Have a single GTX 950. What Would You Do?

Jeffredo

Jeffredo

[H]ard|Gawd
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One of my PC's has an i5-4690k with a GTX 950 and a 1920x1200 monitor. I found a website that's selling a GTX 950 for $99.99. Was kind of thinking about getting a second to SLI, or I could get a GTX 1060 (either 3GB or 6GB). Instead of $99.99 it would be more like $200-$260 depending on model. I'm only playing a couple games right now - WoW: Legion and Fallout 4. It would be nice to crank the settings up to max or almost max on those two games. What would you do?
 
Buy a 1060. Last time I tried SLI FO4 ran like crap. There was no proper support, had to fiddle with the settings in nvidia inspector. Even then, two 660ti (which are close to a 960, sort of) ran it worse than a single gtx970 (which is comparable to a 1060). So, sell your 950 for 50$ or whatever they are worth, add what you are missing and get a 1060 or a used 970 if you can find a good deal/are okay buying used parts. Getting a second 950 is not worth it. Not sure how wow handles sli, I think it worked last I played it, but it's always better to get a strong single card. Also, 950sli will probably be at around 60-80% of a 1060 performance - doesn't really look like a good idea any way you look at it.
 
NVIDIA GTX 950 SLI Graphics Card Review

Basically equating two 950s to a 970 or so. When I ran GPU-Z and WoW: Legion together, it's only reporting around 2 GB of usage but I'm not running it maxed out so it could use more. The 1060 6 GB* would be a better card but if you could find a RX 470 sub-180 USD or a RX 480 sub-220 it would probably be a better deal.

* I'd only suggest the 6 GB because the 3 GB edition is not the 6 GB sans 3 GB of RAM. It's also slightly castrated to boot (less ROPs, etc.).
 
Oh, right. Yeah, amd is an option as well this time. My opinion is that I would go with either a 1060 3gb, rx480 4gb or a used gtx970. A used 970 might be the best option, depending on the price. I'm currently building a cheap gaming pc for my friend using mostly used parts and, after doing some research, decided to use a used gtx970, as it cost around 60-70% of an rx480, and 70-80% of a new 1060 3gb. It gave the best price/performance, ar least in my case. Also, buying a used card allows you to resell it later at a lower loss, if you want to swap it for something else.
 
That review looks good save for the low minimums in several of the games. This one isn't my main PC. The GTX 950 rig sits in the living room and I use it only when someone else is using my main (i7-4790k + GTX 980). I'm a big fan of driver based Adaptive Vertical Sync, so pretty much want to stick with Nvidia. If the PC didn't already have a GTX 950 and if I couldn't get a new second for such a reasonable price the answer would be clear for its modest needs - GTX 1060 3GB. Gah...
 
100$ isnt really that reasonable, when you can get a used 970 for 200$ or less and it will be very close to a 1060 3gb with a bit more vram. Also, due to lower minimum fps and crappy sli support it's really hard to recommend sli when it is not necessary (when a single card cannot deal with all the 4Ks one throws at it).
 
I would never recommend SLI when you can sell your current card and make a single card upgrade for the same cost as the SLI option. I would go with a used 970 or any aftermarket model of the GTX 1060.
 
I had 950 SLI for a while, and it was pretty good, since I only played a couple of games that all worked fine with SLI, and G-Sync made up for the rest.

I put the fault on recent games that unwisely allocate more VRAM than they actually need (such as BLOPS3) for the VRAM discussion to have come where it is now. Even if 2GB could have worked at 1080p, they're just not going to bother trying to come under that wire anymore and you'll get spikes into your system RAM with every new game following this trend. Don't fight it, just buy up.

You should probably get the used 970 or 1060.
 
geforce man said:
Sell current card for 80-90$. Buy used 970 for 180$. You've spent the same 100$ and gotten way more value.
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I agree about that. Also, I'd say the 3gb Gtx 1060 is pretty good at $200 depending on version.
It's not much worse than the 6gb gtx 1060 in most cases.
 
