Hurrah, a 970 back down again, everywhere seems to have had a price hike on these! I know a few 970s did drop a week or so back, but they have all gone by the looks of things. So if you missed it, or were spending time thinking... well at least you can grab one if you waited too long before.
I reckon this is about the cheapest this card has been. Smashing price if you’re already running one card and are thinking about SLI. In fact price/Performance this is really reasonable. Cards seem to be going up again, as predicted really :disappointed:
It’s quick and as far as I’m aware, really nice and quiet at this price point. Just in time for the new releases at the back end of this year (for those that want to upgrade) It is the 4GB version so bob on for 1080p gaming at the moment. But we all know games are getting more demanding on our Vram
You'll need an 8pin power cable free on your PSU for this. Keep that in mind if you're coming up from a lower end card.
I don't know, once I squeeze it into my laptop I'll check :wink:
alanbeenthere
24 Sep 163#40
MIss: Dipswitch and jumper overclocking. IDE Raid arrays. Back when both made a noticeable differnce.
Dont miss: Ribbon cables. 3 pin fans. beige cases.
MEDICGUY
23 Sep 163#9
Would my Voodoo 2 SLI cable work with this?
All comments (106)
goonertillidie
23 Sep 165#1
Can this play Minecraft?
nathan3007 to goonertillidie
23 Sep 162#2
Only if you like 10FPS
NeoTrix to goonertillidie
23 Sep 164#3
I don't know, once I squeeze it into my laptop I'll check :wink:
Rockclimber to goonertillidie
23 Sep 162#21
These jokes are so repetitive, so repetitive.
BetaRomeo
23 Sep 16#4
I wasn't sold on these higher-end 970s being good value, until some chap here last week used reverse psychology to point out that these are better than the 470, roughly equivalent to the 480 and 3GB 1060 but much cheaper, and quite a bit behind the 6GB 1060 but over £50 cheaper.
I don't want to recommend two-year-old hardware as "hot", but that's what the market has given us... :confused:
N1Andy
23 Sep 162#5
How do these compare to the 780 glh?
*in answer to my own question these are slightly faster, but no way worth the upgrade.
Cheers.
csf
23 Sep 161#6
A good thing with currys/pcworld is they give you 3 years warranty. asus only do rma direct with the retailers not with end users.
ukez to csf
23 Sep 16#7
Is that good or bad?
pcangeldust
23 Sep 161#8
It's good cause ASUS customer service is terrible.
MEDICGUY
23 Sep 163#9
Would my Voodoo 2 SLI cable work with this?
TALON1973 to MEDICGUY
23 Sep 162#10
lol I had that card. twin 12mb :-)
CAL23
23 Sep 16#11
970 is a great card. Will run Witcher 3 1080p ultra at 60 FPS no problem (just remember to turn Hairworks off!).
liveinabin
23 Sep 16#12
That is a great price on a card that, while not exactly new, will still absolutely destroy anything that Sony or Microsoft come up with for a good while.
Tarquin8484 to liveinabin
23 Sep 16#27
PC Master Race detected.
n217970
23 Sep 16#13
Is this the OC version? Picture (of the box) on curry's website is different to the thread picture?
Chippy8
23 Sep 16#14
I have one of these and it is the dogs nuts. Hot
mojo5110
23 Sep 162#15
Love the GTX 970 it is such a good card even today. I love the newer cards but at double the price I can't really recommend them for 1080p gaming.
I would strongly recommend you don't SLI the 970. If you already have the 970 is might be worth waiting another year or two and then using that money to buy the latest or previous year card.
It does only have 3.5Gb GDDR5 so it will be limited going into higher resolutions and higher texture games in the future.
So I love this card by itself. If you are on the fence of dropping the cash on a pair of 970 get a 980ti which went down in price or keep an eye out for a deal on the latest cards.
