Thoughts on used 780 vs 960/970?

They make noise, too.

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lieto
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Thoughts on used 780 vs 960/970?

Post by lieto » Wed Aug 19, 2015 1:17 am

Hello guys,

Just out of curiosity, what is a good website to actually compare GPUs?
I tried GPU boss and it shows that GTX 780 is both faster and generate less noise and heat than both 960 and 970.
Various tests of in game performance show that 970 is actually faster in many games but not by much.
Would you consider 780 as an alternative to a less noisy and cheaper 960? I can see second hand market is quite filled is 780s and you can get it cheaper than a new 960.

Cheers.

CA_Steve
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Re: Thoughts on used 780 vs 960/970?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:06 am

Anandtech Bench is one. Many sites will show a few generations of GPUs in their newer reviews.

GTX 970 is definately faster and can use a lot less power than the 780. This will lead to less heat and less fan noise. If you game at 1080p, then the GTX 960 can also work well. Sort of depends on the game and your quality preferences.

Gunbuster
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Re: Thoughts on used 780 vs 960/970?

Post by Gunbuster » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:34 am

The 980 and 970 are tesselation monsters compared to the 780 and AMD cards.
My mate had to do a similar trick to the AMD users with his 780 and Hairworks in the Witcher 3. Essentially force lower levels of tesselation.

I think its Nvidia's way to promote new features in their cards in their Gameworks titles. In older games I expect your 780 to have less of a difference.

As Steve said the 970 is much quieter, especially the passive mode at idle or by fine tuning what temprature and power you are will it to use.

Quinnbeast
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Re: Thoughts on used 780 vs 960/970?

Post by Quinnbeast » Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:59 am

I own an MSI 780. If I were to buy a card today, I'd buy a 970 over a cheap 780. The 970 ranges from being on par and up to 15% faster depending on the title, while using a good deal less power. The 780 has forced me to use more aggressive case fan settings in Fan Xpert and pay a little more attention to airflow in my R4. Previously, my 660Ti 'just worked' without intervention, but the 780 gets pretty hot unless I tweak a few settings here and there. It's certainly not noisy; the default MSI fan settings are pretty modest, but this also makes it more prone to bumping up the CPU and mobo temps as the GPU temp creeps up.

It's a potent card, and a cheap deal may be worth looking at. But, I'd personally look towards the new tech.

Abula
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Re: Thoughts on used 780 vs 960/970?

Post by Abula » Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:23 am

What i would do in your position is just grab a MSI GTX960 Gaming, and upgrade it next year around this time when Pascal hits, you might lose $50 reselling it, but there are rumors that pascal will offer a bigger jump than what we are getting from gen to gen.

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