To Upgrade or to Not Upgrade? (GTX680 --> GTX970)

So there is an NVIDIA offer that if you buy a GTX970, you get Witcher 3 for free.

I just sold my iPad for $200, and was looking at this model (so the video card would really cost me $300)

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1692&products_id=29219

Is it worth the upgrade for my set up? (full PC specs in my signature). Is everything in my PC compatible with it? Just plug in the new video card and play?

If not, would these be worth it?: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1693&products_id=29142

Thanks for the help.

no, the gtx 680 still hold very well for next gen games wait until a major improvement in the gpu market come out just oc your 680 if you can

Do you have a good enough monitor? 1080p is a walk-in-the-park for these cards.

I just use a Samsung 27 inch 120Hz running at 1920x1080.

I upgraded from OC'ed GTX 760 to a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 and the difference in performance graphically demanding games is big. Coming from a 680 to a 970 is around a 50% increase in performance. So getting a 970 would allow you to come closer to the framerates you need for that 120hz. To play the Witcher 3 with ultra settings, CD stated that you need a 980 for 1080p 60 fps, so grabbing an OC'ed 970 will provide a on par experience.

Now since you live down under, I would grab the G1 series since its heatsink is better then the standard Windforce x3, it has extra heatpipes and better vrm cooling. Plus it is sorted for better quality with overclocking headroom.Another positive extra is the backplate to support the weight better. The G1 has the best cooler you can get for the 900's. My G1 970 boosts itself to 1.45ghz, and never sees above 62C. Here is the link for G1 GTX 970

Now the price difference between the 970 and 980 is not worth the $200+ for a measly 15-20% increase IMO.

Thanks. Should I bite the bullet and go: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1693&products_id=29142&zenid=c82d33493b7ed499d97359268f5b85ab

Or is that overkill for 1920x1080 120hz ?

@FelipeInside:

You didnt read my edit, lol but I'll recap

The price difference between the 970 and 980 is not worth the $200+ for a measly 15-20% increase IMO. You can grab a GTX 970 G1 for $530

That 15-20% is stock vs stock, if we compare OC'ed 970 vs stock 980 they are indifferent.

Sorry, the edit didn't show up on my end, lol..... GlitchSpot.

No problem, but boy I forgot how bad prices are in Australia....

And they are actually at their cheapest right now....lol.....

@FelipeInside:

Well its up to you, grab a G1 970 for a 60% overall performance boost for $530, or spend $800 on a 980 G1 for a 75% increase.

I think for a single monitor at 1920x1080 a 60% boost is more than enough.

For my other question, I don't have to change anything in the PC right? Just unplug one, plug the new one in.

Just reinstall the drivers using clean install option and you will be set.

@FelipeInside: It's a no brainer mate, more performance, more Vram. Winning. 2GB will restrict you in the coming years.

Yeah true, just trying to not make my CPU and RAM bottleneck since I keep upgrading the video card.

Sorry, I meant hardware wise. The PCI-E ports are all the same these days with newer cards?

I had a 970 for a brief period(went from a 680 like you)

Performance increase was 60-70% on average.Very solid upgrade.

Cool thanks. Why brief period? Where did you go from there and why?

I went from 670 SLI to 970 SLI. It is totally worth it. A single 970 should be good for 1080p/60 fps. If you want to be hitting 120 fps, you will need SLI.

As most people said, the performance gain from a GTX680 is more than 50% and it will go higher in case you will decide to buy a 1440p monitor.

Not to mention that the extra VRAM will make you run games on settings that previously were limited by VRAM.

I believe if you were also planning on buying Witcher 3 and the new Batman, then buying a new GTX970 is a great choice.

Did I mention also some new extra DX12 features like Conservative Rasterization and Rasterizer Ordered Views?

ps: @klunt_bumskrint: When did you buy a couple of TitanXs? xD

If you plan on playing Witcher 3 and/or Batman: AK close to release then yes go for it.

New cards from nVidia isn't supposed to arrive before 2016 right?

Go for it specially if you want to play Witcher 3 on high settings.

New pci-e cards are still using 3.0. and their backwards compatible with 2.0 and 1.1.

hold on to your current card unless there is a game you are trying to play but the performance is not where you would like it.

Yeah guys, the main reason I'm thinking about this upgrade is mostly Witcher 3.

I know I can play both Witcher 3 and the new Batman on mostly high settings at 1920x1080, but thought that maybe a 970 could push it even higher.

It will, both Batman and Witcher are asking for gtx 980 for ultra settings so go for it..... You will get free game/s, remove that 2gb vram buffer, and get 50%+ performance increase.

I will, thanks for the advice.

Now if only I knew what to do with the 680.....

There's about 30fps difference between your GPU and the 970 and about 50 fps difference between your GPU and 980.

You do the math

Sell it to someone interested in upgrading, or keep it as a backup gpu

Forgot to ask. Is this an issue with the 970? http://www.pcgamer.com/why-nvidias-gtx-970-slows-down-using-more-than-35gb-vram/

or just gamers over-reacting?

Depends on how much you want to upgrade, if you can't deal with mid/high settings on your 680 i would upgrade, if not i wouldn't upgrade.

