Upgrading GTX 770 to 980ti

Am I insane to be thinking of this? I don't really intent in doing much 4k stuff but, I want to future proof as much as possible. Worth it? Think I should I worry about cooling?

Obviously I'll do my own research, but Id love to get some opinions from other bombduders who probably know way more than me

Not insane but you might want to think about CPU bottleneck at this point of the upgrade path.

I have an i7-4770 from what little I understand I think I'm good on that front

You are more then good.

if you can swing it, go for the 980ti (im in the same boat but i have 670)

I thought about switching my 970 for a 980ti, now thats crazy. I say go for it, but then again dont listen to me, I just love the feeling of having new hardware and running fraps and then maxing out my most demanding games.

Anyone know if an i5-3570 would bottleneck the 980 Ti?

I don't really intent in doing much 4k stuff but, I want to future proof as much as possible.

Those two sentences don't really match up. If you want to play games at the highest settings (what I assume you mean by future proofing) then you'll be playing at 4k in a couple of years. If you intend on gaming @1080p for the next couple of years, then a 770 is more than fine (there are some exceptions - you want to mod the shit out of a game or Star Citizen stuff). When you get a 4k monitor (or 1440p) that is when you'd upgrade - not now out of some sense of future proofing.

In regard to the cpu needing an upgrade more - very very very doubtful given the current climate of games.

I'm looking at potentially upgrading to a 980ti myself, but I'm holding off for now, won't really need the boost until VR happens, and by that time there might well be price adjustments and such.

You never know, AMD might even sort their driver issues and make me consider one of their cards for the first time in 15 years or so.

If you got money to burn, why not? I personally wouldn't do it since you said yourself you don't plan on much 4k stuff. A GTX 770 would be solid for 1080p for a few more years.

First of all, my apologies for abysmal typing. Typing on a phone is not my strong suite.

Anyway I'm in a situation where im able to do a little extra spending now that I won't be free to do in a year or so which is sort of why im thinking of upgrading whst I can now.

A more responsible person would probably just set this money aside but... I'm not a responsible person...

If I'm considering the same card, would my i5 3570k be a bottleneck in the near future?

Good read.

http://www.maximumpc.com/will-your-cpu-bottleneck-your-graphics-card/

@asilentprotagonist: Eh... I have a 770 and can't play Witcher 3 at a decent framerate at 1080 unless I turn settings down to (mostly) medium. I don't care enough to upgrade, but the kind of person who wants everything maxed can easily justify a 980 even below 1440.

I've got a 770, and I run it at all high settings expect Textures & Detail on "Ultra" at around 50-60 fps now....

@finalform: this year's cards are no where near future proofing, specially Nvidia's. The reasons are:

1- none of the cards in the market have full dx12 support.

2- Nvidia will jump into hbm wagon next year making hbm the new memory standard.

3- 16nm GPUs are coming the year after.

Tl;dr the best bet for future proofing is AMD Fury, thanks to the hbm memory. Else, buy a custom designed 970 to help you out until year 2017.

@hmoney001: That's really handy but how would I be able to test for bottlenecks for future builds that I can't collect data on. Say a i5-4690k and a 980 ti?

If you have the money its a good card to get, but depends where you're upgrading from? a 780 or 780 ti probably wouldn't be much of an upgrade to be fair.... Especially when next years cards will probably be the start of the true next gen cards because of DX12. Cards right now are "compatible" with DX12 but "in order to get all of the DirectX12 features new hardware will be required" from MS themselves.... 980ti still doesn't do 4K brilliantly either anyway... I think we're still a couple years away from being able to run games at 4K with at MAX settings at a standard 60FPS with just one card.... I've heard driver support for 980 ti's not that great going from nvidia geforce driver forums?

@vackillers: Title says it's a 770 he's upgrading from.

OP, do it if you're not happy with the performance you're currently getting, but don't upgrade only for the sake of being "futureproof". Fact is that if you wait until you're genuinely in need of an upgrade, the money you would spend on a 980ti today will most certainly get you a better card, or you will be able to get a card of equivalent performance to the 980ti at a cheaper cost.

In any case, you might want to pay attention to whatever AMD has to announce in the next few days.

@finalform: It's your money so do what you want with it but there's really no reason to buy a 980ti. It can't run everything at 60 fps maxed at 4k. You're going to see minimal improvement if any over a 980 at resolutions people play games at. There's already very little reason to buy a 980 over a 970 even at 1440.

The best option and probably cheaper is to buy a 970 now and then buy their next high end value card when the 970 doesn't cut it any more.

I like to refer to the "GPU Hierarchy Chart" on Tom's Hardware when considering an upgrade.

