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Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, this card is the equivalent of a nice $480 in my country, and I can't import this without paying a ridiculous amount of import toll/taxes. bleh
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Gigabyte GTX 970 3.5GB $295 AR + Witcher 3 Code (Amazon)
- Thread starter Hazaro
- Start date
GearDraxon
Member
I went from a 2GB 770 to a 970, and the difference was pretty noticeable. You can check the GTA V performance thread for how well the 970 does with it (very well), but it'll also depend on your CPU.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1037?vs=1355
~25-35% framerate improvements in those games. It's got a fair bit of extra grunt over the 770 and far more memory. We can't give you total confirmation, but Witcher 3 will run "well" on the 970.
970 crushes GTAV from what I can tell.
No idea about ARMA 3 but it's probably fine.
When fabricating the dies used in chips, it's possible for manufacturing defects to show up randomly. If there were no design considerations to account for this, you'd have to throw out the entire die when this occurred. With large dies, where a single tiny defect can force you to throw out the entirety of said die, the costs can be nasty.
So, they design the processors so that parts of the die can be disabled, but the rest of the die will still work albeit with reduced capability. During manufacturing, perfect dies might go into a high-quality GPU, and dies with defects will have the defective regions shut off (usually plus other regions so that all dies in a given bin are equivalent in function), and these dies might be built into a somewhat less-capable GPU.
The GM204 chip used in the 970 and 980 uses this sort of binning. GM204-400 and GM204-200 are built from the same design, with the former used in the GTX980 and the latter used in the GTX970.
In the case of the 970, one of the disabled regions is part of the hardware used to access the GDDR5 memory pool; in particular, the hardware used to access 512MB of the card's 4GB pool. NVidia designed the die so that said 512MB region could still be accessed, but it's fairly low-quality access.
The impact is that, if you go over 3.5GB, you won't get quite as good performance as if all 4GB had full-speed access.
Regret Truth
Member
Thanks for the feedback. Curious if any deals on the 980 will happen..
Depends on what one's preferences are. For me, I found it necessary already. I'm really glad I upgraded, although I did get my 970 back in September last year, when it first came out. There's already several games I played that I wouldn't have been able to play at 1080p/60fps/high settings with my GTX670. Far Cry 4, The Evil Within and Ryse. With 60fps being a priority for me, the 970 has been the perfect upgrade. The Witcher 3 coming next month, along with Project Cars - I'm thinking the 970 will continue to prove 'necessary' for the level of quality and performance I find necessary. Hell, even GTA V - the aliasing is so bad in the game and the 970 gives me the power to make it look nicer than it does on consoles. And of course the downsampling power with many other games, especially older games, is also a great bonus, but not exactly 'necessary'.
Of course the problem now is that we are very close to AMD's new offerings, and then probably not miles away from Nvidia's next lineup. But I personally think that the 970, like the 670 before it, will remain a good buy for some time. It was priced from the get-go to be competitive for a while. If you're really itching for an upgrade and don't necessarily need the horsepower of a TitanX or anything, I don't think you'd regret it.
copelandmaster
Member
Yeah, that winforce is a no-go for my case. 12.2 inches is insane.
However, this GTX 970 Mini looks interesting. It uses less power than a regular 970,overclocks just as well, and only runs a little behind in a few games. It runs hotter than standard 970's (51-61 C), but not nearly as hot as my Titan Black (76 - 83 depending on whether I'm gaming or rendering). Also has the witcher 3 deal, but only a $10 rebate. This would be a really good setup in sli with my 650w psu.
However, this GTX 970 Mini looks interesting. It uses less power than a regular 970,overclocks just as well, and only runs a little behind in a few games. It runs hotter than standard 970's (51-61 C), but not nearly as hot as my Titan Black (76 - 83 depending on whether I'm gaming or rendering). Also has the witcher 3 deal, but only a $10 rebate. This would be a really good setup in sli with my 650w psu.
TheSaddestSort
Member
Yeah, I hear you. The Witcher 3 will probably run roughshod over my current GPU and I'm sure I would notice the difference a 970 would bring, but I just don't have that all-encompassing itch to upgrade at the moment. I'll probably wait another cycle or two and then pull the trigger.
Krappadizzle
Member
It's not as big of a jump for $300 as you'd get with whatever x70 upgrade you'll get for the same price the day the next flagship Nvidia gpus come out. Doesn't detract it from being a good upgrade, just not AS great as it could be for the money. If this was out 1.5 years ago though it would have had much more value.
Collateral22
Member
Seems a good deal. Is there a big difference in performance between the 970 and 980 considering the price difference?
dgrdsv
Member
It is a huge upgrade from 660. Up to +100% in performance.
The EVGA 970s are the only ones that will comfortably fit in my current case without removing drive bays
Hey, as long as you're mostly ok with what you're getting now, then absolutely hold off. The round of cards after this next one should be pretty big, once we get 16nm plus 8GB+ stacked memory cards. These companies are getting nice gains out of 28nm and all, but it's still holding things back.
Pricing in Germany/Europe is just so greedy and pathetic.
