Worth upgrading to a GTX670?

Tudz

Supreme [H]ardness
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G'day all,

I'm considering upgrading the old beast to get sexier graphics in games.

I can grab a 2GB GTX670 for $209AUD (for comparison, a 2GB GTX960 is $280-300AUD, a 4GB GTX960 is $330+). The GTX670 is just old stock (hopefully the store hasn't sold it yet!).

Do you think that would be a worthwhile upgrade? I might also upgrade my CPU down the track, but not immediately, probably not in the next few months.

I'm worried 2GB won't be enough, but then I can't really justify $330 for a 4GB GTX960. I could also get a 3GB R9-280 for $235, but recently I've been avoiding ATI (I have owned a few over the years and they always have given me more inconsistent performance, more driver issues, more basic desktop issues, etc. and nvidia always seem to have more "toys").

My current system:
i5 750
GA-P55A-UD3
MSi GTX460 768MB
32GB G.Skill Ares RAM
600W Cooler Master SILENT Pro
an assortment of SSD's and HDD's
24" 1920x1080 TN monitor

So, worth it? Or just forget about it for now?
 
You didn't mention anything about the games you play, but yes, it will be a good improvement over your old card. Just don't expect any miracles.
 
According to this review the 670 and 960 perform similarly, so it's a good deal. 2GB is enough for 1080p right now, I can't say about the future. The 280 you mentioned is also in the same sort of ballpark, maybe just a shade slower. They're all significantly faster than your GTX 460 (I used to own one of these too).

Review with comparisons:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/11.html
 
the 960 is faster than the 670 overall but much faster in newer games because of better tessalation and other improvements.

I'd go for the 960 2gb.
 
I'd go for the 670 easily. It's slightly faster than a 760, which within a 10% ballpark of the 960. In fact:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_960_OC/27.html
If you look at the blue line in the graphs, that's a stock 960. It's pretty much right beside a stock 670. I don't know what gains the 960 has in newer games, but they're not worth 70-90$ (basically ~50% markup). I don't know about overclocking performance (ie 960 avg max oc vs 670 avg max oc), though.

Are you just looking for cheapest possible at that performance level or do you have a specific amount you want to spend? If it's the latter, might as well get a 960 if that's the best you can get. See if you can find any AMD offerings near you (mainly look for a 280X if possible).
 
My current system:
i5 750
GA-P55A-UD3
MSi GTX460 768MB
32GB G.Skill Ares RAM
600W Cooler Master SILENT Pro
an assortment of SSD's and HDD's
24" 1920x1080 TN monitor

I have the exact same motherboard as you and based on my research, the max amount of RAM our motherboard supports is 16GB. Does the full 32GB show up in windows???

And, I would go ahead and spend the extra money on a 960.
 
Looks like it's a bit split between GTX 670 and GTX 960.

As for games I'd like to play, well I'd like to play anything really, the GTX460 is just starting to drop down to "minimum required" for many games now, I'd like to get back in to the medium to high range. I've started avoiding certain games because I know I can't play them above lowest settings.

Probably the big ones are I'd like to play Star Citizen (which I've backed but plays so poorly on my machine I don't even try anymore :(), Project Cars, The Witcher 3, Shadow of Mordor, Ryse, Lord of the Fallen.... but also obviously want the option to play whatever comes out in the next year or two (which will probably be how long it is before my next upgrade).

Money wise.... I could get a GTX960 but it is harder to justify $280 and then I'd be wondering if I want to spend that much money on a card which is only 2GB.

I have the exact same motherboard as you and based on my research, the max amount of RAM our motherboard supports is 16GB. Does the full 32GB show up in windows???
Yeah it works fine. I had the same query when I bought the 32GB and it seems it's not set up to ONLY use up to 16GB, but rather when it was released it was only ever tested with 4GB sticks, so they haven't guaranteed it with 4x8GB. It was suggested to me to stick to a brand like GSkill because they (apparently) have very good support. But it worked first try without doing anything.

