Worth upgrading at 1080p?

Hey all,

Been a long time since I posted! I recently helped a family build their gaming pc and it gave me that all to familiar itch to upgrade. The thing is... I'm not in the market at all for a new monitor, I'm staying 1080p.

Is there any good card worth upgrading to at 1080p? I wanted to get a 970 but a lot of people seem to be recommending that I not bother since I'm not going up in resolution. Any input? I'm trying to be budget conscious here but it doesn't seem like a whole lot is worth my money right now in the 1080p game.

What does everyone think?

970 is great for 1080p. Vram is going to b your issue when using a card with only 2gb. the 3.5 (of fast) the 970 has should keep you going for a while.

I'm definitely not against the 970, I'm just being told it's not the best purchase since I'm staying at 1080p at the moment

I think the 970 or the 290/290x are the best cards for that res at this time (290/290x because of pricing mostly). 2GB now, when you can afford more, isn't the way to go, even for 1080p.

Go for the 290!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2158&cm_re=290_vapor_x-_-14-202-158-_-Product

The 970 is also good.

I love my 970 at 1080, but I can see it struggles a little at 1440.
the 970 is cool and even better it's very quiet, can't say that about a 290.
uses less wattage than a 290. newer chip than a 290.
drivers being updated for the 970 also.

I run 1920x1200 and a 290 was a huge upgrade over my old 6970. I'd say go for either one of those or a 970. Just because you won't be raising the resolution doesn't mean you won't be able to push more pixels - a stronger card will let you raise settings higher in games like the Witcher 3 for example, and eventually when DX12 games come out you'll probably want a card supporting it.

Well I think my mind is pretty much made up everyone! Thank you all for the input

Maybe try to get rid of my 670 over the next couple months, try to squeeze $100 out of it while I still can

If you can handle onboard video for awhile I'd suggest trying to sell it soon before any value evaporates from it. Better to have it help out with financing the new card.

Out of the two I'd probably look at a 970 although 290's are going to be alot cheaper if you go with a used card like I did. Just avoid reference-cooler 290's if you do that as they're very, very loud and tend to throttle from heat. Most older benchmark comparisons (like Anandtech's GPU charts) were done with reference-model 290's so they're not all that reliable for OEM card models. If you go with a used 290 I'd look at Gigabyte, MSI, or ASUS models for the transferable warranty, although I heard recently that ASUS apparently requires proof of purchase so I'd focus on MSI or Gigabyte mainly. Performance differences between a 970 and 290 are realistically like 2%-5% depending on overclocking although a 970 will use alot less power and produce less heat.

I'm thinking the same thing, what concerns me is we have one floating for $115 on the classies now and no one is biting

It'd be easy enough to deal for now because I've been mostly on the PS4 anyway

They are right. The GTX970 is the only logical step up from your 670. Anything lower won't provide with any real world noticeable performance.

As I've mentioned in another thread, you can't beat the 290(x) value right now though deals are harder to come by. The 970 is also a good option. If it were me, however, I would just hold on to the 670 until next fall when the 14/16 nm cards come out. I think the 670 should still be a pretty good card for 1080p until that point. If it's not giving you the performance you want, though, 290(x)/970 is what I'd go for.

hmm i have 970 with 1440P and it works great

I have seen my 970 struggle in a few games I have downloaded and played at very high settings at 1440, it's only a few of the games I have tried and pretty much only at the highest settings. I have never seen the memory issue that has been tossed around and talked about so much on the net, at 1080 it plays all the games I have tried at the highest settings without flaw.