When the Euro was high as hell, we paid a lot more than the US, because of the value of the Euro, but now it has dropped significantly and the prices have risen so damn high, At amazon we would pay 398€ for that card. That is just not fair.
When the Euro was high as hell, we paid a lot more than the US, because of the value of the Euro, but now it has dropped significantly and the prices have risen so damn high, At amazon we would pay 398€ for that card. That is just not fair.
Memorabilia
Member
Lol Free backplate.
Backplates are such a gimmick. They actually have been proven to make thermals worse by trapping hot air near the back side of the PCB. They do improve structural rigidity but basically make the cooling for cards worse.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Good deal. I got 2 G1 970's via a Gaffer a few months back for 600 and it came with the Ubi code
I thought it was 20nm that was the big leap.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
I still have a Core 2 Duo too, this card would be hilariously bottlenecked, right? I don't know if I should blow my Amazon credit on this to play games released in the last couple of years until I fully upgrade (I currently have a 4890, haha). Or will something like X-Com, say, still struggle because of the CPU?
20nm is going to be skipped over, at least for gaming/enthusiast cards. Apparently the process was proving to have both poor yields and poor thermal properties, making it useful only for smaller, less intensive applications. 16nm *should*, hopefully, be a sort of modification of the 20nm process that helps address these issues.
cripterion
Member
For 2 cards yes. Computer parts are expensive up here. I think the 4970k was over 350 euros too when I got it. Then nearly 200 euros for the board, 150 for the power supply. It sure is a pricy hobby, I'm jealous of these US prices.
UnrealEck
Member
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Ugh would love to buy it for that price, would lower a lot the price of my new PC.
Fuck electronics not able to be sent outside their country.
Europe has shit prices for this shit.
EDIT
YOU CAN!
Too bad that after shipment and taxes it cost you the same as buying it here, 400 euros. Fuck this shit. I remember when buying form american amazon was awesome.
Same here.
Fuck electronics not able to be sent outside their country.
Europe has shit prices for this shit.
EDIT
YOU CAN!
Too bad that after shipment and taxes it cost you the same as buying it here, 400 euros. Fuck this shit. I remember when buying form american amazon was awesome.
Same here.
Lockjaw333
Member
For what its worth to add to this, I've pushed my 970 past the 3.5GB vram mark and noticed no performance difference. I'm sure it depends on the game, but in Mordor and BF4 there was no discernible impact when using the last 0.5 gb chunk of "slow" vram.
If you are gaming at 1080p, the 970 is a beast.
Spring-Loaded
Member
What about the import taxes
Used 970s go around for ~300€, usually with the bill and thus warranty along with it.
Also means no extra money to Nvidia to reward the 4GB lies.
Well, maybe not 100% guaranteed yet, I'm just assuming, but I think it's likely. The game has some Nvidia-exclusive features, and I bought the last couple Batman games from people selling Nvidia bundle vouchers. I don't remember how far in advance they were.
edit: I just checked and I got the Nvidia promo codes for City and Origins about a month before those games came out. Maybe there will be something after Witcher 3 releases.
Dr Mayonnaise
Member
Hmmm maybe it's time to pick up a second 970.
lol. is ubisoft fucking serious? they locked out dual cores from launch far cry 3?
michaelius
Banned
Anything from reputable brand above 400Watts ?
Alcoholikaust
Member
Fantastic deal- but Im waiting on any sort of price drop on a 4Gb 980
edit:this thread has reinvigorated my need to upgrade my PC:thanks
edit:this thread has reinvigorated my need to upgrade my PC:thanks
I wonder if this deal will still be good in a week or two.
Both of my Radeon 5870s more or less died a few weeks ago (I've got one working, but I can't play anything on it. Soon as the clock speeds ramp up Windows crashes, so I've got it locked to 2D/Idle speeds so I can at least use the computer.)
Sold some comics on eBay to fund a 970, but I won't have the funds available until next week or so (3 days after delivery usually).
Both of my Radeon 5870s more or less died a few weeks ago (I've got one working, but I can't play anything on it. Soon as the clock speeds ramp up Windows crashes, so I've got it locked to 2D/Idle speeds so I can at least use the computer.)
Sold some comics on eBay to fund a 970, but I won't have the funds available until next week or so (3 days after delivery usually).
You can order it from Amazon.com from UK, with import fees it comes up to round ÂŁ275.
hammertomb
Banned
Should I upgrade from a 670, or should I just wait for the next line of cards?
IAmRandom31
Banned
As long as it is an efficient PSU, and depending on your other components, a 500w should be fine.
I have an EVGA 430w 80 plus PSU right now and am wondering if I should upgrade. Not running any extra components out of the ordinary.
SneakyStephan
Banned
Lol that one is over 400 euros here in EU land
I wonder if something happened to cause hardware prices to go up in my country, I noticed last week that i5s are also 275 euros now (up from 220 last year)
I wonder if something happened to cause hardware prices to go up in my country, I noticed last week that i5s are also 275 euros now (up from 220 last year)
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Well there is the minor issue of the Eurodollar crashing.
Practically at parity with US dollars now. After importation and taxes it's not pretty.