Replacing gtx 660

[Deleted]

Wanting to upgrade my long suffering gtx 660 which is starting to struggle in hearthstone and whatnot.

i play 1080p, would it be worth picking up gtx 960 for ~£100

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-NVIDI...0AAOSwXj5XGSRw

wanting to play some of the newer games such as fallout 4 / alien isolation / the new tomb raider / withcer 3 on high / ultra settings.

Wanting the card to last for at least 3 years.

Dont particularly see the need to upgrade to the pascals as they seem a bit overkill for 1080p.

For reference i have:
i5-4690k
HyperX FURY 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3 1866 MHz CL10 DIMM Memory Module Kit - Black
ASUS Z97M-PLUS
XFX 650W XXX Edition 80+ Bronze Semi-Modular Power Supply

[Mythbredor]

Quite frankly if you aren't upgrading to a 1080 or a 1070 the upgrade isn't worth it save untill you can. The boost in performance per $ is MUCH higher than a 960.

Plus a 960 woun't last you 3 years IMO the graphical requirements for games will go up as the graphical power is there. IE 380$ 1070 that beats a titan X

[Deleted]

thing is 1070 will cost ~£300 im a guessing. which would be 3 times the price. will i see that much improvement at 1080p that would justify the price. i can easily afford it, but seems like a waste of money to me.

[Mythbredor]

thing is 1070 will cost ~£300 im a guessing. which would be 3 times the price. will i see that much improvement at 1080p that would justify the price. i can easily afford it, but seems like a waste of money to me.

Waste of money now? Yes. Waste of money in 3 years when you don't need to buy a 1080 or 1070 to keep the fps you want probably not. Plus 1070/1080 will let you run VR in the future. 2k, 4k, 144hz. Being that monitor prices will drop as more come out.

But in the end it's up to you. If you can afford a 1070/1080 I highly reccomend it because of "future proofing" and plus it's just better value.

My 970 preforms just fine 1080p currently on near max settings but agian it's ENTIRELY up to you.

[Deleted]

Wanting to upgrade my long suffering gtx 660 which is starting to struggle in hearthstone and whatnot.

i play 1080p, would it be worth picking up gtx 960 for ~£100

No, probably not worth it IMO. My personal rule of thumb is that you need at least an 50-100% improvement in raw GPU power to make an upgrade worth it, and even then it is a bit iffy near the bottom end of the scale. A GTX 960 is just barely faster than a (non-Ti) 660, so you would hardly be able to feel it. The one exception might be, if your system currently is juuust barely not able to do, say, a solid 60 fps in your favorite game. Then a small improvement may push your system over the edge of providing a smooth experience again.

In your case the first sensible upgrade would be a GTX 970, in which case you might as well wait for the 1070.

However...

Unless something changed dramatically since I tried it, then Heartstone doesn't exactly stress test GPU hardware. You can easily run it on integrated CPU graphics and the likes. Are you absolutely certain your problem isn't caused by something else, like dust clogging up the CPU and/or GPU coolers?

[Mythbredor]

No, probably not worth it IMO. My personal rule of thumb is that you need at least an 50-100% improvement in raw GPU power to make an upgrade worth it, and even then it is a bit iffy near the bottom end of the scale. A GTX 960 is just barely faster than a (non-Ti) 660, so you would hardly be able to feel it. The one exception might be, if your system currently is juuust barely not able to do, say, a solid 60 fps in your favorite game. Then a small improvement may push your system over the edge of providing a smooth experience again.

In your case the first sensible upgrade would be a GTX 970, in which case you might as well wait for the 1070.

However...

Unless something changed dramatically since I tried it, then Heartstone doesn't exactly stress test GPU hardware. You can easily run it on integrated CPU graphics and the likes. Are you absolutely certain your problem isn't caused by something else, like dust clogging up the CPU and/or GPU coolers?

970 is almost the same cost as a 1070 lol. 970 between 300-340$ 1070 380$

At second glance you are using a 4690k that should be more than enough to run Hstone and your card should be fine in hstone. Didn't really think about that was more thinking in pure gpu upgrade. my bad way too early in the morning

And Witcher 3 is a PAIN to run at high/ultra because of hairworks hitting the GPU really hard. I can't maintain 60fps on max setting with everything wide open.

You are having an ENTIRELY difrent issue if you are lagging in hearthstone with your setup.

[Deleted]

yeah the hearthstone comment was a pithy throwaway remark. ignore that.

guess i'll hold out to see what polaris brings

[Ulsaki]

Wait for the new cards to come out which will drop the older cards' prices, then look at picking up a 970 or something. A 970 would roughly double your horsepower over the 660 and is about 50% faster than a 960 (itself about 50% faster than a 660). It's a very solid card unless you plan to start gaming at higher resolutions than 1080p.

