Nvidia Launches GTX 980 And GTX 970 "Maxwell" Graphics Cards ($549 & $329)

This is all a marketing tactic from NVIDIA to sell more cards down the line, they know that their current GPU offerings are much better than consoles. And if they released cards with 8 GB VRAM it would most likely last entire generation.

So they continue to release cards with 3,4,6 GB VRAM so your forced to upgrade as the generation continues. Huge examples supporting this are games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor with requirements exceeding 4GB VRAM.

I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 970/980, but no thanks NVIDIA gonna wait for the 8GB cards.

So by this logic you are still playing games on your 8800GT ?
 
This is all a marketing tactic from NVIDIA to sell more cards down the line, they know that their current GPU offerings are much better than consoles. And if they released cards with 8 GB VRAM it would most likely last entire generation.

So they continue to release cards with 3,4,6 GB VRAM so your forced to upgrade as the generation continues. Huge examples supporting this are games like Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor with requirements exceeding 4GB VRAM.

I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 970/980, but no thanks NVIDIA gonna wait for the 8GB cards.

I'm all for shitting on Nvidia's VRAM choices in past generations but if you don't plan to use SLI and plan to use 1080p as your resolution of choice then I don't think you should have any reservations about buying a 4GB 970.

2GB cards were always a DOA product but 4GB seems to be a decent compromise for now.
 
It makes sense to me in a way, PC users expect double the framerate of consoles from an Id Tech 5 game with extra hacked-in dynamic lighting by Tango.
This has all the signs of a mess of a PC release. A true horror, conveniently.

More seriously, I'm not confident 3GB will get me through the next 18 months. But I knew what I was buying into, I was never expecting horsepower requirements to raise that much but VRAM always was a concern.

I'll upgrade to a 4GB card next year. My 780 is good enough (given my standards : 45-60fps average, near max settings at 1080p) for what's coming in the short term.
 
frabz-BRB-Using-IMagination-Since-No-Pics-c23376.jpg

Here's some downsampled from 6K + ENB

 
Get your ROG Swift yet?

Still backordered... I'm hoping it ships next week as some places seemed to think they'd get stock back in end of this month. Tiger Direct are telling me 'within 30 days' for it to ship, which sounds like forever right now (and I'm going to be doing a good deal of PC gaming before the end of next month between Alien Isolation and The Evil Within) but which I know I can survive if I don't get it before then.
 
Looking at these 2 models. Can someone advise which one? No overclocking will be done by me:

ASUS STRIX GTX 970

Or the MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr

The MSI is $30 more here in Canada than the Asus. I'm leaning towards the ASUS at this point.

You can get the MSI cheaper at TigerDirect. It is currently $12 difference with ASUS.

edit: lol never mind. It's currently OOS.
 
Trying to decide which GTX 970 to get (in SLI), the MSI GAMING Twin Frozr V or the Gigabyte G1 Gaming.

The Gigabyte is slightly more expensive.
 
I'm all for shitting on Nvidia's VRAM choices in past generations but if you don't plan to use SLI and plan to use 1080p as your resolution of choice then I don't think you should have any reservations about buying a 4GB 970.

2GB cards were always a DOA product but 4GB seems to be a decent compromise for now.

I'm almost 100% sure that The Evil Within (and other games) won't need more than 2GB to MATCH PS4/XBone graphics.

Sure, for higher settings than the console versions, you'll need some more VRAM, maybe faster CPUs and possibly even more RAM.
BUT this has always been the point of PC gaming.
Having BETTER/more expensive hardware for BETTER looking results.
 
It's nice when you're into your career and have money to play with. :)
Did that for the first set of years. Now the more money I gain, the less I spend on things like expensive PC components. I was finally convinced to buy a 970 with its price/performance point.
This is all a marketing tactic from NVIDIA to sell more cards down the line, they know that their current GPU offerings are much better than consoles. And if they released cards with 8 GB VRAM it would most likely last entire generation.
How many times have I seen product launches of cards with high VRAM for the benchmarks to show no improvement? Often. Then you have the concern of bus speed, any other architectural bottlenecks, and of course diminishing returns on very few games. Oh and most important, price. If I saw 8gb versions close to $450, I would NOT have got a 970 and waited. Seems like a different business tactic you aren't seeing.

The reason I don't comment with too must gusto on this topic is because if I tried to convince myself years ago to just "chill out on it," I would've not listened. I would have lit my torch. Now, I have to say I'm wiser. An extra ~$100 right now for 8gb probably won't see dividends for quite some time. If it does, with the amount of post-processing options available in PC gaming, you are looking at two things a) placebo effect b) bragging rights.

