What games is the 970 vram issue an issue @ 1080p

[futurefields]

I need to switch to nvidia, I guess the 970 is my best option cant justify a 980

On what games will the 3.5/.5 split cause issues at 1080p?

As long as I keep vram usage around 3gb it shouldn't be a problem?

 

[RussianSensation]

You are fine at 1080P. Grab the Gigabyte 970 for $295 on Newegg. Great deal. Since you are going only NV and won't pay extra for 980, not sure what the point is in digging deeper into your question!

 

[futurefields]

Trying to get a 780 ti used on HardForum but nobody will sell to me because my account is brand new.

 

[RussianSensation]

Trying to get a 780 ti used on HardForum but nobody will sell to me because my account is brand new.

I can't imagine what price a used 780Ti needs to be to take it over the Gigabyte Windforce 970 for $295 with the Witcher 3 game coupon. Even if we assign $25 value for the game, it's essentially a $270 card that uses way less power than the 780Ti, has more VRAM, gets the latest Maxwell driver optimizations, will hold its resale value more since it's newer and has 3 years of warranty. Unless you can get a 780Ti for $225 or it's some MSI Lightning/EVGA Classified/Galaxy HOF version, I honestly can't see why you'd even consider it.

Do you not play modded titles like Skyrim/GTA? 780Ti only has 3GB of VRAM.

 

[futurefields]

I consider the 970 a 3gb card essentially with it's RAM bug though. Since I don't plan on going higher than 1080p anytime soon it's not a huge issue. I guess I might take the 970 though just for the newer architechture.

 

[futurefields]

Can you help me choose between these two cards? (The gigabyte wont fit my build)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487088&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-487-088-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487076&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-487-076-_-Product



the top one is $10 more in cart, but clocked slightly higher and is 5 star vs 4 star (not that that means much but some mentioned coil whine on the cheaper 4 star one)

 

[RussianSensation]

Between those 2, the top one seems newer and has slightly higher boost as you said. However, I would pick MSI Gaming 970 over both of those. It's quieter at load and has the ability to turn off the fans up to 65C, which means it's silent at 2D workloads and light 3D gaming. The noise level advantage of the MSI Gaming in both 2D and 3D loads, with the ability to preserve the fan life (since the fans stop working) would be too hard for me to ignore.

Just listen to the noise levels of the MSI Gaming 970 in this round-up:
http://www.computerbase.de/2014-10/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-test-roundup-vergleich/4/

 

[Techhog]

I consider the 970 a 3gb card essentially with it's RAM bug though. Since I don't plan on going higher than 1080p anytime soon it's not a huge issue. I guess I might take the 970 though just for the newer architechture.

3.5GB*

 

[kasakka]

I play at 1440p with 970 SLI and so far only Shadow of Mordor has had issues and even that has become less troublesome with driver updates.

With a single 970 at 1080p you are unlikely to hit the memory issue before running into speed limitations of the card. Meaning you'd have to crank settings so high that the card is not fast enough.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I have the Strix 970 and its quite nice.I don't do much in the way of overclocking so for a stock card this one goes above and beyond.No coil whine,has the same 0 dba function as msi which is also programmable to any degree you wish and it runs quite cool.

Anyone with a decent case could drop this in,forget about it as the thing refuses to load over 70cel with bios control.I have tried Unigine valley and about every game with the same result.Dead silence.

 

[futurefields]

I ordered the EVGA 04G-P4-3975-KR model. My first NVidia GPU!! Bye bye AMD!

Hopefully my issues in Advanced Warfare and GTA 5 will go away!

 

[tg2708]

I'm still waiting for a 6gb video card from either company and while the urge is their to upgrade my 770 to the 970, 3.5gb as well as 4 seems like a waste. Unless I can find them cheaper especially in the case of the 980 i'm holding out. Will not be getting the titan x since I still only game at 1080p for now.Good luck with your purchase in any case.

 

[MTDEW]

I ordered the EVGA 04G-P4-3975-KR model. My first NVidia GPU!! Bye bye AMD!

Hopefully my issues in Advanced Warfare and GTA 5 will go away!

Yeah I don't blame you, AMD seems in no hurry to fix the MSAA with Post FX set to very high artifacts you get in GTA V with the 280 or lesser AMD GPUs.
LINK

 

[futurefields]

GTA 5 is one of the main reasons I'm switching to Nvidia since I plan on playing the game for probably 2,000 hours or so also I want to be able to play Advanced Warfare without stuttering on REcovery, Instinct and Defender which they never fixed with AMD cards. And also I finally want to be able to use PhysX in some games like Borderlands 2 etc..

 

[ocre]

OP,
Keep us updated & let us know how it goes.

