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GTX 960 or 970 for HTPC?
- Thread starter Rustynuts
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Zepher
[H]ipster Replacement
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970 would be fine since you can crank up the eye candy and have good frame rates.
Don't know about the DVR stuff as I download and don't capture TV.
Don't know about the DVR stuff as I download and don't capture TV.
96redformula
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I went from a 960 on my HTPC to a 970 for the extra bit of power. I also use the HTPC for gaming on the 120 projector screen so its totally worth it to me for the smooth frame rate across all games.
skiddy
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Boot the O/S on an SSD, and use a large spindle for the DVR recordings. It's not worth it to waste TBs of wear on an SSD for media that gets no real benefit from it. You can use any size, but if you have FiOS many HD channels are 12-18Mbit, which can get up to 8GB per hour of recordings. 1TB minimum in my opinion, but you'll want more if you hoard a lot of your recordings.
Stereodude
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970 doesn't have full hardware HEVC decoding like the 960, but since you're apparently interested in playing games, not watching video, I guess that doesn't matter.
970 is a big gaming jump over the weak sauce 960 (I have one). Stereodude, is the latest hardware HEVC decoder that important at 1920x1080?
96redformula
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Yes, and once more I had the 960 prior but felt it was insufficient if you want to game on it as well. I believe the jump from 960 to 970 was definitely worth the difference and will keep you from having an upgrade itch for a while.
I will be looking forward to 4k projectors once they drop to sub $1,500. I might be waiting a while
.Stereodude
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That would depend on your CPU and what sources of video content you have. It's certainly not as big of deal as trying to play UHD content.
Okay thanks. I've been out of the serious AV scene for a while. Yeah I was basically thinking high bitrate + uhd probably needs it.
Actually, I want both! Would like an htpc for gaming, but also possibly for cutting the FIOS dvr cord. Thinking of getting an Hdhomerun + cablecard and dumping my Quantum box.
I absolutely know what a gtx960 is. I also do not understand your second question.
Skidmark deciphered it! Harddrive type/size for HD recording.
So will the 970 future proof me as well into the 4k realm? Will that depend more on the CPU (Kaby lake or Cannonlake)?
Stereodude
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Kaby Lake is supposed to have full 10-bit HEVC decoding like the 960. The 970 does not. It uses hybrid decoding for 8-bit and is software for 10-bit. Skylake has full 8-bit HEVC decoding, but is hybrid for 10-bit. I have no idea how well hybrid decoding works on either in terms of resource usage.
I don't think you can use DXVA2 HW accelerated decoding on Kaby Lake while using the 970 for video output, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
I would say the 970 does not future proof you for "4k" HEVC playback, but perhaps if you pair it with a fast enough CPU... However, to give you an idea, top end i7's with 4 cores / 8 threads struggle software decoding HEVC 4k@60Hz, as in they can't play it back smoothly.
I usually hate trying to future proof as too many things happen hardware wise. But is there a sweet spot though right now GPU/CPU wise for 4k? Seems the 960 is still the way to go, but with a hit on gaming. Does it really matter which cpu you pair it with if the gpu does the decoding?
skiddy
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Depending on your proc
The 980ti is your only real option for both, but it's also quite expensive.
I have a GTX960 on my living room HTPC (for 4kp60), but I haven't really tested gaming on it other than Diablo 3 (which runs fine at 1080p). I would imagine you'd be able to run most games at medium-high with a GTX960 @1080p, but obviously a 970 will be better. You can also look into getting a Steam Link if you have a more powerful PC in another room, and if most of your gaming library is on steam.
You can get away with much slower CPUs if your GPU handles all of the decoding for the codecs you'll be using. That's how you see some people using Bay Trail/Atom type HTPCs. Once Nvidia releases the rumored GT 930 that is supposed to have 10bit HEVC decoding, it will go nicely with sub-i3 CPUs for budget HTPC setups.
The 980ti is your only real option for both, but it's also quite expensive.
I have a GTX960 on my living room HTPC (for 4kp60), but I haven't really tested gaming on it other than Diablo 3 (which runs fine at 1080p). I would imagine you'd be able to run most games at medium-high with a GTX960 @1080p, but obviously a 970 will be better. You can also look into getting a Steam Link if you have a more powerful PC in another room, and if most of your gaming library is on steam.
You can get away with much slower CPUs if your GPU handles all of the decoding for the codecs you'll be using. That's how you see some people using Bay Trail/Atom type HTPCs. Once Nvidia releases the rumored GT 930 that is supposed to have 10bit HEVC decoding, it will go nicely with sub-i3 CPUs for budget HTPC setups.
Did they respin the 980Ti to use the latest revision? This does not look to be the case, from the GeForce forum info. Only 960/950 do.
Adidas4275
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I have been using in home streaming on my HTPC lately with decent suceess. My HTPC is a x4 820 AMD CPU with 4gb of RAM and a 6450 GPU (fanless and bitstreams)
my gaming rig is an e5-2670, 32gb of RAM, and a R9 290x
it works well enough...
I would go with the 970 personall.... and might soon
my gaming rig is an e5-2670, 32gb of RAM, and a R9 290x
it works well enough...
I would go with the 970 personall.... and might soon
skiddy
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You're right, I had bad info. Thought the Ti was on the new platform, but it isn't. 960/950 is the only option for full HEVC decoding.
Depends if you want max settings at 1080p the 970 is not going to be overkill. If you're ok with turning settings down on certain titles then a 960 will be just fine.
As far as hard drives the boot drive should be an SSD. For the saving the recordings a green drive is just fine. I have a 3TB WD Green drive in my HTPC and it does just fine. I have 6 tuners and it keeps up with 6 recordings at once with no issues.
Technically, a 4GB 960 SC is actually nVidia's newest top card ... weird.
Adidas4275
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...... why need to hardware decode h265 when you have a CPU that can handle software decoding???? or am I missing something?
Nevermind.... I see here... 4K 60hz is more demanding than most HTPC CPUs can handle
Nevermind.... I see here... 4K 60hz is more demanding than most HTPC CPUs can handle
Ocellaris
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This is what I was thinking as well. Is there going to be any actual difference between a 970 and 960 on the screen?
For what it's worth I had a 950 and thought it was good for 1080P gaming. Just turn down a few settings and there was no issue.