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Zephro posted:I'm pondering upgrading my old GTX 560 (non-TI, even!). The reviews I've seen seem to suggest that the 960 is a really good midrange card, with good framerates, minimal stutter, low power consumption and low noise. Yet I see almost no-one recommending it in the parts picking thread. Is there some reason that I've overlooked not to buy one, if I'm after a midrange card? (I have a single 1080p monitor to drive, a decently beefy CPU and 8 gigs of RAM, so the card is definitely the bottleneck for the moment). It's a budget card for people who absolutely know they'll be content with 1080p for x years, can live with toning some settings down and fancy power efficiency over getting an older, brawnier AMD R9 280X/290X. Not usually the kind of person who posts in SH/SC unless they specifically ask about 700$ build and start off with a Nvidia. That and the 970 being such a huge upgrade just one step up the ladder.
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Feb 12, 2015 10:38
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Zephro posted:I'm pondering upgrading my old GTX 560 (non-TI, even!). The reviews I've seen seem to suggest that the 960 is a really good midrange card, with good framerates, minimal stutter, low power consumption and low noise. Yet I see almost no-one recommending it in the parts picking thread. Is there some reason that I've overlooked not to buy one, if I'm after a midrange card? (I have a single 1080p monitor to drive, a decently beefy CPU and 8 gigs of RAM, so the card is definitely the bottleneck for the moment). You could also wait for the 960Ti and 965Ti like I am. If the rumored specs are true, even the 960Ti will be quite a bit faster than a regular 960 because it will have 4GB of 256-bit VRAM. spasticColon fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 10:52
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Zephro posted:I'm pondering upgrading my old GTX 560 (non-TI, even!). The reviews I've seen seem to suggest that the 960 is a really good midrange card, with good framerates, minimal stutter, low power consumption and low noise. Yet I see almost no-one recommending it in the parts picking thread. Is there some reason that I've overlooked not to buy one, if I'm after a midrange card? (I have a single 1080p monitor to drive, a decently beefy CPU and 8 gigs of RAM, so the card is definitely the bottleneck for the moment). I'd wager it's because it's not massively compelling compared to the Radeons at the same price, even if they do use more power - they have around the same performance, but with 50% more VRAM, which I reckon is going to be ever-increasingly relevant.
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Feb 12, 2015 10:55
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At the very least, wait for AMD to come out with their new poo poo so that Nvidia cuts prices in response.
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Feb 12, 2015 11:06
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Thanks for all the replies! I can't really wait, unfortunately, I want to play Evolve at a LAN next weekend and even on low settings my existing card isn't cutting it. quote:It's a budget card for people who absolutely know they'll be content with 1080p for x years, can live with toning some settings down and fancy power efficiency over getting an older, brawnier AMD R9 280X/290X. The 280s seem to be somewhat loud and quite power hungry. I have a 550W Truepower, which is less than the recommended minimum for a 280, and I want to avoid springing for a new PSU if I can. I'd thought about the memory issue too, but presumably that's only going to be relevant if I buy a higher-res display (not on the cards) or want to play with ultra-quality textures (quite happy to use high quality instead), right? edit: I guess the way I look at it is that the 960 is substantially more powerful than what's in either the Xbone or the PS4, and given that most big games will be developed with console specs in mind, I should be good with it for a fair while unless I want to use PC-only super-high quality graphics settings - which I'm happy to forego. Or have I missed something? Zephro fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 11:36
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Zephro posted:Thanks for all the replies! I can't really wait, unfortunately, I want to play Evolve at a LAN next weekend and even on low settings my existing card isn't cutting it. The power supply requirements listed on AMD and Nvidia's websites are hugely exaggerated, because they cannot guarantee that you have a decent quality power supply - someone could be using a $20 500w PSU that catches fire if you try to use more than 50% of its capacity. In reality, assuming you have an Intel CPU, you'd be using about 400w at max load, so your power supply is very comfortable for an r9-280. Even a 450w PSU would be fine. A 280 performs very, very close to a 960, so compare prices on the two. And it won't be loud as long as you get a model with a good cooler - MSI or Sapphire for eg. A 960 or a 280 would let you run most games at 1080p at max settings (maybe turning down/off AA) and still get playable (30+) fps.
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Feb 12, 2015 11:42
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I think nobody is really talking about the 960 right now because its been out about a week or two. Its a very new card and I doubt many people have one to share their experience
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Feb 12, 2015 12:52
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Thanks. I guess the only potential issue is that the only thing that might make me upgrade my monitor is adaptive sync becoming reasonably cheap, and that would seem to point towards AMD, at least for now.
