Looking to spend ~$200 New/Used.

[tweakboy]

Try 960 GTX used from ebay.. gl

 

[KaRLiToS]

Some "happy" dudes are trying to justify their purchase and want to lead another person to do the same mistake they did.

 

[RussianSensation]

-R9 290 used, then R9 380X/280X. Easy to find those for $200. 960 is overpriced and slow. 770 is driver and VRAM gimped.

 

[raghu78]

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150761

XFX R9 380X for USD 230. thats a good card at a decent price.

 

[happy medium]

960 was already borderline obsolete @ 1080P

A 4gb gtx960 with a 27% overclock is not even near obsolete @ 1080p.
With some games you might have to dial down a setting or 2 but overall the gtx 960 with a good overclock does just fine especially if you only paid 170$ for it.

Its "good enough" till the next wave of gpu's hit.
After that I'll just retire it to a full time 4k htpc box.

 

[KaRLiToS]

A 4gb gtx960 with a 27% overclock is not even near obsolete @ 1080p.
With some games you might have to dial down a setting or 2 but overall the gtx 960 with a good overclock does just fine especially if you only paid 170$ for it.

Its "good enough" till the next wave of gpu's hit.
After that I'll just retire it to a full time 4k htpc box.

I agree with you but why get something good enough and dial down settings when you can get something very good for 1080p high-ultra?

Look the difference between R9 290 and the GTX 960 OC

 

[tential]

I agree with you but why get something good enough and dial down settings when you can get something very good for 1080p high-ultra?

Look the difference between R9 290 and the GTX 960 OC

Because he bought a aGTX 960 at $170, so of course it's a great deal, and others should get it. It doesn't matter that mathematically speaking, it's a horrendous price/performance card, that NO ONE is limited to 1080p/high/ultra (Nvidia or AMD, you have VSR/DSR), etc.

I mean, the R9 290 is one of the highest price/performance ratio cards

This doesn't even BEGIN to talk about things like Freesync where Nvidia is utterly USELESS for gamers on a budget.

The R9 290 is the best card to happen for a budget gamer. But I understand if people get tricked into buying cards like a GTX 960.

R9 290 is the best card for budget.
GTX 970 follows that up.

GTX 960 really is a NONFACTOR because those 2 cards above exist at very very good prices.


Edit: I had a GTX 960 level card (or faster I guess but whatever). I STILL upgraded to the R9 290. That's how good of a deal it was and the performance increase I got was WELL worth it. I went from dialing back settings figuring out what would get me a sustainable 60 FPS, to Ultra everything, or dialing back at MOST 1 setting that doesn't effect IQ that much. Being able to get up to 1440p(or 1800p) and use VSR on my R9 290 has been a game changer. Even if a game has poor AA, VSR makes it all better. If I had any friend out there that I knew that was considering a GTX 960, I'd gift them the extra $20... it's utterly insane to get a GTX 960 at that point. Especially with new games being more and more demanding than ever for little to no reason.

 

[happy medium]

The cheapest gtx 970 on newegg is 300$ and is 45% faster than my Gigabyte G1 factory overclocked gtx960 4gb that I bought for 170$. You do the math.... 300$ - 170$ =130$. So the gtx970 cost about 45% more than I paid for my card correct? 45% less performance for 45% less money.
Like I said at 170$ (what I paid for my card) the gtx960 4gb is not a bad deal.
It seems that the 960 prices have gone up on newegg and amazon from a few months ago when I bought my card around black Friday.
At this time in the gpu cycle I would not buy anything but a filler card to get me by until new cards come out in a few months or so. When I retire the 960 it will be the perfect low power, cool running quiet card to drive my new 4k hdmi 2.0 TV when I watch Amazon prime, youtube and netflix. I will get my money's worth believe me.

