About to sell my GTX 960 4gb, what card should I go for?

0nard00 · Aug 31, 2015

I've had some interest in my EVGA GTX 960 4GB card on Amazon for a week now. My concern now, is what should I go for since AMD's had their cards out for a while now.

I'd like to chase after EVGA or an MSI or ASUS card, but EVGA, top of the list. This will be my final upgrade. Can anyone suggest a good card that I can use for 2/3D design, and graphic design (C4D/Maya/Adobe). I'm a Motion graphics artist, and Visual Artist, who does some good AAA gaming at times. I'd like for the card to handle whatever I throw at it.

Here's my system.

Thanks.

Robert Cook · Aug 31, 2015

well adobe photoshop uses cuda, so an AMD card will not be of huge use. I guess you could upgrade to a 980ti, which is quite the cuda power house, and is a great all around card. the FTW ACX2.0+ card seems to be a good one.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 31, 2015

You have to many needs for a single card.

Adobe wants CUDA so that points to nVidia and GTX will do just fine. Great gaming cards = excellent CAD cards .... GTX cards excel in AutoCAD 2D/3D and Adobe, better than Quadro cards in fact. But Maya sure does like Quadro

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-4.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-6.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-8.html

Many folks in your situation opt for a Titan to get a "compromise: between the two competing situations.

The EVGA SC series is simply a reference PCB and VRM witha nice cooler. Look at the bottom third of pages 2 thru 4 in this roundup to see why the MSI card consistently outperforms the EVGA SC and Asus Strix.... Gigabyte isn't in the article but they went even further than MSI with beefing up the PCB and power deliver system. This isn't as big of a deal as it was in the past....with the 5xx series for example, the 570 in particular used to burn up VRMs like crazy. Now nVidia limits voltage both physically and legally so it's almost impossible to do damage to the 900 series even if you try unless you mod the card and / or edit BIOS.

Back in the 500/600 series, Asus ruled the roost but now asus had faded back and this position is held by MSI / Gigbayte with the exception being special cards like the Classified and Lightning

A 980 Ti would work for most of your needs ... but not well with Maya.... And while the old Titan "wasn't bad", I have no info on how good the current one is.

jaes123456 · Aug 31, 2015

Well in my opinion the perfect card for you would be NVIDIA's Titan X or GTX 980Ti both these cards deliver insane power and can handle 4k resolutions no problem. The Titan X doesn't have much of a performance difference to the GTX 980Ti but it does have 6GB more of VRAM. The Titan X comes in at around £1000 while the 980Ti comes in at around £600. Personally I would go with the 980Ti because its a nice price and nearly as powerful as the Titan X.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 31, 2015

This isn't a gaming rig, the 980Ti will not deliver in Maya which is optimized for Quadro cards

An old Quadro 2000 at 1/3rd the price was almost 4 times faster than the ole $1k Titan

Robert Cook · Aug 31, 2015

I feel a quadro that would succeed in all other areas would be really overpriced, so a 980ti is still the best bet.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 31, 2015

A Quadro won't succeed well at all in areas such as gaming and GTX outperforms Quadro in AutoCAD. There is no single card solution to his dilemma.

The Quadro 2000 would be about $350 but no matter how expensive they get, the Quadro drivers are not optimized for gaming but for rendering. last tread I was involved in the guy was thinking 5960k w/ two Titans, he wound up building two boxes, which was cheaper. One had twin 970s for gaming, the other a low level Quadro for rendering.

Robert Cook · Aug 31, 2015

^ could one get a cheap quadro and a 980ti and run them both?

JackNaylorPE · Aug 31, 2015

That used to be "a thing" but I have not seen in done in years. In my office, we run GTX cause all we use is AutoCAD ... kids love it cause when stuff gets old for the office, I take it home

People do it... other try it and get frustrated to no end. You would think it would be easy... after all I can assign any program on my laptop to use either the CPUs integrated GFX or the discrete card ... it should be this easy for the Quadro / GTX dilemma. It's not

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1893962/quadro-k4000-geforce-gtx-780-pair.html

Robert Cook · Aug 31, 2015

hmmm, well I am out for the night, so I will not be responding until morning.

