My planned build thus far.

[cmadrid]

Still.. they deserve to be kicked in the ass pretty hard for how they marketed the 970.  If they would have been upfront about the engineering gymnastics involved with the card, they could have spun it as a  positive, instead of looking like a bunch of shady *******s.

[tp4tissue]

I too went with gtx970 knowing the 'issues' it has. I think much of it is being wholly blown out of proportion. I wanted an update to my gtx670 2GB card mostly for gaming since it's really starting to struggle on some titles in 1440p. There was no way I will pay $550+ for gtx980 (or any card for that matter). AMD is no option for me. They are so much hotter, louder and more power hungry and I never had anything but problems with their terrible drivers in the past either. Though the last AMD I owned was FireStream 9270. So basically for me it was either buy gtx970, older used card with 4GB, or no upgrade. I regret going cheap on the gtx670 and not getting the 4GB version... I might have lasted through another generation.

the issue is not blown out of proportion..  the odds of frames dipping into single digits are real..

it's not that it will happen all the time..   


So it's like a car, that will intermittently TURN OFF...   doesn't matter how great the car is,  but if it intermittently turns off here/there while ur driving...  That's a major problem

The issues are blown WAY out of proportion.. who bought a gtx 970 planning on using it for 4k or multi monitor surround gaming?  The 970 absolutely destroys 1080p and is more than enough for 1440.

many people bought the 970 for SLI on 2560x1600..  if you add 4x AA to that, you can easily exceed 3.5GB

[cmadrid]

I too went with gtx970 knowing the 'issues' it has. I think much of it is being wholly blown out of proportion. I wanted an update to my gtx670 2GB card mostly for gaming since it's really starting to struggle on some titles in 1440p. There was no way I will pay $550+ for gtx980 (or any card for that matter). AMD is no option for me. They are so much hotter, louder and more power hungry and I never had anything but problems with their terrible drivers in the past either. Though the last AMD I owned was FireStream 9270. So basically for me it was either buy gtx970, older used card with 4GB, or no upgrade. I regret going cheap on the gtx670 and not getting the 4GB version... I might have lasted through another generation.

the issue is not blown out of proportion..  the odds of frames dipping into single digits are real..

it's not that it will happen all the time..   


So it's like a car, that will intermittently TURN OFF...   doesn't matter how great the car is,  but if it intermittently turns off here/there while ur driving...  That's a major problem

The issues are blown WAY out of proportion.. who bought a gtx 970 planning on using it for 4k or multi monitor surround gaming?  The 970 absolutely destroys 1080p and is more than enough for 1440.

many people bought the 970 for SLI on 2560x1600..  if you add 4x AA to that, you can easily exceed 3.5GB

I'm pretty sure 'many people' and 2560x1600 are mutually exclusive statements.. but a SINGLE 970 seems to run pretty much any benchmark I've seen pretty well at 2560x1440 with 4x AA

[IvanIvanovich]

It can't be worse than what happens with 2GB card paging to system ram or even worse yet to disk once memory is out on the GPU. Talk about crushing the FPS. While it depends on the game, in many case you can turn certain setting that eats vram down or even off without seeing much difference if any playing at 1440p. You have a much higher pixel density so you don't notice so much jaggies and etc so you can turn it down for better performance and it still doesn't look awful.
It's a mid tier card, so people shouldn't expect it not to have some concession. Mid tier stuff is always crippled in some way or another compared to the *80 and anything else at the top like Titan. Some people simply have unreasonable expectations.
Did nvidia make some mistake... maybe. It's possible they could have made some other design decision that could have been better but it's too late now. As long as it's better than what it's going to be replacing it's still a fine choice.

[tp4tissue]

I too went with gtx970 knowing the 'issues' it has. I think much of it is being wholly blown out of proportion. I wanted an update to my gtx670 2GB card mostly for gaming since it's really starting to struggle on some titles in 1440p. There was no way I will pay $550+ for gtx980 (or any card for that matter). AMD is no option for me. They are so much hotter, louder and more power hungry and I never had anything but problems with their terrible drivers in the past either. Though the last AMD I owned was FireStream 9270. So basically for me it was either buy gtx970, older used card with 4GB, or no upgrade. I regret going cheap on the gtx670 and not getting the 4GB version... I might have lasted through another generation.

the issue is not blown out of proportion..  the odds of frames dipping into single digits are real..

it's not that it will happen all the time..   


So it's like a car, that will intermittently TURN OFF...   doesn't matter how great the car is,  but if it intermittently turns off here/there while ur driving...  That's a major problem

The issues are blown WAY out of proportion.. who bought a gtx 970 planning on using it for 4k or multi monitor surround gaming?  The 970 absolutely destroys 1080p and is more than enough for 1440.

many people bought the 970 for SLI on 2560x1600..  if you add 4x AA to that, you can easily exceed 3.5GB

I'm pretty sure 'many people' and 2560x1600 are mutually exclusive statements.. but a SINGLE 970 seems to run pretty much any benchmark I've seen pretty well at 2560x1440 with 4x AA

The benches don't always cover large frame dips..

For example..  what if you had a game going,  then minimized it, and the card didn't flush that,  and you loaded another game..  in this case you'd hit the 3.5..

now you have to go back and close the other game... 

many programs now use the GPU cache as well,... 


point is.. if you have a 970, odds are it's ok if you work around the kinks..

but,   if you went and BOUGHT one today,  that's just "needless aggravation"..

[cmadrid]

I bought a 970 after 'ramgate' after reading all about the problem.. I game at 1080p currently, and since my plan for this year is to finally actually build a keyboard, I don't see my wife letting me buy a new monitor any time soon

[tp4tissue]

I bought a 970 after 'ramgate' after reading all about the problem.. I game at 1080p currently, and since my plan for this year is to finally actually build a keyboard, I don't see my wife letting me buy a new monitor any time soon

Well, if the wife only has a few thousand miles on it, surely you can trade in for a pretty sweet Gaming PC setup.

[cmadrid]

I bought a 970 after 'ramgate' after reading all about the problem.. I game at 1080p currently, and since my plan for this year is to finally actually build a keyboard, I don't see my wife letting me buy a new monitor any time soon

Well, if the wife only has a few thousand miles on it, surely you can trade in for a pretty sweet Gaming PC setup.

Then I would have to get a job and stuff, right?

[tp4tissue]

I bought a 970 after 'ramgate' after reading all about the problem.. I game at 1080p currently, and since my plan for this year is to finally actually build a keyboard, I don't see my wife letting me buy a new monitor any time soon

Well, if the wife only has a few thousand miles on it, surely you can trade in for a pretty sweet Gaming PC setup.

Then I would have to get a job and stuff, right?

well.. yea... i guess if she's ur sugar-momma, there's more reason to appease her...

[n3ro]

The Qnix might have pwm flicker which can cause headaches. Mine does and to get rid of the flicker i have to keep the backlight at 100 percent. I use my video card driver to lower the brightness.

[oledome]

The Fractal Design Define range is tip top you will not be disappointed.

I disagree with earlier suggestion to get a smaller SSD, games are pushing 60GB these days.

Consider getting second HDD and mirror in case a drive fails.

While Noctuas are great you could get something cheaper that performs well. You could just get the thing everyone gets and loves: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005O65JXI/

You should go for lower wattage on the PSU.

I can't imagine the monitor is that good for that price?

Unlocked Core-i5 is fine.