I have been planning to do my first build for months and choosing all the parts that could give me the best price to performance and last a long time. I'm stuck in between buying a GTX 780 or a GTX 970. I've seen benchmarks using the games I would most likely be playing but there were ones that showed the 970 doing better than the 780 and vice versa.
I've looked over the specs for both cards and I don't know what to do. The 970 has a higher core and boost clock but less Cuda cores, a smaller memory interface but larger memory size, faster memory speed, and a lower power overhead than the 780. I haven't decided if I will overclock either of the cards but later down the line I most likely will. It is just hard for me to choose for some reason and I would love to hear some opinions.
I would definitely go with the GTX 970. In most cases it performs better and it's cheaper. If you can find a cheap used GTX 780 that might be an option but i would go with the GTX 970. The money you save on the graphics card you could either use on better overall parts or just save it till you need a new GPU. I usually buy a new GPU every two to three years and the way i have been saving up is putting 20$ in a convulute every month (over 24 months thats about 480$ and over 36 months that's about 720$) I tend to stick with the 70s in Nvidias lineups as they make the most sense to me. Also buying an 80s card is never worth it. There is a point where you wanna upgrade even though you don't need it. PC parts can become crack so if you think about upgrading you should wait till the next day. Buying a new GPU within 2 years is not worth it. Try to see if you can keep it for 3 years.. Hope this helps.
Thanks, this helps a lot. I'll try keep it as my main card for at least three years, may even after a while get another card and try SLI. Then I would have to go looking for a larger PSU also and probably another case for a bit more room. So a long while. Most likely I will get the Strix GTX 970, but I am still looking at both cards and comparing specs against others.
SLI is never worth it. The Strix card is quite large so keep that in mind. I would suggest thinking about these things. What are you doing with your pc? Is the monitor(s) you are using suitable for the performance you get? Should you upgrade the monitor? What resolution do you play at? Do you need the extra performance?
I know SLI isn't worth it compared to a single better GPU but I think because of the 970's specs that it is better for SLI than most other cards. I was thinking about SLI for later on, maybe years down the line or just not do it. This is my first build and my switch back to windows so it would be a bad idea to jump into SLI head first. I know I don't need the performance. Right now I'm on a Mac Mini connected to an Insignia 40" TV that runs 1080p @ 60Hz. To get the best viewing performance and experience out of the 970, it would be best to get a high refresh rate monitor with G-Sync. SLI would do nothing with my TV @ 60Hz, it would look better than what it is now but it wouldn't be the best and the TV would be a bottle neck.
So, no SLI for me anytime soon or maybe even not at all. If I can find a 970 I am definitely going to buy it.
Got the Strix and it works great! So I can just recommend it! But definitely go 970 except if you can find a cheap 780.. Don't go SLI/Crossfire with 2 cheaper cards, but rather choose a stronger single GPU.. - 90% of the games is not SLI/Crossfire optimized so you're basically pay 2 workers to build a house, but actually just 1 is doing the work..