 

[tential]

The cheapest gtx 970 on newegg is 300$ and is 45% faster than my Gigabyte G1 factory overclocked gtx960 4gb that I bought for 170$. You do the math.... 300$ - 170$ =130$. So the gtx970 cost about 45% more than I paid for my card correct? 45% less performance for 45% less money.
Like I said at 170$ (what I paid for my card) the gtx960 4gb is not a bad deal.
It seems that the 960 prices have gone up on newegg and amazon from a few months ago when I bought my card around black Friday.
At this time in the gpu cycle I would not buy anything but a filler card to get me by until new cards come out in a few months or so. When I retire the 960 it will be the perfect low power, cool running quiet card to drive my new 4k hdmi 2.0 TV when I watch Amazon prime, youtube and netflix. I will get my money's worth believe me.

Great for you you're only considering nvidia cards. For $30 more you can get an r9 290. Which is the same speed as a gtx 970.

This thread isn't about you and what you paid for your gtx 960 vs what current 970s sell for (not even an apples to apples comparison but I digress).

It's that you're against 45% more performance for $30 extra dollars. That's utterly ridiculous and when that happens I hope people like op are suspect and realize that people are vendor locking their recommendations and are not giving recommendations based on the best deal for the op, but giving op recommendations based on what they bought irregardless if there are better options now.

 

[Zodiark1593]

The cheapest gtx 970 on newegg is 300$ and is 45% faster than my Gigabyte G1 factory overclocked gtx960 4gb that I bought for 170$. You do the math.... 300$ - 170$ =130$. So the gtx970 cost about 45% more than I paid for my card correct? 45% less performance for 45% less money.
Like I said at 170$ (what I paid for my card) the gtx960 4gb is not a bad deal.
It seems that the 960 prices have gone up on newegg and amazon from a few months ago when I bought my card around black Friday.
At this time in the gpu cycle I would not buy anything but a filler card to get me by until new cards come out in a few months or so. When I retire the 960 it will be the perfect low power, cool running quiet card to drive my new 4k hdmi 2.0 TV when I watch Amazon prime, youtube and netflix. I will get my money's worth believe me.

Among Nvidia cards (barring any sales), the 960 is about in line in value vs it's larger kin. However, there are Radeon cards that are noticeably faster for roughly the same price or just a tad more than the 960. Looking at a performance-first standpoint, it is difficult to recommend the 960 at it's current price. Were it at the $150 mark instead, then it would be a decent deal in that regard.

For the record, I'm not a 960 hater. From a pure technical perspective, the fact that such a small gpu can hang in there (barely) with the much larger and better equipped Tahiti and Tonga chips and with half the bandwidth is quite impressive not to mention hevc and vc9 decode and power use on top. It's the price that I hate though. Much too expensive in relation to its competitors, thus why I don't recommend it.

 

[tential]

Among Nvidia cards (barring any sales), the 960 is about in line in value vs it's larger kin. However, there are Radeon cards that are noticeably faster for roughly the same price or just a tad more than the 960. Looking at a performance-first standpoint, it is difficult to recommend the 960 at it's current price. Were it at the $150 mark instead, then it would be a decent deal in that regard.

The cheapest gtx 970 on newegg is 300$ and is 45% faster than my Gigabyte G1 factory overclocked gtx960 4gb that I bought for 170$. You do the math.... 300$ - 170$ =130$. So the gtx970 cost about 45% more than I paid for my card correct? 45% less performance for 45% less money.
Like I said at 170$ (what I paid for my card) the gtx960 4gb is not a bad deal.
It seems that the 960 prices have gone up on newegg and amazon from a few months ago when I bought my card around black Friday.
At this time in the gpu cycle I would not buy anything but a filler card to get me by until new cards come out in a few months or so. When I retire the 960 it will be the perfect low power, cool running quiet card to drive my new 4k hdmi 2.0 TV when I watch Amazon prime, youtube and netflix. I will get my money's worth believe me.

Sums up the whole post. He doesn't care about what a good deal for the OP is. He's just justifying why he picked a GTX 960 for himself.

 

[96Firebird]

Since it doesn't look like anyone has asked...

What features of the card do you want to make it an HTPC card? Just any card that will fit in a computer hooked up to your TV, or something more?

