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Sidegrade from GTX 560 Ti to HD 7870.

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XX55XX

Member
A few days ago, I was looking at the specifications sheet for the new AMD cards and was very impressed by the specifications on them. Had I known that the new AMD cards were coming soon, I would have held on to my 8800GT for a little longer for a HD 7870 instead.

Do you guys think it's advisable to sell my GTX 560 Ti (which is only six months old at this point) and do a sidegrade to an HD 7870 in January? The card looks like it will be significantly smaller, output less heat, use less electricity, and outperform my GTX 560 Ti by at least 10%-15%.

I will probably lose around $30-$40 if I do this, (I paid $225 for my GTX 560 Ti), but I only have one concern: How are AMD's drivers? I hear terrible things about them, but at the time, I hear that they are improving. How are they, in terms of general use and stability?
 
drivers are fine, its usually just a nvidia fanboy FUD (fear uncertainty doubt), either by fanboys are PR guys that work for nvidia. Either way, it seems it is or was effective, because apperntly alot of people like you ask about driver issues on amd.

If the 7970 is gonna be like 35% faster than the 580, going by rumors, then the 7950 will be faster by some 20% or something.

Theres a good chance that the 7870 could be around 580 levels of performance.
Assumeing its not, really weak compaired to the 79xx series cards.
 
I have experienced driver issues when I used my 5870. Can't speak as to the state of their drivers currently. It was kind of funny to me though advertisement on the box was for three things eyefinity, throttling power, and easy overclocking, too bad they were incompatible together the way AMD originally set everything up.
 
AMD drivers are perfectly fine. The only thing that's easier to do at the moment is custom display resolutions for NV. Otherwise, AMD driver panel is pretty intuitive to navigate.

HD7870 isn't expected to launch until the week of February 20th, not in January. Its rumored pricing is $299, not $199. So I am not seeing how you'll only be able to upgrade for $30-40, unless the $299 price is way off. HD7850 is supposed to be $199.

Remember HD6870? It was barely faster than HD5850 and it still came out at $239. Is AMD really going to give us a card with 120-130W power consumption and performance of an HD6970 for just $199 while selling HD7950 for $449? I don't think so. This sounds way too good to be true. So I am more inclined to believe that HD7870 will be closer to $299 since it'll give us better performance than HD6970, for a $70 lower MSRP price, and lower power consumption.

If you are going to be upgrading ONLY to reduce power, then if this is what you want, could be worthwhile if the card is near $200, but if it's near $300, forget about it. If you are going to be upgrading for more performance, I wouldn't get anything less than an HD7950, especially since GTX560 Ti can overclock very well, pratically giving you GTX570 level of performance.

GTX560 Ti and HD6950 were the sweet-spot gamer cards this generation. So chances for HD7870 to be a worthwhile upgrade form those is practically nil. HD7870 is more for those who were using a stock GTX460 or even held off upgrading their HD4890/GTX285 cards and now want a good mid-range card (although I don't consider $300 price to be mid-range by my own standards).
 
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$300? I thought it was going to be closer to $250. Perhaps I should wait until the lineup is officially revealed and see. Perhaps the 7850 might suffice for my needs.
 
Think about it, HD7950 is supposed to be $399-449, HD7970 $499-549. If HD7870 sells for $199, that's a huge price gap in the line-up. What are they going to sell between $199 and $449 then? HD7870 with performance at least as fast as HD6970 is going to be way more than $199, especially since you are also getting lower power consumption.

Are you really that concerned about saving 70-80W of power consumption that you'll pay $100 to do that? The breakeven point for that is probably 10 years unless you are gaming 10 hours a day.
 
Not this driver stuff again...

618px-JeanLucPicardFacepalm.jpg
 
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bryanW1995 said:
Is 7870 really going to be >= 6970? I'd be happy if it were, but 6870 fell a bit shy of 5870 level performance.
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6870 was never intended to beat 5870. 6970 was the 5870 replacement. AMD changed the numbering scheme and brought back x9xx to denote their top end cards and moved the x8xx cards down market. This was announced well in advance of release but to this day people (usually nVidia guys) still compare HD6800 to HD5800 and say AMD messed up when they shouldn't. HD6870 was released at the same price point that HD5770 was released at and was aimed at the HD5770 buyer, not the HD5870 buyer. Even some review sites made the mistake of comparing the wrong cards back then and continue to do it when they should know better than anyone the changes that took place to the numbering scheme because they had access to that information weeks or months before any of the rest of us did.
 
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Radeon drivers are fine.

I did have a prior bad experience with a xfx 6790 locking up media player and locking up my computer just watching movies...but newegg reviews show the 6790 is a lemon with a bad batch.

