Confused by Graphics Card Options

Hello-

Recently got my hackbook up and running. I am currently running this card:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IDG3IDO/
GTX 750 TI, EVGA.

To be honest, I am not quite sure how I got my hackbook to work. I kind of got it running haphazardly... The issue is, I would like to get a little more performance out of my graphics card and am thinking of upgrading to this:

Geforce GTX 960
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T4BWGBM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tonymacx86com-20

2 questions: 1. why does the buyers guide recommend 2GB versus 4GB for some of these cards. For the card above, will the 4GB version work the same as the 2GB version? Also,

2. I have to mess with installing new drivers if I stick with an EVGA card? I downloaded a massive driver from their website and am hoping I can swap them out without running into any issues here. I am concerend about swapping out cards and then messing up my hackbook, i am not confident using the bootloader and dont want to have to restart to get it working/install new drivers.

I just purchased wither3 and am looking for a little more performance. I am wondering if its worth the trouble, going from the 750ti to the 960. Price wise, i am ok with. What I really want, however, is the 970. But at $200 more, i am not sure its worth it. What do you all think?

I am just responding about the Nvidia drivers, they are the same regardless of manufacturer or model. The download from Nvidia's site is certainly not a large download, about 50MB I think. Since the 750ti is a Maxwell card like the 960/970/980 the swap should be painless.

I see you have a gtx 970. I am considering this card. The question is... is it worth the extra $200 bucks. I plan on having this computer for a while. Just want to know if the extra perforamnce is worth it for the money. Can anyone comment?

dirtrider735 said:

I see you have a gtx 970. I am considering this card. The question is... is it worth the extra $200 bucks. I plan on having this computer for a while. Just want to know if the extra perforamnce is worth it for the money. Can anyone comment?

Click to expand...

I came from a GTX 570 and I have loved the upgrade. The 970 is a very powerful card and I love a lot of the features this MSI has like the Zero Frozr where the fans stop spinning under like 50C so it is generally very quiet unless gaming or rendering. The 970 easily handles current titles by itself up to 1440P. I play BF3 on a 1920x1200 monitor with everything maxed out and get 100FPS.

In my opinion I would get the 970 since you are already running a top of the line CPU.

thanks for sharing.

I tend to agree with you. To me skimping on the graphics card is like buying a ferrari and not painting it or finish the details in the seats/steering wheel, etc. Also I should mention I am running a 4k monitor. The samsung 28 inch. I need all the graphics power I can get, within financial reason here.

Worth to note also I do a lot of dual booting into windows.

wanted to update the community. I pulled the trigger on a geforce gtx 970. It was pricey, but couldn't be happier with it at this point. I seamlessley switched out the card and mac os x booted like it was no problem. Everything works great. I would recommend the card if you can justify the extra $200.