60 fps on 1080p with a single gpu at ultra is not gona happen in the wticher 3. The 980 had massive framedrops in the demo they played, yet have to be seen if that is filtered out. Also 970 only has 3,5gb which won't equal towards the 4gb of v-ram on the 980. Also a reason probably why they picked a 980 to showcase.

There recommend cards for the game selected are: 290 4gb and 770 which ships in 2/4gb models. It could easily mean that 4gb is absolutely needed for higher visual settings.

I would wait on the game to be released to see what the game really needs, as the witcher 2 was a gpu eater even while advertised a single 580 would work for 60fps it still struggles on any single gpu card to push a rock solid 60 fps. ( 2x sli 980's do dip towards low 60 fps at times even ).

If you can't sit it out a 970 with batman + witcher 3 for free is a good option but won't help with the 3,5gb of v-ram limit.

Otherwise i would wait for the next nvidia gpu line and dx12 or amd cards which probably will be released anytime soon after the wicher 3 which will push performance forwards big time.

You made me search 17 pages of our threads here in gamespot. :P

The answer is not that simple.

Some gamers indeed do over-reacting, but also Nvidia messed up with the speccs.

Now what we care about this is the performance.

Take a look at a some sites that tried to reproduce the problem.

Frame Rating: Looking at GTX 970 Memory Performance from PCPerspective

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor GeForce GTX 970 VRAM stress test from Guru3D

The GTX 970's Memory Explained & Tested from Hardware Canucks

TLDR: Don't worry about GTX970 Memory Performance cause when you will need the extra fast memory, usually the GPU Proccessing power will not be enough and not the VRAM.

A good example:

Does this mean that Titan's 6GB 384bit GDDR5 VRAM isn't enough? Hell no...

Its not a issue, Ive seen my 970 and others 970's go past the "3.5gb" meme, without issue. FC4 used 3.9gb, with 4k DSR on high settings. Shadow of Mordor used all 4gb, and GTA 5 uses 3.7gb with ultra with 4x MSAA +MFAA at 1080p

Many are overreacting and some are throwing up insane resolutions and settings and expecting the 970 to perform without issue. People running multiple instances of games to fill up the buffer and ignore cpu/gpu loads. Using massive amount of AA and or using texture settings that require more then 4gb and expecting no issue....

@Gatygun:

People need to stop with the "3.5gb" meme's already..... the 970 has 4gb not 3.5gb....

Also suggesting that the GTX 770 requirement is meant for 4gb is nothing but guessing. The 2gb is the most widely bought model and the fact that the game is geared toward Nvidia software and gpu's means that you will need a stronger AMD gpu to get similar performance.

Nvidia's next lines wont be out until 2016, and AMD's 300 series wont be out out until sometime this summer. Also AMD is rehashing the 380 series and lower from 200 series with tweaks. So thee 390 series are the only true new gpus and they will be sold at a premium. And in Australia those will be $1200 gpus.

Hey Felip, I would say wait for the next gen ( IE 980 TI, ) which should be out in few months. your GTX 680 is still a very capable card and as said before me you can still get some more juice out of by overclocking. that's my 2 cent bud.

Well my local PC Shop has made me this offer.

He can give me the cards at cost price:

Gigabyte 3-Fan 970: $450

Gigabyte 3-Fan 980: $650

I've sold my iPad at $200. If I can sell the 680 at $150 then the 980 offer (down to $300) is tempting....

Still 200 difference between 970 and 980, so its up to you cant go wrong ether way

Went ahead and ordered the 980. I really like to be future proof, lol, and haven't given myself a present for years, hahahah.

Now another issue. The 680 used one 6 PIN and one 8 PIN power plug, but the 980 uses 2 x 8 PIN. My Antec Power Supply is modular, but am I still right to use the 980? Is there an adapter for 8 pin or something?

Thanks for the help.

If you have a 6pin to 8 pin pci-e adapter you will be fine. Have no idea why they threw two 8pin's let alone they only need two 6 pins which still provide more then enough power.

Ah ok, so I just use an adapter from the 6pin.

Thanks for the help.

I would highly recommend you wait 1 month until AMD's GPUs get released with HBM Memory. It is supposed to provide significant boost in performance. Even if you don't go with AMD there might be a good chance of prices dropping for nVidia GPUs.

You have GTX 680, which is plenty enough to play 98% of games maxed out at 1080P. Surely you can wait 1 month. :)

Well, here are the reasons I can't wait that long.

1) the offer is only valid till end of May to get Witcher 3 and Batman free with the card

2) the PC shop has given me a great price (card finished costing me $300, lol)

3) I don't use AMD. Just have had too many issues with them.

4) NVIDIA prices don't really drop, unless NVIDIA brings out newer cards themselves.

Thanks for the help though.

@FelipeInside: Wasn't aware that the offer was till the end of May to get Witcher 3 and Batman then I would definitely recommend getting the GTX 980 then. Given the GTX 970 fiasco, I wouldn't want to risk the extra 0.5 GB issue. The GTX 980 would be much more future proof.