Had nothing but good with my old 6750 but do plan a 7970 purchase soon so i can trust radeon drivers.

Sell the gtx560ti and wait it out for the new line up but if you got a disposable income perhaps drop like a 6770 or something in there to hold you over🙂
 
A stock 7870 should be very close to a stock 6970, with OC's accounted for I'm predicting a 20% performance increase over a 6970. Newer drivers could increase this before Feb.
 
I've decided to stay put till Kepler arrives. Plus, my GTX 560 Ti is offering me a satisfactory level of performance, just wanted a shorter card/less heat/less electricity consumption.
 
The GTX 560 Ti isn't that long (hella shorter than most AMD cards), that hot or that power hungry. Get some good out of it before you buy another card for heavens sake. When it can't serve you the way you would like (as in it can't play the games you're interested in well enough), then pop for a new card. I'd wager you'd probably be glad you did (or at least your bank account will be). Never understood people getting the itch and hopping around every time a new gen comes out for side grade that's not tremendously better. If you're going to get a new card, do something worthwhile and get an HD 7950 at least.
 
XX55XX said:
$300? I thought it was going to be closer to $250. Perhaps I should wait until the lineup is officially revealed and see. Perhaps the 7850 might suffice for my needs.
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We'll see, but I think it will be closer to $300 as well.

Usually the midrange comes out at a similar price to current cards with the same performance and the price drops on the prev. gen cards rather than the price being low on the new gen cards.
 
Has anyone actually seen physical specs for these cards? Most Ti's are between 9-9.75" long on non-reference PCI. Have a hard time believing these new Radeons (or the Kepler cards for that matter), are going to be any shorter than that. Cards have been getting longer, not shorter, even with die shrinks on the gpu chips.
 
Definitely a waste of your time and money that's for sure, AMD's new cards offer almost nothing over their previous gen stuff. AMD just smashing old cores together and calling it new per usual. Save your money, fermi is faster per core by a staggering amount and with a die shrink it should easily beat a 7970.
 
BD231 said:
Definitely a waste of your time and money that's for sure, AMD's new cards offer almost nothing over their previous gen stuff. AMD just smashing old cores together and calling it new per usual. Save your money, fermi is faster per core by a staggering amount and with a die shrink it should easily beat a 7970.
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Quoted for truth. lol sarcasm.
 
BD231 said:
Definitely a waste of your time and money that's for sure, AMD's new cards offer almost nothing over their previous gen stuff. AMD just smashing old cores together and calling it new per usual. Save your money, fermi is faster per core by a staggering amount and with a die shrink it should easily beat a 7970.
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They're cards are usually faster per inch as well. 😀 At least tell him about CUDA and PhysX. :LOL:

@OP: Seriously though, the 560 ti is an excellent card. As long as it plays your games, keep it. When it won't anymore, then buy something that will.
 
i say it's his money, and if he wants a new card, get it. i've got 6970s in xfire, but that's not stopping me from 7970 xfire. why? because i can. maybe he wants to have the same gaming experience, but wants to be able to support more than 2 monitors without having 2 run 2 cards, and run them all at different resolutions.
 
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XX55XX said:
I've decided to stay put till Kepler arrives. Plus, my GTX 560 Ti is offering me a satisfactory level of performance, just wanted a shorter card/less heat/less electricity consumption.
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The ref 560 ti is probably the shortest mid-high perf card released in years by either manufacturer.
 
BD231 said:
Per shader, yes, fermi is faster. I don't see how that's untruth but I like the enthusiasm.
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I find that to be a very odd comparison. Firstly, the shaders of both cards operate at different speeds. Secondly, how is a "per shader" comparison relevant? The die size of HD7970 is sub-370mm^2 vs. 500+ on Fermi. Would you compare the efficiency of a 4-cylinder engine to an 8-cylinder engine on a "per cylinder basis"? Performance can be compared on a performance/watt, performance/mm^2, performance/transistor, etc. But performance per shader seems very odd to me since # of SPs is just 1 aspect of a videocard (along with TMUs, ROPs and memory bandwidth). To start with, you can't just assume that it's the shaders that are the most important aspect of a videocard.
 
BD231 said:
Per shader, yes, fermi is faster. I don't see how that's untruth but I like the enthusiasm.
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Oh, I forgot that all GPU archtectures are identical. Thanks for reminding me, and everyone else.

Most of my sarcasm was directed at the statement you made saying that GCN was old cores smashed together and called something new. Also about how you stated that AMD offers no good features for their consumers.

Tell me how many nvidia gpu's does it take to run 3 monitors again?
 
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