My GPU Situation

Hardware Hub GPU
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Alright. So i've ordered most of the parts for my new build. Just gotta get my case and GPU. Which is the most troublesome decision now.

I'm torn between the GTX 4GB SSC 960 and SSC 970. The price gap is huge and the performance gain the 970 has over the 960 is pretty substantial. Nvidia don't seem to want to make a 960Ti to fill in that gap, unfortunately. But i'm just wondering whether or not it'll be better for me to get a 960 now based on my situation. I will be playing on a 20.1" 1680 x 1050 75Hz monitor for what will probably be a long while. My plan is to ultimately get a 21:9 120Hz IPS 4K display for productivity and beautiful gaming. It seems to me that both the 960 and 970 can display 4K resolution, and it won't be a problem for either in a desktop environment, as well as Adobe CC work. Gaming is another story and that is what will mainly throw me off of a 970. What should i do? Get a 960 now, given my situation, and after the time has passed, and i get my huge monitor, upgrade the GPU from a 960 to whatever is the strongest or one of the strongest single-GPU cards at the time?

Also. Just on another note, in terms of power, measuring a GPUs power doesn't seem to be too straight-forward. I've heard that a 960 has 60% more power than a PS4. While a 970 has 3.5 x the power of a PS4. I have NO idea how people come to these conclusions, unless there is more for me to learn.

PS4's Numbers:

Pixel Rate: 25.6 GPixel/s
Texture Rate: 57.6 GTexel/s
Floating-point performance: 1,843 GFLOPS

GTX 960:

Using gpureview.com (Still greatful for telling me about this, Albert)

Pixel Rate: 36,064 (3.6 GPixels)
Texture Rate: 72,128 (7.2GPixels)

@ SSC Specs (960)

Pixel Fill Rate: 40864 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 81728 MTexels/sec

GTX 970:

Pixel Fill Rate: 58800 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 109200 MTexels/sec

So these numbers for the 970 aren't 3.5 x higher than the PS4. It seems to be double. So i'm not sure of how GPU power is exactly measured.

Exactly how much more powerful are the 960 and 970 over the PS4? I was logically just assuming that the pixel and texture rates are a good place to start, as they ultimately determine the rate at which pixels and textures are rendered. I'm sure there's much more to it, but in the end, i just want a solid, real and plausible answer. And i really want something that's substantially more powerful than a PS4.... Ughhh... Also, please, no AMD GPU suggestions. I'm tired of the power draw, tired of the temperatures, and tired of the drivers. I've never owned a Nvidia card in my life before, and i want to try something new.

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Get the 960. Save the extra towards your planned monitor, once you have that start saving for a new gpu. That will likely see you replace the 960 with what nvidia or and come out with next.

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It would hinder profits. Its probably why they didnt make it. Its also not really worth it. That is Nvidias main drive. profits and sucking the life out of gamers with proprietization of hardware. This is not to say AMD doesnt have its own evils but thats just the side your choosing

If I understand your post correctly you are torn between two GPU's Well Let me just say choose the 970. If you can afford it. It is more than worth it over a 960. That being said AMD's offerings are also quite nice. Is there a particular reason you are only looking at Nvidia options? I mean honestly... the card linked below will beat a 970 any day actually. That and Nvidia's mid range offerings are less than impressive..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202164

Keep an open mind there are a lot of great things out there. The 390 is 330 bucks.. All around DX 12 it easily crushes a 970 even at 1080p. you have the extra vram. you got a lot of good things in this GPU for the same price. The drivers are great and mature. I dont see a reason not to. G sync is honestly a peace of shit. So is free sync.

Get a 390 you wont regret it honestly. Its not even about brand. its just a better bargain

yes I know you dont like amd

but your reasons dont make much sense. if your going to go NVIDIA and get screwed by their nvidia shaft you might as well go ahead and wait until their next gen cards dude

Also to be honest powerdraw is that big of issue. you realize mathematically we are speaking about 1.50 dollars US in difference avg around the US and canada. The 390 Overclocks better. Nvidia has gimped their 970s pretty badly. AND the temperatures are perfectly fine.

Also just so you know comparing a PS4 and a PC makes you just seem like you dont know what your talking about. Realize that a more powerful GPU doesn't make your game look better. The PS4 is definitely limited by its APU onboard. Its CPU compute thats coming into play as a limiting factor. That and if you max out a game you cant make it look any more better than MAX.

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Yeah, my conscience is telling me to do the same, but now it's a matter of figuring out just exactly how much performance a 960 has over a PS4. Apparently, a 750 Ti has more power than a PS4. And a 960 has double the power of a 750 Ti... Now if that is true, that alone will set things in stone... But again, that is just purely what i've heard/read coming from other people. Whether or not they're talking out of their ass is another story.

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A 960 can happily push 60fps in many games at 1080p if you adjust settings appropriately. It will look better and play more smoothly than a ps4.

You will only need something with more grunt once you upgrade your monitor.

