GTX760/HD7950 or wait?

[Arkanius]

Guys, I'm in the market for a new card in the 250-270€ price range to replace my 275GTX. This card gave me great value throughout these years, and I plan to replace the card for an equal one in value. I played all my games on high (except for AA, I never use AA) and only recently have I been forced to down some stuff to Medium to maintain a steady 60FPS rate. Since the new consoles are around the corner, I thought it was a good idea to upgrade.

The rest of the computer is up to date, it's just the card that I've been neglecting since it has been able to keep up. So, my question is, which one should I upgrade to, or should I wait? It seems ATi is coming up with a new line of cards, but if they don't come with a mid range "enthusiast" solution, I won't bother to wait for it. (Unless it comes with price drops all around)

Another question I have is the 2GB vs 3GB of the 760/7950 offer. More VRAM is always good, but my gaming resolution is 1080p (And I'm not increasing it, unless I might be crazy enough to try Downsampling for shits and giggles) and since I don't use AA, 2GB might seem enough, but the new gaming engines are also coming out, the extra GB might future proof me more.

Bah, I'm confused, help me Anandtech!

Specs in case you REALLY WANT:

ASrock Z77 Extreme 4
i5 3570k
8GB DDR3
120GB SSD
Corsair 700W PSU (AX I think)

 

[skipsneeky2]

If last generation is anything to go by,they will come out with their king pin gpu and second in line,then your mid range gpus will come out later.

BF4 is that one game where you might wanna consider 3gb vram,making the 7950 the better choice but out the box the gtx760 is faster but the 7950 overclocks like no ones business so its almost a coin toss between those two.

You could wait and hope i am wrong about the mid range coming out later but its almost a guarantee the mid range will come out later.

 

[Arkanius]

If last generation is anything to go by,they will come out with their king pin gpu and second in line,then your mid range gpus will come out later.

BF4 is that one game where you might wanna consider 3gb vram,making the 7950 the better choice but out the box the gtx760 is faster but the 7950 overclocks like no ones business so its almost a coin toss between those two.

You could wait and hope i am wrong about the mid range coming out later but its almost a guarantee the mid range will come out later.

Yeah I afraid of that.
And it probably won't come cheap, as in, the price range I want.

I usually overclock my cards to confortable clocks, as in, clocks that are easily achievable, that might lean me to the 7950 more, it seems to offer more bang for buck and future proofing.

 

[Jaydip]

If you get a decent deal on 7950 that is a pretty good choice

 

[Teizo]

My MSI 760 overclocks to 1280+ on the core and is just as fast as a 770 @ that speed, so I'd go with the 760. However, it would be a good idea just to see what AMD has in store and how they stack up. I doubt what they have will be much faster (if that) and will likely cost the same...so a 760 now would still be a solid choice, but I'd wait just a bit nonetheless.

 

[Arkanius]

If you get a decent deal on 7950 that is a pretty good choice

I can get a HIS 7950 ICEQ BOOST 3GB DDR5 PCI-E for 250€ right now
Not sure if it is good or not. Not really knowledgable of ATI's vendors.

I can also get a EVGA GTX760 SC ACX 2GB DDR5 PCI-E
for 260€

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Suprised there are no deals on 7950's for folks across the pond. If the prices are so equal I'd probably get the GTX760. That EVGA is a stout card. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_760_SC_ACX_Cooler/30.html

 

[Arkanius]

Suprised there are no deals on 7950's for folks across the pond. If the prices are so equal I'd probably get the GTX760. That EVGA is a stout card. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_760_SC_ACX_Cooler/30.html

Holy.
That's some impressive overclock and benchmarking

 

[raghu78]

OP the HD 7950 is a GTX 670 equal. even an average clocking HD 7950 will be faster than a golden GTX 760 at 1.3 Ghz.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/02/msi_n760_tf_2gd5oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/5

 

[Arkanius]