Ego-X to mojo5110
23 Sep 16#25
Seems like you making your price comparison based on the price of the 1070 which from a performance perspective is wrong. The 970 is in a very similar performance bracket as the 1060 3GB which for an equivalent brand you can pickup for about £40 more. With the latter card you also get lower power consumption and an extra year of driver support, so that's worth taking into account. I would find it hard to choose between them: If the extra £40 is a stretch then the 970 is a great deal otherwise I might opt for the 1060 instead.
cod619
23 Sep 16#16
Does anyone know how this would compare to a R9 390 Strix GPU? Thanks in advance
NeoTrix to cod619
23 Sep 16#17
If you have the R9 390 It's not really worth the move. I guess it's down to preference of Vram amounts and software. Obviously Nvidia have they PhysX / Expereince stuff going on but if the R9 has more VRam that might suit you more if you're adding mods to games and what not. You may not be fussed about all of that. If its just based on performance, the either is a good choice in my opinion. You'll find that each will perform better in certain games than the other anyway.
Avoiding any fanboyism, I'd personally go Nvidia if the price is the same or beats the 390 anyway. One of the biggest things that people complain about is high prices with Nvidia vs AMD, so when a Nvidia card beats an AMD on price within the same sort of performance levels, it gets pretty exciting.
Consider Vram, requirements and price differences.
cod619
23 Sep 161#18
Thanks for the super quick response I've already got the R9 390 so I'll stick with it. Thank you again
paulsalmon77
23 Sep 16#19
If you can afford to, get a 1070. It is 2x the price but will be viable for gaming 2x as long, also beats this in power consumption if you go for SLI 970s.
If you can't afford the 1070 this is a good deal
soups
23 Sep 16#20
what is the fan speed or noise like at ultra settings? my current 5 year old amd card sounds like a airplane engine and drowns out the game audio
steadydeal to soups
23 Sep 16#33
Mines heavily overclocked, have a Be quiet cpu cooler, case and power supply, sometimes I hear a faint fan noise on games that push the card 100% for quite some time, amazing, can tweak the fan profile to always stay on 20% I find that's inaudiable and tends to keep it cooler for longer before needing to ramp up
Rockclimber
23 Sep 16#22
Very good while waiting for 1080 TI. There's no point of getting 1080 at this moment! (heat added)
Dan_the_man28
23 Sep 161#23
Happy with my 290x and full 4GB VRAM thanks
Graham1979
23 Sep 16#24
So just answer the question and we will all know in the future!
alanbeenthere
23 Sep 16#26
I really can't wait for a reference 970 to go to this price so i can swap out one of my gtx670 and down size my water loop so i can go matx...
Other than that i'm skipping upgrading the rest.
Heat+
capa
23 Sep 16#28
Will this play 4K movies to a 4K tv?
alanbeenthere
23 Sep 16#29
You could buy two of these and trounce a console peasant with a mouse!!
/sarc.
Tanweeralqarni
23 Sep 16#30
Just bought this second hand for £130. Good deal for a brand new 970 tho
dealhunteroz to Tanweeralqarni
23 Sep 16#32
This. Student deals on Amazon mean this is often up for £130. I grabbed one last week and it's an awesome card. At that price if it only lasts me a year whilst I wait for 1070/1080 prices to level (or for the 490 to release) it'll still have been worth it.
waikit83
23 Sep 16#31
Heat added
Danger35
23 Sep 162#34
Woah, even cheaper than when I posted a month ago. Looks like they have more stock online this time round as well.
Super happy with my SLI STRIX 970's, so far have handled anything I can throw at them. Whisper quiet too.
zHamzz
23 Sep 16#35
Get an 480 for abit more no ?
Newer technology + more vram..
Thanks to you and the OP. Picked one up, assuming they deliver :wink:
eternald
23 Sep 163#38
I miss my 64mb VooDoo 5. Those were the days quake 1+2, unreal etc
alanbeenthere
24 Sep 163#40
MIss: Dipswitch and jumper overclocking. IDE Raid arrays. Back when both made a noticeable differnce.
Dont miss: Ribbon cables. 3 pin fans. beige cases.
