7970 Upgrade

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foxslink

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Hi,
Im close to sell the 7970 i currently have so im looking for a new upgrade. I play at 1080p and plan on doing some recording of games on high settings and rendering videos. Should i choose the AMD 390 or the nvidia 970? Ive read that a new line of GPU is coming this year soon, should I wait then? In any case these are the cards i found in my country so far :
SAPPHIRE NITRO R9 390 OC 8GB GDDR5 DVI/HDMI/3
MSI R9 390 GAMING 8GB GDDR5 2DVI/HDM
ASUS STRIX AMD R9 390 OC 8GB GDDR5 DVI
Tarjetas de Video » SoloTodo
MSI R9 390 (R9 390 GAMING 8G)

i did some research on the 390 and it performs slightly better than the 970 and since it's AMD it performs better going towards the future for 3 reasons:

1)It has better dx12 support (thanks to dx12 taking a lot of elements from mantle)

2)It won't get nerfed like the 970 probably will (seeing as Nvidia did this to the 7xx series and got great results, they will most likely do it again to force more people to upgrade)

3)Freesync panels are at least $100 cheaper than an equivalent Gsync panel (if you are looking at using some adaptive sync technology).

What are your thoughts?

Looking forward to your reply
 
Sapphire Nitro are well built cards.

But a 390 is a "hop" rather than a "jump" in performance.

I'd hold out 4-6 months and wait for Polaris/Pascal before investing $300+. Especially considering that the 7970 is still a damn good card....
 
I would think the 390X is a better solution, unless you are keen to BIOS mod your 390. It will still be a noticeable bump in FPS.
 
It's funny how when the 7970 and the GTX-680 were duking it out... Did we ever REALLY expect such longevity from the 7970?
 
I dont know what your impatient for that 7970 does quite well at 1080...heck even 1440p vsr'd....i think the 390 stands a good chance of holding its value a couple more years if you bought one now. were so close i would see what summer brings if it were me. For what its worth i think that Sapphire 390 is real piece of cooling mastery especially with the included backplate. From the rumors so far i don't expect to be blown away with new stuff from amd this summer but who knows.
 
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jbltecnicspro said:
It's funny how when the 7970 and the GTX-680 were duking it out... Did we ever REALLY expect such longevity from the 7970?
Click to expand...

I think the issue is not that the 7970 was such a good card, but rather that there was not many HUGE improvements after it.

Even 4 years on, the fastest GPU on the market is only twice as powerful.
 
Ok , one important thing to mention here is that they are offering me 225 USD for my 7970 right now, who knows how much that will be after June. Im from Chile by the way, and 300 pesos which is my new GPU budget is around 450 USD, do you think its idea to make this deal and get the 390?

on the other hand, many of you recommend waiting but since i dont have a spare card i cant wait that long. Tough choice, aint it?
Thanks for your feedback folks

here are my system Specs:

AMD Graphics Card
Sapphire Hd 7970 Dual-x 3gb Gddr5
Operating System
Windows 7 64bit
Driver version installed
Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.12
Display Devices
Dell U2414h, HDMI to mini HDMI, 1080p / 60 hz;
Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA1155
CPU/APU
Intel Ivy bridge i5 3570k
Power Supply Unit Make, Model & Wattage
Corsair TX650M 650w 80Plus Bronze
RAM
Kingston Predator 8GB
 
I would say 390x minimum as an upgrade. The 7970 is still a good card and does very well at 1080, I use 2x 280x for 1440 and they work quite well.
 
wait what? There offering to buy your 7970 for $225 us...fucking sell it now and get the upgrade. Thats more than i paid for mine brand new.....do it...sell it and get the 390 or 390x
 
Yay! cryptocurrencies....

Id sell it too while its value is so high and put that towards a 390/390x. I was shopping for a used card, but 7970/280x's were all over $200 used. So i got myself two new 380's and a 380x, though im still drooling on 390s...
 
horrorshow said:
Nope.

The 7900 series is the new 8800.

Very impressive.
Click to expand...


Thats kinda funny. I just put an old 8800 GTX in a machine for World of Warships and other duties. It works fine.

Though the local Power Plant did call and ask "Is everything Ok ?
 
KazeoHin said:
I think the issue is not that the 7970 was such a good card, but rather that there was not many HUGE improvements after it.

