Upgrading to a GTX 970?

hexagramme

Hi guys

So these last few days, I've become more or less obsessed with the idea of upgrading my GPU.
So far my old trusted 680 has served me very well (for a first gaming PC), but it's obvious that it has become quite outdated, and I'd like to take the next step and future proof myself a bit.

More than a few times I've been "hitting the ceiling" with the performance in rF2, and of course I'd just like to run everything on max, and not have to worry about anything.
I'm guessing that the combination of my i5-4670k and a GTX 970 would give me just that.

Only catch is that I'm completely "green" when it comes to GPU's, so you'll really have to excuse my blatant lack of knowledge here.
You are more than allowed to address me as if I had just started in kindergarten. ;)

1 - Would you say that the aforementioned combo of CPU and GPU (i5-4670 + GTX 970) is a good match? Will there be bottlenecking? Other things to watch out for?
2 - Is the performance gain, going from the GTX 680 to the GTX 970 worth the price? Is there another Nvidia card with more "bang for the bucks"?
My budget is right around 460 USD/400 EUR/300 GBP
3 - To anyone who uses the 970 and rF2, what are your experiences with it? What did you upgrade from, and how much did you gain in terms of performance?
4 - Which manufacturer do I choose? MSI? Zotac? Gigabyte? Asus? What are the pros and cons?

Any tips, insights or comments will be appreciated. Thanks in advance. :)
 
How many screens are you using? Triples need more GPU to throw pixels at. 980 for triples, 970 for single. Your CPU is fine with either.
 
John said:
How many screens are you using? Triples need more GPU to throw pixels at. 980 for triples, 970 for single. Your CPU is fine with either.
Click to expand...

I am only using one screen (I can't justify to myself buying two more screens ;)), and will continue to do so until the Oculus Rift consumer model is released.

It's actually also because of my plans to get a Rift that I'm thinking about upgrading my GPU. I have a feeling that my current 680 paired up with the Rift won't be the greatest match. ;)
 
Is your 680 really bottlenecking your system? I just switched from E6750@3.6GHz to i5 4690K, running a single GTX 760. I can run everything maxed out easy over 100FPS, even with pretty high AA-settings. So i really don't understand your motivation to change GPU, unless you are running extreme resolutions + AA... :confused:
 
whiplash said:
i5 4690K, running a single GTX 760. I can run everything maxed out easy over 100FPS, even with pretty high AA-settings. So i really don't understand your motivation to change GPU, unless you are running extreme resolutions + AA... :confused:
Click to expand...

What do you call "pretty high AA settings" in Nvidia Inspector. ?


I reckon GTX970 is the 1080 sweetspot Hex.

My GTX670OC near keeps up with vanilla 680's , it is great to race but like you said it can't handle the extra quality.

Don't know how he does it with a GTX760
 
GTX 970 is more than sufficient for triples with pretty much everything maxed out, that will get you about 80 to 100 fps. In a single screen turn everything up and let it loose.

I'm a 970 owner, best bang for the $

Sent from my Nexus 6
 
whiplash said:
Is your 680 really bottlenecking your system? I just switched from E6750@3.6GHz to i5 4690K, running a single GTX 760. I can run everything maxed out easy over 100FPS, even with pretty high AA-settings. So i really don't understand your motivation to change GPU, unless you are running extreme resolutions + AA... :confused:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I feel as though it is. Don't know if I'm correct in that assumption, but it definitely feels like it.

My motivation to switch GPU consists of a couple of things.

I can't run every gfx setting in rF2 at max. Let alone use the nice extra "candy" in the Nvidia Inspector.
I have to compromise my use of shadows for example. AA too. Road reflections is always off.
Don't want to have to worry about those things though, it annoys me to have to pick and choose like that.
Also I'm really not that into having to test settings for hours on end. My spare time is quite limited, and I just want to race and enjoy myself.

I get annoying frame rate drops in replays with large fields of cars. I don't want that either.
If I feel like leaning back after a long intense race, and just watch some of the action, I want to be able to do that and have a nice experience.
I more and more feel as if I'm bumping my head against the ceiling, and if a simple switch of GPU can cure that, I'm all for it.

Also the development and technical advances in racing simulators (and other games for that matter) don't go backwards.
Like I said, I feel like future proofing myself a bit here. Also in regards to one day using the Rift for racing, which I am really excited about.

I doubt that the 680 is completely up for the task in regards to the Rift?
I mean for example racing a field of 29 cars, everything maxed out, rock solid fps, no tearing when looking around.
But again, like I said, I don't know much about this stuff. Please do correct me if you think I'm way off. ;)

Maybe the 970 is overkill right here and now, but I'm also thinking about my future enjoyment of sim and games alike. :)

DurgeDriven said:
What do you call "pretty high AA settings" in Nvidia Inspector. ?


I reckon GTX970 is the 1080 sweetspot Hex.

My GTX670OC near keeps up with vanilla 680's , it is great to race but like you said it can't handle the extra quality.