OP the HD 7950 is a GTX 670 equal. even an average clocking HD 7950 will be faster than a golden GTX 760 at 1.3 Ghz.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/02/msi_n760_tf_2gd5oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/5

What about that HIS 7950 compared to the previous EVGA 760?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

OP the HD 7950 is a GTX 670 equal. even an average clocking HD 7950 will be faster than a golden GTX 760 at 1.3 Ghz.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/02/msi_n760_tf_2gd5oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/5

It's a toss up depending on which reviewers do the testing. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-review-benchmark,3207-13.html

When overclocking comes into play it's really luck on if you get a card that will OC well.

Suffice to say, it's hard to go wrong with either. The 7950 is a little cheaper and has more RAM. The 760 is a newer design and has PhysX. The HIS takes up three slots.

 

[yacoub]

Unless AMD releases a card for under $250 with 4GB GDDR5 and greater performance than the HD7950, it would make no sense to wait, unless by "wait" you mean "wait for at least 12 months" by which time we might actually see that pricing on whatever they release in the next month for $350 and that's if they even release mid-range next month.

 

[Arkanius]

It's a toss up depending on which reviewers do the testing. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-review-benchmark,3207-13.html

When overclocking comes into play it's really luck on if you get a card that will OC well.

Suffice to say, it's hard to go wrong with either. The 7950 is a little cheaper and has more RAM. The 760 is a newer design and has PhysX. The HIS takes up three slots.

Oh boy.
I think I have space, but not sure. From the reviews the HIS seems really cool and quiet and with a low power draw.

I'm really up to a coin toss right now.

 

[raghu78]

It's a toss up depending on which reviewers do the testing. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-review-benchmark,3207-13.html

When overclocking comes into play it's really luck on if you get a card that will OC well.

Suffice to say, it's hard to go wrong with either. The 7950 is a little cheaper and has more RAM. The 760 is a newer design and has PhysX. The HIS takes up three slots.

no tossup. HD 7950 is the clear winner. You can get HD 7950 cards clocked at 1 Ghz out of the box. Gigabyte HD 7950 comes with 1 ghz boost clocks out of the box.

OP its simple. HD 7970 and GTX 680 / GTX 770 are competitors . HD 7950 and GTX 670 both have 87.5% of the GPU cores as their fully enabled counterparts and are similar competitors. GTX 760 has 75% of the cores of GTX 680 and is a step below HD 7950 / GTX 670.

btw OP which country are you from ? also are you talking about the HIS HD 7950 iceq boost or HIS HD 7950 iceq x2 boost. the first is a blower model with no VRM heatsinks. the second is a dual fan design built on a reference HD 7970 PCB with probably the best PCB design. good proper VRM heatsinks and excellent cooler. iceq x2 boost is massive at 311 mm while iceq boost too is 295 mm.

Even at 1080p the 3GB VRAM is going to be very important as next gen games like BF4 push past the 2GB limit. without a doubt get a HD 7950.

 

[Arkanius]

no tossup. HD 7950 is the clear winner. You can get HD 7950 cards clocked at 1 Ghz out of the box. Gigabyte HD 7950 comes with 1 ghz boost clocks out of the box.

OP its simple. HD 7970 and GTX 680 / GTX 770 are competitors . HD 7950 and GTX 670 both have 87.5% of the GPU cores as their fully enabled counterparts and are similar competitors. GTX 760 has 75% of the cores of GTX 680 and is a step below HD 7950 / GTX 670.

btw OP which country are you from ? also are you talking about the HIS HD 7950 iceq boost or HIS HD 7950 iceq x2 boost. the first is a blower model with no VRM heatsinks. the second is a dual fan design built on a reference HD 7970 PCB with probably the best PCB design. good proper VRM heatsinks and excellent cooler. iceq x2 boost is massive at 311 mm while iceq boost too is 295 mm.

