GTX970 worth buying soon for 1440p gaming?

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Elledan

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2010
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I'm in the process of building a new PC around Skylake. I wish to have three Dell U2515H 1440p displays connected (via DP, they don't do DVI). Gaming I would do just on one of these displays, preferably at 1440p.

I am considering getting a GTX970 with 3x DP outputs. It's just that after the noise about 512 MB of the GTX970's VRAM being practically useless, it's leaving me wondering whether it's still a good choice for 1440p gaming?

Also, I haven't heard any rumours about a successor to the GTX970, but are there any alternatives, really? Now or within a few months time.

Thanks in advance :)
 
Do you have these displays yet? I ask because if you get really into a certain game then those other two displays are going to be looking you in the face teasing you. So if you ever decide down the road to introduce another card to the mix so you can hook those up as well, you might want to consider the AMD 390 8GB.
 
512mb thing is blown out of proportion. I had a single 970 running an asus swift at 1440p and it played all my games fairly well at mixed high settings. I never experienced the stuttering and even tried to replicate the stuttering. The stuttering only appears when using settings the card can't even handle in the first place even if it had full use of the 4gb.

Get the 970
 
rive22 said:
Do you have these displays yet? I ask because if you get really into a certain game then those other two displays are going to be looking you in the face teasing you. So if you ever decide down the road to introduce another card to the mix so you can hook those up as well, you might want to consider the AMD 390 8GB.
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So far I am using the first of the U2515Hs I ordered so far with my current system (17" laptop with 660M GPU :) ). Two more displays will be purchased soon :D

I might go for the 970 this year and upgrade to another Nvidia GPU next year, which might be capable of driving 3 1440p displays with games :)
 
970 is NOT enough for even 1080p games. At 1440p you will have to make a lot of compromises with IQ.

I OCed mine to 1491/7960 and it still lack performance in recent titles on 1080p.
 
I got an Acer predator and immediately had to get a 2nd 970 to keep frame rates where wanted them. That's 980ti levels of performance. Just throwing that out there.
 
You'll run into problems with the card's horsepower before running into any VRAM issues. Two 970s is fine for 1440p and one is enough if you're willing to skimp on details (especially antialiasing - FXAA or SMAA at most) and aim for around 30-40 fps average framerates.

I used to run 2x970 at 1440p and Shadow of Mordor was the only game where I noticed any issues with VRAM. Everything else was fine. I now run a 980 Ti and feel it's ideal for that resolution.

Three 1440p displays is a shitload of desktop space. I would recommend instead to just have two and spend the money saved on a 980 Ti.
 
It's fine. The people who says it's not (like the guy above who thinks it's not enough for even 1080p) are expecting to be able to max out EVERYTHING and get 100+FPS.

If you're one of those guys, you'll need to spend a hell of a lot more.

If you're a normal person, it's a great card.

I play all the current AAA titles on mine on my Dell 3008WFP just fine. I don't have the settings cranked up so high that it kills FPS and I'm not shedding a tear when FPS drops to 45-50FPS. It doesn't impact my gameplay and I didn't break the bank.


What people seem to forget about asking these questions over what is "good enough" is everyone's expectations are completely different. Clearly it's not even good enough for 1080p for one guy here and it sounds like he's got insane expectations.
 
Better to get a 290X if you can find any new ones left at a decent price. Recent AMD DX11 driver optimizations, favorable AMD DX12 benchmark results, AMD's freesync gaining momentum over nvidia's gsync (and nvidia refusing to support AMD freesync monitors), and the 970's 3.5gb VRAM limitation (which is not enough even for 1080p for some games right now, and not enough for many more games very soon) all point to one thing: don't get the 970. Waste of money, especially at the price Nvidia wants for it.

I would also advise waiting for the AMD R9 Nano to launch (fully, not just the "announcement" whenever that comes) this month, to see if that has any additional downward effects on pricing for AMD and/or Nvidia cards.
 
I run 1600p and I switched out my 970 for a 980Ti. IMHO if you are running 1200p or lower a 970 is fine, but exceed that then you need a 980 min. But you can get away with using a 970 at 1440p and 1600p, though it will require a lot of tweaking and compromises for newer games.

As criccio above said, it really depends on what you can handle as "good enough". I personally hated that I had to play some games at 1920x1200 to get an acceptable framerate. Batman AK was playable but in many areas it would drop 15fps or lower and had to drop the resolution to 1200p to fix it. Same thing with Witcher 3. Playable but occasional hiccups and had to do lots of tweaking to get it to a good enough place. The Crytek engine based Lichdome, didn't seem to play right till I dropped to a lower than native resolution. That all got solved with the 980Ti for me.
 
