nVidia GPU in the $200-$300 range?

Okay, so I'm finally making more money and it's about time to put a video card in the computer I built last year. Don't really want to spend more than $300. I'd much prefer nVidia, because I've just had better luck with them in the past, and have had bad luck with ATi/AMD. Sticking with Intel/nVidia for now.

I haven't really kept up with new games for a while now, so I don't need top performance, except for older games. I'm probably going to finally get around to playing Crysis 3 after getting a GPU, so I'll want to handle that pretty well. And original Crysis, with mods. I'm always replaying that. I'll want to play GTA5, and Metro Last Light. And I'll want to be ready for Fallout 4, of course. I won't be demanding max settings in anything that new. Something respectable, though. And I won't be dealing with resolutions any higher than 1080p. Not at all, not any time soon.

So what are my best options these days?

Well, if you want to stick under 300$, then an NVIDIA GTX 960 would be a solid bet. It's in the 200$-230$ range, and from what I heard, it can handle 1080p gaming at a respectable medium-high settings and at solid FPS counts for modern games.

Now, if you were willing to stretch it a bit further and reach into the 300$-350$ range, a GTX 970 would be the best bet. I have one myself, and it basically maxes out most games at 1080p with 60+ FPS. Would also last longer before needing upgrading, especially if you are content with medium-high graphics. A GTX 970 would be my recommendation, but I know it's a bit out of your price range.

But if you say you are content with medium-high graphics settings for right now, a GTX 960 will serve you perfectly, and at a fair price for your budget :)

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-strixgtx970dc2oc4gd5 if you could squeeze 8$ more you'll have a better time.

If not it's the R9 290 you're looking for (I know you said you don't want AMD GPUs but that's not a reason to get GTX960 as compensation)

After 5 seconds of searching I saw here he can get a GTX 970 with free 2-day shipping for $310, I'm sure he could find it for $300 or less if he looked harder than I did. Or you can get a 970 G1 for $300 ($320 before rebate) from Newegg here.

Get a 970 and don't settle for a 960. 960 will only disappoint and you will be turning down settings and not getting good performance. 970 is worth the extra money. You will thank us later.

whoa whoa whoa. Why not consider the R9 390? It beats the 970 in every game.

@KHAndAnime: Whoops, forgot to switch to US prices rather than Canadian currency during my searches. GTX 970s are much more expensive here :/

But like I said: a GTX 970 is his best bet, especially for a bang/buck ratio. If he's willing to break the 300$ barrier, then a 970 is the way to go.

I will agree with most people here.

GTX960 if you are low on budget and GTX970 if you want to spend extra (its worth every extra $ you will pay since its 60% faster than GTX960).

I just want to add that if you want to go with the GTX960 option, pay a few $ (around $20) more in order to get a 4GB model since you want to use mods and mods usually need the extra VRAM.

edit: Crap, I need to type fast.

Since AMD is preparing R9 380X, generally we expecting Nvidia to counter attack with GTX960Ti in $250 price range...

So if you want to wait a bit you will probably get a GPU with performance and price between GTX970 and GTX960.

Oooor r9 390. I was a biased blind nvidia fanboy until I got this card. It trucks everything 60fps at 1080p. Batman, gtav, madmax, phantom pain, heavily modded skyrim. Its in my opinion the best bang for buck card around until Nvidia drops the price of the 970. Though consider the fact that the 970 has 3.5gb of useable vram and the 390 has 8gb and if you use higher resolutions or modded games "im looking at you csgo" then you are most definatly going to need higher gb vram.

For 1080P get a GTX 970 or R9 290.

R9 390 is not recommended unless you're looking for good 4k performance at low price (390 Crossfire that is)

R9 290 is the one he should get if he'll decide to go with AMD since it's lower at price and it's suitable for 1080p.

The 970 has 4gb of memory its not 3.5gb.... trust me, when all that hub bub about the 3.5gb started, through testing most people were ether over taxing the 970's performance and or over saturating the 4gb pool.

390 is a maxed out 290x with 8gb of vram which is wasteful for that tier of gpu performance. The only reason to get a 390x is if you plan on crossfiring for 4k or multiple monitors where that 8gb would become useful. and even then you have to fight and put up with frametiming issues that is notorious. Stock vs stock 970 is on par with 390x at 1080p. Even at 1440p your talking about less than 10% difference overall. However you have to look at the 970's ability to do good to awesome overclocking and then the tables turn. Performance per watt 970 is still 2x better than 390x.

