GPU recommendations - been out of the market for a while

[1000]

Hi guys,

I've been out of the gaming market for a couple of years now but just picked up a Dell 34" Ultrawide LCD and want to delve back into PC gaming.

What GPU should I be looking at to drive this beefy 3440x1440 resolution ? Having done a little reading my instincts tell me a GTX970 but I might be fooling myself ? I'd be happy enough to either drop the detail settings to medium on most games, or run the panel below native res to get the right FPS.. I kinda hate anything below 60fps in most cases so bear that in mind.

Recommendations ?

1000

 

[Ali Man]

At medium, a 970 would be your best bet.

However it would depend on the actual game and how much it may be resource dependent, whether upon the memory or the horse power, when driving that resolution.

For 980's you pay a little premium, but end up with the entire GM204, for 970's you get Nvidia's claimed best optimized 4GB, even though some folks are having issues going above 3.5GB.

In all, if you crank down the AA in most titles, a 970 should handle quite a bit.

 

[convexion]

A 970 can do it, but you'll have trouble running ultra textures in modern games because of the 3.5GB problem, especially if you plan on going SLI. I was running 2560x1440 with a pair of 970s and was having trouble hitting that wall and getting consistent stuttering even when I was pushing +100fps. I returned them in exchange for a single 980 and am much happier with the performance I'm getting now. FPS are lower but the experience is much smoother.

That said, if you don't mind running medium/high textures with no or modest AA, a single or pair of 970s should be fine. A non-reference 290(x) wouldn't be a bad choice either, but I wouldn't suggest Crossfire because the driver team on the AMD side has been slow on updates for a while now.