10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

A mid to low level graphics card, the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition is found in budget machines nowadays, struggling to meet AAA system requirements.

GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition is capable of DirectX 12 gaming requirements.

Here we take a closer look at the various performances across 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions for the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition. In particular this is looking at the Ultra graphics settings to see what sort of FPS this graphics card can get across some of the more popular games played in 2022. The GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition can run the recommended graphics system requirements for 442 games today, of the top 1000 most demanding.

Running at 1080p this card gets a weak frame rate from Battlefield 2042 with 12 FPS on Ultra. Then we take a look at Star Citizen which is predicted to return a reasonable 50 FPS. Another title that we looked at is the popular Forza Horizon 5 which we saw getting a playable 30 FPS.

We move on to 1440p, and tested Battlefield 2042 which delivered weak FPS results. Here are the graphic presets - Low: 24 FPS, Medium: 19 FPS, High: 13 FPS and Ultra: 9 FPS. Next we have Star Citizen running on GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition which is predicted to get L: 100FPS, M: 79FPS, H: 53FPS, U: 38FPS. And for performance contrast the popular Forza Horizon 5 gets L: 60FPS, M: 48FPS, H: 32FPS, U: 23FPS at 1440p. Gaming at 1440p with the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition is in need of some graphics adjustments to get some stability, which means its not an ideal gaming resolution for this GPU.

How many years will the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition in your PC? 12-18 months of top end gaming is still left in this graphics card

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition? A suitable upgrade choice for the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition is the 30 Series GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, which is 64% more powerful and can run 972 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements. Alternatively a good choice when looking to upgrade the GeForce GTX 970 Gigabyte WindForce 3X OC 4GB Edition would be the R-500 Series Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB which meets 961 of the 1000 top game’s recommended system requirements and has 56% better performance.