Just bought a new GTX 970.

[Leyawiin]

Yep, I did it. Found a new sealed ASUS GTX 970 DirectCU Mini gathering dust (literally) at a local computer shop. It had the usual over-inflated price tag on it (well over $300) but I negotiated the owner down to $185 reminding him it was last gen what its performance compares to now. I figure for something that's about like an RX 470/570 that's an OK price. Its a great little card for DX11 games (which are about all I own). Paired it with an i5-4690k @ 4.5 Ghz, 16GB of DDR3 2400 RAM and a 1920x1200 monitor and the performance is very nice. I'm most surprised at how quiet it is being a mini ITX card with one 90mm fan. I barely hear it ramp up while gaming. Got a nice backplate too. Plus there is not an iota of coil whine or buzz which is something I can't say for my other two PCs with a GTX 1070 and GTX 1060 6GB. They're not terrible, but definitely have it at times. So yeah, nice little purchase for something I would have never really considered this long after its release and the whole 3.5/.5 GB VRAM thing (which doesn't seem to be an issue for me). Just an impulse buy.

Nothing important here - just happy with my little find. How many of you guys are still using a GTX 970?

 

[DaveSimmons]

So far nvidia and/or developers seem to be working around the poison .5 GB so it's still a good card ...

( ominous music )

... FOR NOW.

 

[Freddy1765]

I'm still sitting on an MSI 970 that I bought at launch. Holding out for a Volta.

 

[Campy]

Recently bought a Asus 1070 Ti but up until then MSI GTX 970 Gaming. Still using the 970 in another rig.

 

[Leyawiin]

Sounds like its going to be capable enough for me for a few years. I'll eventually pass it along to my nephew.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interesting that you compare it to an RX 470 and 570, as I have both of those, but never had a 970 to compare them to. I guess the VRAM situation would be better with the 470/570, but GPU-wise, I thought that the 970 was slightly more powerful... no?

Anyways, I'm happy with the cards that I got, my 470 cost $150 before the mining craze, and then the 570 cost $315, which is when there was a bit of a slowdown with mining, and card prices were starting to drop down again. I wanted to mine with it, so I bought it right away. (New) I could have waited another couple of months or so, and saved another $50-60 off that price.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Still using a 970 as well. I'm morally opposed to current GPU pricing, and not all that keen on upgrading every generation, even though it's been 2 years and I'm technically "due."

We'll see that the 1170 or 1270 looks like.

 

[whm1974]

Well the 970 is still a very capable GPU. I have no problems with playing games at 2560x1600, granted with the newer AAA games I would have to play at 1080p but still would have reasonable performance.

 

[SPBHM]

great card, was $330 back in 2014 and can still keep up most of the time with the $250 cards from today.

 

[Leyawiin]

Interesting that you compare it to an RX 470 and 570, as I have both of those, but never had a 970 to compare them to. I guess the VRAM situation would be better with the 470/570, but GPU-wise, I thought that the 970 was slightly more powerful... no?

Anyways, I'm happy with the cards that I got, my 470 cost $150 before the mining craze, and then the 570 cost $315, which is when there was a bit of a slowdown with mining, and card prices were starting to drop down again. I wanted to mine with it, so I bought it right away. (New) I could have waited another couple of months or so, and saved another $50-60 off that price.

I think it sits between an RX 470 and RX 570. As seems to be typical its probably slower in DX12 and faster in DX11.

 

[whm1974]

While the 970 is still a vary capable GPU three and half years later, I would feel really strange about spending $180 on a GPU that is that old.

I mean a 2050 Ti in 2018 should be able to well outperform it right?

 

[spat55]

While the 970 is still a vary capable GPU three and half years later, I would feel really strange about spending $180 on a GPU that is that old.

I mean a 2050 Ti in 2018 should be able to well outperform it right?

Think about the now not in the future, if I had no GPU now then I'd be buying a GTX 1080 or Vega 64.

 

[whm1974]

Think about the now not in the future, if I had no GPU now then I'd be buying a GTX 1080 or Vega 64.

Well right now my 970 serves my needs and I don't have the money to buy an overpriced 1070 anyway.