For the ~$300 price range GTX 970 or 290 are the better option for the TC.

Looks at dx12 benchmarks between the 970 and the 390....

the 960 is pretty nice but if you can squeeze out some more cash for the 970.

look at the fact that Nvidia DX 12 drivers are not up to snuff yet, AMD has had plenty of time with Mantle to get their base in line for DX12. There is no rush/need to get DX12 drivers up to spec yet.

Well I hope so because the 390 has a 3 year old archetecture thats going head to head with Nvidias latest mid/high performance series and outdoing them in every case except the Witcher III. Ontop of that we keep hearing about what MIGHT come from Nvidia while AMD keeps delivering on each driver update. I really want to see Nvidia dominate being that they are my preferred brand but all I see is lies so far.

Also Nvidias website claims most their gpus cover full directx12_1 which is a lie. Even with their older keplar seriez its advertised as dx12 ready but then they come back as "wip drivers".

Last time I checked the 970 cannot access its last 512mb of vram due to its internal hardware bottleneck.

Lastly remember the gtx700 series is only a year old and it cant even keep iys edge with AMDs 200 series anymore after the driver updates.

@TrooperManaic:

You have to realize that 390x is nothing more than a slightly revised overclocked 290x with 8gb...... Vanilla GTX 970 vs 290x tend to be on par with each other, even with same tests with 390x and the differences between them is small at typical resolutions. Problem is that AMD has had the base line in low level driver done because of Mantle which came out in 2013 and it follows many of the same aspects of DX12. Since there is no need for DX12 drivers to mature since there are no games there is no real rush Nvidia is in no real hurry.

Its clear you dont quite understand what is going on. To support DX 12_1 you have to support Conservative Rasterization and Rasterizer Ordered Views, which none of AMD's gpu's support.... however 900 series from Nvidia does. All DX11 gpu's (All AMD GCN to Nvidia's Fermi and later series) support DX12 to some degree, at the very least they will see the enhancements from true multithreading cpu usage. GCN from AMD's focus on Mantle plans allows the architecture to support more aspects of Dx12 than Nvidia's non Maxwell gpus.

Last time you checked? You clearly didnt understand it, 970 can access is full pool of memory, the program/game will use the 3.5gb pool first then it will start throwing data to the 512mb section. Farcry 4 as an example using DSR 4k with high settings used 3.9gb with no issue.... People overtaxing the gpu's processing power and using settings that would over saturate 4gb pool was most of the problems with people seeing issues. Heck even with AMD's Fury with 4gb once you go beyond its 4gb buffer it sees the same type of issues.

Where are you getting this info from? only the 780's were full sized Kepler architecture(2012 tech) and GTX 780 came out in 2013 based on the Titan , the rest ie GTX 770 and lower where same performance bracket as 2012's 680's 670's etc.

The 780ti being based on Kepler is still doing ok.

Eh? What's with the revisionist history here? The 390X got dominated NVIDIA's competition. The 390X is like, $100 more than the GTX 970 but loses out in the majority of the benchmarks. Unless you're looking to blatantly spend more money for less performance, the 390X has been a pretty lame card. It fairs a little better in DX12 but still isn't the king of anything.

R9 390 not 390x

@TrooperManaic: now that I think about it. I only planned on owning this card for 4-5 months so I guess if you look at it in the long term possibly the 970 would be the winner. If you want the performance now and are gonna upgrade when the real dx12 cards come out then go for the 390

Why choose Ngreedia now with the news of no a-sync compute, they'll get crushed in DX12.

The 380x is about to be released, full Tonga chip with 4GB VRAM, the 380 non-X is already better than the 960. Nvidia doesn't have a card to fill the 960 - 970 gap

Dayum. Yeah, it looks like I could go like $5-$10 over $300 and get a 970. And this one looks sweet. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121926&cm_re=geforce_970-_-14-121-926-_-Product

Any particular reason I might want to get a different 970 model, besides this one? Cuz this one looks sexy as hell, and I might just have to pull the trigger.

