I am torn between getting a gtx 780 or gtx 960. The gtx 780 is at 130 shipped and the gtx 960 is 50 or 60 shipped. Idk what to get.
Probably neither. They're both oldish cards I say while using an R9 380, but if you have to pick from either of those two then the 960 is probably your best bet. Or if you've got the PSU to support it, an RX 480 wouldn't be a bad idea.
The 780's only one series older than the 960, and is a higher end card of it's series, so I'd go with that. However, Nvidia's site does recommend that the 780 be paired with a 600W PSU at the minimum, but if you calculate how much power your PC actually uses, you should be fine.
BTW, I ended up getting the GTX780 OC for 150 shipped, like new. I will get to open the box on Christmas so I have 7or 8 days.
Just want to let you guys know that this GTX 780 is great!!! I can play 80% of my games at max with minimum FPS of 35(playing at 720 bc of my monitor)!!
What about a 970? GTX 780 has bad performance now, it isn't great anymore. Wouldn't be surprised if RX480 can beat it. 970 should be a happy medium. But AMD GCN cards are good, they have had a driver update (search:AMD ADRENALIN) and have stuff like Radeon Chill and Freesync (good if you plan on getting a new monitor). Those are HD7000 upwards.
Even thought they already got the card, I thought I just add that the 780 and 970 are only one series apart, and are actually pretty close together in performance. Whereas the 1050 is a fair bit slower than both of them. Even the 1050ti only really matches with a 960. Edit: fixed a few mistakes. Phone keyboards are terrible...
Maxwell is a good architecture, Pascal is high clocked better fab Maxwell (Maxwell on speed). 970 is a nice medium for performance/efficiency. It's a good 1080p card too
I personally would pick either at this point - steering to the 960. The 780 will hold up better in denser scenes with a better frame rate. The 960 will have driver support longer and consumes less power (makes less heat). You have to choose here, I wouldn't pay an arm and a leg for the 780 over the 960 though. The 960 will get you by and run Beamng.drive on medium at 720 & 1080p reasonably, not perfect, you likely won't be able to have reflections, and might have to turn off SSAO, and run on medium detail, but it will work fine for now. New GPU prices are *NOT* expected to drop anytime soon, however.
You've got it already? They were mid-range cards two years ago or so on release, don't expect huuuuge performance leaps, but you'll have driver support longer. 130 for a 780 was way out of line. If it was like 25~40% more than the 960 I could understand, but that dog has seen it's day & isn't worth twice the 960 and then some, unless you need a space-heater.
lol, i am running my pc in a basement in a house in the Midwest so my basement does get pretty cold. i haven't yet had any cooling problems yet and i really push this card. it was overclocked but i put it back to stock after having games crashing
Stay within the power requirements of the card. If it does not have an external PCI-E power plug, that limit is 75watt as per the motherboard supply of PCI-E power. If it has a PCI-E plug, you'll have to look up the specs, I believe it's like 60~75W of power there on the 6-pin, the 8 pins is 125 watt possibly, please look these specs up as I'm a bit foggy on it at the moment. Most GPU-Z type programs will tell you the wattage the chip is running at, you don't want to exceed the maximum ability of the card to cool itself or the ability of the PC to provide it stable reliable power (or go past what the chip will allow). As long as you keep the temps under low 80s you should be OK to get some extra speed out of it. Running them up to 90~92C regularly murders them cards in due time. Keep saving your monies away for a better card, someone will want to upgrade from a 1050Ti one day, or from a 1070, and you can snag it.
I say you save up your money and get a card that is a bit newer. If you cannot afford a 1080 or 1080TI, I would at least go with a 1050 or 1070. If you get an older card, in about a year or two your gonna want to buy a brand new one.
they are both old i got a gtx 1060 6g and its great i used to have and old (very used) r9 270 the fans on it burnt out 2 week after i got it but still worked enough 90c