 

[Guru]

GTX 970 is quite faster than a 1050ti, people seem to forget that the 1050ti is just a budget card, its quite slow overall and the 970 is way better. The GTX 970 seems to be about RX 570 level overall, it depends on the games and generally in DX12/Vulkan the RX 570 will be faster while the 970 should have the advantage in older DX11 games.

Personally I would have dished out $20 more and went for a GTX 1060 3GB, its slightly faster and being the newer card it has less power consumption and will have games and drivers more optimized for it.

But a very good purchase nonetheless for $185

 

[Leyawiin]

Its mainly for a WoW and Fallout 4 box and it that context its running the game on the same settings as the PC I have a GTX 1060 6GB in (60hz monitor). I understand its three years old, but again, its in the same ballpark as an RX 470 or RX 570 and people are definitely buying them for more.

As far as a GTX 1060 3GB goes I kind of kicked that around too (WoW is Nvidia favored after all), but I thought I'd trade the extra VRAM (segmented or not) for the extra speed. Plus it really doesn't use that much more power. In context - an RX 570 uses as much power as a GTX 970 and its "current".

 

[Gikaseixas]

970 is very capable card, it's more than adequate for 1920x1200 gaming. Solid buy for the price

I just got a 1080 for $400 barely used. Going to pair it with my i7 4770K. Didn't want to pay for a new one at today's inflated prices

 

[Tweak155]

I've been using the 970 since launch... great little card still. I recently bought a 144hz monitor as well and it plays the games I want at over 100fps still (at 1440p). Rocket League maxes at 144hz on this monitor, I was kind of impressed!

 

[nathanddrews]

About 2 years ago, I bought 2 GTX 970 cards off an online discount site. I'm pretty sure they made a mistake with their pricing, but they sold them for ~$125 each and honored the pricing, so I got both for $250 total. They were definitely used already, maybe RMA, but I've been running them overclocked in my rig and my wife's rig (signature) ever since without issue. Toss in the class action rebate of $30 per card and the total price was ~$100 each. Honestly, I got super lucky!

Lately I've only been playing Destiny 2. 1600x1200 at custom high-ish settings locked at 100fps with dips to the high 70s in the tower/farm. At 200% scale (3200x2400), it runs in the high 30s. Maxwell is the last NVIDIA generation with native analog output, so I'm going to ride this out as long as I can.

 

[maddogmcgee]

I dream of a 970. Until the weekend I had a 970 that was playing everything well at 1440p (usually no anti-aliasing on, and a few other settings turned down) . Then poof, it was gone.

I now have a 7970 in my system which is doing an amazing job for a 6 year old card. I would still like to upgrade BUT in order to get a significant improvement on a several year old GPU I need to spend 580 AUD plus postage on a 1070. I refuse to pay 400-500 dollars on a card that will perform the same and don't really want to spend 600AUD on a card that will be outdated in a few months. Even before this whole mining thing prices were going up on GPU's and increasing the price on the high end. The discussions of Russian Sensation and co were spot on when they identified the creation of additional halo tiers to make cards like the overpriced 1070 seem like a mid-tier options (when really they represent the former high end in terms of pricing).

End rant.

 

[cfenton]

I still have one in my secondary computer. It doesn't get much use these days, but it was a very solid 1080p card. I upgraded to a 1440p monitor and needed more power so I bought a 1070 about a year ago (for less than it costs now).

 

[2is]

Still a good 1080p card, though $180 is $30 too much for that old of a card IMO.

 

[Leyawiin]

Still a good 1080p card, though $180 is $30 too much for that old of a card IMO.

Brand new? Used ones are going for $150.

 

[happy medium]

Don't forget gtx970' s can overclock to gtx980/ 1060/ rx 480 levels.

Maybe not a single fan version though.

 

[StinkyPinky]

My son has a rx470 which games very nicely on 1080p. Some of these mid range cards should last quite a while at that resolution.

 

[SPBHM]

you wanna know something that's really odd in almost 2018? I just got a new R7 370 (7850 rebrand), reason is I need to replace a 5850 with something that is still supported, extra speed was not really needed just compatibility with newer DX11 software (without crashes and odd glitches due to old drivers); and this old card have VGA output and potentially can run on windows XP (I think I just have to force the 7850 driver), something a newer card of the same price (GT 1030) could not do, I'm missing the efficient and new video decoder, but oh well, my only concern is AMD making GCN 1.0 legacy in the next 1 or 2 years.