Gtx 970 or 980?

[katastrofa]

My current specs are as follows:

Intel i7 930 CPU
Mobo: Asus P6X58D-E
12 GB RAM
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5

I want to upgrade the graphics card, which seems to be the bottleneck here. I could go for Nvidia Gtx 980, but will the rest of the system enable the new graphics card to show its full potential in games?

 

[D1craig]

the cpu will bottleneck and 900 series. my i7 2600 bottlenecks my 970.

only time i notice this is while playing WoW though.

 

[Randall8686]

What res you playing at 1080p ? If so go for the 970 and save your cash 970 will destroy any game at 1080p

 

[Purgatory]

@katastrofa Is your 930 overclocked ? Also what resolution do you game at ?

I would also state get a 970 not a 980 because the extra cost for a 980 is not justified in performance and the performance difference between a 970 and 980 is not even noticeable on most games.

Also many 970's will overclock to 980 performance wise. Save the rest of the money you save on the 980 for future updates and if you don't have a good CPU cooler and overclocked the CPU, get a good CPU cooler and overclock the CPU too and you will be good to go with a 970.

 

[MoonBoots]

Another vote for 970 here. Its much better value and fits your system better, a 980 would be wasted with that CPU.

 

[katastrofa]

Would Super/Ubersampling be throttled by the CPU?

 

[JediFragger]

Would Super/Ubersampling be throttled by the CPU?

The more you push onto the gfx card (such as SS etc) the less bottlenecked you will be

 

[OverDrive]

the cpu will bottleneck and 900 series. my i7 2600 bottlenecks my 970.

Wow, I did not think Sandy upwards would bottleneck a 900 series?

 

[arc@css]

Wow, I did not think Sandy upwards would bottleneck a 900 series?

Neither would I, even a non-'k' version should be fine with one card in a good number of situations.

 

[ubersonic]

Wow, I did not think Sandy upwards would bottleneck a 900 series?

He said his sandy bottlenecks his 900 during WoW, WoW is CPU limited.

 

[arc@css]

He said his sandy bottlenecks his 900 during WoW, WoW is CPU limited.

Can't believe I missed that bit!

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I would say go for a 970 @ 1080p

 

[DanTheMan86]

I have the same motherboard and CPU (overclocked to 3.8ghz), I don't think it would really bottleneck that much. I would probably still get the 980 rather than 970 just so less rush to go duel-GPU later... just my 2 cents, at the moment I'm on 2x 5870s and starting to show its age slightly

 

[Nines11]

I have the same motherboard and CPU (overclocked to 3.8ghz), I don't think it would really bottleneck that much. I would probably still get the 980 rather than 970 just so less rush to go duel-GPU later... just my 2 cents, at the moment I'm on 2x 5870s and starting to show its age slightly

Bit silly really a 970 is nearly as powerful as a 980 if you need 2x 970s youd also need 2x 980s...

My brother has an i7 950 at 3.2 clocking this to 3.8 - 4 and getting a 970 a good shout?

He was looking at a full new build but these new x99 builds are silly prices atm!

 

[arc@css]

a 980 would be wasted with that CPU.

If a 980 was a poor choice to pair with that cpu, which I don't think it would be (overall), then a 970 would be, too.

 

[TheInspector]

I also am in the same boat, constantly pulling my finger from the buy button.
Also wondering my 950 would bottleneck the cards but rather than starting a new thread, thought I'd join in the quest