Don't know how he does it with a GTX760
Click to expand...

I can race and enjoy myself just fine without the topping on the cake. I have been for over a year and a half.
I've just gotten to the point where I don't want to worry about that stuff, just being able to turn everything up to max, and not think about it again.
Testing out GFX settings, settling on some kind of compromise is lethally tedious to me, I simply hate that process.

Things keep advancing so much and so quickly, and I think in the near future I will actually have an actual problem keeping up, with my current GPU.

aerobaticrug said:
GTX 970 is more than sufficient for triples with pretty much everything maxed out, that will get you about 80 to 100 fps. In a single screen turn everything up and let it loose.

I'm a 970 owner, best bang for the $

Sent from my Nexus 6
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I like to hear. That is my wish right there.

Btw, any thoughts on which manufacturer I should go for?
I'm kinda leaning towards Gigabyte, but I'm not sure it'll fit inside my PC cabinet.
I've also looked at Zotac and EVGA, both a bit cheaper than MSI and Gigabyte.
I especially like the size of the Zotac 970, so small and neat. :)
 
Mines a Gigabyte Windforce, totally silent so far. It is stupidly long though and you will struggle if you don't have a full tower case. I went from an ASUS GTX 770 and was surprised at how much longer the Gigabyte card was, so bear that in mind

Sent from my Nexus 6
 
I would try to wait just a tiny bit longer, the AMD Radeon R9 390X is coming out very soon and it's supposed to obliterate the Nvidia GTX 980, apparently.

If you don't want to go with AMD for whatever reason, then I'm sure there's going to be a nice price drop of Nvidia's entire line fairly soon.
 
aerobaticrug said:
Mines a Gigabyte Windforce, totally silent so far. It is stupidly long though and you will struggle if you don't have a full tower case. I went from an ASUS GTX 770 and was surprised at how much longer the Gigabyte card was, so bear that in mind

Sent from my Nexus 6
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was my fear as well. Not sure it will fit in my cabinet. I'll have to measure to make sure.

Spinelli said:
I would try to wait just a tiny bit longer, the AMD Radeon R9 390X is coming out very soon and it's supposed to obliterate the Nvidia GTX 980, apparently.

If you don't want to go with AMD for whatever reason, then I'm sure there's going to be a nice price drop of Nvidia's entire line fairly soon.
Click to expand...

How soon is "fairly soon", would you reckon?
No, I'm pretty certain that I'll stick with Nvidia for the next GPU upgrade.

Would there be any gains in choosing AMD though, keeping in mind that it would mainly run rF2?
 
I just upgraded my entire system & got an i5-4690 along with a GTX970. Best investment ever. Every setting imaginable on max, 20 cars in the rain & it never dropped under 60fps. Brilliant card/cpu combo. Go for it - you won't regret it. In Assetto Corsa, the optimization must not be as good as rF2's. I can max everything out but I'll be dropping down to 40fps but never under. The Asus Strix GTX970 OC edition is what I'm using but I think there's another make that is a tad faster.

Good luck
 
I run triples with a 680 4gb with almost max setting but i've lower down resolution to 4900x900

Edit: because was told to me that 4gb is crucial to triples but if you not intend to run 3 screens 2gb or 3gb is enough. Cant confirm that cause i'm noob too
 
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Mike Campbell said:
I just upgraded my entire system & got an i5-4690 along with a GTX970. Best investment ever. Every setting imaginable on max, 20 cars in the rain & it never dropped under 60fps. Brilliant card/cpu combo. Go for it - you won't regret it. In Assetto Corsa, the optimization must not be as good as rF2's. I can max everything out but I'll be dropping down to 40fps but never under. The Asus Strix GTX970 OC edition is what I'm using but I think there's another make that is a tad faster.

Good luck
Click to expand...

That's right, Assetto Corsa has quite atrocious optimization, unfortunately.

Yeah, I only just realized, while researching GPU's, that different manufacturers ship the cards with different levels of OC.
Boy am I a noob at this stuff lol! ;)
 
Spinelli said:
What's wrong with AC's optimization?
Click to expand...

Well for one, how about the wonderful 95 % CPU load bug that has been plaguing the game for an eternity now?
Last time I had a go there were many other little annoying performance problems. Problems I don't experience elsewhere in other sims.
I don't run it even close at max settings neither.

But let AC be AC. :)
 
hexagramme said:
Well for one, how about the wonderful 95 % CPU load bug that has been plaguing the game for an eternity now?
Last time I had a go there were many other little annoying performance problems. Problems I don't experience elsewhere in other sims.
I don't run it even close at max settings neither.

But let AC be AC. :)
Click to expand...

Since I bought the new i5, I haven't seen this message at all. I do find that it is very demanding & also Kunos mentioned in their upcoming Dream pack release that;

"We are redefining some features related to post processing effects, HDR and particle rendering optimizations that improve graphics environment, lighting and framerate performance. The engine has been optimized in order to guarantee a more stable framerate in all conditions, including single-player and multiplayer races."

