10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

This GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition graphics card is considered budget with poor modern game performance when playing anything more demanding than indie game requirements.

GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition is capable of DirectX 12 gaming requirements.

We take a look at game performance achieved on this graphics card when running 2023 popular games. This short GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition game hardware review looks at the graphics card frame rate performance on Ultra graphics settings at 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions. When considering how well this graphics card can run the 1000 most demanding games available today it can best 375 of the games’ recommended graphics requirements.

With 1080p being the most common gaming resolution at the moment we explored how well the GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition can run Star Citizen at 1080p and predict it will return reasonable frame rates at the following graphics settings - Low: 132 FPS, Medium: 104 FPS, High: 70 FPS and Ultra: 50 FPS. For performance contrast we can see that Battlefield 2042 returns a weak 8 FPS at Ultra 1080p.

As the PC gaming masses explore larger screen resolutions we decided to run some game checks at 1440p across a few popular games. We predict the GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition will run the upcoming game Star Citizen to a playable performance level. Predictions across the graphics settings looked like this, Low: 101 FPS, Medium: 79 FPS, High: 53 FPS and Ultra: 38 FPS. Another game tested was Battlefield 2042, L: 15FPS, M: 12FPS, H: 8FPS, U: 6FPS. And then we checked graphics card performance on Forza Horizon 5, which returned L: 53FPS, M: 42FPS, H: 28FPS, U: 20FPS at 1440p. 1440p gaming on the GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition is not a first choice gaming resolution. While this graphics card would likely be more suited to 1080p gaming, you may be able to make some graphical tweaks in the game options to improve your stability at 1440p.

How many years will the GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 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 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition? There are no graphics cards on the current market that would provide a big enough increase in performance to warrant upgrading the GeForce GTX 970 Leadtek WinFast 4GB Edition.