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GeForce 970 gtx ftw+ or stock 980 ?

I had bad luck with MSi rma years back on an old nforce chipset board. Ended up taking 4 weeks on top of the normal 4 week normal rma process cuz they didn't fix the issue. I swore them and PNY off years ago after being burned by their horrible lack of knowledgable tech support and bad rma depts. (PNY burned me on the lifetime warranty because they said I moved the upc sticker (which I never did) cost me 40 bucks for them to only ship it right back denying my warranty claim. PNY can burn in hades... MSI was just unfortunate on the rma issue.. hope this helps.
 
Okay, one last thing @kaM I've read reviews about the GIGABYTE VIDEO CARD over at newegg and it says that they switched the onboard ram from Samsung to Hynix which is a cheaper vram version....lots of cons because of it....its concerning a bit now...and these are recent reviews:

To my dismay I did research and the card I was dealt has the "Hynix" ram. But the better versions of the card that supposedly do not have the vram issue and oc much better are the "Samsung" versions. I feel lied to and regret buying this faulty item.
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Hynix VRAM. Gigabyte did the switcharoo and went from higher quality Samsung memory to cheap Hynix VRAM! BOO!!!
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Lastly there might be an issue, I was actually looking to get a 144hz refresh rate monitor by year end (BF) but it appears that the 970gtx may not hit the numbers to be able to run it....I think I'd have to go with the 980gtx route, which is way more expensive at this point....
 
IcEWoLF said:
Okay, one last thing @kaM I've read reviews about the GIGABYTE VIDEO CARD over at newegg and it says that they switched the onboard ram from Samsung to Hynix which is a cheaper vram version....lots of cons because of it....its concerning a bit now...and these are recent reviews:





Lastly there might be an issue, I was actually looking to get a 144hz refresh rate monitor by year end (BF) but it appears that the 970gtx may not hit the numbers to be able to run it....I think I'd have to go with the 980gtx route, which is way more expensive at this point....
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Nothing against Kam's point of view but running a single 980 is not going to get you the frame rates that matter for 144hz monitor at 1440p. The 970 is near pointless and even a single 980 is going to leave you scaling back graphic settings to the point it will be noticeable. Even running dual 980's at 1440p and I am hovering around 120 fps in many modern games, I try to setup the graphic settings to keep the system near that 144hz to keep things as smooth as possible. Going to a 1440p monitor means you really need to step up the horsepower in the graphics department to maintain high frame rates. The sad truth is this, there is no cheap entry into high resolution gaming.
 
I've looked at a few posts about the ram issues. Hynix and Samsung are the only two companies producing GDDR5 memory at the moment and I've always personally had more luck with OCing Hynix memory. Just spent a few minutes looking into it and seems like pretty mixed reviews on both. A lot are trying to push the card to it's limits on air and getting unstable reactions

Fasttrak said:
Nothing against Kam's point of view but running a single 980 is not going to get you the frame rates that matter for 144hz monitor at 1440p. The 970 is near pointless and even a single 980 is going to leave you scaling back graphic settings to the point it will be noticeable. Even running dual 980's at 1440p and I am hovering around 120 fps in many modern games, I try to setup the graphic settings to keep the system near that 144hz to keep things as smooth as possible. Going to a 1440p monitor means you really need to step up the horsepower in the graphics department to maintain high frame rates. The sad truth is this, there is no cheap entry into high resolution gaming.
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A single 970 will be able to push games above 60 fps, which anything above 60 fps will be able to take advantage of the screen. This means less motion blur, less input lag, etc. You don't have to be pushing 140+ fps to notice this on these screens. As what was described to me by an Asus rep when demoing their new ROG screens.
 
Gonna be a tough choice, waiting to see if there is going to be any deals for the 980 gtx anytime soon, but I don't see that happening until the new AMD cards get released, which should be sometimes this qt.
 
Fasttrak said:
Nothing against Kam's point of view but running a single 980 is not going to get you the frame rates that matter for 144hz monitor at 1440p. The 970 is near pointless and even a single 980 is going to leave you scaling back graphic settings to the point it will be noticeable. Even running dual 980's at 1440p and I am hovering around 120 fps in many modern games, I try to setup the graphic settings to keep the system near that 144hz to keep things as smooth as possible. Going to a 1440p monitor means you really need to step up the horsepower in the graphics department to maintain high frame rates. The sad truth is this, there is no cheap entry into high resolution gaming.
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So, is there no point in considering getting a 144hz monitor atm since no video cards can handle it?
 
IcEWoLF said:
So, is there no point in considering getting a 144hz monitor atm since no video cards can handle it?
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Not at all, I would not give up this gorgeous real estate for 1080p that is certain. I just believe that going in half way will give minor benefits and advantages. I can instantly tell when I log into a game after a driver update, I always forget it toggles SLI off automatically. The difference from holding a true 144 frame rate, min some where near that and max holds tight at 144 is the best money can buy; how I try leveraging the graphics settings for eye candy. This screen and 1440P shows off the higher end settings better to my eye than it did on my old Dell 24" 108P monitor. Single player games it is easier to get that set to optimum, online games with really high poly counts, explosions and other frame robbing effect will hammer everything including a dual card setup.

For me, I would not consider the jump with out going SLI or Crossfire, it will just make the upgrade that more satisfying, when performance and graphics come together to drop your jaw 6". I would look at some of the non-oem producers of the 970 and get two.

ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 Graphics Card ZT-90101-10P B&H

My Zotacs run pretty damn cool with a pretty hefty OC, if you're worried about the OEM cooling solution there are options.
 
I am not looking to OC any cards, rather have it factory OC. I am not considering SLI at this point, at least not now.
The only knock the 970gtx gets is the ram problem which is 3.5gb instead of 4gb...I'm seeing a fair amount of complaints about the 970 gtx on review sites, I've never been this nervous about an upgrade....part of me wants the 980gtx and another part now wants to wait for the TI version which should come out later this year.

AMD would have been a good choice since they are coming out with their new cards soon, however their drivers are absolute shit.
 
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