My video card is pushing up daisies

[Ragicka]

It's a EVGA GT 560 ti that has served me well until a few days ago when it kept giving me BSODs. I updated the driver, cleaned out the case and reseated the card. Now it shows artifacts on screen and the driver won't recognize it, so now I'm using the on-board gpu.

Specs are:
Asus P8Z68-V Pro mb
Intel i5 2500
8GB Corsair
500GB WD SATA HDD
850W Thermaltake psu
Win 7 Pro 64bit

It looks like I'm in the market for a new video card a lot sooner than I expected. I'm thinking of going for a GT 970. It uses PCI 3, my board is PCI 2 and according to research that shouldn't be a problem. However, I wonder if my board and cpu together will be enough of a bottleneck that I'll be throwing money away.

Should I consider a 960 instead? I like the prices but they're only 2GB vram at 128bit compared to ~4GB and 256bit. Whatever card I get, I expect it to last a few years. I mainly play Skyrim, War Thunder and I'll need it to run FO 4 and TES6 when they come out. I've also been doing a lot of work on 3DS Max, so it needs to work hard and play hard.

Thanks for your time.

[obobski]

First things first: FO4 has just barely been announced, and specs have not been released - nobody (or at least nobody who likely isn't under NDA) knows what its system requirements are. That said, I wouldn't expect a machine that can handle Skyrim to not play it. TES6 hasn't even been mentioned, so let's not even go there...

 

Anyways, onto the actual topic at hand: GTX 970 has a memory "bug" ("feature erratta") which causes performance problems with using more than 3.5GB of VRAM (and reportedly the card is more prone to stuttering even when not approaching that limit, due to the interleaved memory system). IMHO I would look at another model. As far as PCIe 2.0/3.0 there should be no problems with your board - I've read (and experienced) issues with earlier 3.0 cards and older 2.0 boards where having the card installed locks the system up (machine will not boot), but afaik this has been addressed on both sides and should not be a problem. Basically don't worry about this until you have to worry about it. As far as your machine "being a bottleneck" - that's highly unlikely, as CPU performance has more or less stagnated in recent years, so your 2500 won't be that far behind (if at all) more modern processors at similar clockspeed. At least in gaming. iGPUs and features like QuickSync can confer an advantage to newer processors in some other situations.

 

GTX 960 is a fine card, and very much worth consideration. I'd also look at AMD - the 280 and 290 series are both great performers, and you have more than enough PSU capacity for basically any modern card you want. GTX 980 is also a very good option, but again this will all depend on your budget. If you're on a smaller/fixed budget, there'd be nothing wrong with GTX 960 - it'd be an improvement over the 560 (and if the 560 was doing everything you wanted already, I'd probably just stop there and get the 960), and in a few years when they start talking about TES6 you can worry about upgrading then.

 

3DS will run however it will run on a consumer card (it's not officially supported/logo-certified by Autodesk or nVidia); Quadro and FirePro are likely well outside of your budget though, and unless you rely on this machine for a paycheck (or its doing something mission critical where certifications matter) aren't worth it anyways imho. The 960/980/280/290/etc should still be an improvement over the 560, as they're faster overall, however that will generally only be viewport performance (unless you're relying on CUDA/OpenCL-accelerated rendering/features/whatever).

[Ragicka]

Quite right about FO4. I'm expecting it to use a beefier version of the Skyrim engine but that's based on speculation. My 560 handled Skyrim well enough on high settings with intermittent micro stutters but still playable. It also handled Max rather well for editing skyrim files but it's not a money maker, at least not yet. It's just that I use it a lot so my rig gets a daily work out with everything I throw at it. I had to replace the psu last year and opted for something with plenty of head room, that pretty much illustrates the way I approach hardware upgrades.

Since FO4 is around the corner, so to speak, I need to guesstimate its demands the best I can before I commit to a purchase but I'm probably over-thinking this. I think it's reasonable to assume that the current line-up of mid to high range cards should be able to handle it. I like the 980's but can't justify the expense. I was thinking that even a 760/780 would be a significant step-up but the prices of those I do find give me no incentive. I haven't looked closely at the radeons, more inclined towards nvidia, but I'll consider them.

Re: the 970 memory issue. I was aware of the vram discrepancy (3.5GB compared to the advertised 4GB) and was ok with that since it seems to be a popular card and the reviews I've read from several forums gave me the impression that it wasn't that big a deal otherwise. I wasn't aware of the stuttering problem you mentioned and that's the kind of thing I want to avoid. Do you know if it affects all the current versions? Any signs from nvidia to correct this?