BetaRomeo
24 Sep 16#41
If your 390 is working well for you, there's not much out on the market that will give you a decent boost at a decent price - you've already got a relatively high-end card.
There have been some significant performance boosts through drivers over the past couple of years, so if you haven't updated your drivers in a while, I'd recommend doing so. There's also the option of switching from the Catalyst driver to the Crimson driver, which, along with a nice new UI, should also provide a few relatively small technical tweaks that collectively can make a noticeable difference to your game performance.
sgtbarton
24 Sep 16#42
I think this is the non oc version and the Ebay link is for the oc version. TBH the Ebay price is what currys had on website for non oc version.
capa
24 Sep 16#43
Why expired, still £174 for me?
sgtbarton
24 Sep 16#44
Yeah still going ! No idea why expired but I just brought the Ebay one as advertised as oc version. I know it's an extra few quid but PayPal means I don't need to go find my wallet.
chapchap
24 Sep 16#45
Lovely stuff.
capa
24 Sep 162#46
Time to upgrade my Sapphire HD 7850 as I'm severely bottle-necking on my i5 6600K..
Or should i wait and get a 980 when prices drop or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait....
ARG!!! :smile:
capa
24 Sep 161#47
1.05% Topcashback. :neutral_face:
400SE
24 Sep 16#48
When I tried it, it said in stock but when I hit the pay now button the basket emptied and returned to OoS.
dcpp4
24 Sep 16#49
So not really ultra :P
dcpp4
24 Sep 161#50
The 390 is a stronger card (more vram, comparable dx11 performance and significantly better dx12), although the Strix version is not the best of the bunch, so its runs a bit hotter than say the sapphire nitro or msi
dcpp4
24 Sep 16#51
You should get neither, either go for a 470/480, 1060 6gb or wait for the 1050 maybe? If you keep your cards that long buying 2yo hardware when there's current gen comparable stuff at similar price points is not a wise decision imo, especially when going team green.
capa
24 Sep 16#52
You have a good point. My budget is £200 and I want to upgrade for BF1 and Infinite Warfare.
I also need 4K playback straight to 4K TV via HDMI. My 7850 really struggles with 4k.
Just not sure what to go for.
Firefly1
24 Sep 16#53
I'm in a very similar position! Got a Radeon 5870 that used to be the fastest in the World when I bought it..... Time for an upgrade but just too many options at varying price points.
Gorbzilla
24 Sep 16#54
Looks like this is still available on eBay from Currys. Exact same price, I just bought one. eBay Link
*Edited to change name of link
sgtbarton
24 Sep 161#55
Yes and mpn states oc version where as website does not - also only 1 years warranty not 3 - strange.
capa
25 Sep 16#56
The 970 seems to be better than the 480 on this list:
Passmark is a terrible way of comparing gpu performances in anything that is not the passmark benchmark. Please only use it to get an idea of 'tiers'. I suggest shortlisting few recent, demanding games that you want to play and searching for up to date, i.e. made using recent drivers, comparisons
Tanweeralqarni
27 Sep 16#58
Cool. So this is back in stock
tom0osmithy0o
27 Sep 16#59
Best answer!
calv1987
27 Sep 16#60
agreed with the performance, but it is a well known fact that nvidia dont support their products for as long as what AMD do, personally id buy a 470 over this, especially if you're only 1080p gaming. Nothing against the 970 though its a great card but certainly not future proof.
dragoncurt
27 Sep 16#61
Good find OP :smiley: Heat added
jaydeeuk1
27 Sep 161#62
Think I went the radeon ddr route instead, the voodoo 3 2000 is still my favourite card, shame what happened to them after the 3 series.
fishmaster
27 Sep 16#63
I'd definitely get the GTX1060 3GB over this card, this card makes no sense at this price.
ichayan
27 Sep 16#64
No, you have to play.
AcceptedWalnut
27 Sep 16#65
Worth upgrading from a 2gb 770 or save for a 480? My current gpu is really struggling since I grabbed a 1440p screen.