I got 32GB because I also use the computer for work, it's my personal computer, but sometimes I like to work from home. My work programs can easily chew through 20-30GB.
 
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Is 4GB worth it on a 960?

I don't see me getting a GTX 970, I mostly just play games casually these days so it's not really worth the investment (looks like they start at ~$440AUD).

Since the 2GB GTX960 looks similar to the GTX670 in benchmarks, I'm leaning toward the cheaper GTX670.
 
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Is 4GB worth it on a 960?

Not for gaming, no. By the time you go to higher resolutions where the additional 2GB would be useful, the 960 would be too slow. I made the same mistake with the 4GB 760 I currently have.
 
Yeah, stick with the 670. With a price difference that much, I can't recommend the GTX 960.

Also, every benchmark I have seen shows no performance difference between 2GB and 4GB (even at 1440p settings that are unplayable)!
 
Found out the GTX670's were all warranty return refurbs so didn't grab one :( still looking, struggling to justify a GTX960, it feels like graphics hardware advancement has slowed in the past few years but prices haven't really dropped at the same time, at least out here.
 
Found out the GTX670's were all warranty return refurbs so didn't grab one :( still looking, struggling to justify a GTX960, it feels like graphics hardware advancement has slowed in the past few years but prices haven't really dropped at the same time, at least out here.

That would be because we've only seen one process node shrink since 2009 (40nm -> 28nm). And these die shrinks are not as effective as they once were at reducing power, so that double density has to be used carefully. Hence the performance/watt improvements (and larger die sizes) seen with Maxwell.

I still think the GTX 960 is a great value for all the hold-outs who skipped Kepler. More than twice the performance for the same price you paid for a launch GTX 460 768MB, and at the same power consumption level. If you want wider memory bandwidth, you can get the R9 380, but be prepared to handle the extra 75w it will pump-out.

Still, you can wait for Pascal, but you might be waiting until 2017. I doubt we're going to see the mid-range design come out before the high-end (GTX 980 replacement). They've only been selling the GTX 960 for six months now, and they only just now have enough cut-down inventory to release the GTX 950.

But you might decide that the GTX 950 is more your speed. We'll have to see what the performance and price are. The rumored $150 price tag might make it a little easier to live with a 2GB VRAM limit.
 
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I'd go with the 960 2GB, or jump to a R9 280X if your budget allows for $300.

But a 960 4GB just doesn't make sense. It lags behind the R9 280X significantly. It's one of the worst cards value-wise in recent memory.
 
Look in the for Sale/ trade.....you can get a good used 670 card for $105-$160....just type in GTX under search....you will see alot of cards
 
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He's in Australia. I don't know how many Australians we have here specifically selling a 670GTX. Shipping and fun international stuff might kill the deal a bit.
 
I am not sure that EVGA ships to Australia, but they have a GTX 770 for 169 USD here
as well as some other deals if you do not mind refurbished. Personally I think that the 960 GTX is a decent card, I think that it is way overpriced for its capabilities unless you need HDMI 2.0 for 4k60 output for some reason.

With that being said from a gtx460 to gtx580 is close to double performance, a 670 GTX is close to the 580 gtx, and the 770gtx is like a super clocked 680 gtx so maybe from the 460GTX to 770GTX like a 2.5 to 3x increase.

Also with your i5 750 if you are overclocking you can get close to latest gen Haswell performance so you should be okay on the cpu front.
 
Less power draw and heat on a 960 is plenty reason enough for me to go with that instead of a 670.
 
Well I just finished Wolfenstien: The New Order which played fine on the GTX460, I guess I need to pick what game I want to play next and if the GTX460 comes up short I'll upgrade to 2GB GTX960 (the Gigabyte Windforce one seems to be the cheapest one with good cooling).

Given the GTX460 is now 5 years old and only cost me $220AUD it doesn't seem like a massive step up to be getting only 2x the performance for $280AUD, but I guess that's the way of it these days!

I don't have a lot of faith in refurbs, looking at the refurbs in the store last time I was there some of them had been sent back 3 times for repairs :eek: Puts me off a bit.
 
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