2GB 960 or 4GB 970?

Hi all.

I'm in the middle of buying parts to build my gaming desktop computer. I'm saving the CPU, MOBO and GPU to purchase in the fall of this year because I need to save some money back to go through the next 3 months for my summer semester in university. I plan on going with a Intel i5-4690K CPU and a ASUS Z97-A MOBO, but I'm a little torn on the GPU.

I would really like to be able to max out, or very nearly max out most games at 1080p on one monitor only at 60Hz without FPS drops if I can afford to.

I was looking at the Gigabyte 960 2GB, and the MSI 970 4GB. The Gigabyte is steady at $199 and the MSI is at $319 right now.

Which card do you guys think is a better decision for the build? I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte, purely for the price/performance, but I don't want to make a choice, buy something and then want to upgrade really soon because I didn't buy the right thing from the get-go. I also realize that there are some nice Radeon cards that will fit into this performance/price bracket, however, I'm trying to keep heat and energy usage down, and I game a lot, so it's fairly important to me to stick with NVIDIA for those reasons, plus, I'm familiar with them already. Thanks in advance for your help guys!

Unless you downright refuse an AMD card an R9 290 is probably the best compromise. The 960 would be able to play all games on high or maxed but having 60fps locked won't happen in every titles.

I never really understand the argument against AMD cards for heat and power purposes. My 7970 runs in the mid 60's at most, which is totally fine. Power draw is also pretty irrelevant unless you pay an insane amount for electricity or are mining or something that has constant usage.

The 960 would serve you well but depending on how much you could find a 290 for that would be worth it. A 280x even is a bit quicker than the 960.

I'm mobile or I'd link you and be able to give you better feedback on prices.

Yeah, I knew the 290 and 280x were better choices for the price, but like I said, I'm not really considering an AMD card, unless its on a nice big sale. Just personal preference lol. Thanks a ton for the advice though, I will certainly keep it in mind. Who knows, I could end up getting one of those cards in the end anyway.

Why not a 960 4GB? Get the 4GB V-RAM (and with games eating up a lot of V-RAM these days that seems like a good idea) without paying for a GTX 970. Here's an EVGA one for $240: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487128&cm_re=960_4GB-_-14-487-128-_-Product

A 960 4GB should do what you want at 1080p and save you a fair bit of money. If you wanted to upgrade from that I'd probably go for a 980.

I think we may be getting to the stage now where we should be looking at 4GB and higher cards and forgetting about 2GB. I mean, three years ago I was recommending 2GB cards and three years before that 1GB was what you wanted.

I agree. I'm really happy my 7970 has 3GB and not 2GB. GTA V usage puts me at 2.3GB VRAM usage or so according to their tool.

+1 to you guys for being so helpful lol. It's people like ya'll that make me stick around this forum.

Anyway, I think, for now, the working plan is to stick with a 960, and grab a 4GB version. But I'm still open to advice/suggestions from others as well. Thanks for your guys' input!

You should be happy with it. :good:

I'm really not an AMD fanboy, just that since you seemed torn between the 960 and the 970, a 290 would be the best option in between.

Origin Saint said:

+1 to you guys for being so helpful lol. It's people like ya'll that make me stick around this forum.

Anyway, I think, for now, the working plan is to stick with a 960, and grab a 4GB version. But I'm still open to advice/suggestions from others as well. Thanks for your guys' input!

Click to expand...

Awesome, pleased I could help make your decision. :good:

The 290 really kicks the 960's ass. In fact, they aren't even comparable. The 290 is almost 970 level, and it's not even that much more than the 960. I highly recommend getting it over a 960, there's really no reason not too.

I'm by no means an AMD fanboy, I just look out for the best deals. And AMD cards are definitely the best deals right now.

PCunicorn said:

The 290 really kicks the 960's ass. In fact, they aren't even comparable. The 290 is almost 970 level, and it's not even that much more than the 960. I highly recommend getting it over a 960, there's really no reason not too.

I'm by no means an AMD fanboy, I just look out for the best deals. And AMD cards are definitely the best deals right now.

Click to expand...

In accordance here.

I used to be like you, then I found an amazing deal on on a HD 6970. AMD cards just have insane prices for the same specs

ninjabubbles3 said:

I used to be like you, then I found an amazing deal on on a HD 6970. AMD cards just have insane prices for the same specs

Click to expand...

My R9 280X for $175.

ninjabubbles3 said:

I used to be like you, then I found an amazing deal on on a HD 6970. AMD cards just have insane prices for the same specs

Click to expand...

...But PhysX, nVidia, and non-crappy drivers!

voyagerfan99 said:

...But PhysX, nVidia, and non-crappy drivers!

Click to expand...

PhsyX. I can think of one occasion where I missed this. Borderlands. Wah.

nVidia.... But... AMD!?!

Non-Crappy drivers. I'll kinda give you this but even then I normally don't have many issues with my drivers. Only think of maybe 2-3 occasions that were then fixed over the course of 3 different AMD cards.

voyagerfan99 said:

...But PhysX, nVidia, and non-crappy drivers!

Click to expand...

Bah, most people cause their own driver issues by doing a bunch of extra unnecessary hoopla.

beers said:

Bah, most people cause their own driver issues by doing a bunch of extra unnecessary hoopla.

Click to expand...

Very true. There have been a few occassions were I've had issues that stemmed directly from a certain driver and were then patched later. But it's not very common.

Again, folks not mentioning a good card for a good price. If you can find a good used GTX 770 that would run about the same as a 280x. However it doesn't do 60 fps all the time on far cry 4, but still does pretty good. I would recommend the GTX 770 over the GTX 960. You can also get a 4 GB version of that card also.

lincsman said:

Again, folks not mentioning a good card for a good price. If you can find a good used GTX 770 that would run about the same as a 280x. However it doesn't do 60 fps all the time on far cry 4, but still does pretty good. I would recommend the GTX 770 over the GTX 960. You can also get a 4 GB version of that card also.

Click to expand...

Typically you don't advise people looking for new hardware to go the used route. It's always an option but brings a lot of potential problems in to the mix.

Also 280X's are cheaper than 770's on Ebay and perform fairly similarly. 770's are around 200 while the 280X's are 150 easy. Given close performance the 280X would be the obvious choice anyway.

My 7970 3GB Boost is clocked like a GHz Edition card out of the box so is essentially a 280X since the 280X is just a rebrand. I got it for 150 on Ebay in September of last year with 20 dollar shipping. Granted it was faulty and had to be RMA'd, but that was just bad luck as the seller sold dozens of others with no issues. You take a slight risk when getting a used card and you might get burned, like I did, if you go that route. I don't regret my purchase though because my replacement card acts like a new card altogether and still got it for under 200, all things considered.