It's a great time to be sim-racing. Lots of options & many are finally worth the time.
 
hexagramme said:
Well for one, how about the wonderful 95 % CPU load bug that has been plaguing the game for an eternity now?
Last time I had a go there were many other little annoying performance problems. Problems I don't experience elsewhere in other sims.
I don't run it even close at max settings neither.

But let AC be AC. :)
Click to expand...
I thought that wasn't a bug, just that the AI were very demanding since they are apparently using much closer to the player's physics than most, if not all games...
 
Spinelli said:
I thought that wasn't a bug, just that the AI were very demanding since they are apparently using much closer to the player's physics than most, if not all games...
Click to expand...

I not that much into the technicalities of it, I must admit.

I just know that if I run against certain cars in AC, in a of maybe 12-15 cars (certain mods), on pretty mediocre gfx settings, the CPU goes bananas when I reach the first turn, goes up to 95 percent, and stays there for the duration of the race.
For me, that is quite bad optimization, or a bug, and a lot of people are complaining about it, and have been for a very long time.
 
Depends. Some cars and tracks are not optimized but the ISI content, I can have 30+ cars and running smooth so far *shrug* I do have it a bit OC'd tho ;)
 
LithiumFox said:
Depends. Some cars and tracks are not optimized but the ISI content, I can have 30+ cars and running smooth so far *shrug* I do have it a bit OC'd tho ;)
Click to expand...

Also the MSI is a bit smaller in size, which is nice. :cool:
 
hexagramme said:
Hi guys

So these last few days, I've become more or less obsessed with the idea of upgrading my GPU.
So far my old trusted 680 has served me very well (for a first gaming PC), but it's obvious that it has become quite outdated, and I'd like to take the next step and future proof myself a bit.

More than a few times I've been "hitting the ceiling" with the performance in rF2, and of course I'd just like to run everything on max, and not have to worry about anything.
I'm guessing that the combination of my i5-4670k and a GTX 970 would give me just that.

Only catch is that I'm completely "green" when it comes to GPU's, so you'll really have to excuse my blatant lack of knowledge here.
You are more than allowed to address me as if I had just started in kindergarten. ;)

1 - Would you say that the aforementioned combo of CPU and GPU (i5-4670 + GTX 970) is a good match? Will there be bottlenecking? Other things to watch out for?
2 - Is the performance gain, going from the GTX 680 to the GTX 970 worth the price? Is there another Nvidia card with more "bang for the bucks"?
My budget is right around 460 USD/400 EUR/300 GBP
3 - To anyone who uses the 970 and rF2, what are your experiences with it? What did you upgrade from, and how much did you gain in terms of performance?
4 - Which manufacturer do I choose? MSI? Zotac? Gigabyte? Asus? What are the pros and cons?

Any tips, insights or comments will be appreciated. Thanks in advance. :)
Click to expand...


Speed is in the Mother Board! If you're not using a "gaming/enthuseist" motherboard you're never going to see the benefits of the high end video cards/CPUs/RAM.

That being said; You should have no problems at all finding a GTX-970 card for well under your budget limit.

I would go with ASUS do to great customer support (in case of RMA).

Hope this helps,

Bryan
 
Thank you very much for chiming in, mate. :)

I'm using a ASUS motherboard, but not quite sure which model it is. I guess I will have to open up the cabinet to check that out. Or perhaps I can see it in the BIOS?

Anyway, I think what I have should be fairly capable. Nonetheless I will rapport back when I know my exact model. :)
 
Everyone here is saying "no problems running max on a GTX970". I don't agree about that.
I have a GTX970 (albeit with an i5 2300 so running on PCI-E 2.0), but running in a VEC-race I'm not running at max settings. 30+ cars on track and a FPS-heavy track will probably result in dips under 60 fps. Reducing some FPS-heavy settings to high (like shadows) helps this a lot, but it's wrong to say a GTX970 will run flawlessly at max at 60+ fps.
 
Mee said:
Everyone here is saying "no problems running max on a GTX970". I don't agree about that.
I have a GTX970 (albeit with an i5 2300 so running on PCI-E 2.0), but running in a VEC-race I'm not running at max settings. 30+ cars on track and a FPS-heavy track will probably result in dips under 60 fps. Reducing some FPS-heavy settings to high (like shadows) helps this a lot, but it's wrong to say a GTX970 will run flawlessly at max at 60+ fps.
Click to expand...

Thank you for offering your opinion, that not everything in necessarily fine and dandy just because of a good GPU. The fps you're getting, is that primarily down to the CPU you're running I wonder?
 
hexagramme said:
Thank you for offering your opinion, that not everything in necessarily fine and dandy just because of a good GPU. The fps you're getting, is that primarily down to the CPU you're running I wonder?
Click to expand...

It'll more than likely be because he's running the GPU in a PCIe 2.0 slot rather than 3.0.
 
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