I need advice on a GPU...

[ruhtraeel]

Hi.
So I know that the 9970 is probably coming out in October, but I'm not sure if AMD will replace the older high-end series with it (7970), or if they'll pull an Nvidia and just supplement the series with an ever higher end (more expensive) card and keep the 7970 in the current price range and just add a $650 card (9970). (Similar to what they did with FX 9590)

I currently have a quote for an Asus Radeon HD 7970 3GB DirectCUII for $367 (free shipping) after tax ($347 including a $20 rebate).

Should I wait for the 9970 to come out, or should I get the 7970? I plan on maxing games out, and I use SoftTH with two 1280*1024 monitors and a 1920*1080 one in the middle. (SoftTH allows for eyefinity with mixed resolutions but currently only supports DX9 games; DX11 support might come in the future)

I have Crossfired 5870's right now, but I'm sick of the issues that they have (stuttering, not scaling well, don't have enough room to use Quadro FX 4600 for Physx, SoftTH only uses one card)
I can sell one of my 5870's to my friend for around $130-$150, and the other one I'll probably give to my dad cause he wants a better card than his Quadro FX 3500.

Thanks

 

[Jaydip]

Waiting is boring IMO that card is sweet and two in xfire will probably do fine at your resolution.

 

[ruhtraeel]

Waiting is boring IMO that card is sweet and two in xfire will probably do fine at your resolution.

I'm never going to Crossfire again haha. Too many possibly issues, no room for a PhysX card, etc...

I'm just hoping that a 7970 can max stuff out at 4480*1080

 

[Jaydip]

I'm never going to Crossfire again haha. Too many possibly issues, no room for a PhysX card, etc...

I'm just hoping that a 7970 can max stuff out at 4480*1080

No way man,I doubt even a Titan will fall short at that res.

 

[ruhtraeel]

No way man,I doubt even a Titan will fall short at that res.

I currently run DIRT 3 maxed out at that res with one 5870, and it seems to always be over 30 FPS. I'm not sure how DX 11 games would handle on it though.

 

[Stuka87]

30fps is far from running smooth. You can technically "Max" a games settings on nearly any card. The big thing is if its runs smooth.

For me 30fps is unplayable.

But if all you care about is 30fps, a 7970 should do what you want at that resolution. But also, CrossFire with 7000 series cards (especially with the new driver) is WAY better than it was for the 5000 series.

 

[ruhtraeel]

30fps is far from running smooth. You can technically "Max" a games settings on nearly any card. The big thing is if its runs smooth.

For me 30fps is unplayable.

But if all you care about is 30fps, a 7970 should do what you want at that resolution. But also, CrossFire with 7000 series cards (especially with the new driver) is WAY better than it was for the 5000 series.

To me, anything above 37FPS is playable.

I don't expect to run everything at 60+ all the time, but there's just too many disadvantages for using Crossfire for me. Ie. not being able to game on 3 monitors, and not enough room for a PhysX card.

If I were to get crossfire, I would get a 7990 for $665 or something, but I think I would only ever go SLI from now on.

 

[Stuka87]

To me, anything above 37FPS is playable.

I don't expect to run everything at 60+ all the time, but there's just too many disadvantages for using Crossfire for me. Ie. not being able to game on 3 monitors, and not enough room for a PhysX card.

If I were to get crossfire, I would get a 7990 for $665 or something, but I think I would only ever go SLI from now on.

Why would you not be able to game on three monitors?

 

[ruhtraeel]

Why would you not be able to game on three monitors?

The way SoftTH is coded... it doesn't support Crossfire. Because you need one card to do the processing power and one card just to pump out the display, Crossfire doesn't work in this case (pun intended).

IE. Right now, I have two monitors hooked up to my first 5870, and the third one hooked up to the second 5870. While using SoftTH, the first one does the processing, and the second one is just for displaying on the third monitor.

Therefore I need two cards; one for processing and one for displaying. If I have a single powerful card, the single one can be used for processing, and the other one (the PhysX one in my case) can be used for PhysX and display.

Theoretically, if it fit (which it doesn't), I could plug two monitors into the first 5870, nothing into the second one, and one into the Quadro PhysX card, and then Crossfire could be used to power all 3 monitors. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in my case, and according to every report on SoftTH, trying to use Crossfire with it causes game-breaking flashing.

 

[Stuka87]

Why not use Eyefinity (new card will support it)? As far as I know, it will do basically the same thing as SoftTH.

 

[ruhtraeel]

Why not use Eyefinity (new card will support it)? As far as I know, it will do basically the same thing as SoftTH.

Eyefinity doesn't work if the monitors have different resolutions. It will scale down to the lowest resolution monitor.


Still very on the edge about upgrading or waiting for the 9970 series. If the 9970 series provides compelling value just when it gets launched, I would rather wait. If, when it launches, the price/performance is still worse than a 7970, I would rather get a 7970 than wait till it lowers in price.

Right now, I'm leaning more towards waiting and seeing how the 9970 will perform.