Quboid wrote on Sep 20, 2014, 15:54:
This is how I've ended up with two 660s; they don't need to be the exact same model, just the same chip and RAM seems to be fine.

To use SLI with different spec cards (different model/amount of ram)


To use SLI on a "crossfire only" motherboard


Ive used both before and they work flawlessly.

DG wrote on Sep 20, 2014, 08:04:
Hmm, my ATI6850 has served me well and continues to be viable for working my way though my Steam back catalogue, but... but.. I've had more than my money's worth and I'm due an upgrade, or something

980 or 970? 970 at a glance appears a lot better value and an amount I'm comfortable throwing down (its $450 v ~$770 here in UK). That said a faster card can be more enjoyable for a longer time so can, like expensive shoes, be argued better value over the long term (in some respects). I'd be pairing it with a 2500K at 4.2ghz, also aged but cpus don't seem to have come on much.

I think I'm leaning towards the 970.

Hmm I might have to check my PSU power connectors, current card only required a single 6 pin.

Oh and crap, how is it these days for swapping cards whithout doing an OS reinstall? That would be really quite a nuisance.

If you have the motherboard and PSU for it, you could upgrade to a 970 and in a year or two get another one for an SLI configuration. The second one will quite a bit cheaper by then (just don't leave it too long) and one 970 should be more than enough for a while.

This is how I've ended up with two 660s; they don't need to be the exact same model, just the same chip and RAM seems to be fine.

You should be fine without a reinstall. I presume AMD's drivers come with an uninstaller but even if they don't there shouldn't be any harm in their drivers lying around your system and Nvidia's drivers will run no problem.

Slick wrote on Sep 20, 2014, 02:20:
i thought evga was the nvidia brand of choice? at least a few years ago maybe? i read that they had the best warranties...

IMO EVGA was the choice many years ago, I don't prefer them anymore.

ForgedReality wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:28:

Jamil20 wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:24:
So hard to decide if I should upgrade from a 770 to a 970. The performance increase is okay, but the TDP sweetens the deal. 230W->145W

If I were you, I'd wait until probably next year for the 20nm refresh. Hell, I've waited all this time with a 580, and it's definitely time, but a 770? You'll hardly notice.

correct me if i'm wrong, but the 580 and 770 are almost identical. the 580 was the landmark card, and then the 680 made very small marginal improvements, but largely kept everything the same. and then the 770 is literally a re-brand of the 680.

Rendition Verite' V1000
Diamond 3dfx Voodoo1
EVGA Geforce 7600GT
EVGA Geforce 88000GT
2nd 8800GT for SLI
GTX480
looking like a 970 next unless the 700 series comes down in price pretty dramatically

DG wrote on Sep 20, 2014, 08:04:
Oh and crap, how is it these days for swapping cards whithout doing an OS reinstall? That would be really quite a nuisance.

The trade between graphics cards will not require much more than a reboot. No worries there.

If your PSU doesn't have the 2nd connector check to see if the card you order contains a converter cable you can use with your PSU. Many higher end cards include that usually.

Cyant wrote on Sep 20, 2014, 08:26:
Bought a 970 GTX to replace my old (but still good performing) Geforce 295 GTX. Had that card from it's release to now so a few months short of 6 years with the same GPU!

Of course I had a second 295 GTX but it eventualy died on me


Gonna buy a second 970 once I get one of those LG 34 inch 21:9 beast


So lets see...
Nvidia Riva TNT
Nvidia Riva TNT 2 Ultra
Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS
ATI 9700 Pro
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce GTX 295
then
GeForce GTX 295 SLI
then
GeForce GTX 295

Soon Geforce 970 GTX and then later SLI

started with riva 128 meself.. yeh i remember when nvidia was a nobody

Bought a 970 GTX to replace my old (but still good performing) Geforce 295 GTX. Had that card from it's release to now so a few months short of 6 years with the same GPU!

Of course I had a second 295 GTX but it eventualy died on me


Gonna buy a second 970 once I get one of those LG 34 inch 21:9 beast


So lets see...
Nvidia Riva TNT
Nvidia Riva TNT 2 Ultra
Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS
ATI 9700 Pro
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce GTX 295
then
GeForce GTX 295 SLI
then
GeForce GTX 295

Soon Geforce 970 GTX and then later SLI

Hmm, my ATI6850 has served me well and continues to be viable for working my way though my Steam back catalogue, but... but.. I've had more than my money's worth and I'm due an upgrade, or something

980 or 970? 970 at a glance appears a lot better value and an amount I'm comfortable throwing down (its $450 v ~$770 here in UK). That said a faster card can be more enjoyable for a longer time so can, like expensive shoes, be argued better value over the long term (in some respects). I'd be pairing it with a 2500K at 4.2ghz, also aged but cpus don't seem to have come on much.

I think I'm leaning towards the 970.

Hmm I might have to check my PSU power connectors, current card only required a single 6 pin.

Oh and crap, how is it these days for swapping cards whithout doing an OS reinstall? That would be really quite a nuisance.

Redmask wrote on Sep 20, 2014, 00:21:
Looks like EVGA is sending out different ACXs to reviewers than retail is getting, never a good sign. bit-tech says they are using lower grade power parts than Asus and MSI too, some of the review cards were even getting a buzzing noise under load.

i thought evga was the nvidia brand of choice? at least a few years ago maybe? i read that they had the best warranties...

oh well, never had an issue with my gigabyte windforce cards, except that one time one caught on fire... but that was extrenuating circumstances.