I think it really depends on the primary games you intend to play, since there is insane variability in requirements.

It's not a bad idea to get something cheaper to tide you over to Pascal.

You could consider a B-stock 970, play on one display at perhaps reduced settings, then upgrade to Pascal next year.
 
Don't expect the 970 to run the latest games @ 1440p. I'm even having trouble maxing out Assassin's Creed Unity on my 980 Ti @ 1440p. At stock clocks, I need to disable Soft Shadows to maintain a constant 60 fps, and even so the framerate drops to about 40 in cinematics and it is slightly annoying.

I would aim for 60 fps on a non-G-sync monitor like the U2515H (this means getting the 980 Ti), anything less would feel somewhat choppy and stuttery. Or you could always play the more demanding games at 1080p with 1:1 mapping until Pascal, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a 1440p display.

The 970 would probably do fine in older and less demanding games though, so it really depends on what you're playing.
 
The 512MB is not an issue for the 970. I've seen mine gone close to 4GB of VRAM usage in Dying Light and I did not experience any stuttering issues. I'm not sure if the critics actually have a 970 and saw the evidence of what they are claiming, because I'm not seeing them myself. The limitation with 970 is it's rendering performance, not VRAM capacity. As is the case with any non flagship GPU.

With that said, you get what you pay for with 970. It's less costly than the bigger cards like 980Ti, but for newer games you'll have to turn stuff down to sustain 60fps.

So it depends on what you are looking for. If you want the best performance, you'll have to spend on the 980Ti. If you are targeting a budget that fits the cost of a 970, then you'll just have to be fine with turning quality down in newer games.

As far as DX12 is concern, we won't know how these cards will perform until we get actual games.
 
jwcalla said:
I think it really depends on the primary games you intend to play, since there is insane variability in requirements.

It's not a bad idea to get something cheaper to tide you over to Pascal.

You could consider a B-stock 970, play on one display at perhaps reduced settings, then upgrade to Pascal next year.
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That's why thinking, yes. Since I'm upgrading from a 660M (mobile), it'll be a big improvement regardless :) Enough to keep me happy until I can upgrade next year.

Do we have concrete info on Pascal cards yet at this point? Release window, etc.
 
Elledan said:
That's why thinking, yes. Since I'm upgrading from a 660M (mobile), it'll be a big improvement regardless :) Enough to keep me happy until I can upgrade next year.

Do we have concrete info on Pascal cards yet at this point? Release window, etc.
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Nobody really knows. Though I would guess Fall 2016 for the first x70/x80 versions, then a Titan/x80Ti in the spring or summer of 2017.
 
LurkerLito said:
Nobody really knows. Though I would guess Fall 2016 for the first x70/x80 versions, then a Titan/x80Ti in the spring or summer of 2017.
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This makes sense to me.

I have been buying 970s for relatives. It has great performance and price is... Decent. Pascal is close enough and such a big leap it makes sense to not go nuts right now if you value money at all.
 
If you just need something to tide you over for a year until Pascal comes out, EVGA B Stock usually has one or more 970 cards at $250-$260, which is almost down to half the price of a 980 on newegg.
 
LurkerLito said:
Nobody really knows. Though I would guess Fall 2016 for the first x70/x80 versions, then a Titan/x80Ti in the spring or summer of 2017.
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I kind of hope they have something out by late Spring 2016, but yeah who knows. I think if we don't see something by Spring (at least some leaked specs), then that might be an indication that there's trouble in manufacturing land (16nm, HBM, or whatever).
 
evilsofa said:
If you just need something to tide you over for a year until Pascal comes out, EVGA B Stock usually has one or more 970 cards at $250-$260, which is almost down to half the price of a 980 on newegg.
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Ah, so like refurbs?

I'm looking at about 350 Euro for a new GTX 970 card here in Germany, with the GTX 980 Ti going for around 750 Euro. I'm in principle okay with the 350 Euro, but may look around for refurb units or similar.
 
1080P is the sweet spot for a GTX 970. At 1440P you're going to have to turn settings down in newer games to get an average of 60 FPS. I'm finding a GTX 980 Ti is what you need if you want to run the latest games with a solid framerate and ultra settings at 1440P, particularly concerning games like GTA V and Arkham Knight.

