[Solved] Need very quick help on a decision - GTX 960 or 970?

Ralf1958

Hello folks, I have to take a quick decision and I don't know which way to go. I got the choice in between a "special edition" of an nVidia 960 with 4 GB Ram or a GTX 970 which also has 4GB Ram. Looking at the CUDA I would go for the 970 but as for the price, of course the 960 is cheaper. Which one would you buy for Iray renders? Thank you!

BeeMKay

Check here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/56583/

 

tl155180

If you can afford it then I'd go with the 970; if you're on a budget then the 960 4GB is fine. There was a discussion on this recently that might help in this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59016/

Basically both cards are good, but 970 > 960 as the 960 is the "budget" version of the 970.

Cuda cores are basically shader processors. The more, the better.

larsmidnatt

keep in mind the 970 doesn't really have a proper amount of memory controllers for 4gb of Vram. one of the memory controllers is disabled. So for games this causes an issue if you happen to use more than 3.5 gb of Vram.(studdering and stuff) Not sure if they ever fixed it with the special edition. Not sure how it would impact renders but for games it hampers the performance.

The memory is divided into 512MB sticks, each SHOULD have it's own controller. However to save money on the 970 they didn't add a proper controller for one of the sections. It shares a controller with the previous 512 chunk. This is what causes the performance issues. Places like Amazon and a few other online stores actually allowed for refunds when these intially were sold after it was discovered what Nvidia did.

Nvidia said the impact should be minor, however it did cause issues for gaming. May not impact renders(i actually doubt it would..). Figured worth mentioning.

Ralf1958

Thank you guys for your quick help. I made my decision, I am going for the 970! :-)