It's unlikely to be worthwhile picking up something like a 1070 unless you really want to future proof for a few years. Though until the cards are out and benchmarked, hard to say exactly.

[Mythbredor]

Wait for the new cards to come out which will drop the older cards' prices, then look at picking up a 970 or something. A 970 would roughly double your horsepower over the 660 and is about 50% faster than a 960 (itself about 50% faster than a 660). It's a very solid card unless you plan to start gaming at higher resolutions than 1080p.

It's unlikely to be worthwhile picking up something like a 1070 unless you really want to future proof for a few years. Though until the cards are out and benchmarked, hard to say exactly.

Yo dude don't provide false information 970s are 300$-340$ the 1070 is 380$.... 40$ more to get uh more than double the GPU power more vram which matters in running games at ultra settings nowadays. being that 970 has 3.5gb of full speed vram

[Ulsaki]

Yo dude don't provide false information 970s are 300$-340$ the 1070 is 380$.... 40$ more to get uh more than double the GPU power more vram which matters in running games at ultra settings nowadays. being that 970 has 3.5gb of full speed vram

It's almost like you decided to ignore what I said in order to jump down someone's throat.

WAIT UNTIL THE NEW CARDS ARE OUT AND CAUSE THE OLD ONES TO DROP IN PRICE. Reading is hard isn't it?

You also have no idea how good the new cards will be. There's no benchmarks. Stop talking BS.

VRAM is mostly a function of resolution. You don't need 50GB of VRAM for 1080p, but it's easier to pretend to be an expert, no?

[Lathais]

It's almost like you decided to ignore what I said in order to jump down someone's throat.

WAIT UNTIL THE NEW CARDS ARE OUT AND CAUSE THE OLD ONES TO DROP IN PRICE. Reading is hard isn't it?

You also have no idea how good the new cards will be. There's no benchmarks. Stop talking BS.

VRAM is mostly a function of resolution. You don't need 50GB of VRAM for 1080p, but it's easier to pretend to be an expert, no?

When in the history of video cards has the next generation cause the last generation to drop in price? Seriously. It doesn't work like that. The tech that is out now came out and full price and dropped in price over it's lifetime and now it will remain at it's current pricing until there are no more left. It's stupid and it shouldn't work like that, but it does. That's why you still see 760s for more than $200 when you can get a 960 that will outperform it for under $200. Makes about zero sense, but that's the way of things.

[Mythbredor]

It's almost like you decided to ignore what I said in order to jump down someone's throat.

WAIT UNTIL THE NEW CARDS ARE OUT AND CAUSE THE OLD ONES TO DROP IN PRICE. Reading is hard isn't it?

You also have no idea how good the new cards will be. There's no benchmarks. Stop talking BS.

VRAM is mostly a function of resolution. You don't need 50GB of VRAM for 1080p, but it's easier to pretend to be an expert, no?

lol. 1# I read EXACTLY what you said. Yes the cards may drop in price but not by enough to justify not buying a 1070 over a 970 being that he said he had the money.

2# I answered this in one.

3# I do know how good they will be read Nvidias announcement 1070 will be better than the titan x.

4# In Witcher 3 at near "NEAR" max settings i'm hitting almost 4 gigs of vram and the 970 has 500mb of slower vram. And yes vram does matter and no card has 50GB. PLUS as games become more graphics intensive as the power to run said games becomes more affordable vram will become much more important and for VR in the future. And no I'm not an expert I do not work for nvidia or amd or am I a graphics card specialist i'm a well informed consumer that keeps up with the latest enthusiast hardware, but then again you never stated what i'm supposedly claiming to be an expert in.

So yes even considering your counter jump down throat arguement. 1070 > 970 unless a 970 drops to 120$ and you're on a strict budget. but the OP already said he can afford a 1070 its better to buy a 1070 when launches now than to be behind in a year and not be able to run the future games on high/ultra settings like he intends. Being that I can't run Witcher 3 at fully maxed out settings on a 970 at 60 fps.

Lathias is also 100% correct.

But compared to you I am an expert apparently <3

[Lathais]

3# I do know how good they will be read Nvidias announcement 1070 will be better than the titan x.

No, you do not know how good they will be. You know how good nVidia is telling us they will be, but they have been known to lie about this stuff in the past.

[Mythbredor]

No, you do not know how good they will be. You know how good nVidia is telling us they will be, but they have been known to lie about this stuff in the past.

