I currently have a GTX 660 and I'm thinking of upgrading to a GTX 970. However, for most games that I play regularly (like Street Fighter and Counter Strike) my current card is already overkill. The only games I currently play that I think it would improve would be ARMA 3 and Rome 2: Total War, but in both of those cases it might just be the games being poorly optimized rather than them actually being that graphically impressive.

Are there any games that would really make use of these new graphics cards or should I just stick with what I have?

EDIT: Or I could just solve this by spending more money and using a better graphics card to power a new monitor with a higher refresh rate than 60hz and/or a higher resolution than 1080p :D

Unless it's your CPU, a new video card would make those games run better, but don't buy a card and then look for reasons you need it. Buy a new card if you want to play games your current card can't run.

@ekajarmstro: If you want to invest in a 1440p or 1600p monitor, or a 144hz monitor you'd probably find upgrading very beneficial. But unless you start playing more modern games, you won't see a TON of benefit.

ArmA 3 would certainly be a lot better, but it may be better to get your CPU upgraded for that one, because of how the engine works. It's pretty easy to be bottlenecked by the CPU in ArmA 3, especially if you play AI heavy missions or you play primarily on vanilla maps.

You'd certainly be able to get higher fidelity, but maybe not better much better performance. I have a 680 and I can run the game very well but I also have a lot of fast ram, and an i7 3770k.

As a sidenote, if you want some peeps to play ArmA 3 with, message me on Steam, username is "afuturejarhead." Our group lost a few members and we're looking to build back up and get back into playing more regularly :)

Any game that came out on current consoles and PC would see a very significant improvement. BF4, Wolfenstein, etc. Games like Crysis 3 would be an excellent one to take advantage of that upgrade.

Honestly I think a 660 to 970 is a great upgrade, but even a great upgrade is pointless if you don't need it.

A 27" 2560x1440/1600 display would be a really great upgrade, as would a 144hz display and you'd probably want an upgrade of the GPU if you went either way. 144hz and 2560 displays are both pretty challenging to full power with something like a 660. And they are both awesome. I use a 144hz ASUS and I don't know if I can go back from such smooth motion (when I get it in games, anyway).

The 144hz display will be cheaper, but probably have lower overall image quality (especially if you compare them to IPS screens). Not a big deal if you're not SUPER sensitive to color issues and you're willing to spend 30 minutes calibrating your display. The 1440/1600p display would be more expensive, but you'd get higher image quality and fidelity and less aliasing, AND more space on the screen for stuff like browsing the web, etc.

Are you interested in VR? Because the new prototype they just revealed would probably need a 970/980 to push at 60 in the majority of modern games. This is because it's at least 1440p (people say it looks higher but no specs are available yet), AND games have to render in 3D. And you'll want a bit of overhead as well.

If you want to invest in VR, which seems to be right on the cusp, a new 900 series card would be a great investment. Plus it'd allow you to also invest in a nicer display for 2D, traditional computing/gaming.

One thing I will say is wait until there are some good EVGA or ASUS 970s. Don't get the 970 you can (in theory) buy now.

@jarmahead: EVGA already has a bunch of 970 SKUs.

Whether or not you should upgrade really depends on whether or not you are interested in any upcoming games. Games like Dragon Age Inquisition, The Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight, and really most of the other imminent big budget games are likely to be quite demanding on PC. If you're planning on getting these or any other "AAA" games that are yet to be released an upgrade would probably be a great idea.

Still a good idea to A) let everyone get their stuff out so you have a good number of options, and B) give time for people to give feedback, on the off chance one has serious issues. EVGA will probably have a few more options going forward, and I doubt most of those have been fully reviewed at this point by multiple major review entities.

Uunless everyone's revealed their 900 series cards, I would wait to see what other quality card makers come up with. I wouldn't move (and won't be, I'm going to pick up a 980 once I see what everyone has to offer) on a 900 series card until I saw at least the ASUS, EVGA, and MSI offerings. Even though an EVGA won't do you wrong, I like to know what my options are so I don't end up missing out on an excellent cooling system or something from one of the other guys.

Exile makes a good point. If you plan on playing more than a couple of the upcoming big releases that are going to be on current gen consoles in the next few months, the 900 series would be a smart upgrade.

@jarmahead said:

Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, PNY and Zotac have all released non-reference cards. More to come.

I was pretty sure PNY had only announced reference cards, but yeah, mostly everyone else already has some amount of non-reference announced.