Even 4 years on, the fastest GPU on the market is only twice as powerful.
Click to expand...

Good point. Also, the fact that it's a GCN card means constant improvements even years after.
 
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Not sure about you guys but i really like the 390's dx12 results thus far, not to mention dx11 hasn't been half bad either. At 300 bucks its not a bad buy and these cards might go even farther
 
If you had a Cross Fire board like my X58 3 Way Sli then adding another 7950/7970/7990 would be as powerful as a 290x/390/390x as I have tired it with CX 7950 and it was faster then the 780Ti at the time in BF 4 and the way AMD has there CX set up it only runs one card until 3D apps fires up as they fixed the frame paceing and the setup was smooth and fast for it's age . When DX12 really comes on line then you will be able to combine the ram for 6Gb or more depending on the setup and the 7970 has a 384bit memory bus and Club 3D can get you to 4K 60fps.

I really think the 7950/7970 has more to show us under DX 12 like Hawaii has been doing.
 
primetime said:
wait what? There offering to buy your 7970 for $225 us...fucking sell it now and get the upgrade. Thats more than i paid for mine brand new.....do it...sell it and get the 390 or 390x
Click to expand...
Couldn't have said it better myself. Lol
 
jbltecnicspro said:
It's funny how when the 7970 and the GTX-680 were duking it out... Did we ever REALLY expect such longevity from the 7970?
Click to expand...

I certainly didn't and I have both cards... I just posted a similar reply in another thread. My 680 was more of a short range sprinter. Very fast when I got it, but it wasn't terribly long before newer games really brought it down. 7970 didn't come out of the gates as fast but is still a very viable card even now.
 
Look at the new Doom beta as the 280x (HD 7970Ghz) is running strong enough to battle the 780Ti and has left the 770/780GTX and 960GTX in the dust which means the card is still gaining performance..
 
I have an old 7970 windforce thanks to [H] but It doesn't like to be overclocked to anything approaching the GHZ edition. I do not regret buying it one bit especially after reselling paired reference 770s which I ran in SLI.

I plan on buying an AIO water cooler for this i7 930 andhit that 4Ghz melting point, then get the leaf blower out and clean up the 7970 so it doesn't burn my house down during some Overwatch@1440p.
 
I just built a system for a co-worker, 4690k, Z97-A asus board and gave her my old 7970 for a simple 1080p gaming rig that'll be fast in all other normal windows desktop tasks. I'm shocked how well the card still performs at 1080p (I was running it at 1440p for the last 2 years)
 
Well, the 7970/280x performance has been constantly increasing since release, and still is.

Impressive product support I have to say.
 
You came this far, I'd keep the 7970 until the new cards launch. The 390 is basically a rebadged 290. Not enough of a gain IMO. Like mentioned earlier it's more of a hop than a jump.

crazycrave said:
Look at the new Doom beta as the 280x (HD 7970Ghz) is running strong enough to battle the 780Ti and has left the 770/780GTX and 960GTX in the dust which means the card is still gaining performance..
Click to expand...

780ti benched 21% faster than the 7970. 7970 is a great card, I had three, but that's pretty close to the delta it always had (30%?).

Bought at $220 each and sold around $500. Thank you bitcoin.
 
I have 2 Asus 7870 in Crossfire configuration and have been delaying an upgrade. If I could sell my cards for $225 I would either buy the MSI GTX 980 4GD5T OC and pay the difference ($485 - 225 = $260) or just wait and see what the GTX 1080 cards will cost in June 2016.

Since it's only a month away I'm likely to stick it out and see what happens.
 
Sup amigos, its been a while since i checked this post, your comments are really on the spot and i've learned a lot from you. I finally decided not to sell the card because my gut told me not to, or maybe my love for it is to strong. I'm trying to repair an old GTS 8800 320Mb card i had from 6 years ago and if it works ill put my 7970 on sale again but im still not sure if its good idea to sell , maybe i wont get as much as the previous buyer was offering but still, even if they offer 200 USD is more than enough, we have to consider that GPUs in my country are at least 30% more expensive than US. Would you still recommend me to sell it and wait? I definitely wont go for a 390 , unless it used and good price, which is hard to find these days.
On other note, what are the news on polaris or pascal? could you recommend me a page or forum where i can stay updated? thanks folks
 
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