Jeffredo said:
One of my PC's has an i5-4690k with a GTX 950 and a 1920x1200 monitor. I found a website that's selling a GTX 950 for $99.99. Was kind of thinking about getting a second to SLI, or I could get a GTX 1060 (either 3GB or 6GB). Instead of $99.99 it would be more like $200-$260 depending on model. I'm only playing a couple games right now - WoW: Legion and Fallout 4. It would be nice to crank the settings up to max or almost max on those two games. What would you do?
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So, what does your other PC's have for video cards? Is this the fastest one you have? Do you prefer to stick with Nvidia or would you consider a RX470?
 
ManofGod said:
So, what does your other PC's have for video cards? Is this the fastest one you have? Do you prefer to stick with Nvidia or would you consider a RX470?
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i7-4790k with a GTX 1070. The GTX 950/i5 4690k is a backup. Sits at a desk between the dining room and living room for all to use. Sometimes others want to use the more capable 1070 PC or have peace and quiet while on it (its in an office room of the house). That's when I end up using the second PC for gaming.
 
If budget is your concerns the 3gb 1060 is easily found at $200.

Sell you 950 for $50-60 to recoup a little cash.
 
Well guys, I went against everything you all have said and went cheap and bought a matching second GTX 950 for $99.99 new. Yeah, I know - SLI limitations and the 2GB of VRAM. Still, its not my main PC, I'm generally happy with the image quality of my games on it - just some extra FPS would be nice (and if I can crank up a setting or two that's just gravy). I just went cheap. Didn't want to buy used or or bother with sell my current.
 
Jeffredo said:
Well guys, I went against everything you all have said and went cheap and bought a matching second GTX 950 for $99.99 new. Yeah, I know - SLI limitations and the 2GB of VRAM. Still, its not my main PC, I'm generally happy with the image quality of my games on it - just some extra FPS would be nice (and if I can crank up a setting or two that's just gravy). I just went cheap. Didn't want to buy used or or bother with sell my current.
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Have fun playing around with SLI. When your bored, sell both cards and get a 970! :)
 
Just google for the SLI on fallout 4. I had to on SLI 970's and just said fuck it and went to a 980TI before my 1080. If you leave it stock the stutter is bad. I still had some lighting issues with SLI but most of the stutter went away. (It wouldn't light models correctly when talking in the "cutscene like" fashion of a conversation)
 
Its been a couple days now and its doing pretty well! WoW Legion is nearly perfect - I'm able to use the "10" graphic preset, MSAA 8X, with Shadow Quality on Ultra (instead of Ultra High) and View Distance back down just one notch to "9". It looks and runs great. I toggled SLI on and off and I gained 60% in FPS over the single card. I was worried but WoW Legion supports SLI with no tweaking or problems.

Fallout 4 is on Ultra with Godrays on "Low". It does 60 FPS almost everywhere. I occasionally will have a bit of stuttering for a few seconds - guess that's when the VRAM hits a wall. It doesn't last though and all in all its doing pretty well. Again, about a 60% boost over the single card on the same settings. I'd read bad stuff after I ordered the second card about Fallout 4 not supporting SLI well but its doing fine - again with no fiddling. As few games as I play I'm sure this upgrade will do for several years.

Thanks again for all your input. I really didn't ignore you guys - I did weigh everything you said. Just took the cheap and lazy way. lol
 
I think you made a very stupid choice in going 950 SLI. Having only 2 GB of vram will limit the hell out of the settings that you could otherwise run. SLI also introduces way more issues than a single card. And many games do not even support SLI at all.
 
misterbobby said:
I think you made a very stupid choice in going 950 SLI. Having only 2 GB of vram will limit the hell out of the settings that you could otherwise run. SLI also introduces way more issues than a single card. And many games do not even support SLI at all.
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It's a cheap solution when I'm not on my main PC with a GTX 1070. It's not that big of a deal and if it doesn't hold up, no biggie. It's not like I invested that much in the second card. M'kay? Right now for those two games I'm playing it's fine.

Anyway "very stupid" is cashing out your 401k and buying lottery tickets with it. Buying a second GTX 950 isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.
 
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True. And two of those cards make great transplants later to other machines that need a hdmi 2.0 (like an htpc).

Unlike the 200watt monsters we put in our main rigs.
 
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