Upgrading from a GTX 960 to a new graphics card.

P3rfect_1 · Mar 16, 2017

Apologies if this isn't formatted or whatever correctly, first post.

I am currently thinking of buying a new Graphics card to upgrade my GTX 960.
I have a: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 (Maxwell)
and for a motherboard I have a: ASRock Z97 Pro4 ATX with an i5.

I was looking at getting a GTX 1060 with 6GB VRAM but in the long run is it a good investment or should I bite the bullet and save up a lot and get a 1070/80.

The prices are not "too" different between the three and I want something that will last for a decent amount of time and not become outdated quickly. Also what brand? I was thinking the founders addition because it looks cool and comes from nvidia but i might be able to save some money if i bought from newegg, etc.

Thanks for your help.

Justiceinacan · Mar 16, 2017

On a 60Hz monitor, it's not a great investment. a 144Hz monitor will greatly benefit from a 1060 though. Great card. Over 50% improvements

P3rfect_1 · Mar 16, 2017

Justiceinacan :

My fps is currently fine but im running "Low" in most games., RAM is high enough. Basically hoping to run games at high/ultra. 1080p is what I run at if that matters.

maxalge · Mar 16, 2017

P3rfect_1 :

a 1060 6gb or rx 480 are the sweet spot or 1080p gaming

cant go wrong with either

if you cant get playable fps with a gtx 960 high settings then there is something wrong with your setup

P3rfect_1 · Mar 16, 2017

maxalge :

P3rfect_1 :

a 1060 6gb or rx 480 are the sweet spot or 1080p gaming

cant go wrong with either

if you cant get playable fps with a gtx 960 high settings then there is something wrong with your setup

What could be wrong with my setup? I only have 2gigabites of vram and get around 50FPS on low in wildlands. Could it be my motherboard?

Justiceinacan · Mar 16, 2017

Motherboard usually doesn't impact performance unless something is really screwed up there.

I think he's suggesting that you tweak settings and see if it changes based on GPU or CPU ; if it gets significantly better FPS on tiny resolution, etc. then the GPU is at fault, if it stays the same it's the CPU. They're not bad components, just not up to the task of what you're trying to run.

I don't know how your game performs in question so I couldn't verify for you.

P3rfect_1 · Mar 16, 2017

Justiceinacan :

Beginning to understand. If I were to upgrade to a 1060 would you recommend buying the 1060 or saving for more and getting the 1070/80. I think 6 gigs of vram should last me at-least 5 years even if I have the run at low near the end. Compared to 11gigs of vram [new 1080] or 9 gigs which will last me quite a while.

Justiceinacan · Mar 17, 2017

It's not always the VRAM but everything else under the hood. 1060 6GB should be fine for 1080p high+ gaming for a few years, new games in 3 years might not be a good fit with a 1060 but we'll have to see.

Mogres · Mar 17, 2017

Honestly if you have the money to upgrade for graphics and you're willing to give AMD a try, you can get 2 AMD Rx 480's and run them in CrossFire for performance that exceeds the GTX 1080 for a little more than half the price of the 1080. I've never had any problems with AMD in the past and am currently running a GTX 1060 6 Gb and I can say for certain that you don't need all the VRAM in the world. Most games use a little less than 3 GB of VRAM on your GPUs for high or ultra settings so having more VRAM isn't always a problem. I just recommend you have at least 4 GB of RAM on your GPUs, it's pretty much the standard now a days.

Also if you're worried about your MOBO impacting your GPU performance fear not. MOBOs generally have little to no impact on the functionality and power of your GPUs. However, your CPU can hold back your GPU if you're running a lower model. I know, for example, the i7 4770K can't handle as many PCI slots being used as the i7 4790K. So that's something you should look up or research.

P3rfect_1 · Mar 17, 2017

Mogres :

AMD is an ok company. I have not tried AMD GPUs before because of nvidia's basically dominance of a few things, physix, geforce, pascal, and a a few more. If i were able to try before I buy would be a deciding factor, basically i know nvidia works for me so i don't want to risk money. My MOBO does have crossfire capability but cannot SLI. [Only one PCIe 3.0] so it is totally a possibility. My 960 works for now but it would be nice to play games with ultra for once.

Thanks for the help. I'll probably start saving for a 1060.

[It also just got updated where you can get 9gigs of DDR5 instead of 8] Should I buy the founders addition or some cheaper version?

Justiceinacan · Mar 17, 2017

A) PhysX is a graphics option that does nothing beneficial but muders your FPS. GeForce is branding, pascal is an architecture. Those aren't actual things that NVIDIA has an edge on.

B) Don't get founders edition, the ONLY way an AIB wouldn't be a better choice is in a cramped HTPC case.
Founders edition will run too hot and throttle. Most AIB cards will have two+ large fans that will cool much more effectively and quietly, and may come factory OC'd

My favorite AIB choice is MSI Gaming X on the Nvidia side of things, but it's a bit big. The EVGA ACX line should fit in plenty of cases though.

Mogres · Mar 17, 2017

Justiceinacan :

P3rfect_1 · Mar 23, 2017

Justiceinacan :

Only problem is im running 3 monitors, two with DVI-D and one with HDMI, I have the HDMI cords but the monitors dont have display ports at all. So 35$ a cord would be painful. MSI version has 1 HDMI, 1 DVI-D and three display ports.

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