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Not even close . A lot of it is driver tweaks. you clearly dont understand how these things work. If you like nvidia just go get the 970 and be done with it. you wont feel regret. you will feel better getting it because its the better performing card. You will be content and for the love of god stop comparing two very uncomparable things. The PS4 can not be comparable to a PC with the same graphics card. The systems are actually more different than most people think

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PS4 = Orange
GPU = Apple

What are you comparing?

EDIT: Since you don't want an AMD GPU, get the 970. If you have the cash for the better card, get the better card or wait.

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Exactly. Also all your points about AMD sound like pure nvidia fanboyism talk and thats a poor basis for a big financial decision.

You should base GPU purchasing decision not on Brand but on performance per dollar and use case. What are you going to use this gpu for. What kind of performance do you actually seek (in comparison to only PC stuff).

Im trying to help but what you are saying makes zero sense. its apples to oranges.

970 is the better choice. Also why not wait.. is this decision time sensitive?

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its simple:
you measure "power"(i guess you mean performance) in frames per second. or benchmark scores
a gtx 970 gives you about as much more power as its costs more compared to a gtx 960.

Considering that you dont even have to render 1080p i would get a gtx 960 2gb.
you dont need 4gb on a 960 @ sub 1080p
An once you have your desired monitor a gtx 970 wont be enough anyway (my 970 can barly handle 1440p in battlefield 4 with slight setting tweaks or maxed out in elite dangerous.

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More than anything, i'd just want to make sure it can run Skyrim, and long-term, the only thing that worries me is the next Elder Scrolls release in terms of actual game usage. A 4890 is what Bethesda recommends for Skyrim, and that's an old card now. ACTUALLY old by hardware standards. Not the "6 months old" we're used to hearing from people. The 960 i reckon destroys something like a 4890 at this point.

@Novasty

Comparing GPU power between the 960 and a PS4, simply because i want piece of mind knowing i have something that's quite a ways ahead of the PS4. And if there's an actual set of numbers to go by, what do people usually look at. Aside from benchmarks, which do say a lot about performance, but in specific situations. I'm not interested in that. First thing that came to mind is texture rate and pixel rate. I'll assume pixel rate is what determines how well is can handle resolution(s).

@hbert Well the problem is 1680 x 1050 is just a hair away from 1920 x 1080. The difference isn't really worth noting. You actually lose pixel density on a 1080 24" monitor in comparison to a 20" 1680 x 1050 display. I guess we've ruled out the choice between cards when it comes to running my new display. 4K really is that insane, huh? ...Shite. I know the 980 Ti is what is generally recommended for 4K. Hopefully that kind of power will be more commonplace around two generations ahead. Oh yeah, and i've found sub-$300 (CDN) deals on 4GB 960s. So it's a non-issue. Usually, i find the 4GB EVGA cards cheaper than some of the 2GB models. Backplate and all.

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The ps4 is probably the worst thing to compare as they have a different audience in mind. If you are looking for a reason why the gpu is ahead, you literally have a better chance looking for results on fanboy forums

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I'm not sure what audience has to do with this. I'm not talking about the games. I'm also not looking for any 'reasons' for anything. I just want piece of mind knowing i have a GPU that's faster than the console i'm comparing it to because this particular console happens to be the fastest console out of all of the latest consoles. And in this case, i'd want some sort of actual reference point or way of measuring said console's performance against at least one of the two GPUs i'm looking to potentially purchase. Is it not straightforward enough?

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Console performance does not translate to GPU performance. The numbers mean shit between them because games are optimized differently for consoles. If you are looking for point of reference, you use GPU with another GPU.

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Considering he's not even at 1080p, a cheapo 380 might be a better option. I suppose if he got a 390 now, he could get another one for CFX when he's got the 4k panel. The 8GB of VRAM would be handy at that resolution. Having two 390s in SFX probably wouldn't be toooo great for 4k though. Better than 970s in SLI I'd guess though.

@Prenihility when you get that 4k monitor, how much would you be spending on GPUs then? You pretty much need SLI'd 980Tis to keep good framerates at 4k in certain games.

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If you want a comparsion to PS4: The Witcher 3 runs at 1080p with a mixture of medium and low settings on PS4 and with the patches it now stays at 30fps most of the time, a 960 runs it at ultra settings (without hairworks because the performance hit is ridiculous) and should be able to get 30fps most, if not all of the time, a 970 lets you play it at ultra (still no hairworks) with pretty much a locked 60fps.
If you have a good enough power supply for it I would take the R9 390 over the 970 btw, just like to have that 8gb vram if I need it, because stuff like shadow of mordor is a thing.

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Which gpu to be the best choice, mainaly depends on the rest of your hardware.
You could argue that a GTX970 or R9-390, might be a bit overkill for 1680x1050.
However there is also something like DSR and VSR which you could utilize to make games look better.

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Bought a 4GB EVGA SSC 960 for less than a 2GB model. It's settled. I'll at least be able to run 4K in a desktop environment, and with vector graphics work, which is a joke anyway. Not sure about things like NX. But by then, i'd be upgrading my card, anyway. Still have a lot of learning to do in the way of software. Haven't touched the 3D stuff yet.