I’ll admit that having a favorite graphics card is probably weird, but the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first GPU I ever bought brand new, following years of buying preowned components to stuff inside my cobbled-together gaming PC. Ten years on, and unlike the green team, I haven’t forced my EVGA card into retirement yet, so I thought I’d run through how it holds up handling new releases in 2024.
Given the above, it’s perhaps not surprising to hear that I consider the GeForce GTX 970 to be the best graphics card out of the entire 900-series line-up. Yes, I know, the GTX 980 Ti was the flagship of the Maxell era, but honestly? Young Phil was more than happy to pay under $300 / £300 for a GPU that could still run Dark Souls 3 at 1080p without compromise two years after launch. In fact, I recall it blasting through most of my Steam library after picking one up from Scan UK back in 2014, putting my old toasty GTX 470 to shame with its efficiency and temperatures.