EDIT: Though, just to be clear, I'm not at all advocating ordering one now. Definitely wait for sites to benchmark the non-reference cards from the different major distributors before you decide to pick one up or not. I'm personally waiting to see how EVGA's non-reference 980s review before I pick one up, just to be safe.

@ajamafalous said:

Looks to me like the PNY 970 has a different cooler. Reviews are out there but they are kind of thrown together.

I preordered my GTX 970 (upgrading from a GTX 560) for some stuff coming out soon. I dodged a bullet as I was considering a 770 but held off to see if it would go on sale, then the new line came out. I'm getting my card in preparation for a monitor upgrade and games like Metal Gear Solid V, The Witcher 2/3, Tomb Raider, Battlefield 4, Final Fantasy XIV and whatever else. Some of those I can already play but I want it all maxed out at 60 fps.

I got one for Dead Rising 3.

Gunna be getting a 980 cause my 580 is really getting on a bit now. Then again I'm also basically doing a full rebuild by getting an i7 5820k and 16GB of DDR4. Future proofing for another 4 years and to prepare for The Division and GTAV!

Since you brought it up, why a 5820k? You could save yourself a lot of money by going with an i5 if this is strictly a gaming machine.

I have a 780 Ti and I still get drops down to 35-40 fps in many areas while playing that game. It's an awful port, so don't panic when you can't maintain 60 fps on your new card.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I think I might wait a while as suggested, but I'm really looking into the new ASUS monitor that's both 1440p AND 144hz (http://www.asus.com/Monitors/ROG_SWIFT_PG278Q/), but it's quite expensive and would definitely require a card upgrade.

EDIT: Actually, the 660 does support gsync. I think I might just get a new monitor first and then only upgrade my card when I find a game that requires it (the 660 can probably run CSGO and 2d games at 1440p 144hz which would be pretty sweet).

Last time I saved money on my CPU I was left disappointed at my CPU's performance a couple of years on. I play a lot of CPU intensive games (RTS's, ARMA, etc.) so I wanted to not hold back this time. Also I'm a sucker for new things and kind of want to get DDR4 and damn the expense, which requires me to get one of the 3 new 5th gen i7s.

How is it an awful port? Isn't it locked at 30 on the Xbox One? 35-40 as a minimum still sounds better than 30.

That is completely unacceptable for PC games - 30 may be "fine" for consoles but 60+ has been the standard on PC for years at this point. Not to mention the tearing that occurs between 30 and 60, or between 60 and 120. I see about 35-40% GPU utilization and about the same for CPU while running DR3....yet it bogs down and seems to have trouble running. That's a bad port.

There is absolutely no reason why my system and those more powerful shouldn't be able to run Dead Rising 3 at 60fps or greater, it's just a garbage port and the engine is barely capable of it. There are even inexplicable frame rate drops when there are few zombies on screen.

@mb: Isn't it the best running version of the game? If it's unquestionably the best version of a game, you can't really call it a garbage port. At worst it's a lazy port.

I guess...it's semantics. Although "best running" isn't really saying much when comparing a PC to the Xbox One.

Now you've got me leaning towards an i5. I might finally mess around with overclocking it too... An i5 4690k at 4.5GHz will do me for the next four years if I pair it with a 980, right?

The main hassle with going through all of this is I will have to reinstall Windows and all my programs, gah.

I have it running on a GTX570 on maximum graphic settings and the framerate is stable enough when playing, even with the sea of zombies. It's when the cutscenes come when the framerate drops to 10 to 15 fps.

Witcher 3. Everyhing about it looks stunning.

@ekajarmstro: You should totally go with a 970, it's affordable, and you'll be ready for DX12 next year. I play with a 144hz monitor, I used to game on a 60hz, I love it, do it as well. Except Skyrim, I have to go back to 60hz every time I play, if not, the screen flickers like crazy anytime I am yards away from water.

Published games:

• Tomb Raider
• Batman: Arkham City (with tesselation)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Soon to be published games:

• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• Ryse: Son of Rome
• Grand Theft Auto V

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

24 February 2015

So either the Nvidia patch fixed things for everyone or the 970 outperforms all the last gen stuff with Dead Rising 3. I didn't run into any of the slowdown that people were complaining about.

Too bad the game kind of sucks.

@hunkulese: The slowdown only really happens if you unlock the framerate. If you leave it at 30 it's fine.

@corevi: Unlocking the framerate was the first thing I did.

Ditto