New card questions

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wtburnette

2[H]4U
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Jun 24, 2004
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I don't game as much as I used to, but I'd like to be able to play occasional current games at a reasonable framerate, with either max settings or very high.

My current system is in my signature, but basically I'm running my old core i7 @ 3.2Ghz, with 12GB of RAM and a 2GB GTX 660 video card. My monitor is a 24" 1920x1200 resolution screen.

I've been looking at picking up a 4GB GTX 960 card, because it fits into my price range of ~$200. I think this game will be fine for now and possibly a year or two down the line. I know that's how my current card has been (I bought it 2.5 years ago and it's been a great card). I would stick with what I have, since I don't game a lot, but I really want to pick up Fallout 4. The system requirements are:

Minimum

Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
8 GB RAM
30 GB free HDD space
NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent


Recommended

Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz/AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz or equivalent
8 GB RAM
30 GB free HDD space
NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB/AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB or equivalent

I think my system, with the new card, would be close to the recommended specs and therefore should be fine. I wish I could do the GTX 970, but that's well outside of what I'd be comfortable spending. There is a GTX 960 for sale on Newegg and Amazon for $190, which is a good price, but I'm not sure if I should wait for Black Friday. Decisions, decisions...

Thoughts and recommendations?
 
At this point, unless you need it like /now/ I'd wait for Black Friday. I personally just went nuts and got a pair of 980tis, but I'm sure the prices will come down. You might even be able to pick up a 970 for the same or close to that price, and that'd be a much bigger step up from your current card.

Are you opposed to buying used so long as the card has a transferrable warranty? You might look around on FS/FT here.
 
I owned a 660ti and currently own a 960. To be honest I don't know if you would see a raw performance difference but to be honest I played direct x 9-10 games on them.

I love my 960 (well my fiancee does, it's in her computer) so I am interested in seeing your results.
 
I would recommend the GTX 960. I have a 970 and it is amazing and all, but again not a budget solution. A good friend of mine has a 4GB GTX 960 and he has played Elite: Dangerous, Far Cry 4, MGS phantom. I have never heard him say anything bad about the card, he actually really likes it. The 960 will play fallout 4 no problem but not on ultra @60 fps.
 
I bet the R9 290X will be on fire sale come black friday if you're willing to go AMD way. That or like I said you could probably get a 970 for around that price. Fallout 4 isn't out until Nov 10, so you'd only be playing for what, the first couple weeks with your old card? Might be worth the wait.
 
Thanks for the posts. I'm opposed to buying used and also buying AMD. Too many reasons to go into, but I'm planning this card to work for me for the next 2 - 3 years with no issues. Fallout 4 is the reason I'm looking at a 4GB card, that and future proofing, at least somewhat. I've heard there are already some games out that benefit from the extra memory and I'm sure if they decide to do another Elder Scrolls game in the next couple years I'll need all the memory on the card that I can get.

I'm thinking I won't be picking Fallout 4 up until BF to see if there are deals. I hate paying full price on new games and haven't done so in years. I don't like to pay more than $40 for any game. I'm on a fairly strict budget and have to watch my money. Too much on games cuts into my range fund... :p
 
To each own, Radeon launching 380X soon which will be THE $200-$250 range card IMO, I have had zero issues in performance, drivers, game support etc since way back that I had a 4870 and many many friends have had in the hundreds of various Radeons as well since that time (and besides 3-4 that were from crappy OEM very few major issues that could not be solved) The ONLY issues I have heard of is multi-card or not sticking to a good driver set and instead chasing stupid high clock speeds OR using beta drivers etc, but you know this problem effects Nvidia just as much, don't chase magical results and trust me, if you get from a good maker, you will get a solid product no matter if Nvidia or AMD, IMO I will NOT own or buy Nvidia as they are NOT good for the industry in the grand scheme of things with the way they operate.

If you could hold off when there is more "choice" for your budget I would recommend doing that, and I would play before you buy as one could always clock their stuff up a bit which is not that difficult if you find that it is "a bit" slower then where you are comfortable performance wise so you could play your game until you see new things available in your price range.

obviously do not push till it breaks as a small bump in speeds can usually make a very nice bump performance with negligible heat/power increase though for performance wise the $200 range are always solid choices for the most part, hell was not really all that long ago that this same "bracket" was $300 :)
 
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Quick comment regarding benefits of extra video ram.. There is not benefit, only that you will not have to worry about a lack of available memory ruining your gaming experience. But that only applies to cards that are extremely capable and limited by a low amount of video ram, which would be a poor design decision, thus leading me to avoid that card. Also, if there is more available memory, than an application will use more memory. For example, if you used a 2gb vs a 4gb 960 on the same settings and monitored the memory usage, you would notice more memory being used on the 4gb.
 