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Feb 12, 2015 12:53
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Zephro posted:Thanks. I guess the only potential issue is that the only thing that might make me upgrade my monitor is adaptive sync becoming reasonably cheap, and that would seem to point towards AMD, at least for now. But as far as I know, 270 and 280 crucially won't receive support for DisplayPort 1.2a. Only the 260X, 285 and 290 in the current range support it. HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 13:29
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Did we ever learn why the Tonga XT 3GB wasn't released? it would be a very interesting choice right now, that 370X better be just that and soon.
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Feb 12, 2015 13:56
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HalloKitty posted:But as far as I know, 270 and 280 crucially won't receive support for DisplayPort 1.2a.
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Feb 12, 2015 14:27
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Ahdinko posted:I think nobody is really talking about the 960 right now because its been out about a week or two. Its a very new card and I doubt many people have one to share their experience The 960Ti is also coming at some point in the near future which will have more speed and 4 gigs of VRAM for, in all likelihood, not much more money.
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Feb 12, 2015 16:03
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For what it's worth, you're going want a card with at least 3GB of VRAM for Evolve.
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Feb 12, 2015 16:09
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Hace posted:For what it's worth, you're going want a card with at least 3GB of VRAM for Evolve. Nah, you'll be aight with less than 3GB. Runs real smooth for me at max settings+vsync+FXAA FullscreenWindowed at 1080p on a 3GB 7970. Bump the settings down some and it's fine on cards with less VRAM. Benches showing the 960/270x averaging just shy of 60fps at very high and 70fps at medium: http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1813-evolve-graphics-card-benchmark-fps e: VVV very well could have, I've seen a handful of folks mentioning better performance after the release day patch. teh_Broseph fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 16:34
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I distinctly recall my 770 chugging along due to low VRAM, but I guess they fixed that.
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Feb 12, 2015 17:04
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Hace posted:I distinctly recall my 770 chugging along due to low VRAM, but I guess they fixed that. The 770 only had 2gb though, not three.
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Feb 13, 2015 02:56
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The Lord Bude posted:The 770 only had 2gb though, not three. That's my point.
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Feb 13, 2015 03:26
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Zephro posted:I'd thought about the memory issue too, but presumably that's only going to be relevant if I buy a higher-res display (not on the cards) or want to play with ultra-quality textures (quite happy to use high quality instead), right?
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Feb 13, 2015 04:19
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g0del posted:Right now that's true. But the consoles have 8gb of ram which the video card can access, so it's entirely possible that once devs have had long enough to play around with it they'll find a good use for all that ram even at 1080p. It's never a good idea to assume that developers won't find a way to use all the resources available to them. Isn't like 3GB of that 8GB exclusively reserved for the OS at all times?
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Feb 13, 2015 04:52
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Yes though some of that could be released in the future. They tend to be conservative at first.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:55
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Don Lapre posted:Yes though some of that could be released in the future Yeah, that is what happened on the PS3 if I remember right.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:56
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Diviance posted:Isn't like 3GB of that 8GB exclusively reserved for the OS at all times?
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Feb 13, 2015 17:46
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g0del posted:That reservation will last right up until a big developer says they need more ram for their next big game. If Rockstar says that GTA6 needs 7GB of ram, do you really think that MS or Sony would tell them no? Yes, I think they will tell them no based on the fact that previous consoles had streams of blockbuster games yet dictated their own pace of RAM increases. MS and Sony want to control their platform and keep some system resources ring-fenced for their out-of-game features.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:16
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g0del posted:That reservation will last right up until a big developer says they need more ram for their next big game. If Rockstar says that GTA6 needs 7GB of ram, do you really think that MS or Sony would tell them no? Well, they told Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch that was what they had to work with, both of whom make blockbuster titles... so yeah, I think they will.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:52
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Never mind that trying to work with anything that needs 7 gigs of assets at one time is going to hit a lot of performance walls that will bring you down to single digit framerates.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:49
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The_Franz posted:Never mind that trying to work with anything that needs 7 gigs of assets at one time is going to hit a lot of performance walls that will bring you down to single digit framerates. But surely you can at least use it to cache assets from the HDD or Bluray drive before they're used.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:56
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So you know those mobile GeForce 900M GPUs you used to be able to overclock? Nvidia, you poor bastards.
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Feb 14, 2015 00:25
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Factory Factory posted:So you know those mobile GeForce 900M GPUs you used to be able to overclock? Overclocking laptops is dumb anyway. Sure if you have a MSI GAMING GT72 DOMINATOR you might have the thermal headroom for tweaking, but Nvidia rightfully stated that laptops are very specifically designed around the precise TDPs and thermal headroom of all the internal components, and on modern slim laptops with shared heatsinks you can easily be risking the health of other components for the meagre OC gains. The overclocking wasn't just a risk to what they are selling, but a risk to what other OEMs are selling and that is a grey area. But like, gently caress Nvidia, right?
