GTX 970 in 2021 - Dinosaur GPU Battles RTX 3060 and RX 6800
Does a Geforce GTX 970 in 2021 make sense? A renowned youtuber has tested this by comparing the 2014 GPU in new and older games against fresh designs - RTX 3060, RTX 3080 and RX 6800.
- YouTube channel Gamers Nexus has released a video that compares the 6-year-old GTX 970 GPU to new designs, testing it in games.
How does an owner of GeForce GTX 970 feel in 2021 (and I mean when the card is actually running in the PC)? One of the "hardware" youtubers decided to test it. The Gamers Nexus channel tested the 6-year-old GPU for usability in today's high-resolution games. It turned out that the GTX 970 enables us to play even game created many years after its release. But under certain conditions - 1080p resolution and not always in highest details.
b>Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 is a GPU released in 2014. It was made in 28nm lithography, the clock is 1050 Mhz (1178 Mhz in boost mode), has 1664 shader units, 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and a 256-bit bus. Although it is already 6 years old, the rig supporting it looks quite modern:
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero
- CPU: Intel Core i7 10070K (5.1 Ghz)
- RAM: 32 GB 3200 Mhz
- Power supply: EVGA SuperNOVA T2 1600W
Please note that also the rest of the components used in a rig by a person still owning a working GTX doesn't have to be cutting edge. Their performance results will be worse than those presented here. In any case, this is mentioned at the end when Stephen Burke of Gamers Nexus advises to change the GPU. It won't be a great discovery to say that newer games prefer newer devices. This is especially true of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and GTA V. On the latest cards the performance difference between these games is small, while on the GTX 970 Rockstar's game works much better than the adventures of Lara Croft. This could be a matter of optimization or the limitations of the engine, as on RTX 3080 and similar models it exceeds 180 FPS.
Things look good in 1080p
Shadow of the Tomb Raider running in high detail and 1080p maintains an average of 53 fps which is be quite enough to play (this is no CS:GO gentlemen...). GTA V, a title already on sale on the day of the GPU's launch, runs much better with over 80 fps. The newest, powerful RTX 3080 and RX 6800 GPUs (I'll remind you that at launch GTX 970 was also a high-end card) reach of course very high values of about 180 fps. However, they are slightly lower in GTA V. In Horizon Zero Dawn the GPU also did quite well, but in case of Red Dead Redemption 2 the frame rate dropped to 40 fps. Unfortunately, with a GTX 970 under the hood, we won't be able to play Cyberpunk 2077 in high detail. It remains to reduce them, or wait for patches to improve optimization.
GPU test in Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 1080p. Source: Gamers Nexus
GPU test in GTA V - 1080p. Source: Gamers Nexus
There may be trouble in 1440p
It's immediately apparent in the following screenshots that Shadow of the Tomb Raider running in 1440p almost choked the GTX 970. The frame rate dropped to 36 fps. This is already a value that is considered rather 'not playable' by most PC gamers. Perhaps, however, lowering the details would have helped to achieve better results. In GTA V we can play in this resolution without any problem, the performance of this aged card allows for it. Rendering in 1440p did not impress Nvidia's Ampere cards. Similarly, with RX 6000 Radeons, the results oscillate around 180 fps. Horizon: Zero Dawn in this case ran at 38 fps. Is that enough? This depends on the player's preferences. The performance in Red Dead Redemption 2 is best left unspoken.
GPU test in Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 1440p. Source: Gamers Nexus
GPU test in GTA V - 1440p. Source: Gamers Nexus
And what about 4K?
Geforce GTX 970 is not a card designed for high resolutions. Neither GTA V nor Shadow of the Tomb Raider were playable in this mode. In fact, no game in the test worked well in 4K and high details on the GTX 970, so who would still find this Maxwell generation Nvidia chipset a good choice?
For someone who has a 1080p display, doesn't need a bigger one and doesn't always have to set the details to ultra. Alternatively, for the owner of a 1440p monitor it wouldn't hurt to play at medium or lower settings. Provided that the rest of the components is reasonably "modern" and efficient. In this case, the GTX 970 will enable us to play newer games.
In other cases, an upgrade should be considered and here Gamers Nexus recommends slightly newer chipsets - GTX 1080 or RTX 2000 family cards. Of course you can also opt for latest devices. Given the possible age of a PC in which the GTX 970 would still sit, the lower-end models RTX 3060 or RX 6700 are rather recommended. If we can buy them, of course, and this is not easy at the moment.
Arkadiusz Strzala
His adventure in writing began with his own blog and contributing to one of the early forums (in the olden days of Wireless Application Protocol). An electrical engineer by profession, he has a passion for technology, constructing and, of course, playing computer games. He has been a newsman and writer for Gamepressure since April 2020. He specializes in energy and space tech. However, he does not shy away from more relaxed matters every now and then. He loves watching science-fiction movies and car channels on YouTube. He mainly plays on the PC, although he has modest console experience too. He prefers real-time strategies, FPS and all sorts of simulators.
more