If you don't care about running some current and future games with all settings enabled, you'll be fine. But if you're trying to take full advantage of a 1440P GSync gaming monitor, I'd recommend a 980 Ti.
 
criccio said:
I'm confused. I'm running the latest games just fine at 2560x1600.
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Your idea of fine is probably not the same as someone who gets a 980 Ti. A 970 cannot maintain 60 fps in most demanding games at 2460x1440/1600 without reducing many settings. Even with an oced 980 Ti, I still have to turn down settings to not drop below 60 fps at that res in a game like Witcher 3.
 
misterbobby said:
Your idea of fine is probably not the same as someone who gets a 980 Ti. A 970 cannot maintain 60 fps in most demanding games at 2460x1440/1600 without reducing many settings. Even with an oced 980 Ti, I still have to turn down settings to not drop below 60 fps at that res in a game like Witcher 3.
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Exactly. I re-iterated this point above. Some were saying it's "unplayable". Well, I'm playing just fine but I have some of the stupid, unnecessary settings turned down and it looks just fine.

The point i've been trying to make is questions like this (the OP's) don't make a lot of sense for these very reasons.

If you're a guy who requires EVERY setting to be maxed out and still maintain over 60fps, you just shouldn't be looking at a $340 GPU.

However, if you're a normal person and you know you're not going to care about some of the settings not being absolutely maxed, this GPU at these resolutions is just fine.
 
First up - Don't limit your card selection due to your monitors. The Dell U2515H supports MST over DP, meaning you can chain the monitors together without running back to the video card, though, there may not be enough bandwidth to do 3x at 1440p on a single DP connection (so, you'd maybe need two DP connections on the card). Also, since the display supports HDMI, there's no reason you can't get a DVI to HDMI cable to connect them to a DVI based card.

As for gaming, the 970 is not enough to max out visual settings at 1440p in all current games. If you're ok backing off on quality here and there to make it playable, it'll do just fine for you.
 
David_Schroth said:
First up - Don't limit your card selection due to your monitors. The Dell U2515H supports MST over DP, meaning you can chain the monitors together without running back to the video card, though, there may not be enough bandwidth to do 3x at 1440p on a single DP connection (so, you'd maybe need two DP connections on the card). Also, since the display supports HDMI, there's no reason you can't get a DVI to HDMI cable to connect them to a DVI based card.
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All the cards I have looked at so far seem to have either 1 DP output or 3. I'd also not like to spend money on a card with outputs (DVI) I'll most likely not ever be using, especially since these are big, clunky connectors taking up much of the space on the I/O section. HDMI would be a plan B, but 3 DP outputs is still my favourite plan, especially considering bad experiences mixing outputs in the past (re U2412M, etc.).

As for gaming, the 970 is not enough to max out visual settings at 1440p in all current games. If you're ok backing off on quality here and there to make it playable, it'll do just fine for you.
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I'm not the most demanding of gamers. As long as I am happy enough with the smoothness of the image (both graphically and animation-wise), I am not too bothered about some sliders not being set to 100%. Law of diminishing returns and all that.

There's also that going crazy on a 980 Ti doesn't make a lot of sense considering the current ramping up towards Pascal with some actual competition on the AMD side as well. I'd much prefer to just get a cheaper, mainstream card and see what comes out of the pipeline next year. Saving about 400 Euro this year on this new build seems like a good idea too. It's already pretty expensive :)
 
criccio said:
It's fine. The people who says it's not (like the guy above who thinks it's not enough for even 1080p) are expecting to be able to max out EVERYTHING and get 100+FPS.

If you're one of those guys, you'll need to spend a hell of a lot more.

If you're a normal person, it's a great card.

I play all the current AAA titles on mine on my Dell 3008WFP just fine. I don't have the settings cranked up so high that it kills FPS and I'm not shedding a tear when FPS drops to 45-50FPS. It doesn't impact my gameplay and I didn't break the bank.


What people seem to forget about asking these questions over what is "good enough" is everyone's expectations are completely different. Clearly it's not even good enough for 1080p for one guy here and it sounds like he's got insane expectations.
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In some recent titles it can't hold 60 frame rates. But those are with very high end settings, the ones that typically reduce FPS by 10-12 for minimal graphical gain. Most it does fine though at 60 FPS, 1080 with all settings maxed out.

Doubt it, but I would hope the 970 successor is slightly faster than a 980ti...
 