Jawz
27 Sep 16#66
Lost touch with the Graphics card model changes since buying ps4.
How does this compare to my 7950 card?
I've got a i5 2500k if that helps (in case my CPU isn't good enough)
Gazfaz
27 Sep 16#67
Help guys? I have an aged Advent Intel core 2 Quad CPU Q8300 @ 2.50GHz with Nvidia GeForce GT230 graphics. I'd like to upgrade the graphics and can anyone tell me if I can fit this card or am I in the realms of needing a complete upgrade? Any advice appreciated, Thanks.
tombyrne94
27 Sep 161#68
Get the Gigabyte 1060 6GB OC model for £226 via flubit if you're gaming at 1440p, the 970 performance is lacking for 1440p.
tombyrne94
27 Sep 161#69
The 970 is significantly better than a 7950
flumpy_85
27 Sep 16#70
seems crazy buying this for £170 when you can get a 1060 6gb for not much more, save up for it or a 1070 have a little patience this card should not be £170 and i cant believe people are paying that for it. People are going to say but its a good card, yea it is but its years old, i know that doesnt take away from the fact its still a good card but for a little more you can get a much better gpu. Christmas is coming up so the new cards might drop in price a bit and this will probably drop some more
fifafootball
27 Sep 16#71
Cold I seen a 1060 for the same price yesterday
Tanweeralqarni
27 Sep 16#72
And how much is 'not much more'? 1060 6gb cost like £225. Thats a £50 difference my friend.
flumpy_85
27 Sep 16#73
im sure it wont take long to save up £50 or get the 3gb 1060 which is the same price. Stop buying random things on here (thats if you do ) or give something up and im sure you will have the £50 in no time, we aint talking about a great deal of money here. It is up to you though, do what you feel buddy
minicale
27 Sep 16#74
Only worth it for sli, you might aswell get a 1060 for a little more if you dont have a 970 already
will this work with an AMD APU A6-6400K Black Edition with msi mobo and will it run doom?
repouk
27 Sep 162#79
Can I run this SLI with my Matrox Mystique?
sgtbarton
27 Sep 16#80
So pay £50 extra for something with the same performance regardless of age? how does that make sense £50 is nearly a third of the cost for something which performs the same, (we are talking 3gb versions here and I would rather have this card for gta than the 1060 3gb anyday of the week)
lugsy3
27 Sep 161#81
In exactly the same boat, battlefield fan and apparently my 4.4 ghz 2500k doesn't meet minimum spec. Was looking at just changing my 7950 to a rx 480 as most benchmarks I have seen put it ahead of the 1060 on bf1. However I may bite the bullet for a while and look to start again from scratch, it's time really.
maltikism
27 Sep 16#82
I've been further even more decided to use even go their need to do look more as anyone can last week
Bully
27 Sep 16#83
Got this card from amazon 2 weeks ago , same price.Plays Doom on ultra settings and does not miss a beat.Very impressed.
jotei66
27 Sep 16#84
How does this match up aganst a GTX 1060 anyone ? I know its about £20 more.. but as Im thinking of upgrading, I thought maybe the 1060 was a better option as its the new architecture I believe. Im using a GTX 950 atm and looking for better card. I ruled out a gtx 960 as poitless upgarde from a 950. cheers
fishmaster to jotei66
27 Sep 16#89
"If you haven't had the chance to check out 3GB 1060 reviews yet, it's worthwhile " Subtle but I see what you did there.
A 1060 also buys you longer driver support.
BetaRomeo
27 Sep 16#85
A top-end 970 like this at £175 versus a lower-end 3GB 1060 for £180? You're getting a significant VRAM advantage on the 970, and a small performance advantage on the 1060 when it's not VRAM-limited (which it rarely is so far, to be fair).
