I'm looking into upgrading my pc, but I have 1 or 2 questions regarding which graphics card to get. After watching a few youtube videos its pretty clear that the 980 is the better card, however its not so much better its entirely worth the price difference. I play a few different games including, R3E, Farming Sim, Euro Truck Sim, GCSEx and FTruck, I also have AC on my steam account but due to my current pc specs I am unable to play it whatsoever, I'm also considering purchasing Arma 3, although R3E/AC will be the games I spend most time on so its important to me that whichever card I choose can run these two on decent settings with a good amount of frames per second. My questions are: Will a 970 be able to play these games on high-max settings or will I need a 980 for that? More to the point will I be able to run R3E/AC on high to max settings with good grid numbers (20+ AI cars)? Is a 980 really worth all those extra monies? Has anyone here had any problems or failures with either of these cards? My current pc specs struggle with R3E on the lowest settings with only a handful of AI cars on track so either of the cards will be a huge improvement, but I'm really struggling to understand or make a decision with which card to get. Any advice would be much appreciated Thanks Dan
Some opinions about GPU upgrades are in this thread: https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/upgrade-suggestion-request.1915/ Perhaps some of that information is usefull to you. Personally I have no info and thus my opinion is useless ^^
For me my 970 is 6 months old, i Havent had any issues and hope it stays this way.. Cause it already costed enough.. And it was a very good bang for the buck everyone told me and i tend to agree.. Both raceroom and AC i play with one monitor (110cm 60hertz) about maxed out, no vsync, and i never watch my fps cause this it should be more than 60.. In the future i hope to play 3D with my rig altough that wont be maxed out i believe. Furthermore i cant give more info cause this is as far as my knowledge goes.. Greetings
Thanks for the link @Öberg and @Jona777 thanks for the info, I will probably go with the 970 just to save a bit of cash for the moment. I'm not great with computers, but is it easy to upgrade from a 970 at a later date if need be?
I believe that once Raceroom supports sli (meaning 2 cards that can be used for the game) that another gtx970 should be sufficiënt.. Please correct me if i am wrong!!
Yes, GPUs or Video Cards are among the easiest components to switch and insert/install into a computer. Video cards nowadays insert into the PCI-E slot on the motherboard, usually there is only 1 (or 2 for SLI as Jona mentioned) of these slots on the motherboard. So it literally only fits in one place, unless you superglue or ducttape it to the side of your own face, little else can go wrong in the installation process ^^ Depending on how modern your motherboard is, your PCI-E slot might be version 2.0 instead of the newest afaik 3.0 Things would still work I believe as I think the GPU's are backward compatible with PCI-E 2.0, however a small performance loss may be expected. Also have in mind that a 970 or above might require more power, I would recommend a 500+ watt Power Supply Unit, allthough it could probably function with less. Also most new graphics cards needs a certain Ampere on the connecting 6/8pin 12volt lines, so make sure your Power Supply Unit can provide what the graphics card requires.
Again, thanks for all the information, its much appreciated @Öberg and @Jona777 I'm looking at a pre built system from a retailer, one system comes with a 970 and the other with a 980, both come with a 350w 80+ bronze power supply, does that sound right? Will that power supply be adequate? I would build my own but for my complete lack of computer knowledge so buying a pre built system just makes more sense to me, I dont consider myself a hardcore gamer, so aslong as I can relax and play a few games of an evening with decent graphics and smooth framerates I'm happy.
The 970 will be more than fine! I'm running R3E in 4k with pretty high settings, so on "common" resolutions you should be able to max out nearly everything with a 970. But a 350W power supply seems to be on the edge, depending on the CPU you will use. Common recommendations are 500W for a 970 and a proper CPU! Being not an hardware enthusiast I'm sure you don't plan to overclock, so you will not need a massive power supply. Which CPU is used for the pre build system?
350W sounds indeed too weak for a modern system, you want quality output there. Some retailers tend to throw in some rather cheap components in the systems to make money... Imo saving on the PSU is not something you want to do, given you can get quality brands for only a few tens of Euros more and in the end it's the one thing that powers all the components. Using http://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator and picking a rather minimal config, I get around 350 already... so I would shoot for 450-500. And as @FunkyChicken says don't go too cheap on the CPU either, graphics can only shine if it's fed fast enough
@FunkyChicken I'm not exactly what you'd call down with the kids when it comes to word abbreviations here is a list of some the specs, I'm hoping one of these listed is the CPU you talk about. Intel® Core™ i7-4790 Processor 4.0 Ghz Intel® B85 Chipset 16Gb DDR3 1600Mhz RAM 2Tb hard drive 128Gb Solid State Drive NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ 980 4Gb dedicated graphics On a side note, the system I was looking at did have the ability to Overclock, I have no idea what overclocking is so will undoubtably leave it be. @pixeljetstream Thanks for the heads up, I will have a look around to see if I can find anything better.
Overclocking means to run your hardware at higher speeds than specified, e.g. running this Intel Processor at 4.5 GHz or more. Most of the recent hardware lets you slightly increase the speed without worrying much. But the higher you go, you need to take care of perfect settings, good power supply, cooling and stability tests to avoid crashing when reaching the limits. Coming back to your list: the Intel CPU (processor) will be more than sufficient to support your graphics card. To save some bucks you might opt for the GTX 970. As stated above you will be more than fine with that card. Depending on what you are running now, you will be impressed by the performance! BUT: I highly recommend to go for 450-500 W power supply (with a silver or gold certificate). People often underrate the effects of a low quality/low power unit and a lot of issues with the overall system are caused by a cheap unit. Then I would suggest to go for a 256 GB Solid State Drive. With just 128 GB you might run out of space quickly with the operating system, your personal/daily files, programs and some games installed to it. Hope this helps
It helps a great deal @FunkyChicken so thank you very much. I will certainly look in to a better power supply and also the higher grade SSD as I do intend on using the system for a small amount of work aswell, so again thank you (and thank you to everyone else) for sharing your knowledge its been a great help.