It depends on the games you like and settings you like. If you like things like Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, Far Cry 4 and other high resolution games , that you want to play on ultra, forget 1440p and 970 - it's not possible. In W3 even pair of 970s won't give you 60 fps constantly, and for that kind of gaming you need 980 ti.

Of course, if you don't mind medium settings or gaming without AA, then 970 should be fine.
 
I'm running dual 1920x1200 on a single gtx970. (I only game on one at a time.) The 3.5 + .5 memory issue is not a factor: I've never noticed any kind of issue.

IMO, 970 is great for 1920x1200.

I'm looking to upgrade one of my machines to a 1440 monitor: after a lot of research, I don't think a 970 has enough horsepower for 1440. Instead, for the same price (~ $350), the 390 (non-X) at 8 Gb seems like a better match for that resolution.

YMMV.

Of course, you could buy ONE 970 now, then add another later for SLI to get more "oomph" if one 970 isn't enough. (Make sure you match sku's. Some manufacturer cards won't sli unless the cards are IDENTICAL.)

Ken
 
c3k said:
I'm running dual 1920x1200 on a single gtx970. (I only game on one at a time.) The 3.5 + .5 memory issue is not a factor: I've never noticed any kind of issue.

IMO, 970 is great for 1920x1200.

I'm looking to upgrade one of my machines to a 1440 monitor: after a lot of research, I don't think a 970 has enough horsepower for 1440. Instead, for the same price (~ $350), the 390 (non-X) at 8 Gb seems like a better match for that resolution.

YMMV.

Of course, you could buy ONE 970 now, then add another later for SLI to get more "oomph" if one 970 isn't enough. (Make sure you match sku's. Some manufacturer cards won't sli unless the cards are IDENTICAL.)

Ken
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The 390 and 970 are basically dead even overall at 1440. OC both cards and the 970 will be a little faster.
 
at 4k rez and everything maxed out and AA, i can get diablo 3 to use 1.5 gig of ram :)
 
970 is ok if you're willing to sacrifice settings.

Just as a point of reference though, I run an overclocked 980 Ti and still have to sacrifice some things to keep The Witcher 3 at over 60fps at 2560x1600.

A 970 would get eaten alive at this resolution without drastically cutting back on settings. ;)
 
Darksword said:
970 is ok if you're willing to sacrifice settings.

Just as a point of reference though, I run an overclocked 980 Ti and still have to sacrifice some things to keep The Witcher 3 at over 60fps at 2560x1600.

A 970 would get eaten alive at this resolution without drastically cutting back on settings. ;)
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I think the goal is also not to get a super-GPU which can run current and upcoming games at 1440p with maxed settings for the coming year or 2-3, but to have something decent which can tide me over until Pascal hits :)

Budget-wise that fits better, and since I will be using 25" displays only, 1080p gaming should be just fine too.

Then next year's Pascal-based X70 or whatever should be able to take on 1440p maxed out without breaking a sweat :D
 
I dont understand the point in waiting for future products when they are not right around the corner. Heck we will likely see a Maxwell refresh of some sort before Pascal even hits.
 
misterbobby said:
I dont understand the point in waiting for future products when they are not right around the corner. Heck we will likely see a Maxwell refresh of some sort before Pascal even hits.
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The 900 series IS a Maxwell refresh. :p

As for tiding over, I own a 970 and I'm already feeling the lack of performance. I haven't heard of any immediate successor to it.

What kind of games are you wanting to play, OP?
 
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I have a gtx970 running with a ROG Swift monitor and I think it holds up pretty well. I have been playing Witcher 3 and GTA V a lot and mostly everything is on ultra or high (I usually just let the geforce experience profiles take over and then modify it slightly as needed).

I do use GSYC a lot too so my experiences might be a little better than a non-gsync monitor if you are within the FPS thresholds

I guess in the end it all depends on what type gaming experience you want. If you want the highest settings and at least 60fps on the latest and greatest games then you will want a gtx980 ti or even consider SLI.
 
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I had a 970 in 1440p (+g-sync) before and I found the VRAM to be a huge issue for me as well as raw performance in a few cases. A 980 wouldn't have helped me either I'm sure because I'm looking at Ark, Star Citizen, Arkham Knight, Shadow of Mordor etc. hitting over 5Gb of VRAM easily. GTA is pushing beyond 4Gb too and I don't even use AA or DSR in any of my games. And yes with those settings I was getting stuttering and heavy pagefile usage on the 970, sometimes it was really bad. If you don't mind tuning down some settings of course all is fine...
 
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