 

[p_monks33]

Ive got the EVGA 970 FTW in my other PC, it runs everything great that I have played. I turn settings down a bit, because i am using it on a 4k tv and it can really put it to a halt running games at that resolution. I like the card, coil whine is very minimal, and the fans shutting down at idle make the PC as quiet as my water cooled rig when putting around the internet and stuff.

 

[RussianSensation]

GTA 5 is one of the main reasons I'm switching to Nvidia since I plan on playing the game for probably 2,000 hours .

How is that even possible?

1) 2000 hours / 5 hours a day = 400 days straight
2) What is there to do in GTA for 2000 hours? :sneaky: This is not like DOTA or Starcraft 2....

 

[Silverforce11]

Yeah I don't blame you, AMD seems in no hurry to fix the MSAA with Post FX set to very high artifacts you get in GTA V with the 280 or lesser AMD GPUs.
LINK

Since when can those weaker GPUs even run things on very high with MSAA?

Slideshow. Try doing those settings on a 680 or any other 2GB NV card.

 

[RussianSensation]

Yeah I don't blame you, AMD seems in no hurry to fix the MSAA with Post FX set to very high artifacts you get in GTA V with the 280 or lesser AMD GPUs.
LINK

MSAA wipes the floor with a 980 and even Titan X in this game. The performance hit from FXAA is 35-40%. You think you'll get smooth FPS on an R9 280 style GPU with 4x MSAA in GTAV?

Since when can those weaker GPUs even run things on very high with MSAA?

Slideshow. Try doing those settings on a 680 or any other 2GB NV card.

It's much worse than that. Even GTX960 SLI = GTX680 SLI cannot handle 4x MSAA at 1080P in GTA V, while GTX970 manages 37 fps minimums! That's not even testing the most demanding outdoor scenes with grass....

Proof:

 

[MTDEW]

MSAA wipes the floor with a 980 and even Titan X in this game. The performance hit from FXAA is 35-40%. You think you'll get smooth FPS on an R9 280 style GPU with 4x MSAA in GTAV?

It's much worse than that. Even GTX960 SLI = GTX680 SLI cannot handle 4x MSAA at 1080P in GTA V, while GTX970 manages 37 fps minimums! That's not even testing the most demanding outdoor scenes with grass....

Proof:

You sure can with MSAA x2, you know this, you own 7970's.
FXAA doesnt do much on AMD hardware.

And its beside the point, you should not get the artifacts on those lower end AMD GPUs regardless of personal chosen in-game settings...period.

The OP, was using half/vsync at 30fps on his 7950 so he can surely use MSAA x2 on his 7950 @ 30fps.
But he had to give up DOF with Post FX at very high to do it and he shouldn't have to.....@ 30fps with MSAA x2 he should be able to have BOTH enabled without suffering from artifact glitches.

 

[escrow4]

I need to switch to nvidia, I guess the 970 is my best option cant justify a 980

On what games will the 3.5/.5 split cause issues at 1080p?

As long as I keep vram usage around 3gb it shouldn't be a problem?

GTA V will hit that wall. I wouldn't get a 970 purely because of that crossbar. May as well wait another month and see if Witcher III shakes the GPU tree and a 980 Ti falls out. :whiste:

 

[snorge]

Between those 2, the top one seems newer and has slightly higher boost as you said. However, I would pick MSI Gaming 970 over both of those. It's quieter at load and has the ability to turn off the fans up to 65C, which means it's silent at 2D workloads and light 3D gaming. The noise level advantage of the MSI Gaming in both 2D and 3D loads, with the ability to preserve the fan life (since the fans stop working) would be too hard for me to ignore.

The new EVGA cards turn off the fans when idle as well.

 

[RussianSensation]

The new EVGA cards turn off the fans when idle as well.

Did they change the BIOS or is it ACX 2.0+ versions? Good to know! :thumbsup:

GTA V will hit that wall. I wouldn't get a 970 purely because of that crossbar. May as well wait another month and see if Witcher III shakes the GPU tree and a 980 Ti falls out. :whiste:

I don't see how someone shopping for a $300 card is going to be cross-shopping a $600-700 one? Also, 3.5GB of VRAM is sufficient for 1080P. I can't think of a single 1080P benchmark without using 8xMSAA or resorting to DSR where 980's 4GB somehow helps it to gain a massive advantage over the 970.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

With 4x MSAA and everything maxed out GTA V crosses 3.5 GB at 1080p. But to play at those settings you need at least a Titan X or perhaps 970 SLI.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I ordered the EVGA 04G-P4-3975-KR model. My first NVidia GPU!! Bye bye AMD!

Hopefully my issues in Advanced Warfare and GTA 5 will go away!

They will,i remember how low your frames were and how frustrating that COD game was for you.Ran like a dream for me on a 770 and my 970.Had to lower some settings on the 770 but it still worked out well enough.

Enjoy your new gpu. Good choice there,Evga was almost my choice but my Asus was a bit cheaper at time of purchase.