I appreciate your prompt advice and I'm a little less panicked today about the whole thing. :smile:

[obobski]

I wouldn't bother with 780 as the prices have seemed to skyrocket. I've seen some 660s, 760s, and 770s still lingering at shops or online at decent prices though (if you're in the US, I think Best Buy may still have some of the nvidia-branded 770s hanging around). Really any of those, and the 960, would be an improvement over the 560. I've seen bigger gains (in benchmarks and my own limited exposure to DX10/11 games) for Kepler/Maxwell/GCN over Fermi/TerraScale (old AMD cards) in DX10/11 games (so, not Skyrim) as well - for example Hitman 5, Watch_dogs, and Shadow of Mordor (I know you mentioned neither of those, but let's say hypothetically that Fallout 4 moves up to DX10/11, that advantage would become more apparent). The 960 (and GCN Radeons) will have an advantage in supporting DX12 out of the gate, if that's something on your radar, whereas older cards may not receive as much attention. I honestly can't see why a 960 would be problematic for at least a year or two, if not longer.

 

On the 970 - as far as I'm aware there is no "fix" short of nVidia re-designing the card (which doesn't seem likely). Basically the GPU has to work the way it does with the memory configuration they want - they could either change the memory configuration (e.g. release it as a 3.5GB card) or change the GPU. As far as online debates, it seems to be a hot topic for some. I don't really have a dog in that fight, I'm just pointing out that it is a flaw with that card. Personally I'd pass on the GTX 970 as a result, if for no other reason than peace of mind (e.g. you aren't worrying about "will this be a problem with this game?" or constantly checking for stutter or other issues). There are plenty of bona fide 4GB cards out there if you want such a thing, although benchmarks that I've followed for a while now seem to indicate such a thing isn't really that important unless you're interested in 4K gaming (in which case, you should really re-consider the GTX 980 or R9 290X, if not the newer Radeon Fury or Titan X).

[Ragicka]

I'm starting to warm up to the 960s. One of my biggest concerns was the 128bit rate but with the higher clock speed and memory compression, it should be quicker than my 560 at 256bit unless I'm mistaken. I have a 24" LCD synchmaster at 1920x1200 and perfectly happy with that so that's another check in favour of the 960.

Found some 4GB versions. This one in particular is a contender. Still need to check a few more sites. Now I need to determine if the 960 4GB is actually 4 and not 3.5+0.5 like the 970s. So far, an EVGA forum mod and a review state that it is a contiguous 4GB at the same speed. Nothing definitive, still looking for confirmation.

My understanding of the whole 970 debacle is that:

-A. The nvidia marketing dept posted the wrong specs and it took 4 months for the truth to come out.
-B. 3.5GB at 224bits and a separate cache of 0.5MB at 32bits. Any app or game that caches over 3.5GB will hit that bottleneck and lag heavily. Easy to do at 4k res I imagine.

If there's a way to disable the slower .5MB cache or limit the app to only 3.5GB vram, then the 970 would be a winner. Which only leads me to more questions: How much vram is really needed? Can a heavily modded skyrim with hi-res textures exceed 3.5GB at 1920x1200?

[cheesywheesy]

Hi Ragicka,

 

yes, a heavily modded skyrim can easily exceed 3,5GB. I also play at 1920x1200 and if i install all the available 4k textures i'm hitting the vram limit of my r9 290 (4GB) and get massive stuttering. If i step back a bit and disable a few ground textures, the vram load is around 3.6GB max. I think you should be fine with 3.5GB if you take the 2k textures instead of the 4k ones.

 

Edit: Nice signature btw :)

Edited July 9, 2015 by cheesywheesy

[Ragicka]

Wow, I knew you could exceed 2GB but didn't know you can hit the wall at 4. Was watching a YT video where a guy ran Skyrim on ultra with the official high res texture pack (2k, I believe) and maxed at 1.4GB. And that was without additional mods. So 4k textures, and whatever else gets tossed in there can fill vram pretty quick. Good to know, thanks.

 

Geek humor, I still chuckle. :smile: How do you like your 290, good deal?

Edited July 9, 2015 by Ragicka

[obobski]

I'm starting to warm up to the 960s. One of my biggest concerns was the 128bit rate but with the higher clock speed and memory compression, it should be quicker than my 560 at 256bit unless I'm mistaken. I have a 24" LCD synchmaster at 1920x1200 and perfectly happy with that so that's another check in favour of the 960.

 

Found some 4GB versions. This one in particular is a contender. Still need to check a few more sites. Now I need to determine if the 960 4GB is actually 4 and not 3.5+0.5 like the 970s. So far, an EVGA forum mod and a review state that it is a contiguous 4GB at the same speed. Nothing definitive, still looking for confirmation.

 

My understanding of the whole 970 debacle is that:

 

-A. The nvidia marketing dept posted the wrong specs and it took 4 months for the truth to come out.

-B. 3.5GB at 224bits and a separate cache of 0.5MB at 32bits. Any app or game that caches over 3.5GB will hit that bottleneck and lag heavily. Easy to do at 4k res I imagine.

