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Recommended Graphics Card?

ConnorA

Los Santos Police
Los Santos Police
Los Santos NHS
Location
Kent, United Kingdom
Thinking of getting a new graphics card. Don't get my wrong my Nvidia GTX 660 is good, but thinking of upgrading.

Any suggestions?

 
What budget have you got in mind? And if you can, list your specs, mainly Powersupply and cpu.

 
GTX 970 is a strong contender, if you have the cash to splash - go higher!

 
I have roughly £100-£300 to spend. Currently have a GTX 660 with an i7 processor, 16GB ram. If you need anymore let me know (Unsure about my powersupply).

 
Yes the GTX 970 is a solid card. I recently just got one and got a free game with it too!

 
I wouldn't get a 970 they have a memory issue which only uses 3.5gig of the 4 I would get something like a 980 i'ts worth it.
Bumping up bit of an old post here amigo.

In addition, the 970's memory architecture issue is only a problem when pumping out absolute maximum detail at 4k+ resolutions. It's been shown to have little effect at 1080p, or even 1600p in some of the most graphically demanding games such as Shadows of Mordor.

 
Bumping up bit of an old post here amigo.

In addition, the 970's memory architecture issue is only a problem when pumping out absolute maximum detail at 4k+ resolutions. It's been shown to have little effect at 1080p, or even 1600p in some of the most graphically demanding games such as Shadows of Mordor.
Eventually it will become a problem as more demanding games comeout right?

 
Eventually it will become a problem as more demanding games comeout right?
Only if you simultaneously massively upgrade the resolution you play at, and if you do that but don't also take into consideration the other specs of your system - you have more money than sense.

Here's the official Response from nVidia concerning it - note the resolutions the games are being played in.

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“The GeForce GTX 970 is equipped with 4GB of dedicated graphics memory.  However the 970 has a different configuration of SMs than the 980, and fewer crossbar resources to the memory system. To optimally manage memory traffic in this configuration, we segment graphics memory into a 3.5GB section and a 0.5GB section.  The GPU has higher priority access to the 3.5GB section.  When a game needs less than 3.5GB of video memory per draw command then it will only access the first partition, and 3rd party applications that measure memory usage will report 3.5GB of memory in use on GTX 970, but may report more for GTX 980 if there is more memory used by other commands.  When a game requires more than 3.5GB of memory then we use both segments.

We understand there have been some questions about how the GTX 970 will perform when it accesses the 0.5GB memory segment.  The best way to test that is to look at game performance.  Compare a GTX 980 to a 970 on a game that uses less than 3.5GB.  Then turn up the settings so the game needs more than 3.5GB and compare 980 and 970 performance again.

Here’s an example of some performance data:

Shadow of Mordor                                GTX980             GTX970

<3.5GB setting = 2688×1512 Very High 72 FPS               60 FPS

>3.5GB setting = 3456×1944                55 FPS (-24%)     45 FPS (-25%)

Battlefield 4

<3.5GB setting = 3840×2160 2xMSAA       36 FPS                30 FPS

>3.5GB setting = 3840×2160 135% res      19 FPS (-47%)     15 FPS (-50%)

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

<3.5GB setting = 3840×2160 FSMAA T2x, Supersampling off  82 FPS      71 FPS

>3.5GB setting = 3840×2160 FSMAA T2x, Supersampling on   48 FPS (-41%)    40 FPS (-44%)

On GTX 980, Shadows of Mordor drops about 24% on GTX 980 and 25% on GTX 970, a 1% difference.  On Battlefield 4, the drop is 47% on GTX 980 and 50% on GTX 970, a 3% difference.  On CoD: AW, the drop is 41% on GTX 980 and 44% on GTX 970, a 3% difference.  As you can see, there is very little change in the performance of the GTX 970 relative to GTX 980 on these games when it is using the 0.5GB segment.”

Read more: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-memory-issue-fully-explained/#ixzz41rTdnjfV

 
The 970 memory issue IS a marketing/architecture snafu of a 'technical vs marketed' standpoint. But it's been blown out of proportion.

It's only really applicable at 4k resolution. Or if you want to run the nvidia surround to push dual gaming across 2+ 1440p monitors at ultra settings with DSR to (dynamic super resolution) to run games downsampled from a HUGE res to your native res.

I have one and run 3 monitors, and have had no issues. Other than arma which runs between 45-60 FPS (because, well its crap engine). Most games cap my 60fps vsync. Granted I dont turn on every single eye candy option in the nvidia panel pushed to max like 16xFXAA with 8x oversampling with 2x DSR. But most of them I can't even notice unless I take screenshots and compare side to side carefully so I leave them off/lower.
But I set most games to high, very high, or ultra in the game itself and no problems at all.

I'd say go with the 970, I myself and 3 people I know have them. We are all PC/tech geeks (my wife says if I was just a BIT nerdier I would jackoff to chipset specsheets) and all love the cards and highly recommend them for the "bang for the buck". Unless your running of the $500+ i7 extreme chips, you will bottleneck the CPU, or saturate your system memory bandwidth before you hit the limit of the 970 at anything lower than 1440p.

 
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Fellas - it's been 3 months since the OP posted, and he didn't come back since then. If you want to have a discussion on the merits of AMD and nVidia, start a new topic about it, or browse the numerous others here in Tech. But dont be bumping old threads from January!

 
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