If you haven't had the chance to check out 3GB 1060 reviews yet, it's worthwhile - a bit behind the 980 (and even behind the 970 in Doom), and Pascal overclocks reasonably well, but nothing like the old Maxwells. A 970 can overtake a stock 980, and a 3GB 1060 can go just a little bit further.
That's why this card makes very roughly as much sense as a 3GB 1060. As to which is the better buy... I don't know. :wink: Definitely the 1060 if you're getting a Vive or Rift, or have a 400W PSU or lower; perhaps the 970 if you're planning to keep it for a few years; otherwise... it's literally Sophie's Choice.
denty101
27 Sep 16#86
Is this a good match for my i3-6100?
samelliscfh
27 Sep 16#87
Hmm I shall take your advice! I don't get 60fps on ultra
wildswan to samelliscfh
27 Sep 16#92
good price but want a blower version due to small case constraints
CAL23
27 Sep 16#88
Turning off Hairworks makes a HUGE difference. If you have it on, you will be dropping around 15-20FPS!
I should also add that you won't maintain a constant 60FPS throughout. Hugely detailed areas will drop to about 35-40 FPS.
samelliscfh
27 Sep 161#90
Thanks for the advice! Also props for the megadeth pic \m/
Quoth
27 Sep 16#91
I've got an old(ish) Alienware with a 3930k and a GTX680. Would the 970 be a worthy upgrade?
DatAlbino
27 Sep 16#93
i don't know if this is stupid or not
i have a 4gb 960, can I SLI with this or does it have to be 2 of the same cards?
also would I actually get any benefit from that? ^^ thanks
bicza002
28 Sep 16#94
I've already had a gtx 970 windforce x3 for over 2 years now and I'm not sure whether I would be able to sli with Asus or not, or whether it is really worth it, seeing as I've already got one, would it be cost effective to get this second one? or just wait till its completely outdated and invest into a newer one?
BetaRomeo
28 Sep 16#95
Longer driver support? Are you serious? Nvidia's consolidated drivers have been offering ~10+ years of support for each generation since the 6x00 series.
But, yes, I suppose, technically, you may have that point. The 970 will probably only have about eight or nine more years of official driver support, compared with the 1060's ten or eleven. Certainly worth bearing in mind... :laughing:
Hmmm... that's the only point you've made in favour of the 1060? It will probably get driver updates in 2027 when the 970 probably won't? That's genuinely interesting - thank you for your contribution. Everyone here is so obsessed with real-world performance and theoretical performance and VRAM usage and software compatibility and other real-world factors, so, relevance aside, it's nice to see a completely different basis for an opinion. :man:
BetaRomeo
28 Sep 16#96
The short answer is "no". For SLI, you need two cards with the same GPU. The 960 is the GPU on your card, so you would need another 960.
MintMouse
28 Sep 16#97
It's been a while since I've looked at graphics cards. Currently have 2*7870 cf. Is it worthwhile upgrading to a 970?
dcpp4
28 Sep 16#98
I wouldn't bother. The 970 is being phased out (hence the price drops), there is a long series of reason why you are probably better off spending the extra money towards a 1060 6gb or a 470/480 8gb.
Nate1492
30 Sep 16#99
Surely you can see the value in the 1060 3gb at the same price then?
The 1060 has better memory compression compared to the 970 and only has .5 less working vram.
Actual performance gained by the 970 there is 14.0%
BetaRomeo
30 Sep 16#100
Well, this deal was replaced with the same card at £172, and I hadn't seen a 3GB 1060 below £180 at the time of my comment, but... yes. Yes I can. For the reasons I gave above.:wink:
Don't worry, I understand what you're trying to say. Yes, less VRAM on the 1060, but not as horrific as it sounds.
Riiight... but (ignoring that it's a single game benchmark in the OC test) factor those overclocks into the overall performance, and there's less than an 8.5% difference between those overclocked cards (at 1080P, anyway). (Happy to walk you through the maths if you're not sure how to do it? Maybe you used a wrong figure somewhere, or maybe you genuinely think that less than an 8.5% improvement is equatable to "absolutely blows [it] out of the water"?)
