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About to bite the bullet on a 970

Legend said:
Depends what resolution you're at, and if you have any plans to go SLI.
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After the mess that was the 580s in SLI (personal mess) I won't ever be going SLI/XF again lol

I am planning to play all my games at 1080p, however I have 2 monitors and may from time to time use both monitors to game (though that will probably rarely - if ever - happen)
 
290 or wait - 970 is not a very good by right now.. 3.5GB vram, performance issue when going over 3.5vram. Not worth the risk hoping a game dont push that vram close to 4GB..

A 290 would be so much better option, unless you badly want some Nvidia exclusive features like PhysX nothing else really.

Personally I would wait couple more months, AMD about to drop from leaks a very good GPU..
 
shankly1985 said:
290 or wait - 970 is not a very good by right now.. 3.5GB vram, performance issue when going over 3.5vram. Not worth the risk hoping a game dont push that vram close to 4GB..

A 290 would be so much better option, unless you badly want some Nvidia exclusive features like PhysX nothing else really.

Personally I would wait couple more months, AMD about to drop from leaks a very good GPU..
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Sorry I may have missed some news here, but from my understanding the 970 IS 4GB.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-010-GX
 
shankly1985 said:
290 or wait - 970 is not a very good by right now.. 3.5GB vram, performance issue when going over 3.5vram. Not worth the risk hoping a game dont push that vram close to 4GB..

A 290 would be so much better option, unless you badly want some Nvidia exclusive features like PhysX nothing else really.

Personally I would wait couple more months, AMD about to drop from leaks a very good GPU..
Click to expand...

TheRealDeal said:
Have you been living in a ditch for the last few weeks lol. Nvidia lied about the specs. The gtx970 has 3.5gb of fast gddr5 ram and 0.5gb of slow pretty much useless ram that when used can cause stuttering.
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Oh dear, I wasn't aware of that. I don't think going with another AMD card is the right choice for me, I really was hoping to try Nvidia out for a change as I have been with AMD for the past 3 years.

Perhaps I should wait to see what AMD release then, I don't really want to drop another £100 on a 980.

If I am only going to be running 1080p resolution will I ever really exceed 3.5Gb in the first place?
 
saintdefender said:
Oh dear, I wasn't aware of that. I don't think going with another AMD card is the right choice for me, I really was hoping to try Nvidia out for a change as I have been with AMD for the past 3 years.

Perhaps I should wait to see what AMD release then, I don't really want to drop another £100 on a 980.
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Your current card is still decent so waiting for Amd to show there hand can't hurt.
 
saintdefender said:
Oh dear, I wasn't aware of that. I don't think going with another AMD card is the right choice for me, I really was hoping to try Nvidia out for a change as I have been with AMD for the past 3 years.

Perhaps I should wait to see what AMD release then, I don't really want to drop another £100 on a 980.
Click to expand...

Personally I'd wait, your 7950 isn't going to cause any problems soon so wait it out, see what AMD release. Then by this point if you would have been able to put more money aside to drop on the 980 if you don't want the new AMD
 
saintdefender said:
Oh dear, I wasn't aware of that. I don't think going with another AMD card is the right choice for me, I really was hoping to try Nvidia out for a change as I have been with AMD for the past 3 years.

Perhaps I should wait to see what AMD release then, I don't really want to drop another £100 on a 980.
Click to expand...

A Graphics Card is a Graphics Card, unless you want specific features (from either colour) your not going to know the difference.

The 290 being an inferior card is also very debatable, there are people who have switched from a 970 to it and prefer it.

There is more to GPU's than 30 seconds game play depicted on slide by how many frames per second it got at the time. :)
 
If your set on NVidia I don't think you'll be disappointed by a 970, as a single GPU for 1080p its certainly up there as one of the best for price/performance.

Other options have been mentioned but the biggest thing I would take into consideration is how long are you hoping the card to last?

Now I would suspect that for the next 12 months you will be mostly OK on a single card, you can turn down a few settings to keep it under the threshold which you would most likely need to turn down on a single card anyway, there is only so much 'umph' on the card anyway. Just be aware that once games get to the point that even on 'low' settings they use massive amounts of vram issues COULD be more prominent on the 970 then other 4gb cards. Lets be honest barring a miracle driver release NVidia's software has been poor lately.

I would seriously consider one of the AMD options or wait for the 3xx series, I doubt the green team are going to release anything new within the next 6 months that doesn't clock in under £1000. But don't worry too much, for 1080p on a single card the 970 will demolish most games.
 
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djimty said:
You still have a decent card so if I were you I'd just wait till for the new AMD cards.
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I suppose everybody saying this is right, my 7950 is also overclocked quite a bit which brings the performance up, I think I am just being too impulsive and greedy.

I will hang on for the 3xx series and hope it brings a considerable boost over my current card.
 
saintdefender said:
Oh dear, I wasn't aware of that. I don't think going with another AMD card is the right choice for me, I really was hoping to try Nvidia out for a change as I have been with AMD for the past 3 years.

Perhaps I should wait to see what AMD release then, I don't really want to drop another £100 on a 980.

If I am only going to be running 1080p resolution will I ever really exceed 3.5Gb in the first place?
Click to expand...

It's kind of hard to miss it considering the post you initially replied to had an explanation on what the problem was you just chose not read that part.

To answer your question I came from a 290 to 970 SLI as I wanted to sample the green team, while the 290 gave me no problems at all I loved the cooling and noise reduction from the 970s and that was with both of them in my system.
The problem I have with the 970s is that any game that goes over 3.5gb vram I get mad stuttering where as my 290 produced no stuttering and this was playing at 1440.

So if I was in your shoes and based on my experience at 1080 I'd say you can't go wrong with either 970 or 290, if like me you prefer the software and drivers for Nvidia then by all means go for the 970 as it's still a cracking card at that resolution just bear in mind that if you're keeping it long term and plan on maxing out future games you may come across some stuttering.
 
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