7970 vs nVidia's Next Card?

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Kusanhagi

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I am thinking of finally buying a top of the line video card for the first time. I am trying to decide if I want to take the plunge right now or wait for nVidia's new offering. Anyone have opinions?
 
Kusanhagi said:
I am thinking of finally buying a top of the line video card for the first time. I am trying to decide if I want to take the plunge right now or wait for nVidia's new offering. Anyone have opinions?
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What do you have now? Do you NEED to upgrade, or do you just want to? If you are running a really subpar card, I'd probably opt for going for the 7970 now as you will be able to enjoy it sooner and not have to wait for nvidia's offering. If you are running something that gets the job done for you I would personally wait.
 
Why wait.If you wait you always be waiting.
If its money your concerned about,just head on over to the for sale thread and buy a 580GTX for 350 bucks.
 
I am in your situation as well. I was thinking of getting hd 7970, but I think I will wait to see what nvidia would offer. I have GTX 570 at the moment.
 
i too am undecided, wait or not wait that is the question. from what i have seen the nvidia cards are going to be expensive. something was in my mind lately, nvidia cards sometimes are kind of like intel vs amd, my ati hd 6970 performs like a 570 nvidia (and ati sells it as if its performance is just like a 580, which is not true). i kind think the 7970 is more like a 580 gtx just a bit faster. i think that if i want the best i have to expend more and get a nvidia. i just have to get a nvidia card with displayport.
 
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AndreRio said:
i too am undecided, wait or not wait that is the question. from what i have seen the nvidia cards are going to be expensive. something was in my mind lately, nvidia cards sometimes are kind of like intel vs amd, my ati hd 6970 performs like a 570 nvidia (and ati sells it as if its performance is just like a 580, which is not true). i kind think the 7970 is more like a 580 gtx just a bit faster. i think that if i want the best i have to expend more and get a nvidia.
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...what?

The 6970 is $150 cheaper than the 580. It's supposed to perform like a 570.
 
AndreRio said:
i too am undecided, wait or not wait that is the question. from what i have seen the nvidia cards are going to be expensive. something was in my mind lately, nvidia cards sometimes are kind of like intel vs amd, my ati hd 6970 performs like a 570 nvidia (and ati sells it as if its performance is just like a 580, which is not true). i kind think the 7970 is more like a 580 gtx just a bit faster. i think that if i want the best i have to expend more and get a nvidia. i just have to get a nvidia card with displayport.
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The 7970 isn't "just a bit faster" than the 580 GTX, it is significantly faster. The best right now is the 7970 no question. What Nvidia can bring to the table remains to be seen. Although for me if Nvidia's next can't do 3+ monitors from a single card I'll be sticking with ATI.
 
Depends on if you are a nV fan or not. Me, I'm waiting because I like nVidia cards better. The current gen are 100% fine for everything and while I always want something faster/better/moar/etc I can wait for what I want.

On the other had if you like them both equally well, or like AMD better, than get a 7900. They are great cards and of course have the advantage of being available right now.
 
Kusanhagi said:
I am thinking of finally buying a top of the line video card for the first time. I am trying to decide if I want to take the plunge right now or wait for nVidia's new offering. Anyone have opinions?
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if you have to think this hard about it then it sounds like money is a factor. the 7970 card costs quite a bit so you better have a VERY good pc to put a card like that in. so in other words please list ALL your current specs including resolution you want to use.
 
This is entirely a matter of brand preference. If you like AMD buy now. If not wait for the nV card. It usually comes down to drivers. Whichever company makes the better drivers in your opinion, go with them. The performance differences between the 2 of them will be minimal, or at least that has almost always been the case. ATi/AMD had a clear winner with the Radeon 9700 Pro, but that was a decade ago.
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
This is entirely a matter of brand preference. If you like AMD buy now. If not wait for the nV card. It usually comes down to drivers. Whichever company makes the better drivers in your opinion, go with them. The performance differences between the 2 of them will be minimal, or at least that has almost always been the case. ATi/AMD had a clear winner with the Radeon 9700 Pro, but that was a decade ago.
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It may also impact pricing. If the GK104 card comes out at $399 and trades blows with the 7970, AMD might lower their prices some. I'd say at this point, unless you are hurting for a card, just wait. Rumors are starting to fly about the new Nvidia cards, so the release/announcement might come sooner than people expect (and if not maybe better rumors at least).
 
Unless I just found some killer deal, there is absolutely no way I'd get a 7970 right now. With Kepler right around the corner, and the unattractive pricing of the 7970, it just doesn't make sense to me. If in three months Kepler comes out and it sucks or is too expensive, then get a 7970. By then, I bet you see a price drop or some rebates on the amd cards.

As a side note, I personally think the 7950 is the way to go. Clock for clock it's only around 3-5% slower, and they overclock like mad. Hexus did a nice comparison on the two.
 
weighs alot on your disposable income and how you choose to spend it. i bit on a 7970 now b/c rumors are pointing at June for nvidia's high end. i highly prefer a one gpu solution and run eyefinity so i bit now. however, selling it off in june and taking a major hit to nab nvidia's latest and greatest (assuming it pounds the 7970 which i would hope it does given the release date) isn't a major deal to me. i can afford to chalk that up to expense of my hobby.

you are the only one who knows your budget situation. if 550-600 is a huge deal to you and you cannot afford to lose a lot on a 4 month resale, you should probably sit tight.
 