Well the one that @KHAndAnime posted costs just a little more or even less if you take the MIR ($319 without MIR, $299 with MIR).

And it has better temps, better performance (higher clock) and probably will be quiter...

If I were you, I would go for Gigabyte GTX970 G1.

wait before you click purchase just watch this video.

@the_bi99man: Dam this 5min limit edit...

Anyway, the one you linked is not bad given its low price. And Gigabyte might not fit in your case...

So you can choose whatever suits you better :)

ps: To other people: Guys, this is not an Nvidia vs AMD debate. The first GPU that came in to my mind when I read $200-$300 was R9 290 but op clearly stated in the begining that wants Nvidia GPU. There is no point arguing here, you will not help the op.

Im just curious, not that im gonna debate anymore, either choice is good. What card did the OP get?

If you're looking for white editions of 970 - you've got GALAX HOF and MSI white edition of it's TWIN FROZR

Not sure how good is their non reference "reference looking" cooler by Asus but I know big fans are always welcome if you're not fitting it into some small ITX case.

970 STRIX, G1 and TWIN FROZR V are good modules for that card, depends on what you're looking for (silence, OC or balance)

I haven't ordered one yet. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look into em all later when I'm not at work, and make a decision. I'm not too worried about the physical size. My case isn't huge but it's not one of those little mini cases either. ATX mid tower, if I remember correctly from when I bought it.

Oh, and I probably won't be getting into any over clocking, and good cooling will be needed, as I live in a California town that frequently hits 105+, and even stays in the 70s and 80s thru most of the winter. In case that changes anybody's recommendations.

Grab like Gigabyte Windforce x3 based cooler. Gigabyte GTX 970 is 300 after rebate and the G1 gaming ( best option ) is $320 after rebate. This summer my G1 970 maxed out in the upper 60's low 70's C when it was around 85F with stock fan speed. And this is having it boost to over 1.4ghz.

I wouldn't say wasteful, my 390 gets 60fps+ on 1440p with games that use big amounts of vram example COD:AM (6.5-7GB), Shadow of Mordor(5.5GB), any 4GB GPU will simply stutter at these games (with max settings), LOL 970 with 3.5GB

last time I check the 970 had performance per watt 1.39x better than 390. were did you fined the 2x?

I got my 970 on sale for 250 at Best Buy, so if you're patient and willing to wait I'd jump on that one personally.

@MK-Professor:

Those two game examples usage is excessive for nothing more than subtle differences.

I must have been looking at the GTX 950 power per watt chart showing 290 being nearly half of 970.

defiantly not subtle differences that is for sure.

again not sure were you get the nearly half Performance per watt.

@04dcarraher said:

@MK-Professor said:

@04dcarraher said:

@MK-Professor:

Those two game examples usage is excessive for nothing more than subtle differences.

I must have been looking at the GTX 950 power per watt chart showing 290 being nearly half of 970.

defiantly not subtle differences that is for sure.

again not sure were you get the nearly half Performance per watt.

if you read the review it says that this particular sample they get is flawed and consume way more watt that all the others 390x/290x.

The 970 have 1.39x better performance per watt than 390

@MK-Professor:

Where did they say that about the sample? but again, this does not mean that there aren't more 390's out there doing the same thing.

"The Radeon R9 290X has been notorious for its high power consumption and the R9 390X is no exception. MSI's R9 390X Gaming actually consumes much more power than the R9 290X, requiring around 350 W during typical gaming, with peaks at up to 370 W. The only card requiring more power is the R9 295X2. But not only gaming power consumption is high as multi-monitor and Blu-ray power consumption are increased too. Those two scenarios have been an issue on AMD cards for a long time, and things are even worse now. 98 W GPU power consumption just to playback a Blu-ray is simply insane. NVIDIA does the job with around 10 W, so there is no way a R9 390X should go into your media PC. Overall, the MSI R9 390X Gaming has one of the worst performance-per-watt ratings"

Even on other sites 970 is nearly 70% better per watt vs 390x's , And with an example of 390 PCS+ it used more power than 390x giving 970 a 83% difference per watt.

@04dcarraher

you base your conclusion on a faulty sample.

The real difference is around 39% difference per watt. Which brings it to the same level of performance per watt like the 780Ti.