The Witcher 2 destroys what I have seen so far from current gen. However, with my current settings I notice shimmering textures, slight aliasing, questionable shadows, etc... What I'm not complaining about is the texture quality on what is arguably one of the best looking games out. I may put some extra work in correcting some of these issues where possible, but I'm waiting more on developers to take advantage what they have "now," not with a new VRAM ceiling. And if devs continue to evolve in their methods, I'll pick up an 8gb card eventually, step-up is a maybe but otherwise in a few years.
 
msi 970 is arriving today. Downloading Ethan Carter as a nice first game. I should have spent the last few days overclocking my 2500k, but maybe I'll do that soon.

Comfy couch mode is about to get a lot more comfy.
 
From what ive gathered in this thread a Gtx 970 and i7 2600K or i5 2500k shud be o/c to 4.5ghz or thereabouts for there to be no bottleneck? Does that mean a game like Far Cry 4 will run good. I was planning on getting. Devils canyon upgrade mobo and ram etc but will it make any difference. I game at 1080p
 
Did that for the first set of years. Now the more money I gain, the less I spend on things like expensive PC components. I was finally convinced to buy a 970 with its price/performance point.

How many times have I seen product launches of cards with high VRAM for the benchmarks to show no improvement? Often. Then you have the concern of bus speed, any other architectural bottlenecks, and of course diminishing returns on very few games. Oh and most important, price. If I saw 8gb versions close to $450, I would NOT have got a 970 and waited. Seems like a different business tactic you aren't seeing.

The reason I don't comment with too must gusto on this topic is because if I tried to convince myself years ago to just "chill out on it," I would've not listened. I would have lit my torch. Now, I have to say I'm wiser. An extra ~$100 right now for 8gb probably won't see dividends for quite some time. If it does, with the amount of post-processing options available in PC gaming, you are looking at two things a) placebo effect b) bragging rights.

The Witcher 2 destroys what I have seen so far from current gen. However, with my current settings I notice shimmering textures, slight aliasing, questionable shadows, etc... What I'm not complaining about is the texture quality on what is arguably one of the best looking games out. I may put some extra work in correcting some of these issues where possible, but I'm waiting more on developers to take advantage what they have "now," not with a new VRAM ceiling. And if devs continue to evolve in their methods, I'll pick up an 8gb card eventually, step-up is a maybe but otherwise in a few years.

I couldn't agree more. Your post sounds exactly like the reasonings that have been going through my head. Maybe its an age thing.

4gigs is going to be more than sufficient for the next couple years. 8gig variants of the 970 will be priced out of my price to performance ratio and show little in the way of performance improvements. MAYBE we'll see better benches at ultra textures for some games but more likely I wouldn't want to run it at ultra with a single 970 anyways. I'm going to be aiming for 120fps as much as possible.

I haven't even bought my 970 yet. But I will be shortly. Still look forward to seeing benchmarks on evil within and mordor regardless.
 
I'm heavily considering grabbing a 970 right now, then grabbing another when I build my new PC in 4-5 months. Does that seem like a viable plan? I haven't kept up too much with this thread, so I'm unsure if the 970 is worth doubling on, or if I would be better off with a single 980.

edit: wait there are 8gb versions coming out soon or am i going crazy
 
It does that when it's idle.


Seems a little low seeing as I can hit higher with my 780. It's likely the 920 that's making you score lower since 3dMark really likes to use the CPU in the test.

Are you hitting that score with a stock 780? seems like its oced to get that score.
 
From what ive gathered in this thread a Gtx 970 and i7 2600K or i5 2500k shud be o/c to 4.5ghz or thereabouts for there to be no bottleneck? Does that mean a game like Far Cry 4 will run good. I was planning on getting. Devils canyon upgrade mobo and ram etc but will it make any difference. I game at 1080p

For FC4 we won't know until it releases.

Yes though any 2500K or 2600K should be OC'd. That's the whole point of getting a K series CPU, to OC it.

Devil's Canyon would be a pointless upgrade if you have one of those.
 
For FC4 we won't know until it releases.

Yes though any 2500K or 2600K should be OC'd. That's the whole point of getting a K series CPU, to OC it.

Devil's Canyon would be a pointless upgrade if you have one of those.

I have a i7 2600k @ 4.2ghz so will stick with it for now :D cheers
 
edit: wait there are 8gb versions coming out soon or am i going crazy

8GB flavours are currently rumoured for a November release. I hope they land earlier in the month (and at least one 8GB 970 can be had for no more than USD$399) as I'd like to upgrade in time for AssCreed Unity. If I have to settle for 4GB, I will, but I wouldn't mind paying a bit of a premium for peace of mind.
 
8GB flavours are currently rumoured for a November release. I hope they land earlier in the month (and at least one 8GB 970 can be had for no more than USD$399) as I'd like to upgrade in time for AssCreed Unity. If I have to settle for 4GB, I will, but I wouldn't mind paying a bit of a premium for peace of mind.