Well Kepler will not be out for at least another 2-3 months. So Ati has no reason to lower its prices. It has no competition right now, so why would they. And on top of that the 7970 and 7950 sell out as soon as they come into stock.
 
Kusanhagi said:
I am thinking of finally buying a top of the line video card for the first time. I am trying to decide if I want to take the plunge right now or wait for nVidia's new offering. Anyone have opinions?
Click to expand...

Tried both camps. There is no difference if you know what you're doing. My 7970s have been running great. No BSOD, GSOD, Lockups. But if you have the time to wait it wouldn't hurt to see what Nvidia has. I had to take the plungs because my 5970 can't handle everything maxed at 2560x1600. Also I never thought I would go over 2GB of RAM at 2560x1600.

Waiting isn't a bad idea if you want the best for that year. I am still on my 980X and waiting to see if Ivy Bridge-E is going to blow the socks of my 980X.
 
Wait for the next card cause it has 10gigs of ram, 20000 cuda!! :rolleyes:

Why do these threads exist? If its not out yet, we dont know.
 
zod96 said:
Well Kepler will not be out for at least another 2-3 months. So Ati has no reason to lower its prices. It has no competition right now, so why would they. And on top of that the 7970 and 7950 sell out as soon as they come into stock.
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The newest rumors have it launching next month. Who knows if they are any more accurate than the other rumors though.
 
Only buy if what you have cant run what you want to play at acceptable graphics, not so you can push your current games from high to ultra.

Then, if you are in need of a new card, buy whatever is the best bang/buck thats out right now.

Only wait if there is an official release date of a card and you can wait that long. Whichever camp releases, the other side is sure to drop pricing, so its a win/win. Again, ONLY if you know official dates, else you might be waiting forever.
 
wadec22 said:
weighs alot on your disposable income and how you choose to spend it. i bit on a 7970 now b/c rumors are pointing at June for nvidia's high end. i highly prefer a one gpu solution and run eyefinity so i bit now. however, selling it off in june and taking a major hit to nab nvidia's latest and greatest (assuming it pounds the 7970 which i would hope it does given the release date) isn't a major deal to me. i can afford to chalk that up to expense of my hobby.

you are the only one who knows your budget situation. if 550-600 is a huge deal to you and you cannot afford to lose a lot on a 4 month resale, you should probably sit tight.
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This is the smartest way to go, 550 now, enjoy top of the line 7970 performance and OC. Then sell in 6 months and get top of the line Kepler which will surely beat the 7970, Sell 6 months after that and get the top of the line Sea Islands.

Boom, 3 cards in a year or so, probably lose 100 bucks each time, but constantly have the most top of the line card in ur rig.
 
Forget about waiting. You'll be waiting forever and the next one will (most of the time) be better. How much better? Well you won't know. Just buy whatever is the best that you can afford right now.
 
AMD & nvidia seem to offset their new product launches by +/- 6 months.

So wait another 4-5 months or so for nvidia's top end card, and by then AMD rumors should have started for their 8xxx series.

And have the same question again then.

Or buy a 7970 now, enjoy, and sell it later worst case scenario.
 
Vielgus-Kutas said:
nvidia sucks, get the 7970 and forget about waiting
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Ability to add anything intelligent to topic... Fail

I'd wait it out. First, by the time the 680,690 are released, there will hopefully be at least one (maybe two?) WQHL releases for the 7970, and that release will hopefully bring down the price, and give you some solid choices w/ regards to price/performance.

IMO that's the only thing that matters. It's impossible to "future-proof" with hardware releases every 6-8 months, and there is ALWAYS something better just around the corner, and that mentality really doesn't serve anybody well.

"Red vs. Green".... Double fail with a heaping side of douchbaggery... Both companies have issues, both have done shady things to manipulate FPS / benchmark scores, both have had "tweaked" WHQL drivers and pronounced the results as the "Holy Grail" of that generation of video card.
 
roki977 said:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...k1042c-geforce-gtx-670680-specs-leak-out.aspx

If this is true, gtx 680 will be gf104 (not gf 110) for 350-400$ with 7970 preformance witch is 550-600$ now. For someone with 6970, gtx 570 , 580 etc that is worth waiting. Those current GPUs are powerful enough.
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nvidia lowering prices? Well maybe there's a first for everything...

ROTFL... :D

Made me laugh anyways...

Good marketing though, points for that.

What I mean is if nvidia's mid cards can undercut AMD's to cars, great! But nvidia will still price their to high end cards stratosphericaly high afterwards, whenever those will be out.

So nobody wins.
 
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I was in the exact same situation as you. I was running an asus 6850, but wanted more out of my gameplay on BF3, so I plunged right in and got a XFX R7970 black edition. This is my FIRST high end card, and I gotta say I am enjoying it. Pretty much how I see it, if you're playing a game and enjoying it right at this moment, then why not make the upgrade now? If you wait, you might lose interest in that certain game, but that's only my two cents. I DO gotta say though, from the rumors which are indeed only rumors, the kepler 680 is "supposedly" supposed to be 45% better than the 7970. How much of that is true? No one knows other than Nvidia. More likely than not though, it's only a marketing tactic from Nvidia trying to sway people like you and me into waiting. Either way though, I can assure you, either choice will not be a bad one!
 
Once Nvidia comes out with their 28nm, all 40nm cards will take a nosedive in resale value. For those thinking they are coming out ahead monetarily by waiting for maybe a slightly faster card, you are actually going to be losing quite bad.
 
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