 

If there's a way to disable the slower .5MB cache or limit the app to only 3.5GB vram, then the 970 would be a winner. Which only leads me to more questions: How much vram is really needed? Can a heavily modded skyrim with hi-res textures exceed 3.5GB at 1920x1200?

 

 

 

 

I can't break up replies, so hopefully you can follow this:

 

- It is not "128-bit bitrate" it is just bus width - by itself it's largely an irrelevant spec; what ultimately matters is bandwidth. Lower bus width interfaces mean smaller (and thus cheaper) chips, and low width + high speed is where companies want to go as a result. Higher width interfaces are ultimately necessary to achieve desired bandwidth targets (e.g. this is why 290X has 512-bit memory interface), especiallly as (until the very recent release of HBM) there haven't been significant improvements in memory device speed (GDDR5 has been the standard for almost ten years now). All graphics cards for the last ~15 years use compression and other bandwidth saving tricks (so don't let nVidia's PR team sell you otherwise).

 

- GTX 960 is continuous, that is correct. The 970's "bug" is a result of how Maxwell is put together. The 970 is basically the result of binning; they are chips that couldn't quite make the cut to be 980s (or some other "full spec" part), so internal components are deactivated to produce a stable chip. Because of Maxwell's memory controller design, this produces the interleaved memory issue that 970 faces. However, the 970 does not just address the "first" 3.5GB block in isolation - its an interleaved design. nVidia has made differeing claims about addressing this in drivers - first they claimed the card would "default" to the 3.5GB block, then they claimed they would be releasing a driver to address this, then they claimed no such fix would be possible (and afaik there is now at least one class action lawsuit pending against them over GTX 970). Most likely the final claim is accurate - the problem exists in silicon, and would have to be fixed there too. You can read more about it from Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

 

- None of this is cache, it is video memory (or VRAM). All of the RAM on modern systems is safely assumed to be cacheable ("cacheable RAM" vs "non-cacheable RAM" is actually its own separate discussion), including the GTX 970's 32-bit channel.

 

- All 4k textures all around will cause the game to lag, as cheesyweesy says, and is generally not suggested as a result. The base game will never approach this kind of memory usage though (even with the Bethesda hi-res texture pack; it's also worth noting that generally speaking games use textures of different sizes for different purposes, and many of them are not extremely hi-res (nor do they need to be), and finally remember that Bethesda specifies 512MB VRAM for Skyrim and it will run on such a card (e.g. GeForce 7900GTX)). As far as "it is absolutely using 4GB+ of VRAM" - that's hard to say accurately. The Anandtech link above provides some discussion on why this is so - the short version is that Direct3D and Windows don't treat on-card and system memory as 100% isolated pools, and applications and device drivers can (and do) allocate more memory than they need to anticipate performance needs/requirements or for other reasons (and a lot of the "memory patches" for Skyrim will try to do this too). The game is also not the only application using memory/resources at any time.

 

- I'm not cheesyweesy, but I also have a 290 (specifically an overclocked 290X), and would easily regard it as among the top 3 graphics cards I've ever owned. One thing that you should absolutely keep in mind if you're going to get a 280 or 290 though - get something with an aftermarket cooler (I'd probably say this for any graphics card, except lower power (in terms of actual power draw) stuff like GTX 750 or 960).

[Ragicka]

You're right, I get my bits mixed up sometimes. I only mentioned it because I was comparing the 960 to my old 560 which has a 256bit bus. I was concerned that it was a step backwards but further research seems to indicate that it shouldn't be a problem due to current compression tricks. I'm satisfied that the 960 will still out perform the 560 in that regard.

We could probably go on for days about the pros and cons of the whole 970 drama but I have to make a decision. From my own research of reviews and YT commentary etc, my personal opinion is that the 970 is still a good deal as long as you know what you're getting into. Someone technically savvy enough to monitor their vram usage, among other things, should do well with this card. Unfortunately, most consumers aren't and would be well advised to look elsewhere.

So today I made an executive decision and ordered this one.

My old 560 was performing admirably despite it's age and 2GB vram, even with the hi-res texture packs and tweaked ENB. Other factors like heat management and power draw were also considered. When it comes down to the crunch, I have to consider price and performance. With taxes and delivery, I'm paying less than $400 CAD which is workable, barely. As long as I don't get a dud, I'm sure this 960 will do everything I need it to do and most, if not all, of what I want it to do for the next couple years at least.

You made that recommendation already, I just needed to work it over and sleep on it a few times. I appreciate your input, it really helps to have someone to discuss things like this. Thanks, I'll let you know how it goes. :thumbsup:

[obobski]

I think that 960 should be fantastic - eVGA makes some very nice boards, and that style of heatsink tends to be very good in terms of noise/performance IME. We'll have to agree to disagree on the 970 - just monitoring/being aware of the problem doesn't resolve the problem.