more memory available has to page a bit more to be "able" to use it, generally speaking, 2gb is fine for most things, 4gb is ample, over 4 is specific usage nothing more at this point such as multi-monitor or extreme extra special settings which are in many cases almost useless.

it is very seldom folks need, use, or require a crap ton of memory, more often then not the card in question simply does not have enough horsepower to effectively use it anyways it is often more about a pseudo human thing, if it has X+2 its ok X+4 OMG it must be better this can be seen with older cards that in no way can they come close to using that 2 or 4gb of memory when they can barely use 1gb effectively :)

Happy Halloween everyone
 
If you're looking at 960, I think you'd better to get 380 4G instead is it's more powerful, can find models that are cheaper than 960 2gb. Like on newegg there were sick deals from powercolor 380 4GB for 165 or 175 bucks!
 
380X "should" be in the ~$250 range is my guess, this is the one I might end up going with essentially a 280X but narrower bus, 4gb memory, shaders-rop-tmu stay the same, TDP is lowered to the 200-220 range, and retaining all the benefits of course that the 285/380 brought to the table.

I am hoping to see it be effectively 7870XT power draw to over 280X performance :) as there is currently a "hole" performance and price wise in that $250 range for Radeons, though the 290/290 is awful close and would castrate sales/performance wise if the clocks are Ghz levels.
 
silent-circuit said:
At this point, unless you need it like /now/ I'd wait for Black Friday. I personally just went nuts and got a pair of 980tis, but I'm sure the prices will come down. You might even be able to pick up a 970 for the same or close to that price, and that'd be a much bigger step up from your current card.

Are you opposed to buying used so long as the card has a transferrable warranty? You might look around on FS/FT here.
Click to expand...

Agreed.. and the OP is only @ 1920x1200. More than likely, he will not see any huge benefit at that resolution from "upgrading" from a 2gb to 4gb card. He may want to consider a second card for SLI. Initially, I thought I was going to have some big troubles gaming on my dual 970 GTX's in SLI at 3840x2160 on my Sony 55" 4K 850c monitor. My 970's are 4gb cards (and I won't get into the whole 3.5 vs 4 gb 970 scandal.. lol). Turns out, it's perfect. I love gaming in 4K resolution in Dying Light with my eye candy on.. My frame rates are generally between 58-120 fps.
 
At this point, we don't know what Fallout performance will look like, so I think it is really difficult to speculate and make a decision for that game based upon what we know about performance. When the game launches, I'm fairly certain Brent will be doing a performance evaluation of it, so you'll know at that point (likely within a week or so of launch) about which card will give you a great gaming experience at your resolution.

Since I see you object to the Red team and used cards, it'll be tough for you to get a good value out of a card based upon the current Green team market pricing. The 960 is barely able to keep all settings turned on at the 1080p resolution in today's games while the 970 can do it with ease. Since you're at 1200p, that's a bit of a handicap above 1080p for the 960. Moving up to 1440p and the 960 is outclassed, and the 970 is OK. The problem is that there's a $100 pricing gap between them and the 970 is out of your budget.

And just to plug the value from the red team, for the price of a GTX 960, you can get a R9 290 which will give you 970 performance at a 960 price.

You can see how the 3 cards stack up to each other in this review I did a few months back - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/22/powercolor_turboduo_r9_290_4gb_oc_video_card_review
 
If you want value + ~3 years of playing modern games + green, you either need to wait for some crazy 970 black friday deal, or get over buying used. There are great deals by many reputable sellers on here, erry day.
 
w35t said:
If you want value + ~3 years of playing modern games + green, you either need to wait for some crazy 970 black friday deal, or get over buying used. There are great deals by many reputable sellers on here, erry day.
Click to expand...

And considering many brands have transferrable warranties, it's not a big deal at all, just a good way to save cash.
 
IMO Wait for a deal on a 290. Save a bit more money. Will blow the 960 out of the water
 
I would imagine fallout 4 will scale quite well as it is a bethesda title and they generally do quite well in this regard, granted some titles as they came out were bleeding edge, but they were able to be used on many multitude of systems that other high end titles at the time would not play well on.

To each own, yes 290/390 would be best bet, 970 similar "class" but if power/temps matter, then the x80 ones are quite worth looking at, Radeon 280x-380-380x as these are not at all slouches and as it stands are within that price range +/- a few $ and NEW :)
 
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