.

I suspect its a bit of emperors new clothes. In the past I've paid out quite a lot of money to have the newest card because back then there was a big difference between cards like the matrox and the voodoo, and you could believe the hype when one card was said to be twice as fast as the previous generation.

but recently you look at the twice as fast hype between the 5-6-7 and 9 series nvidia, pay twice the amount for a card and realise that in games it isn't twice as fast or anything like it.

If I was the op I wouldn't bother upgrading from the 760 to the 970, I'd wait till the 980 came within range as there is at least a technology leap between the 980 and 760, rather than the small progression between the 760 and 970

[TameRacingDriver]

julian64 said:

Unlikely, its almost identical only 1-2 FPs behind the 970's. I could try project cars, but out of interest what is the tech that makes you think the 680 will fall over.
Later cards have software availability for DX that an earlier card doesn't but even for very new games like the Battleborn beta I was a tester for a few weeks ago everything was turned up full with no lag seen.

I suspect its a bit of emperors new clothes. In the past I've paid out quite a lot of money to have the newest card because back then there was a big difference between cards like the matrox and the voodoo, and you could believe the hype when one card was said to be twice as fast as the previous generation.

but recently you look at the twice as fast hype between the 5-6-7 and 9 series nvidia, pay twice the amount for a card and realise that in games it isn't twice as fast or anything like it.

If I was the op I wouldn't bother upgrading from the 760 to the 970, I'd wait till the 980 came within range as there is at least a technology leap between the 980 and 760, rather than the small progression between the 760 and 970

This is what I was wondering. Looking at benchmarks is one thing but its how it pans out in the real world that I'm interested in... but saying that, I did find that I had to lower the settings in the game to make it playable, and I don't mind spending the cash if it helps.

To give an example, the difference between a 760 and 970 for Project cars at maximum settings is average fps of 45 (760) and 70 (970) and that's only at 1920x1080 with no weather... add some weather and you're down to 26 (760) and 46 (970). Bear in mind I am pushing around 33% more pixels and you can see that my card is struggling a bit.

Edited by TameRacingDriver on Monday 30th November 17:03

[julian64]

hmm trying to find the project cars website but it looks dead. Not a good start

[TameRacingDriver]

I've just found the Geforce Experience app, which suggests settings for the games. If they look and play well with the optimised settings I may see if I can hold out for a 980 Ti once the price drops, that would be a proper upgrade.

It might be alright actually, I was looking at some comparison screen shots between medium, high and ultra on Project Cars (and the PS4) and I'll be honest, on pretty much all of them I could barely see any difference (only the PC on "low" looked much different).

[Monty Python]

TameRacingDriver said:

I've just found the Geforce Experience app, which suggests settings for the games. If they look and play well with the optimised settings I may see if I can hold out for a 980 Ti once the price drops, that would be a proper upgrade.

It might be alright actually, I was looking at some comparison screen shots between medium, high and ultra on Project Cars (and the PS4) and I'll be honest, on pretty much all of them I could barely see any difference (only the PC on "low" looked much different).

I find that when playing Project Cars there's enough going on without having to worry about how pretty the graphics are. Some of my favourite games have pretty average graphics compared to the stuff you get nowadays - gameplay before visuals in my book.

[TameRacingDriver]

Monty Python said:

I find that when playing Project Cars there's enough going on without having to worry about how pretty the graphics are. Some of my favourite games have pretty average graphics compared to the stuff you get nowadays - gameplay before visuals in my book.

Yeah I know what you mean. I did some tweaking using a tweak guide and got it running perfectly acceptably, without any weather anyway. My main concern was reducing tearing (now I know why people want freesync / gsync monitors). I enabled vsync which seems to help with no obvious issues - unlike FC4 where enabling vsync makes it horribly laggy. I also got the latter running reasonably well. Its not *fast* but it is playable and running with a good amount of detail an anisotropic filtering, so it looks very nice. I could probably live with this for now.

[Mattygooner]

I would hold out till the Pascal chipsets come out in q1 2016, having read up on them it seems like a major improvement over the current chipsets.

And yes, Pcars is very taxing, I have a GTX Titan Black which is effectively 2 680s in one card with 6gb of Ram stuck on and I can't play it on Ultra and it jitters on high settings. Have a wider upgrade coming tomorrow so that may make a difference.

[Shiv_P]

A 390 is a better bet than the 970

[Digby]

Get two 2nd hand 970's like I did. As long as the rest of your rig can push them along, Project cars at 4k makes it well worth it.