But I see that you ordered the GTX 980. Good buy. Enjoy your new Graphics Card. $300 is a very good deal IMO.

@04dcarraher:

You refusing to accept facts doesn't make it a meme.

the 970 is a 3,5gb card. 16 bit on 4gb isn't going to feed that gpu simple as that. It will hold down and struggle with performance. It's a simple fact. You probably never experienced these bottlenecks but i did. It's a real thing. This is also the reason why i invest into large bit memory pools they tend to work smoother then smaller ones.

If you don't think that 500 mb on top of it isn't worth investing extra money into or simple take a alternative card that doesn't offer that well of a value but at least is more future proof then go ask 780 ti users. Most of them feel absolutely bonkers for investing into a fast gpu that limits themselves on v-ram at the end of the day,

Games you get with a card are great and surely reduce the investment into a gpu, but at the end the day the extra v-ram would last you longer. ( again 780 ti users with 3 free games ) for example.

I specifically added with the 770 that it's a 2/4gb model and we don't know which model they mean on top of it ). It's good possible the witcher 3 will have to use more then 3,5gb of v-ram nobody knows. So keep that in your mind. Don't see the issue with that.

Also measuring v-ram usage in games is simple impossible without knowing exactly what a game is doing, i can get a titan x with the same settings as a 980 in a game and they project both total different v-ram usage. like 5gb of titan x and 4gb of the 980. While both work perfectly well.

This means if the game isn't struggling with the 970 it simple means the game doesn't need more then 3,5gb of real v-ram to be used.

What performance and prices amd will offer i don't know, we will have to see.

2x 8 pins is for overclocking mostly to not have power issue's. It's total overkill tho. 1x 6 pins and 1x 8 pints would have been enough for sure.

Good choice, gz on your new card. Really good deal on that one.

@Gatygun:

The 970 is not a 3.5gb card, and there are many examples of it using close to and used the full 4gb buffer without any ill effects.

Fact is that even when a game requires 4gb buffer or larger The difference is minor. For example Dragon Age Inquisition at 1440p ultra allocates 4gb, and yet minimum fps and average fps matches 290 with a wider memory bus with a full 4gb. At 1080 only using 3.4gb same difference. Even at 4k which allocates 5.7gb of vram the 970 was only 2 fps slower then the 290.

People are overblowing the affects segmented memory pool. And the people here on these forums that own SLI 970's which that segmented pool, is suppose to aggravate the issue more , do not these issues with modern games. Once Dx12 comes out developers will have more control over gpu resources, again making the 3.5gb meme void.

@FelipeInside: I would have bought the 980 over the 970 too. FYI the Titan X overclocks like a beast and only has 6 and 8 pin power.

I was going to go with the 970 due to budget reasons, but since the 980 finished costing me $300 by selling my iPad and my 680, I couldn't say no.

I wish I could buy a Titan, but I would need to sell my house, lol..... and for 1080p it's total overkill.

Now EVERYONE, let's play a game. List the reasons (gaming) why you upgraded a video card for?

These are the moments I remember most:

1- Bought a VooDoo GPU to play Unreal

2- Upgraded my GPU to play Half Life 2

3- Bought a GTX 6800 Ultra to play World at War

4- Upgraded GPU and installed Windows7 to play Just Cause 2

5- Bought a 980 to play Witcher 3

1. Voodoo2 12MB: Final Fantasy7. (It was abysmal with my S3 Virge :P)

2. Geforce 2 MX: TnL! Mostly for DOOM3, but it was playable somewhat in Voodoo2...

3. Geforce FX5600: For KOTOR1 and GTA VC.

4. Geforce 6600GT: Farcry 1!!!

5. Radeon X1950 Pro: For F.E.A.R. (although in the end I only rent it) and Neverwinter Nights 2 (LG edition xD)

6. Geforce 8800GTS 320MB: For Crysis obviously! ps: The store was out of stock for the 640MB versions... just not comment...

7. Geforce GTX275: Dragon Age Origins (The RPG that I enjoyed it the most, in the last years)!

8. Geforce GTX570: For SWTOR (I even preordered the game), Mass Effect 3 (major dissapointment here).

9. Geforce GTX970: I bought it cause my old died but I would anyway for Dragon Age Inquisition and for Witcher 3.

1. I too grabbed a Voodoo 2 12mb PCI but that was for Alien vs Predator back in 1999

2. Geforce 4 mx 440 for games like Maxpayne, or Star trek Elite Force in 2001,

3. FX5200 for Kotor, Maxpayne 2, Call of duty in 2003

4. 6600GT for FEAR, BF2, Half life 2and others in 2005

5. Got a 7600GS as Xmas present in 2006.

6. 8800GT for Crysis in 2007

7. grabbed another 8800GT in 2008 for SLI ran those until 2011.

8. GTX 560 for mainly for the Witcher 2 but had eye on BF3 too in 2011.

9. GTX 760 in 2013 was for a slew of games couldn't play on high/max.

10. GTX 970 G1 was more or less an itch type of upgrade and also to help out a friend out that wanted to upgrade from a GTX 460. sold him the GTX 760.

You guys have great memory. I barely remember which card models I had, lol....