Upgrade Advice Please (GPU Only)

[Moby19]

Looking to upgrade my current rig which is just over 3 years old. Got great help and advice, as always, before so looking for help again .
At the moment im playing GTA V and will be playing the Witcher 3 when available. I am currently on a 1080p monitor and am not planning on upgrading to 4k anytime soon.
Due to budgetary restrictions, i'm taking it slow and just looking to upgrade the GPU for now.
Im looking at spending £300 and think my best option at the moment would be a GTX 970, but am not sure if the rest of my PC is ok for now to reap the benefits. I am doing this as i was surprised to see that my Processor and GPU are now considered Minimum Spec for the upcomming Witcher 3.
So i would like advice on which card (if any) is better than the other, and should i worry about the VRam issues i have been reading and wait for anything else on the horizon.

Current Specs as follows,

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2GB GDDR5
Corsair Builder Series CX 750W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (i think its this one)
Corsair Carbide 300R Case

As always any help and advice is greatly appreciated and received .

 

[stulid]

Hi.

Firstly, make sure your boards BIOS is upto date.

Is your CPU overcloked?

Everything else looks fine but do you have a SSD?


As for GFX cards you can take your pick from theses,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £286.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU II OC Strix 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £279.95
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 WindForce OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N970WF3OC-4GD) £269.99
1 x Asus Radeon R9 290X ROG Matrix 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (MATRIX-R9290X-4GD5) £229.99
Total : £1,356.91 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 

[Moby19]

Hi stulid, i still need to check if there is a later update for the bios, but last time i check i had the latest even though it was over a year old.
I do have Windows 8.1 on an 120G Crucial M4 SSD.
I did initially try over clocking it, but being clueless i never pursued it, so its always been stock.

 

[stulid]

Overclocking is worth doing as you have a nice board, a 4core CPU with Hyperthreading, if you can get your CPU faster than any advantage a 4790K will have at stock speeds will soon evaporate.

Your SSD, check the firmware is up to date on it as those suffered from a bug that at 5200hrs they failed.

 

[Moby19]

Thanks again Stulid. It was your original review of the Motherboard that made me buy it,
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18312497
I did ask for Overclocking advice on that particular board back then, but sadly didnt get any response,
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18312497
Ill take another look and spend a bit of time researching it, thanks again.

 

[stulid]

These will help you overclock,

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18338090
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18375640

You can copy the settings pretty much.

 

[Moby19]

Thanks again my friend, will spend the afternoon looking at those threads and ofc order a new card

 

[Moby19]

Firmware updated, CPU Overclocked (just a little for now), case cleaned.
Out of the above suggestions, is there any one GTX 970 that performs better than the rest or is it purely down to preference/price?

 

[stulid]

They all perform so closely it is price/looks.

G1 Gaming+Windforce, MSI Gaming and ASUS Strix are currently the best ones due to price and cooler quality.

 

[Moby19]

Many Thanks for all of your help/advice stulid.
I have gone ahead and ordered 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99

 

[stulid]

You will enjoy that.

 

[grant666uk]

Many Thanks for all of your help/advice stulid.
I have gone ahead and ordered 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99

I posted a very similar topic a few days a go as I was thinking the same as you. I had picked out a nice 970 only to be told it would not fit in my case even though in my eyes my case is bloody massive, Did you check the card you bought will fit ?

 

[Moby19]

TBh i assumed i had enough room as there seems to be loads of space. But i did double check after your reply .
My old GTX 670 is about 275mm, which i thought was pretty big when i brought it. The GTX 970 is reported to be 312mm on the Gigabyte website. Luckily the Corsair Case seems to be made for such an event with a space of over 400mm available . So i'm confident it will fit now
Not sure how long it will take to process, but im hoping to have it on Tuesday or Wednesday, will update if it all works out ok.

 

[stulid]

It fits, first thing I checked.

 

[Moby19]

You sir, are Amazing

 

[Moby19]

Card arrived today (should have been yesterday, but Royal Mail sent it somewhere else). Installed without issues, GTA V and The Witcher look amazing with;

Enable the detail of 4k monitors, on a 1080P display. DSR produces smoother images by rendering a game at a high resolution, then downscaling it to the native resolution of the display using advanced filtering

Thanks again for all your advice and help.