0nard00 · Aug 31, 2015

I'm strongly considering a GTX 980Ti right now, Quadro's are a bit out of my budget for now. Unless I can just keep my GTX 960 and grab a less than $500 Quadro card? I can't really spend too much right now, as I'm saving up for a performance sub $1500 laptop for remote use. But I like the idea of going for a GTX 980Ti.

Isn't 2016 Maya being optimized for the new cards out right now?

0nard00 · Aug 31, 2015

My number one concern right now is a bottleneck, if I do go for a 980Ti. Might clock higher.

Will I be wasting my money upgrading to a 970?

Robert Cook · Aug 31, 2015

no bottlenecks there, and yes a 970 is not really worthwhile.
and now I am officially out for the night.

0nard00 · Aug 31, 2015

Robert Cook :

Okay, cool! Thanks.

I'll be waiting for a price drop.

0nard00 · Sep 1, 2015

I was just looking around, and remembered the FuryX... I know that drivers are still in need of some catching up. But, the performance is quite up there already, and when DX12 gets more implementation It'd be ncie to benefit from it with a high-end card. Is it worth going after one, since it's somewhat cheaper, and almost on par with the 980ti?

Just a thought. It's still very hard to get, so, I'm willing to wait till I can compare both 980Ti and the FuryX.

Robert Cook · Sep 1, 2015

^ the Fury X is a great card, but for Photoshop, an nvidia card will do much better. although based on that chart, the Fury might do better than say a 980ti on maya. and it should be around even on CAD.

JackNaylorPE · Sep 1, 2015

The 970 is a superb card ... the 960 not so much. In gaming, in TPUs 19 game test suite, a single 970 outperforms two 960s.

No AMD card supports CUDA and with Adobe suite in the mix, that will be essential.

GTX cards rule in AutoCAD 2D / 3D
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-6.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-4.html

The Fury X is somewhat close to the 980 Ti "outta the box". But, using Afterburner, you can realize a 30+% improvement with the 980 Ti, compared with a mere 5% on the Fury X.... keep in mind that the Fury X exists only as a reference card whereas every manufacturers has a "new and improved" non reference card. No, it's not close.... 980 Ti is 25% faster

Overclocked Fury X gets to 108.1 in BF3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X/34.html
Overclocked 980 Ti gets to 134.8 fps
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_980_Ti_G1_Gaming/33.html

0nard00 · Sep 1, 2015

So should I wait and step back a bit if I see a good Labor day deal on the 980Ti or just go after it if I do see a really good one? Really doubt I'll see any good sales on a 980Ti over the holiday's. Didn't really see any last year for the last gen.

September usually is the best time of the year to buy computer components.

0nard00 · Sep 1, 2015

I did check on Pcpart how my system would hold up. At 650W, I'm a bit concerned with a PSU bottleneck, even though I just got the one I have.

Robert Cook · Sep 1, 2015

nvidia says that minimum requirements for that card is 600 watts.

0nard00 · Sep 1, 2015

Robert Cook :

Right now, I'm at 503W usage. I'm OC'd at 4.5 currently, looking to go higher.

Robert Cook · Sep 1, 2015

oh, if you are OCed then 650 will be sort of tight. perhaps you could sell the 650 watt power supply?

0nard00 · Sep 1, 2015

Robert Cook :

Not sure about Amazon's return policy, but I've only had it for less than a day. Should be able to return it and exchange it for a 750W

Robert Cook · Sep 1, 2015

^ do so.

0nard00 · Sep 1, 2015

Which 980Ti should I be keeping my eyes on? Probably just buy it locally, from Fry's.

About to sell my GTX 960 4gb, what card should I go for?

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