Looks like EVGA is sending out different ACXs to reviewers than retail is getting, never a good sign. bit-tech says they are using lower grade power parts than Asus and MSI too, some of the review cards were even getting a buzzing noise under load.

harlock wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 19:19:

LittleMe wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 19:07:
Just got two 970 oc's at MicroCenter! Eff yah The 680 lasted me two and a half years.

still on a 560ti.. im needing one of these now, but i want it to stretch another 2-3 years as well

Yeah, still on a 560Ti here as well, although the 970 is definitely making me consider an upgrade. Might wait a bit first, though.

anyone found any of the gigabyte windforce 980's in stock anywhere? I'm back-ordered on amazon, and from what i can tell newegg is the only other e-tailers that's holding em, and they're all out too.

starting to get those new gpu tingles already yes yes yes!!!

shadowplay at 130mbps FUCK YES. youtube reccomends 50mbps for 1080p@30fps, so at 60fps which it now supports this should record at at the highest quality possible for youtube content. fucking brilliant.

LittleMe wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 19:07:
Just got two 970 oc's at MicroCenter! Eff yah The 680 lasted me two and a half years.

still on a 560ti.. im needing one of these now, but i want it to stretch another 2-3 years as well

Just got two 970 oc's at MicroCenter! Eff yah The 680 lasted me two and a half years.

ForgedReality wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:28:

Jamil20 wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:24:
So hard to decide if I should upgrade from a 770 to a 970. The performance increase is okay, but the TDP sweetens the deal. 230W->145W

If I were you, I'd wait until probably next year for the 20nm refresh. Hell, I've waited all this time with a 580, and it's definitely time, but a 770? You'll hardly notice.

More often than not Nvidia has launched new processes on smaller die GPUs. If we see, say, the 940 move to 20nm, then we can talk about a 980 on 20nm. Until then, I wouldn't be too worried.

New GPUs don't look bad, but with my EVGA GTX 780 Classified, I can easily hold out until the next series of GPUs. The extra performance of the 900 series is neither ground-breaking or necessary in my system.

Overall GTX 980 is around 10% to 12% faster than 780 TI. I think it consumes less power, but some review sites show inflated consumption rates that are worrying. Still the card to get is 970 as it is demonstrably better than 770, but as far as the best of the best something like 780 TI Gaming from MSI beats the 980 consistently, even when overclocked. So overall a bit disappointed, here's hoping for a 980 TI or some cool custom cards to take the crown even from nVidia's own let alone any card from AMD.

I presently have two 660s, which gives approximately the same performance as one 680 or 770, and I'm finding these aren't keeping up very well since getting a 1440p monitor. If there was a 20nm Geforce 980 Ti 6GB released by the time the Oculus Rift CV1 is then I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in looking to upgrade to that.

It comes down to your circumstances of course but by the looks of it, these will be a suitable upgrade for a Geforce 500 series owner at 1080p, or a single 600 series owner at 1440p.

ForgedReality wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:28:

Jamil20 wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:24:
So hard to decide if I should upgrade from a 770 to a 970. The performance increase is okay, but the TDP sweetens the deal. 230W->145W

If I were you, I'd wait until probably next year for the 20nm refresh. Hell, I've waited all this time with a 580, and it's definitely time, but a 770? You'll hardly notice.

I have an EVGA 670 FTW edition, and it's time for me to get a 970. My general rule of thumb is every 2 iterations of the product and it should cost in the $300 range. I'll probably get the EVGA 970 FTW edition at the very most ($369), or the GTX 970 SC. I'll pass the 670 FTW down to my son, as it's going strong as well as a contender for decent graphics.

Anyway, I was reading a review this morning (will link it if I find it again) and it showed that the 670 was 46% of the speed of the 970.

siapnar wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 16:17:

Verno wrote on Sep 19, 2014, 15:29:
I'd wait for the 20nm refresh but to each his own

When are these prospected to come out?

No one knows. There are two substantial rumors floating around:

- AMD/nVidia might be skipping 20nm since TSMC has had so many issues with it
- Apple has booked so much 20nm capacity for their A8 (iPhone 6) chips that AMD and nVidia are going to have difficulties to allot their own 20nm capacities, especially at a reasonable price because Apple and Qualcomm (and others) are much larger 20nm customers than AMD and nVidia.

Both rumors indicate that 20nm might still be far, far away or maybe not coming at all.
Also, nVidia wouldn't launch GTX 970/980 now only to replace it in a few months.
I would bet that GTX 9xx is here to stay at least until around May (Computex) next year. Maybe we'll see the usual GTX 980Ti as a new flagship until then (GTX 980 is a great OCer so it's very likely) and of course the GTX 960s, 950s, 940s and all that mid/entry level stuff.
If 20nm will be coming at all in between now and mid next year then maybe a single high end GPU that is going to be priced beyond sanity due to the low 20nm yields (think 20nm Titan).

I'm not sure nvidia has even talked about shrinking the process...

Of course they have (note the year is 2012!). It's more than overdue and was actually expected for last year already. The problem is TSMC. They have been having massive difficulties with the 20nm node (especially keeping the costs in check) and/or were intentionally denying large orders from AMD and nVidia because they knew that they would need massive capacities for AMD, Qualcomm et al.

This comment was edited on Sep 19, 2014, 16:46.