They don't recommend that you upgrade unless the new card is at least 3 tiers above the one you currently have.

The most recent list was posted in May before the 980ti launched, but based on performance reviews I'm guessing it's going to be in the same tier as the 690 and Titan X, which is 3 tiers above the 770.

But no matter what, follow your heart, pal.

I can tell you one thing: nothing beats the feeling that comes from unboxing a new video card. It's wonderful. Especially if you have the money to spend.

This is a pretty good reference, and they actually recommend at least 3 tiers difference for an upgrade, otherwise you might not notice much of a difference and be disappointed.

@catsakimbo:
Ooops, that's true.
Original post edited.

You... You're good, you!

I went from a 4GB 770 to a 980 windforce about a month ago and couldn't be happier. No 4k for me so it is perfect for the use I get out of it.

I wouldn't say it would bottleneck the 980Ti performance, considering it has less of a power consumption than older cards.

I agree with that first comment, no doubt. I was having stuttering issues on GTA V regardless of resolution. Unless you have an i5-3570K that you can overclock, I would upgrade to the new high-end i5 (i7 if you really want to play it safe). I overclocked my 3570K to 4.3gHz and I'm running GTA V perfectly now (minus any hitching or framerate drops due to my 770). I would still avoid SLI for aesthetic purposes, and just roll with one of the new nVidia 1000 series when they're released early next year. Also the up and coming 990 is a power house, if you haven't looked into that. Not a huge fan of a dual GPU single card, but it's still a wicked card.

Let's get something straight here: There is no such thing a future proofing. These days things move so fast that even the best part on the market will be outdone (by something cheaper) within 2-3 years, if not sooner, specifically for graphics cards. You can spend the money on something crazy, but chances are that there will be something cheaper and faster by this time next year. When it comes to 4k, by the time that 4k becomes a thing and there are reasonable monitors out there that aren't $600+, there will be faster cards out there than the 980ti. We're still a few years off before 4k becomes something that matters in a big way, so I personally wouldn't invest in something for 4k until 4k becomes a standard resolution.

If you've got the cash, go for it! But I think you're wasting your money. I'd much rather buy a x70 or x80 equivalent every 2-3 years rather than buy a crazy card like that. You're just not getting the performance for the money. At a certain point, it's just about whose e-penis is larger.

Yes. To all of this. Yes, again. Really no point in focusing on 4K until it's the standard and 1080p becomes more-or-less obsolete.

Wait and see how the new AMD cards perform? The one at the same price as the 980ti sounds insane. It may be quite a bit faster.

when people say "its your money,do with it however you please" i think of those damn shitty loan commercials.

Its your money, use it when you need it!!

I think this is a smart move. Since the OP has a relatively modern GPU now in the GTX 770, it may be a good idea to wait just a little bit longer and see what these new Fiji cards are like once they are in the hands of consumers.

If you're doing it just to future-proof your computer then i would recommend not to do it. 770 is still running everything well for me. More importantly, in the future this card will be way cheaper and there will be more powerful cards out at the same price point. You should wait until you have a problem running stuff. At least wait until Black Friday or something.

Agreed. I have a 770 Superclocked Edition and just did some overclocking to my CPU and GPU and I can still run most games at high to very high, 60 FPS, just no AA (which isn't that great of a sacrifice anyway).

So, whether I end up getting one of these things or not I'm curious and am having trouble finding a suitable answer elsewhere. Would I need to upgrade my power supply to get one of these? I have a 650w running the i7-4770 along with an SSD and HDD. Dumb questions galore!

It was sheer luck I managed to get this PC going at all with as little as I know about this crap.

It looks like the list has been updated for June, so now the 980 TI is listed. You're prediction was correct, it's listed alongside the 690 and Titan X.

I find it endlessly confusing to see things like the 690 being a higher tier than the 980 and two tiers higher than the 780 and 970.

You won't need a new power supply.
The great thing about these new cards is that they are getting better performance with less power consumption.

The 690 does get better performance, but it's a dual GPU card.
In my opinion, if you're in the market for an upgrade, right now you can't beat the 980ti.

Lot of people saying stuff along the lines of "just buy a 960/970 now and then buy whatever the high end card of the time is when that doesn't cut it anymore." But surely that's an argument you could make forever? Because the highest end card is never going to be the absolute best value for money... but sometimes you just wanna be at the pinnacle for the sake of it if you can afford it. (Full disclosure, I totally just bought a new 980TI desktop as basically all of my hardware was in need of a boost, carpe diem duder).

Not gonna get 4K gaming on anything new or out this year with a single 980 (even a ti) as it is now, so if thats the goal, I would wait.