Well I guess I'll wait and grab one or two of those then. Thanks bud
 
My rog swift keeps going to 60 Hz after each scene in 3dmark maxing out my frames to 60. Any idea how to stop that? I have to manually switch to 144hz during each load screen
 
From what ive gathered in this thread a Gtx 970 and i7 2600K or i5 2500k shud be o/c to 4.5ghz or thereabouts for there to be no bottleneck?
The 2500/2600k should be overclocked to 4.0Ghz+ because you *can*, not because its the only way of avoiding a bottleneck. It gives you some extra headroom so in CPU-limited situations, your ceiling before hitting any bottleneck is higher.

There will be plenty of games where a stock 2500k wouldn't be a bottleneck and there's ones where even a 4.5Ghz 2500k will prove to be a bottleneck, as would a 4670k or whatever.

Point is - 2500k/2600k are still good CPU's, particularly when overclocked. Not the best available obviously, but there's probably very little need to upgrade anytime soon with them.
 
I just leave my 2600k at 4.2 even though I can push up to 4.7. I just don't find the need for it as the majority of my time is spent with Dota.

I'm going to wait for 8GB 970s, I'm in no rush to upgrade my 6950.
 
My rog swift keeps going to 60 Hz after each scene in 3dmark maxing out my frames to 60. Any idea how to stop that? I have to manually switch to 144hz during each load screen

Try setting 'Preferred Refresh Rate' in the Nvidia Control Panel to 'Highest Available' if it is not already.
 
now a more serious question. i was getting a little over 15k before i updated my drivers now just over 13k. whats up with that?

It could be the driver. You could always roll back to the old driver and test again. I think there was a beta release right after the official 970/980 drivers.

I personally don't card about those benchmarks as long as my games run great.
 
I never really tried an overclock of my 2600k since I'm afraid to screw it up. Just going to grab a 970 and throw it in my computer to see how well it works.
 
It could be the driver. You could always roll back to the old driver and test again. I think there was a beta release right after the official 970/980 drivers.

I personally don't card about those benchmarks as long as my games run great.

im a stats kinda guy. i love benchmarking. but imma roll back to previous driver and ill let ya know what happens.
 
im a stats kinda guy. i love benchmarking. but imma roll back to previous driver and ill let ya know what happens.

It's all good. Do what you enjoy. :) I just like to do a bench when I get a new card to make sure it's running properly then it's time to game.

Let me know what you come up with.

Make sure you disable G-Sync when you are benching. I think that will cause a low score. Plus it really doesn't do anything past 144fps.
 
So did anyone here upgrade from a 680 to either the 970 or 980 and feel it was worth it? I keep waffling on whether or not I want to upgrade.

I think it was worth it but you can probably hold out a bit and wait if you want to. I'm VERY pleased with the performance upgrade.

Maybe try one of the new games that are coming out (Shadow of Modor) on the 680 and then check here for people running it with a 970/980 and see what the difference is.

Edit - I personally wouldn't upgrade to the 980 over the 970. I'd save the money and eventually go 970 SLI down the road.
 
It's all good. Do what you enjoy. :) I just like to do a bench when I get a new card to make sure it's running properly then it's time to game.

Let me know what you come up with.

Make sure you disable G-Sync when you are benching. I think that will cause a low score. Plus it really doesn't do anything past 144fps.

didnt work. still sitting at 13k. this is baffling.

edit: i have the evga 970s and am planning on exchanging them for the assus or msi ones when my microcenter gets them, so i wont worry about it.
 
Amazon let's you order while it's out of stock and ships to the backorders as they come in. I expect amazon to be "out of stock" for awhile. Really though they are just shipping backorders.
 
Having more VRAM allows downsampling or playing at 4k resolutions, NOW. More RAM/VRAM also means less stuttering based on the game.

A 300$+ amount is not cheap. The 970/980 are great GPUs no doubt, but its getting "compromised" by the lower VRAM.

So by this logic you are still playing games on your 8800GT ?

I used my 8800 GT for more than 4 years before I upgraded to a 470, because my 8800 GT died. Then upgraded to a 670. Nvidia doesn't want to make the same mistake again like the 8800 GT. A 970/980 with more than 4 GB will be a card which should last quite a while.

But lets see how these high VRAM requirement games actually perform with lower amounts of VRAM.
 
I cannot wait until the 8gig 970s are released and we get to see benchmarks side by side. I would be utterly shocked if its anything more than a subtle performance improvement on majority of games - especially at 1080p.
 
I cannot wait until the 8gig 970s are released and we get to see benchmarks side by side. I would be utterly shocked if its anything more than a subtle performance improvement on majority of games - especially at 1080p.
There will be zero performance increase unless they clock them higher (probably will for most) and vram limited situations.
 
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