for Nvidia cards, make sure they have "maxwell" or better "maxwell 2.0".
for AMD: make sure you don't have to pay for electricity by yourself, they need a lot more electricity. about twice as much.
last year i was shopping for amd cards too, like hd7970 (cheaper) or r9 290x (good choice but very loud fan when compared to nvidia gtx) and hd7990 (faster but many heat problems). AMD was attractive to me as a beginner because they seemed to be cheaper, in the sense of "more bang for the buck", but they aren't in the long term. i wasn't happy with them. meanwhile i have sold all of them and followed epixoip's advice: went the nvidia 970/980 route too, and only reference design cards.
i've got a brand new setup now and all i can say, epixoip was damn right. go nvidia, go reference cards. - that is, if you need a stable system that actually works.
i woudln't go for gtx960 though, minimum 970.
for AMD: make sure you don't have to pay for electricity by yourself, they need a lot more electricity. about twice as much.
last year i was shopping for amd cards too, like hd7970 (cheaper) or r9 290x (good choice but very loud fan when compared to nvidia gtx) and hd7990 (faster but many heat problems). AMD was attractive to me as a beginner because they seemed to be cheaper, in the sense of "more bang for the buck", but they aren't in the long term. i wasn't happy with them. meanwhile i have sold all of them and followed epixoip's advice: went the nvidia 970/980 route too, and only reference design cards.
i've got a brand new setup now and all i can say, epixoip was damn right. go nvidia, go reference cards. - that is, if you need a stable system that actually works.
i woudln't go for gtx960 though, minimum 970.