 

[RussianSensation]

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150761

XFX R9 380X for USD 230. thats a good card at a decent price.

PowerColor PCS+ Myst R9 380X for $200.

A 4gb gtx960 with a 27% overclock is not even near obsolete @ 1080p.

A stock R9 380X is 33% faster at 1080p vs. a 960, and 380X has another 9-10% overclocking headroom.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_380X_Strix/23.html

Like I said at 170$ (what I paid for my card) the gtx960 4gb is not a bad deal.

Yes, it is a horrible deal. But because you only see Green cards for purchase/recommendation, alternatives that smash 960 in price/performance do not register.

Not even a max overclocked 960 can come close on average to a 280X/380X in the latest AAA titles.

R9 280X can still be found for $174.

Great for you you're only considering nvidia cards. For $30 more you can get an r9 290. Which is the same speed as a gtx 970.

Ya, he doesn't get it, just a broken record finds an NV card in a particular price range and blindly recommends it.

Sums up the whole post. He doesn't care about what a good deal for the OP is. He's just justifying why he picked a GTX 960 for himself.

Bingo. This is like the $649 Nano haters who continue to hate on the Nano while at current prices the Nano beats 980 by 10-20% at more or less similar prices, but they still hate the Nano. Same ol' day on AT VC&G forums. Even when R9 290 went on a super-sale for $180 US on Newegg before he bought the 960, he still made excuses and bought the 960 instead. Now he'll proceed to spend another $200 on a new gen card that will barely beat a 290.

It's going to be extremely easy to tell who all the non-objective PC gamers are once the 960 users start upgrading next gen.

It's shocking how someone can be so biased as to recommend a flat out inferior card for gaming because what it has HDMI 2.0?

It's unbelievable how 960 gets smoked by 280X/380X and suddenly these differences do not matter at all but when 980 beat 290X by 15-20%, it was "the end of the world". Funny enough, today 980 leads 290X by just 8% at 1440p.

In other words, for this tiny difference, 290X for $300 wasn't recommended against a $550 980 but today when R9 280X/380X smash 960 by far larger amounts, we should instead focus on energy efficiency, HDMI 2.0 and other NV marketing gimmicks for this class of card? Pure marketing brain washing.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Bingo. This is like the $649 Nano haters who continue to hate on the Nano while at current prices the Nano beats 980 by 10-20% at more or less similar prices, but they still hate the Nano. Same ol' day on AT VC&G forums.

Who hates Nano? I don't. Great little card, chill out man

 

[RussianSensation]

Who hates Nano? I don't. Great little card, chill out man

I wasn't addressing you in particular. I am just saying the double standards on this forum are out of this world and as certain competitor started to get > 80% market share, it seems things have gotten much worse. Right now the only card that can be easily recommended for NV is the 980Ti and other than specific uses for HDMI 2.0, everything in NV's entire stack is overpriced/under-performing. Yet, people still continue recommending NV cards even when they are clearly worse. What does that tell you?

The poll on AT that ~ 90% of gamers on here are brand agnostic is pure BS. Heck, if you want my honest opinion, the fact that NV lied with 970's memory fiasco and showed 0 remorse to NV buyers, didn't offer game coupons/discounts, and also tried to blatantly lock down voltage overclocking for mobile dGPUs only to reverse that decision once enthusiasts complained, is already enough grounds to recommend 0 NV cards this gen unless they are clearly superior (aka 980Ti). That means if an AMD card is faster and costs similar or less, there should be almost 0 recommendations for NV cards just to send NV a message that consumers aren't sheep. Based on electricity prices in North America, the power usage argument is just an excuse to keep recommending a certain brand.

If the OP can find a used R9 290 for $200 or wants new -> R9 380X for $200 are both unbeatable options and NV simply has nothing competitive in this price range. Some people (not you) just cannot fathom recommending red cards.

 

[Magic Carpet]

>What does that tell you?

People can get a little biased, that's fine. The green team is winning on performance/features/efficiency, so it's easy to recommend it.