So you've got a £180 basic-SKU card which costs about 5% more than the £172 high-end-SKU 970, is about 8.5% faster, but has less VRAM.
So, based on your links and numbers, surely you can see why they're roughly comparable when the 970 is 5% cheaper?
A link to the £172 3GB 1060 you mentioned would be appreciated, though - may as well submit it as a deal, as no-one else has! :man: (Sub-£170 is when they go "hot" for me! Decent successor to the underwhelming 960.)
HungryDragon
30 Sep 16#101
Could I ask peoples opinions on 2 cards I'm looking at? I like the MSI 1060 gaming x 6gb but I wanted to know for an extra £100 is it worth getting a budget gtx 1070 instead?
BetaRomeo
1 Oct 16#102
The proper MSI TwinFrozr 6GB 1060, for £250? That's a nice enough price, just about; £20 for the good cooler.
I like the 1070 more, though. £250 for something that equals the 2014 ~£300 980 (albeit 6GB versus 4GB), versus £350 for something that beats out every GPU released pre-2016, Titans included. The 1060 is nice, but the 1070 is... I believe the technical term is "unf unf".
pcangeldust
1 Oct 161#103
Am looking for a GTX 1070 specifically the EVGA FTW edition but these cards are just so expensive right now.
BetaRomeo
1 Oct 16#104
Yeah, it's not worth the extra £50 for the FTW's cooler, IMO. :neutral_face:
No deals on 1070s today, but you can still knock a Palit out for ~£350 if you sell the Gears 4 code for ~£20.
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
Opening post
I reckon this is about the cheapest this card has been. Smashing price if you’re already running one card and are thinking about SLI. In fact price/Performance this is really reasonable. Cards seem to be going up again, as predicted really :disappointed:
It’s quick and as far as I’m aware, really nice and quiet at this price point. Just in time for the new releases at the back end of this year (for those that want to upgrade) It is the 4GB version so bob on for 1080p gaming at the moment. But we all know games are getting more demanding on our Vram
You'll need an 8pin power cable free on your PSU for this. Keep that in mind if you're coming up from a lower end card.
Decent cooler, decent spec, decent price...it's decent :smile:
PC World link Here, for reasons...
Memory: 4 GB GDDR5
CUDA cores: 1664
Clock speed: 1051 / 1178 MHz
Memory bandwidth: 256-bit
Interface: HDMI / DisplayPort / DVI
Manufacturer’s guarantee: 3 years
Top comments
Dont miss: Ribbon cables. 3 pin fans. beige cases.
All comments (106)
I don't want to recommend two-year-old hardware as "hot", but that's what the market has given us... :confused:
*in answer to my own question these are slightly faster, but no way worth the upgrade.
Cheers.
I would strongly recommend you don't SLI the 970. If you already have the 970 is might be worth waiting another year or two and then using that money to buy the latest or previous year card.
It does only have 3.5Gb GDDR5 so it will be limited going into higher resolutions and higher texture games in the future.
So I love this card by itself. If you are on the fence of dropping the cash on a pair of 970 get a 980ti which went down in price or keep an eye out for a deal on the latest cards.
Avoiding any fanboyism, I'd personally go Nvidia if the price is the same or beats the 390 anyway. One of the biggest things that people complain about is high prices with Nvidia vs AMD, so when a Nvidia card beats an AMD on price within the same sort of performance levels, it gets pretty exciting.
Consider Vram, requirements and price differences.
If you can't afford the 1070 this is a good deal
Other than that i'm skipping upgrading the rest.
Heat+
/sarc.
Super happy with my SLI STRIX 970's, so far have handled anything I can throw at them. Whisper quiet too.
Newer technology + more vram..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-STRIX-GeForce-GTX-970-Graphics-Card-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970-Full-HD-/121941251301?hash=item1c6443d4e5
Dont miss: Ribbon cables. 3 pin fans. beige cases.
