Buy 7970 now or wait?

[Borkil]

right now i'm running a 5870. i would like to get some more performance. should i pick up a 7970 or wait until 8000 series hits. whats the latest rumor on the release date? a quick google seems to suggest 2013.

EDIT:
resolution 1920x1200
cpu 2500k

bf3 drops to 40-50 a lot on high. would like steady 60. needs to be an AMD card

EDIT 2:
with that new 7870 deal and if i sell my old card, i could get a 7870 for less than 50 to tie me until 8000 series. would that be a good idea?

 

[nismotigerwvu]

In my opinion, it depends. If there's a particular title you enjoy that you are getting low frame rates on at the resolution you are running at (which would be a nice thing to know for these kinds of questions) then you might see some value in one. Additionally, we would need to know what CPU you are running as well, as you may just end up bottlenecking. Assuming 1920x1080 on something reasonably modern, your 5870 should be able to serve you pretty well through the next cycle, but no one really knows when that may end up being.

 

[SolMiester]

Single GPU 7970 is probably the quickest card overall you can get at present and a good deal cheaper then the GTX680!

 

[chimaxi83]

What games are you playing, and at what resolution? 7950 overclocked is a better deal right now, but 670/680 are faster in some games. Depends on your usage, really.

 

[Borkil]

resolution 1920x1200
cpu 2500k

bf3 drops to 40-50 a lot on high. would like steady 60. needs to be an AMD card

 

[3DVagabond]

I'd seriously consider a 7950. The MSI TF that has had a thread created about it seems real good. I'd also personally consider the Sapphire O/C for $350, as well. Although, I recommend waiting for the new pricing just announced to take effect on the 7950.

If I wanted to pop for a 7970, just because, I'd probably get the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970GE for $470. I think it's worth the extra $20, or so, over some of the others.

 

[chimaxi83]

Agree with 3DVagabond, the TF III 7950 is a great deal right now, but only if you're comfortable with overclocking and plan on doing so, as it can and will reach top tier performance. Sapphire is a great choice too if you decide to go for a 7970.

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm still very happy with my 5870, runs all of my games (LoL & Killing Floor mostly, with some of my lesser played games like Majesty 2).

Not seeing the need to upgrade like I used to. For years and years I actually needed to upgrade to play the latest games. While I'm not sure if the 5870 has bragging rights anymore in benchmarks/extreme AA/AF settings (which I can hardly tell the difference from regular/high settings anyway)- the card does the job and IMO does it well.

Bought mine on launch day and it's served me well. I'll be upgrading when it breaks or when I build a new rig, which will be Haswell or later.

If you do buy something today I'd get the 7970. I'm a *nix fan, bullish on the coming return of OpenGL on the desktop due to game devs wanting to be ready for crossplatform sales on Linux and Mac Steam. At this time Radeons absolutely stomp out Nvidia in OGL.

 

[3DVagabond]

I think devs are seeing a growing non windows market. Windows has had an awesome run, but I think an open platform will win out in the long run. I hate monopolies. I think we can thank portables for this.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

7970s are not a terrible deal IMO. They can be had for <$400 and can be flashed up to ghz edition if you got a good bin.

 

[RussianSensation]

Sapphire Vapor-X HD7970 Ghz Edition OR get an MSI TF3 7950 and overclock it. BF3 runs best on GTX670/680 cards at 1080P though. From what I've read HD8000 is rumoured for Q1-Q2 2013. Hard to say right now. Also, it's going to be hard to get 60 fps minimums in BF3 on a single-card, but average is doable.

Here is a quick chart to give you an idea of the performance increase expected from an HD5870:

Source

 

[guskline]

Borkil: Is your 2500k overclocked? If not and you have a decent aftermarket cooler, try OCing it to at least 4.2 Ghz first to see if it helps.

Second, as usual due to his balanced and fair analysis, RussianSensation hit the nail on the head. As I am typing I checked the newegg price for the Sapphire 7970 and it is $469 while the MSI 7950 is $349 but with a $20 rebate.

Remember, on the open market you will be VERY lucky to net $100 on the 5870. Probably less.

I own a GTX680 and 2 GTX670s(used for 3 monitors). Had the 670 been out at the same time I would have chosen it instead of the 680 ($100 less).

Do you have an ssd? It will make your overall machine "feel" faster.

I'd probably opt for the 7950 and OC it.

 

[Monster_Munch]

I literally yesterday swapped out my 2 year old 5870 Vapor X for a brand new 7970 Vapor X. I'm also running at 1920x1200 the same as you.

I wanted to be able to play stuff like Max Payne 3 and Witcher 2 on the highest settings. Which I can more or less do now.

I think my i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz might be holding it back a little bit, but I can't see much benefit in spending another £400 to upgrade to a new motherboard and processor. I might be better off upgrading my CPU cooler to one of those cosair H60s for a higher overclock.

I don't have battlefield 3 though so I can't benchmark it for you.

