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fermi now or wait for amds 6 series?

A

asus6983

Junior Member
I'm looking into purchasing either an sli or crossfire setup. It could be 2 gtx480's or 2 6970's or 1 6990. How is sli vs crossfire, scaling etc? Should I get a fermi now or just wait?
 
Wait till next week, observe the 6870s performance, then make an educated guess at where the 6970 will be and then if you think it's work it to upgrade, go ahead.

Personally I would wait but I don't have an emergency if you absolutely need a card though go for it the GTX 480 is a really nice card.
 
sli scales much better generally than 5xxx xfire does. however, 6 series is rumored to be closing that gap considerably. definitely wait, if the rumors are false then you can always jump on a fermi.
 
asus6983 said:
I'm looking into purchasing either an sli or crossfire setup. It could be 2 gtx480's or 2 6970's or 1 6990. How is sli vs crossfire, scaling etc? Should I get a fermi now or just wait?
Click to expand...

Even if you have no interest in hd6xxx, its launch may drive down prices of fermi products, so I vote wait.
 
ZimZum said:
Before dropping $800+ on graphics card setup I would wait a few days to see what the 6xxx delivers.
Click to expand...

I think if I were to spent 1k on gpus alone, I'd wait until dec. or so this year to get a glimpse of the hd 69xx series. besides, with that intro, all 480s will get a price drop as well. you could save like 100 just by waiting. I'd wait just to see all the possible choices laid out to me.
 
Dark Shroud said:
Either way you should wait a week just for prices of current tech to come down.
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exactly, if the past is any indication, existing 5 series cards and nvidia cards will see a price drop on the day of the 6 series release. which is in 1 week.
So even if you are going to buy an nvidia card or older amd cards, wait one week.
 
asus6983 said:
when will the 6970, 6990 be released?
Click to expand...

The single GPU flag ship cards should be out by the end of November. The Duel GPU halo product card should be out by December.

AMD's NDA should be lifting by the end of this week so we'll have full line up info on release dates & pricing. This should trigger a sale on AMD cards at least.
 
Wait. Hopefully the 6970 will be better than the GTX480, or at the very least they will drive prices down.
 
It's always possible nvidia has a batch of 512sp 480's saved up for the amd launch too, or something--either way, it's worth the wait just because at the very least you know prices on the cards you want now will go down.
 
asus6983 said:
I'm looking into purchasing either an sli or crossfire setup. It could be 2 gtx480's or 2 6970's or 1 6990. How is sli vs crossfire, scaling etc? Should I get a fermi now or just wait?
Click to expand...

I suggest you to wait for a bit for 2 reasons.

reason 1:
We don't yet know anything about the performance of the HD6xxx series yet. Maybe it will be faster than existing product or better cost/performance ratio.

reason 2:
Existing cards may have their price adjusted to make room for HD6xxx series.

SLI/crossfire both does well, but some games just don't support it, especially Dx9 games.
 
Dark Shroud said:
The single GPU flag ship cards should be out by the end of November. The Duel GPU halo product card should be out by December.

AMD's NDA should be lifting by the end of this week so we'll have full line up info on release dates & pricing. This should trigger a sale on AMD cards at least.
Click to expand...

Just curious on why/how the prices on current cards will drop next week when these cards won't hit the shelves till these dates?
 
asus6983 said:
I'm looking into purchasing either an sli or crossfire setup. It could be 2 gtx480's or 2 6970's or 1 6990. How is sli vs crossfire, scaling etc? Should I get a fermi now or just wait?
Click to expand...

I would wait until you know what the performance of the new video cards from AMD are like.
 
Right now the GTX 460 1GB is the best price/performance GPU out there. Get 2 of these and your good to go for years and they overclock quite nicely. Why wait for the 6xxx series. I hate waiting all the time> i generally skip 1 generation of GPUs and then get the best mid-range GPU in SLI. If you keep waiting for the next generation you'll be waiting forever.
 
Everybody says wait... but it looks like the OP wouldn't be too sad if he didn't save a few bucks? I mean, how much do you all think a GTX480 will drop in price?

Also, is there anything GTX480 SLi cannot play at pretty much any setting? Of course if he's gonna do 3D Surround with PhysX, anything will choke, no matter what he puts in his rig (and Radeons won't help with that in any way, as those two are nVidia-specific technologies). But since he's debating over two competing offers, I don't think the OP considers PhysX or 3D Vision part of his decision.

So I'd say if you're not too concerned about a possible price drop in a few weeks on the stuff you would buy now, I'd say go for GTX480 SLi. You can't get any faster than that right now. Just remember about the drawbacks (power draw, heat, noise). Scaling on nVidia's SLi is incredible right now, CF is worse for sure.

Nobody has any idea on HD69xx. Hell, all HD68xx information is very bad (with many conflicting reports). If you want to enjoy your games now, there's no reason to wait for anything. Get GTX480 SLi.
 
Qbah said:
Nobody has any idea on HD69xx. Hell, all HD68xx information is very bad (with many conflicting reports). If you want to enjoy your games now, there's no reason to wait for anything. Get GTX480 SLi.
Click to expand...

I think the consensus is:

Barts PRO (6850): 775MHz/1120SPUs, performance between 5830 and 5850, October 22, ~$200
Barts XT (6850): 900MHz/1280SPUs, performance between 5850 and 5870, October 22, ~$250
Cayman PRO (6950): ?SPUs, performance between 5870 and GTX480, late Nov., <$400
Cayman XT (6970): 1920SPUs, performance between GTX480 and 5970, late Nov, >$400
Antilles (6990): dual Cayman, performance greater than a 5970, Dec.
 
Qbah said:
Everybody says wait... but it looks like the OP wouldn't be too sad if he didn't save a few bucks? I mean, how much do you all think a GTX480 will drop in price?

Also, is there anything GTX480 SLi cannot play at pretty much any setting? Of course if he's gonna do 3D Surround with PhysX, anything will choke, no matter what he puts in his rig (and Radeons won't help with that in any way, as those two are nVidia-specific technologies). But since he's debating over two competing offers, I don't think the OP considers PhysX or 3D Vision part of his decision.

So I'd say if you're not too concerned about a possible price drop in a few weeks on the stuff you would buy now, I'd say go for GTX480 SLi. You can't get any faster than that right now. Just remember about the drawbacks (power draw, heat, noise). Scaling on nVidia's SLi is incredible right now, CF is worse for sure.

Nobody has any idea on HD69xx. Hell, all HD68xx information is very bad (with many conflicting reports). If you want to enjoy your games now, there's no reason to wait for anything. Get GTX480 SLi.
Click to expand...



Normally you don't wait unless there's a major release just around the corner. And when actual numbers and reviews start hitting as soon as THIS week, then there is no reason not to at least see what gets offered on such a major investment as 2 480's.

The prices across the board for current products are going to go down to either clear inventory or make themselves more competitive in the changed market space.
 
I don't know what to do at this point, I mean with everyone talking about the new 6xxx series and nvidias 5xx series. Currently my computer has been sitting without a video card solution for over a month. What do you people recommend?
 
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