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Feb 14, 2015 00:37
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I don't understand the uproar over the mobile chips. Even overclocked a laptop is going to suck at playing games.
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Feb 14, 2015 01:05
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Their explanation makes sense. But bad timing lol. Boy that article sure is mad though. They'll probably take it back
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Feb 14, 2015 02:06
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1gnoirents posted:Their explanation makes sense. But bad timing lol. Understatement of the year. Nvidia needs to just take time off and go silent until the AMD 300-series officially launches. SwissArmyDruid fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 02:29
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Alright tax money came in and getting a 970 despite all the memory poo poo, I'm pretty confident it's the best price/performance in my price range (300-400). Amazon is where I have money up that I want to drop. They are out of stock on the MSI GAMING 4G right now, should I hold out on that coming back in stock? Is there any major reason not to get the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+ right now, seeing as it supposedly has fixed their cooling/coil whine according to most people?
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Feb 14, 2015 03:27
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I wouldn't be surprised if NVIDIA's OEM contracts for laptops required them to disable overclocking to keep everything within thermal limits.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:29
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NickPancakes posted:Alright tax money came in and getting a 970 despite all the memory poo poo, I'm pretty confident it's the best price/performance in my price range (300-400). For what it's worth I have the SC ACX 2.0 version and it's pretty much silent and never goes above 78C even with an overclock of +250 Mhz core and +500Mhz VRAM. The others are better on cooling and noise but I decided I would go with this one because it was $320 and EVGA has had really good customer service for me in the past.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:35
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NickPancakes posted:Alright tax money came in and getting a 970 despite all the memory poo poo, I'm pretty confident it's the best price/performance in my price range (300-400). You could either spend more for the golden edition MSI, or just get the Asus. I'd buy the Asus, or even the Gigabyte before buying the EVGA.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:58
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Subjunctive posted:I wouldn't be surprised if NVIDIA's OEM contracts for laptops required them to disable overclocking to keep everything within thermal limits. Here's the problem that I have: When you overclock a graphics card, there's usually a popup that says, "Hey, overclocking this card will void your warranty!" Fine, they're required to. So why not just enforce this policy that *already exists*, as opposed to coming out with a new one? Refuse to replace these overclocked GPUs. I mean, when you drop a smartphone into water and it dies, what's the first thing they do? They pop it open and look to see if the water damage tags have turned pink. I feel that the same principle should apply to overclocked GPUs. I also feel that Nvidia sounds more and more like Apple every time they open their mouths.
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Feb 14, 2015 09:55
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I don't recall a popup when OCing my 970s, but I might be forgetting. It's not just the thermal on the GPU, it's that it disrupts the thermal environment of everything in the laptop.
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Feb 14, 2015 10:08
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veedubfreak posted:I don't understand the uproar over the mobile chips. Even overclocked a laptop is going to suck at playing games. For some it can be useful, though. In my Vaio Z12, the Geforce GT 330M is clocked at 475MHz with 700MHz RAM. Well, that's a pathetic set of clocks. I can crank it up to 620MHz (end of the default limits), 825MHz RAM and it makes enough of a difference to be worthwhile, and I never had any kind of instability problems in the time I played games on it (which admittedly, isn't for huge stretches). This is a subnotebook that's thin, has ridiculously crammed in hardware, and a 35W Nehalem (i5-520M), and it still works OK. Also, isn't it your choice to gently caress up your laptop? What happens when it's out of warranty, surely you should be able to overclock it then. Essentially, NVIDIA is doing the wrong thing. The right thing would be to set a permanent flag in hardware (a bit like Qualcomm QFuses) when overclocking is unlocked, which then irreversibly voids the warranty. Of course, the warnings before you unlock overclocking would then need to be large and obvious. HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 10:08
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Subjunctive posted:I don't recall a popup when OCing my 970s, but I might be forgetting. It's not just the thermal on the GPU, it's that it disrupts the thermal environment of everything in the laptop. I can 100% verify that AMD does this when overclocking through their own utility. I have not tried to overclock the 750 Ti in the frankenHTPC just yet, though, so I can't speak to this.
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Feb 14, 2015 10:10
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NickPancakes posted:Is there any major reason not to get the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+ right now, seeing as it supposedly has fixed their cooling/coil whine according to most people? You can easily oc them. I surpass my gaming buddies with their 980 Stock SLI fps in all games what really annoys them  The eVGAs simply own.
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Feb 14, 2015 14:21
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