 

[tulx]

right now i'm running a 5870. i would like to get some more performance. should i pick up a 7970 or wait until 8000 series hits. whats the latest rumor on the release date? a quick google seems to suggest 2013.

EDIT:
resolution 1920x1200
cpu 2500k

bf3 drops to 40-50 a lot on high. would like steady 60. needs to be an AMD card

I was in a very similar position about a half a year ago and my solution was a cheap second 5870 from Ebay. I get 60-120 FPS in BF3. I don't use AA or AF to conserve VRAMm, the cards have 1GB. I'll probably upgrade to a 8 series, once that's out.

 

[RussianSensation]

I literally yesterday swapped out my 2 year old 5870 Vapor X for a brand new 7970 Vapor X. I'm also running at 1920x1200 the same as you.

How are you liking the Vapor-X in terms of noise levels, overclocking, performance increase from the 5870?

 

[Monster_Munch]

How are you liking the Vapor-X in terms of noise levels, overclocking, performance increase from the 5870?

There is a little button on the card that toggles between two different BIOS, one is 1000 MHz the other is factory overclocked to 1050 MHz. I went straight for the factory overclock like anyone would. I also tried overclocking using the catalyst control center. It seemed to run furmark ok with the core at 1145 Mhz and memory at 1600 Mhz, but I need to play around with it some more.

Noise levels are definitely higher than my old 5870 Vapor X card, but that's to be expected since it has 2 fans instead of 1. It's quiet while idle but makes a lot of noise when it gets hot, not quite enough to be really annoying though. The reference cooler for the 7970 GHz edition is supposed to be extremely loud, that was the main reason I paid extra for the Vapor X version.

Performance is obviously improved but I haven't run any benchmarks to compare the two cards. The 5870 was still fast enough to play any recent games on medium to high settings including Crysis 2, Max Payne 3 etc. But with the 7970 I can turn on the highest settings including 8xAA.

 

[ashenburger]

How are you liking the Vapor-X in terms of noise levels, overclocking, performance increase from the 5870?

While I am not Monster_Munch, I do have the Vapor-X GHz card and I came from 5870 CF.

It overclocks nicely I am at 1200/1550 now but I don't really think I can go higher on the core without tampering with the voltage(I believe it is at 1,232V?). I haven't changed the Board Power Li setting in Trixx.

The noise levels are OK I suppose, but my CPU cooler isn't very quiet, I have to manually adjust the fans to 40% or so to hear the GPU fans.

The framerates are about the same as the 5870 CF in WoW, but I think I will have better DX11 performance. With my testing I think it's about twice as fast as the 5870 or more.(Note: I did not overclock the 5870s and they were reference cards.)

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I gambled buying a 7970 at release. It's been a great upgrade from my 5870 so far. All the factors I was counting on back then have been holding up so far. AMD's drivers team has given us some massive performance increase, the nvidia 28nm cards weren't appreciably faster, and I don't doubt that the 7970 has performance enough to last me another 2-3 years just like my 5870 did.

I am however thinking about selling it and going for 7950 crossfire after the price drops.

 

[Borkil]

with that new 7870 deal and if i sell my old card, i could get a 7870 for less than 50 to tie me until 8000 series. would that be a good idea?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

With my 7970 at 1080p 4x msaa I rarely dipped below 60 fps and was mostly like 80-100. But this was with a 2600k and oced card.

 

[RussianSensation]

Ya for sure. $50 to play with a new card that's faster than a 5870 and has 2GB of VRAM sounds like a good deal to hold you over. Plus you get Sleeping Dogs. If you got a buyer for the 5870 already, do it. It's not going to be a huge difference but with some mild OCing, you should see 20-25% faster speed and more in all games that use tessellation (Crysis 2, Batman AC, Civilization V).

Here you can use 6950 ~ 5870 to compare:

Also, cards with 1GB of VRAM are completely worthless for Skyrim with mods, even without:

There is some improvement in BF3, but it won't be like going to a GTX670 obviously:

 

[Borkil]

I caved an bought that HIS icex2 7970. got a nice deal with that but it's still expensive!

 

[RussianSensation]

Did you get the card yet? sze5003 bought the same card. Maybe you guys can share your experiences with it depending on who starts the thread first! Some reviewers on Newegg are reporting that the card ships with 1050mhz clocks, while others say it only comes at 925mhz. Looking forward to your findings and possible overclocking. Your case has enough room for a 12 inch card though right? It's a pretty big one.

 

[Borkil]

Did you get the card yet? sze5003 bought the same card. Maybe you guys can share your experiences with it depending on who starts the thread first! Some reviewers on Newegg are reporting that the card ships with 1050mhz clocks, while others say it only comes at 925mhz. Looking forward to your findings and possible overclocking. Your case has enough room for a 12 inch card though right? It's a pretty big one.

yeah thats the question of the day. i read that after it shipped. i have a corsair 400r which i think can take a 12.5 in card. it's gonna be close