Upgrading from a Radeon 5970 - is a 7970 worth it?

[dmoney1980]

Friend of mine has a 5970. A beast at it's launch, but it's starting to show its age. His setup:

i5 2500k - mild OC @ 4ghz
1900 x 1200 monitor
mostly plays MMO's (major WoW player), some BF4

He's on a limited budget, around $220, and I spotted some used 7970's / 280's/ GTX 770's in that range. Would a 7970 be a worthwhile upgrade for him?

 

[wand3r3r]

With the price drops on the 290 to $299 you might be able to find one used for $220. It'd be a better upgrade. I'd go aftermarket though.

 

[exar333]

280X or wait for the GTX 960. The 280X can be had for around that budget...the 960 could be a KILLER card as well, but will not be out for a few more weeks. No firm specs yet either...

 

[schmuckley]

yes!
I'd buy a used one, though.
..for around $140-60

They're going for that all day e'er day.

 

[Termie]

Is this 5970 a 2GB model or a 4GB model? If it's a 2GB model, yes, it's time to upgrade, and a 7970 or 280X would be a decent upgrade. But overall GPU power is similar, so if this is a 4GB model, it's a sidegrade.

 

[SPBHM]

it would be interesting to see how the rare 5870 2GB in CF or 5970 4GB performs in newer games, if CF is scaling well and the very poor tessellation performance is not a big problem.

if you can find a used 290 for around this price it's a great deal and upgrade regardless.

 

[dmoney1980]

It's a 2gb model. problem is, the dual gpu cards don't split the RAM, so essentially the games place the same textures twice. In essence, it works like a 1gb card

 

[raghu78]

Friend of mine has a 5970. A beast at it's launch, but it's starting to show its age. His setup:

i5 2500k - mild OC @ 4ghz
1900 x 1200 monitor
mostly plays MMO's (major WoW player), some BF4

He's on a limited budget, around $220, and I spotted some used 7970's / 280's/ GTX 770's in that range. Would a 7970 be a worthwhile upgrade for him?

wait for R9 285X and GTX 960 launch

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-gtx-960-amd-r9-285x-specs-performance-price/

another option - since a brand new R9 290 tri-x is selling for USD 300 you can get used ones for USD 200 - 230.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202080

 

[Jacky60]

You or rather he would be better with a 290. I just sold one for £100 so he should be able to find one. The 7970 is better than the 5970 but not hugely so. I went from 5970 5870 trifire to 6990 (faster or on a par with 7970 usually) and it was no quicker so I went 6990 crossfire. Point being it's not much of an upgrade whereas a 290 will be a really noticeable upgrade.

 

[Headfoot]

You can find used R9 290's for $220. Get that. Much better than a 7970 for not a lot more money

 

[BrightCandle]

Its not worth it. Performance wise a 5970 is a little bit quicker than a 7970, you need 2x 7970's to get similar performance, I know because I used to own and went directly to the 2x7970 from the 5970. The problem you face (all SLI/Crossfire users face) is you have a lot more compute performance that VRAM, so you can use AA and higher settings but you can't utilise the higher texture settings and other VRAM gobblers. But its not really worth loosing a little bit of performance in order to get +2GB of VRAM its not going to make the difference of the price of the card.

My advice would be your minimum purchase point is a 290 or a 970, they are the first point where the performance improvement is enough to be worth it and they come with more VRAM that will get you those VRAM hogged resources. If you can't afford those then stick with what you have, a 7970 just isn't worth it.

 

[Jacky60]

Pretty sure Bright candle is referring to the 6970 as in order of performance it goes 5970<7970<6990 or alternatively 7970>5970>6970. Either that or he's plain wrong as a single 7970 is quicker than the 5970 and two 7970s are about twice as quick if not quicker than a 5970 BUT a 7970 is a very small incremental upgrade on a 5970 and as others say not worth it. 7970 has 3GB vram, 5970 has only 1GB per GPU (6970 had 2GB) Get a 290 or a 970.

 

[dmoney1980]

thanks everyone for the input! I'll let him know that he should pony up and go for a used 290 / 780 to start, or a 970 if it ever comes back in stock