How to Put the "G" in Gaming
Computer gaming is a popular hobby for millions of people around the world, and it all depends on your GPU. While your processor does a lot of work in most applications, computer games rely heavily on the graphics card.
What is the GTX 970?
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 is a mainstream video card for serious gamers. The reference design features 4 GB of memory on a 256-bit bus and no less than 1664 Cuda cores. With 224 GB per second of bandwidth the card can move enough pixels to render images that were unheard of for previous generations. This GeForce includes the following advanced features:
- DSR: Dynamic Super Resolution supports an advanced Gaussian filter for downsampling 4K images onto 1080p monitors for more detailed image reproduction.
- SLI: With four-way Scalable Link Interface, the GTX 970 can link four cards for faster frame rates at higher resolutions.
- VXGI: Voxel Global Illumination is a new technique that accurately renders indirect lighting in real time.
How Do You Connect a GTX 970?
The GeForce GTX 970 aims to provide great gaming experiences, but no graphics card can do that in isolation. Its only part of a system and that means you have to consider how it interfaces with the rest of the world in order to fully take advantage of the card. This is equally true whether you have one card or multiple cards; everything has to work together, and you need a strong enough processor to feed the card enough data. Each card features two types of interface; an internal one for data and an external one for output:
- Input: The GTX 970 is for a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, which offers a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 32 GB per second between the system and the GPU.
- Output: With two dual-link DVI-I interfaces, one HDMI interface, and three DisplayPort connectors, the GigaByte implementation of the Nvidia GTX 970 is capable of driving no fewer than four separate monitors for a true surround gaming experience.
Using the GeForce
With full support for both DirectX12 and PhysX, the GTX 970 can fill your screen with pixels. Computer gaming is all about speed and being able to render a scene in complete detail at a high frame rate. When your frame rate is too slow, the game world feels jerky and you cannot always complete your mission. You can often speed up the game by dropping the resolution and level of detail but that brings its own trade-offs as you may find the game more difficult because you simply cannot see whats going on as well. This may not be an issue in single-player games, but competitive multiplayer games reward you for every advantage you have.
Content provided for informational purposes only. eBay is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nvidia or GigaByte.