They never lie by that much and plus they REALLY don't want to lose face on this being that they forced AMD to accelerate their gpu launch schedule. It's safe to say it will be better atleast by a small margin than the titan X. And I mean 1000$ gpu vs 380$ gpu. EVEN if its only SLIGHTLY better than a titan X... it's still worth it over a 970.

[Lathais]

4# In Witcher 3 at near "NEAR" max settings i'm hitting almost 4 gigs of vram and the 970 has 500mb of slower vram. And yes vram does matter and no card has 50GB. PLUS as games become more graphics intensive as the power to run said games becomes more affordable vram will become much more important and for VR in the future. And no I'm not an expert I do not work for nvidia or amd or am I a graphics card specialist i'm a well informed consumer that keeps up with the latest enthusiast hardware, but then again you never stated what i'm supposedly claiming to be an expert in.

many many games will use RAM just because it is there, even if they don't need it. They load things there and just do not dump them unles they need space for something else, just in case it needs that data again. If it does, it's there and does not have to ask for it, if not, it just sits there until it needs room for something more important. So just because you are using 4GB of RAM, does not mean all of it is needed.

- - - Updated - - -

They never lie by that much and plus they REALLY don't want to lose face on this being that they forced AMD to accelerate their gpu launch schedule. It's safe to say it will be better atleast by a small margin than the titan X. And I mean 1000$ gpu vs 380$ gpu. EVEN if its only SLIGHTLY better than a titan X... it's still worth it over a 970.

They have lied far worse than that. Showing off and saying they have tech that they did not even have.

[Ulsaki]

When in the history of video cards has the next generation cause the last generation to drop in price?

All the time, because people sell the old parts to buy the new one. Retailers drop the price to clear out old stock. GPUs are not magically exempt from market forces.

Retailers can set stupid prices if they want, the market won't settle for it.

[Lathais]

They never lie by that much and plus they REALLY don't want to lose face on this being that they forced AMD to accelerate their gpu launch schedule. It's safe to say it will be better atleast by a small margin than the titan X. And I mean 1000$ gpu vs 380$ gpu. EVEN if its only SLIGHTLY better than a titan X... it's still worth it over a 970.

Wait what? If anything it was AMD that forced nVidia to launch earlier than they planned.

[Lathais]

All the time, because people sell the old parts to buy the new one. Retailers drop the price to clear out old stock. GPUs are not magically exempt from market forces.

Retailers can set stupid prices if they want, the market won't settle for it.

Go look at retail pricing of older video cards before opening your mouth next time. Trust me, unless you go used, it just does not work this way. Just had this SAME EXACT conversation in another thread and the guy was trying to prove me wrong with the ONE 760 he found "new" for sale on ebay for $75. Turns out, it was a fake and not even a real 760. 760 retail price on Amazon is still $240 yet 960s can be had for under $200. It's a strange situation, but that's just how tech works for some reason.

CPUs are really the same way. 4960ks did not drop in price when the 6500ks came out at all.

[Viikkis]

I wouldn't recommend the 960. A gaming card should have more than 128-bit memory. 970 seems pretty solid if you don't need the latest and greatest like 1080

[Mythbredor]

many many games will use RAM just because it is there, even if they don't need it. They load things there and just do not dump them unles they need space for something else, just in case it needs that data again. If it does, it's there and does not have to ask for it, if not, it just sits there until it needs room for something more important. So just because you are using 4GB of RAM, does not mean all of it is needed.

Games woun't just "use" vram... And plus Witcher 3 at max settings is very vram intensive because of nvidia hairworks. And plus... EVEN if you're right 3.5gb of vram woun't be enough to run future titles being that the graphical computing power is going to be there for much more detailed games come the 1070/1080 launch. And can you REALLY justify buying a 340$ 970 over a 380$ 1070 if you can I feel very sorry for you that's a huge waste of money. The argument here isn't is more than 4gb of vram useful. It's "Should I upgrade my 660 now?" And i've made my opinion more than clear that it's not worth buying a 960 or a 970 over a 1070.

Viikkis would be correct if you don't need a 1080.... but i'm more pushing waiting for the 1070 being that it's 40$ more than a 970.

Vegas82 is correct nvidia has planned for awhile to launch in Q2 of 2016. AMD was planning to launch Q1 of 2017 I believe untill very recently they announced Q3 or Q4 of 2016 I can't remember off the top of my head been a busy week.

Lathias I honestly would never buy an older gpu used unless I was very in need of a card now. And I kinda highly doubt they will drop prices at all being that most uninformed people will upgrade now to a 960 or a 970 without even considering a 1070 being that the mainstream media has been covering the 1080 much more.