There have been some significant performance boosts through drivers over the past couple of years, so if you haven't updated your drivers in a while, I'd recommend doing so. There's also the option of switching from the Catalyst driver to the Crimson driver, which, along with a nice new UI, should also provide a few relatively small technical tweaks that collectively can make a noticeable difference to your game performance.
Or should i wait and get a 980 when prices drop or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait or should I get this or should I wait....
ARG!!! :smile:
I also need 4K playback straight to 4K TV via HDMI. My 7850 really struggles with 4k.
Just not sure what to go for.
eBay Link
*Edited to change name of link
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
How does this compare to my 7950 card?
I've got a i5 2500k if that helps (in case my CPU isn't good enough)
A 1060 also buys you longer driver support.
If you haven't had the chance to check out 3GB 1060 reviews yet, it's worthwhile - a bit behind the 980 (and even behind the 970 in Doom), and Pascal overclocks reasonably well, but nothing like the old Maxwells. A 970 can overtake a stock 980, and a 3GB 1060 can go just a little bit further.
That's why this card makes very roughly as much sense as a 3GB 1060. As to which is the better buy... I don't know. :wink: Definitely the 1060 if you're getting a Vive or Rift, or have a 400W PSU or lower; perhaps the 970 if you're planning to keep it for a few years; otherwise... it's literally Sophie's Choice.
I should also add that you won't maintain a constant 60FPS throughout. Hugely detailed areas will drop to about 35-40 FPS.
i have a 4gb 960, can I SLI with this or does it have to be 2 of the same cards?
also would I actually get any benefit from that? ^^ thanks
But, yes, I suppose, technically, you may have that point. The 970 will probably only have about eight or nine more years of official driver support, compared with the 1060's ten or eleven. Certainly worth bearing in mind... :laughing:
Hmmm... that's the only point you've made in favour of the 1060? It will probably get driver updates in 2027 when the 970 probably won't? That's genuinely interesting - thank you for your contribution. Everyone here is so obsessed with real-world performance and theoretical performance and VRAM usage and software compatibility and other real-world factors, so, relevance aside, it's nice to see a completely different basis for an opinion. :man:
The 1060 has better memory compression compared to the 970 and only has .5 less working vram.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X_3_GB/26.html
Even with the 10% reduction in cuda cores, it still is very close to the 1060 6gb and it absolutely blows the 970 out of the water at 1080p.
Also, not to mention, they overclock better.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X_3_GB/29.html
Actual performance 14.5% gained.
(to offer an equal card for the 970)...
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/27.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/30.html
Actual performance gained by the 970 there is 14.0%
Don't worry, I understand what you're trying to say. Yes, less VRAM on the 1060, but not as horrific as it sounds.
Riiight... but (ignoring that it's a single game benchmark in the OC test) factor those overclocks into the overall performance, and there's less than an 8.5% difference between those overclocked cards (at 1080P, anyway). (Happy to walk you through the maths if you're not sure how to do it? Maybe you used a wrong figure somewhere, or maybe you genuinely think that less than an 8.5% improvement is equatable to "absolutely blows [it] out of the water"?)
So you've got a £180 basic-SKU card which costs about 5% more than the £172 high-end-SKU 970, is about 8.5% faster, but has less VRAM.
So, based on your links and numbers, surely you can see why they're roughly comparable when the 970 is 5% cheaper?
A link to the £172 3GB 1060 you mentioned would be appreciated, though - may as well submit it as a deal, as no-one else has! :man: (Sub-£170 is when they go "hot" for me! Decent successor to the underwhelming 960.)
I like the 1070 more, though. £250 for something that equals the 2014 ~£300 980 (albeit 6GB versus 4GB), versus £350 for something that beats out every GPU released pre-2016, Titans included. The 1060 is nice, but the 1070 is... I believe the technical term is "unf unf".
No deals on 1070s today, but you can still knock a Palit out for ~£350 if you sell the Gears 4 code for ~£20.
Wait for the next deal, naturally! :smirk: