From 7950 to GTX 970 ? Time to upgrade ?

[brandon888]

Here my PC :

VGA: SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 925MHZ
CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K
Cool: Arctic Cooling Freezer i30
MB: ASUS P9X79
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600 MHz
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM Sata III
PSU: Corsair TX 850W
CASE: Cooler Master's Storm Enforcer
TV: Samsung 46 Inch (6400)


Will also play on full HD ^^

i can sell my 7950 for 130$ at max and GTX 970 costs 400$ in my country

does it worth to upgrade ? or better wait for 1070 and ect ?


What i play : BF4 , Star Citizen (alpha) , Metro ad ect ...

Will play BF Hardline and BF5 , Assassin's Creed Unity , Dragon age 3 ,The Witcher 3 and ect

 

[Insomniator]

IMO no, since a 7950 can run everything at 1080 still. I don't think a $270 is worth being able to maybe increase AA levels in a few games.

 

[Tweak155]

I'm having trouble convincing myself to upgrade from a 670... but I'm using 2gb on 2560x1440... the 4gb upgrade would likely help me more than your situation.

 

[brandon888]

Also added games what i want to play ^^

Well exited about MFAA but seems like it won't help much ..

 

[Insomniator]

I'd just wait for those games to come out and see. I don't think a 7950's value will drop much further in the next few months... it was and still is a steal at $200. $130 should be easy unless i'm out of date.

Wait until those games are out, see how they run and maybe catch a deal on a post launch madness 970.

 

[Techhog]

I'm in the same boat. A couple of things that I need to consider, though, are that I play the Arkham games a lot, and my card can't overclock/is possibly dying due to a bad overclock :/

 

[brandon888]

I'm in the same boat. A couple of things that I need to consider, though, are that I play the Arkham games a lot, and my card can't overclock/is possibly dying due to a bad overclock :/

i don't want to deal with CF or SLI .... 7950s will cost a less and about same performance but Drivers will give me Headache

 

[desprado]

Yes it is time for upgrade if only u want to play games at Max settings.

 

[brandon888]

Yes it is time for upgrade if only u want to play games at Max settings.

Plan to maxout with MAX AA ... but one tip ... only 1080P ^^ don't need more atm

 

[desprado]

Plan to maxout with MAX AA ... but one tip ... only 1080P ^^ don't need more atm

yup GTX 970 is the right choice.It is 4GB and have better performance than R9 290, it use much lower power usage than R9 290 and of course cheaper.

 

[Vesku]

Considering my 7950 handles 1440P just fine I'd suggest holding off for the node shrink GPUs sometime next year.

 

[Greenlepricon]

I would just keep the 7950 and OC if possible; it might keep you satisfied for one more year. You'll get a maximum of twice your current fps in games with the 970, but unless you're going to upgrade to 120fps or a WQHD screen, I think you can do fine with what you have. It sounds like you want to keep AA all the way up, but this is easily the quickest way to lower fps. In my opinion max AA doesn't always look much better than some of the middle options such as 2x. Just depends on the game and whether your vision is better than mine or not . If you can lower those settings, your card should keep you happy.

Personally I want to wait to see what AMD delivers before upgrading my own 7950, and if it's not any better than Nvidia's cards, I'm going to hold out until the next node shrink. If you can't wait that long, then the 970 is the next best thing.

 

[Silverforce11]

OC 7950 still handles 1080p great.

The real action is the next node jump, we've been on 28nm for too long. You could have had 970 performance a long time ago with 780.

 

[brandon888]

I would just keep the 7950 and OC if possible; it might keep you satisfied for one more year. You'll get a maximum of twice your current fps in games with the 970, but unless you're going to upgrade to 120fps or a WQHD screen, I think you can do fine with what you have. It sounds like you want to keep AA all the way up, but this is easily the quickest way to lower fps. In my opinion max AA doesn't always look much better than some of the middle options such as 2x. Just depends on the game and whether your vision is better than mine or not . If you can lower those settings, your card should keep you happy.

Personally I want to wait to see what AMD delivers before upgrading my own 7950, and if it's not any better than Nvidia's cards, I'm going to hold out until the next node shrink. If you can't wait that long, then the 970 is the next best thing.

I play on TV with 1080p and will keep it for yeas for sure ... at least 5-6 Years ...

only thing i maybe try it's nvidias 4k on 1080p screens ... but for 4k 970 won't be enough ... need 2 or 3 of them....

 

[Greenlepricon]

I play on TV with 1080p and will keep it for yeas for sure ... at least 5-6 Years ...

only thing i maybe try it's nvidias 4k on 1080p screens ... but for 4k 970 won't be enough ... need 2 or 3 of them....

While that tech looks interesting, I'm expecting it to have the same performance hit as some current anti-aliasing methods. It's cool but also sorta gimmicky at the same time, as it has already been done before through several games with mixed results in my opinion. If it works well with a relatively low performance overhead, then you may be able to substitute AA in game with it to get playable frame rates. I'm interested in whether or not it will become a defining feature for Nvidia.

 

[dangerman1337]

I'm in the same boat, want to play some of the Games listed in the OP but not sure if an OC'd 970 would be enough.

Considering my 7950 handles 1440P just fine I'd suggest holding off for the node shrink GPUs sometime next year.

OC 7950 still handles 1080p great.

The real action is the next node jump, we've been on 28nm for too long. You could have had 970 performance a long time ago with 780.

It is very unlikely we'll see a node shrink effectively for GPUs next year and for a lower price point, the 970 is going to be good as it for until 2016. Both Nvidia and AMD at this point are not going to bother with 20nmSoC as by the time it won't be gobbled up by Apple and other Phone companies 16nmFF will likely be avaliable. Also the 7950 plays games 'fine' at 1440P, if you want maxish details for games to comp the 7950 won't be up to the job at 1080p.

I'll say this now and I'll say it again, there likely won't be 16nmFF/14nm (or 20nm with FinFets for the former at least, not sure about GoFlo) GPUs until 2016 with the likes of Pascal and AMD equivalent. There's very little point in going with a 20nm die shrink as it would be too expensive from a consumer POV if they do a rushed 2015 release.

 

[cantholdanymore]

In the USA you won't get more than 100$ for a used 7950. I've been watching the prices lately and now that the new NV cards are out expect prices to go even lower.

 

[Paul98]

Might want to at least wait to see what AMD says in their announcement.

But really that doesn't sound like much of an upgrade for the price.

 

[BrightCandle]

A 970 is a little under double the performance of a 7950. Its there or thereabouts being the point where its sufficiently quicker to be a worth while upgrade. I don't really know where in the cycle we are now or when we can expect 20/16nm and what advantage it would bring.

Based on the usual history I would say skip it, the big gains are coming from the next silicon node. About all the 900 series really does is reduce the price of something we already have. But that price reduction is what makes it potentially worthwhile to get.

 

[alexruiz]

In the USA you won't get more than 100$ for a used 7950. I've been watching the prices lately and now that the new NV cards are out expect prices to go even lower.

I don't expect the prices of used HD7950s to change much, if any, because of the new nvidia cards. The prices of the used HD7950s are that low because of the miners dumping the cards. I know I wouldn't get a USED HD7950 no matter how cheap.

 

[SlickR12345]

Not really. You may want to wait several more months and see what AMD comes up with. The 300 series are going to come out in 20nm and should be a lot faster and efficient than Nvidia's offering.

 

[Pariah]

Not really. You may want to wait several more months and see what AMD comes up with. The 300 series are going to come out in 20nm and should be a lot faster and efficient than Nvidia's offering.

With rumors that the upcoming 390x will have some sort of hybrid air/liquid reference cooling system, the likelihood of it being more efficient than the 900 series is pretty slim.

 

[Cookie Monster]

I don't think there will be any GPUs from either camps on the 20nm process. I don't even know the process will provide any conceivable performance/power improvements vs the cost.

All the rumours at this point in time point to 16nmFF for the next node which will be awesome.

And as for the OP, if the performance is required, the GTX970 wouldn't be a bad upgrade. It offers almost twice the performance for the same power envelope (plus features that could become useful) becoming just a drop in replacement.

 

[Pariah]

AMD said only a month ago that they will be releasing 20nm products in 2015.

“20nm is an important node for us. We will be shipping products in 20nm next year and as we move forward […],” said Lisa Su, senior vice president and chief operating officer of AMD. “If you look at our business, it is quite a bit more balanced between the semi-custom, embedded, […] professional graphics […] as well as the more traditional sort of client and graphics pieces of our business. [20nm] technology plays in all of those businesses.”

Doesn't sound like we will see them early in 2015 though. Probably not before the 2nd half of the year.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Not really. You may want to wait several more months and see what AMD comes up with. The 300 series are going to come out in 20nm and should be a lot faster and efficient than Nvidia's offering.

I would like to see your 20nm GPU confirmation. Because AMD havent said so in any way.