>the power usage argument is just an excuse to keep recommending a certain brand

And it's a damn good excuse. Personally, I have become a performance-per-watt / general efficiency fan since the late era of the Pentium 3 days, more than a decade now. But the problem with AMD cards is not just the power consumption and you know that. I'll admit though, during the mining craze I bought quite a few AMD GPUs and made a few Ks with it and that was fun. But today, price is the only major attraction I have left towards AMD GPUs. Even their features like ZeroCore power doesn't work reliably enough for me, so I just disabled the monitor sleep all together. Nano is the only product that I actually like in their current portfolio. A very niche product as well. But hardware is useless without reliable software support. They are lacking killer instinct as well and that shows.

Remember the Nvidia engineer video? This is how I feel about AMD.

 

[fourdegrees11]

People can get a little biased, that's fine. The green team is winning on performance/features/efficiency, so it's easy to recommend it.

.

Didnt RS just post a ton of charts that show NV only wins performance at $600+? AMD wins at every mainstream price level, yet cant make a sell over NV. That's the point. It's not just "a little biased".

 

[Silverforce11]

Efficiency matters. Always did, just look at the 4800 and 5800 series AMD put out, it help give them a nice marketshare. When given a choice between two similar performing and priced GPUs, its just wiser to go with one that's more efficient.

However, when a GPU is much faster, and it uses more power, and cost similar (380X vs 960 4GB), it makes more sense to go with the 380X in this example. Or the R290, because its just so much faster.

If Polaris ends up being more power efficient, it will be interesting to see how the market reflects how important that metric truly is.

 

[tential]

Didnt RS just post a ton of charts that show NV only wins performance at $600+? AMD wins at every mainstream price level, yet cant make a sell over NV. That's the point. It's not just "a little biased".

I mean people are biased they just don't admit it.

I was biased. It was rs that convinced me not to get a gtx 670/680 but to opt for a cheaper 7950. I really didn't want to but the graphs were convincing. Look where the 7950 and 670/680 are now.

Im happy I broke my brand bias back then or that rs convinced me to consider more options.

 

[tential]

Efficiency matters. Always did, just look at the 4800 and 5800 series AMD put out, it help give them a nice marketshare. When given a choice between two similar performing and priced GPUs, its just wiser to go with one that's more efficient.

However, when a GPU is much faster, and it uses more power, and cost similar (380X vs 960 4GB), it makes more sense to go with the 380X in this example. Or the R290, because its just so much faster.

If Polaris ends up being more power efficient, it will be interesting to see how the market reflects how important that metric truly is.

The price of the 290 made up for the efficiency. Which honestly isn't so bad since I would have oced the 970 anyway

 

[tential]

Who hates Nano? I don't. Great little card, chill out man

At $650 I do.

At the current price drop it wrecks the 980. The gtx 980/970/960 are so pressured from so many angles now. The fact people still thing they're useful cards outside of their niche uses is mind boggling.

 

[happy medium]

The op said he wanted a gaming /htpc card for 1080p. Since when is a card that gives off over 230watts of heat and is known to be loud with no real htpc features a good card for the op?

And don't forget gameworks titles...... it is starting to give NVIDIA more of an advantage as they line up game devs.

I do not dispute the value of the old 280x 's gaming performance, it is quite good, but I weigh in all the advantages not just gaming performance alone.
There is a reason I didn't buy my gtx960 when the price was 200$+, at that price it was not worth it.

Look at post #19, I recommended the op to buy a GTX 960 if he could find one at170$ like I did.

I don't understand all the hostility....I think my recommendation was just.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I don't understand all the hostility....I think my recommendation was just.

You dared to look at a different metric besides raw 3D perf/$ in making your recommendation, that's why you're receiving all of this hostility. You are such a terrible, terrible person for trying to take into account the usage case that the OP was looking for.

 

[KaRLiToS]

Unsubscribe.

 

[Zanovar]

You dared to look at a different metric besides raw 3D perf/$ in making your recommendation, that's why you're receiving all of this hostility. You are such a terrible, terrible person for trying to take into account the usage case that the OP was looking for.

nvm