jrpalm
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My grandson has a gaming pc: Gigabyte Intel 297 1150 Micro ATX Motherboard GA-Z97M-DS3H GEFORCE GTX 960 4GB SSC Gaming ACX2.0+ He now would like an upgraded GTX graphics card. Any recommendations for something more powerful that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg? Thanks for any advice.
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CraptacularOne
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/22 20:38:26
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Recommendations are all pointless you can't actually buy anything for a reasonable price in the current market or haven't you heard?
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sethleigh
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/23 08:06:52
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What CPU is running in that machine? What games does he play? What monitor resolution does he play at? It's going to matter if the game is CS:GO or Star Citizen or Battlefield 2042. The latter two will crush weaker machines, the former will do fine with almost any card later than the 960, and for that matter is probably fine on the 960 too. It will matter if he's still playing on 1080p resolution vs. 1440p or aspires to go ultrawide or to 4K or whatever. Then there's cost. Many of us do this as a hobby and focus on higher-end stuff because it's what we're really interested in. I'm running a 3080ti FTW3, for example, and have a hard time when relatives or friends ask me for recommendations because my instinct is always to recommend the best, but they don't approach computers the way I do and won't pay that kind of money, and honestly don't need that performance either. I try hard to overcome my biases and really listen to what they're trying to do and recommend a card that they're willing to pay for that would meet their needs, whether it would meet my own needs or not. Then there's the question of what CPU and RAM are running in that machine. With older CPUs it can be something of a waste to go with the very latest and greatest GPUs simply because the CPU it's paired with, or the combination of an older CPU with really crappy, slow RAM, can't keep up with what the GPU could deliver and a lot of its potential is wasted. My gut is telling me that if your grandson is still using a 960 and it's OK but he just wishes it were faster, then a 3060, if you can find one for a reasonable price, would blow him away. I was blown away a few years ago going from a 960 to a 1080ti, and the 1080ti on benchmarks and games is almost exactly the same performance as a 3060 is today as long as the game or benchmark doesn't use ray-tracing or DLSS.
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jrpalm
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/28 10:33:40
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Thx for information sethleight. I got more information from him about his setup: - EVGA 600B 600W power supply
- Intel Core i5-4590 CPU @3.30GHz 3301MHz 4 cores
- BIOS American Mega Trends F6 4-15-2015
- 8G installed RAM
- 1T HDD with 312G free
- Win 10 Home 10.0.1.9042 Build 19042
- His games:
- Medieval II Total War
- Shogun II total War
- CS:GO
- GTA 5
Would this $425 EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB FTW GAMING ACX 2.0+, 04G-P4-3969-KR from Amazon give him a boost but not be too much for his i5 CPU and not bankrupt grandpa? (sorry, unable to post a link to the card & thx for any further opinion)
post edited by jrpalm - 2021/12/28 10:37:24
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harley262
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/29 06:35:50
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so you want to go from a 960 to another 960 for $425? there would be negligible improvement. you can probably find a 980ti for $300 to $500 on ebay, that would at least give you some slight improvement with 6gb of memory. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/evga-gtx-980-ti-kingpin.b3431 if you scroll down a bit you can see chart that gives relative performance.
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bill1024
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/29 07:21:41
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harley262 so you want to go from a 960 to another 960 for $425? there would be negligible improvement. you can probably find a 980ti for $300 to $500 on ebay, that would at least give you some slight improvement with 6gb of memory. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/evga-gtx-980-ti-kingpin.b3431 if you scroll down a bit you can see chart that gives relative performance.
+1 Do not buy another GTX960. Pick up a used 980ti 1070 1070Ti 2060 1080 1080Ti something in those lines if you can't find a new 3060 or something at MSRP
Life is too short to carry a cheap pocket knife
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HeavyHemi
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/29 11:21:44
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jrpalm Thx for information sethleight. I got more information from him about his setup:
- EVGA 600B 600W power supply
- Intel Core i5-4590 CPU @3.30GHz 3301MHz 4 cores
- BIOS American Mega Trends F6 4-15-2015
- 8G installed RAM
- 1T HDD with 312G free
- Win 10 Home 10.0.1.9042 Build 19042
- His games:
- Medieval II Total War
- Shogun II total War
- CS:GO
- GTA 5
Would this $425 EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB FTW GAMING ACX 2.0+, 04G-P4-3969-KR from Amazon give him a boost but not be too much for his i5 CPU and not bankrupt grandpa? (sorry, unable to post a link to the card & thx for any further opinion)
What would help also, is what is your budget? With the age of the system, you might consider getting a laptop, which can also be used with a monitor as a gaming machine.
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RainStryke
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2021/12/29 11:32:01
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I'd recommend a GTX 1600 series card, something like a GTX 1660 Super. They usually have those in stock at Best Buy and Micro Center if you have either of them around. Looking at about $300-$350.
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jrpalm
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2022/01/01 08:21:08
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Thanks to all for comments and recommendations. (My bad: I copy/pasted GTX 960 4GB FTW GAMING ACX 2.0+, 04G-P4-3969-KR instead of EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB FTW GAMING ACX 2.0+, 04G-P4-3969-KR.) I think we're heading for a used 980Ti for now. FTW or SC? Happy 2022!
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RainStryke
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Re: Upgrade recommendations from GTX 960 needed.
2022/01/01 09:39:07
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Nevermind, out of stock... I'd recommend keeping your eye out for a RTX 2060 since they are now back in production. The GTX 1060 6GB is the route i'd suggest if you are looking at used cards. If you decide to go with a GTX 980 Ti, you want the FTW version over the SC... and make sure you have a solid PSU. Bare minimum requirements is a 650w gold certified PSU.
post edited by RainStryke - 2022/01/01 09:54:36
Main PC | Secondary PC Intel i9 10900K | Intel i7 9700KMSI MEG Z490 ACE | Gigabyte Aorus Z390 MasterASUS TUF RTX 3090 | NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super32GB G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4000MHz CL18 | 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 4266MHz CL17SuperFlower Platinum SE 1200w | Seasonic X-1250Samsung EVO 970 1TB and Crucial P5 1TB | Intel 760p 1TB and Crucial MX100 512GBCougar Vortex CF-V12HPB x9 | Cougar Vortex CF-V12SPB-RGB x5 3DMark Results:Time Spy|Port Royal
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