Even at 1080p the 3GB VRAM is going to be very important as next gen games like BF4 push past the 2GB limit. without a doubt get a HD 7950.

Portugal
I was talking about the iceq x1

HD7950 prices here are absurd for some reason. It's cheap everywhere else. I don't like ordering my hardware internationally because I always have bad luck and it difficulties the RMA process.

EDIT:

Just found a new deal
Sapphire Radeon HD7950 Vapor-X- 3GB for 243 €
Cheaper than all the previous ones

 

[raghu78]

Portugal
I was talking about the iceq x1

HD7950 prices here are absurd for some reason. It's cheap everywhere else. I don't like ordering my hardware internationally because I always have bad luck and it difficulties the RMA process.

EDIT:

Just found a new deal
Sapphire Radeon HD7950 Vapor-X- 3GB for 243 €
Cheaper than all the previous ones

nice deal. 8 + 6 pin. good cooler and unlocked voltage. if you can get the dual x that for 250 euros that would be my frst pick.

 

[Phynaz]

If you are buying a card for BF4, you should wait until it is released. Most Likely it will be added to the AMD Gaming Evolved bundle and you can get it for free.

 

[Jacky60]

Wait, no matter what this is one of those rare times when patience is a beautiful, elegant, enlightening experience. If you're an idiot you'll buy now. Don't!

 

[Arkanius]

If you are buying a card for BF4, you should wait until it is released. Most Likely it will be added to the AMD Gaming Evolved bundle and you can get it for free.

It's for all future games, not even sure if I'll buy BF3
For example, Arma III is a great candidate.
Even Guild Wars 2 (Which I currently play) chugs a little bit on my GTX275

 

[Jacky60]

If its for future games you need to use 3gb ram as baseline given BF4's recommended specs and the fact at 1080 it's borderline RAM bottlenecked without AA. I would wait and try and go 7950 crossfire when prices shudder and you will be set for at least 2 years, ARMA traditionally prefers AMD GPU and Intel CPU and as soon as you see what's out next buy 7950 (I would go 7950 x fire as unless 9970 destroys everything you'll have the cheapest uber performing rig for a while). Buying a GPU with 2GB memory today is stupid. Overclock that CPU ffs!

 

[wand3r3r]

BF4 alpha GPU memory usage. I wouldn't go with 2 GB.

 

[Arkanius]

BF4 alpha GPU memory usage. I wouldn't go with 2 GB.

I guess I should wait for the next gen cards then and see the prices.
That's borderline close to 3GB already. Prices of the GTX760 4GB are also absurd, so yeah.

Between a rock and an hard place

 

[Teizo]

I guess I should wait for the next gen cards then and see the prices.
That's borderline close to 3GB already. Prices of the GTX760 4GB are also absurd, so yeah.

Between a rock and an hard place

Well, if you can get a good price on a 7950..then go with it and then sell it off next year (or whatever card is cheaper).

That is what I am going to do with my 760. Either go SLI after price drop or just upgrade to the 860 (or the AMD equivalent) which will naturally be quicker and have 4gb standard I imagine.

 

[Skip4K.Go8KNow!]

I'm just starting to have problems on a 27 inch screen in modded Skyrim and settings that are actually noticeable on a 9800GT and E8400 CPU all OCed pretty high for years and completely stable. Before that my build was based off a 9700Pro. This generation is what I have been waiting for. Titan compared to everything else out there since my card, sitting at a 1000 passmark score OCed has been mostly unneeded and incremental.

Then came Titan and blew the top passmark score of the OCed best single 680 by close to 2000 points. Titans are a sweet spot for much testing on high res screens and VR setups. At $1500 they seemed like an unattainable gold standard. Now we have the 780 that OCs to past stock Titan speeds for $650.

Now we have good indications the new 9970s will be 22nm and possible twice as powerful than Titan. It also seems that the higher end 9970 will possibly be two superior GPUs working in tandem on the same card, something they failed at previously. So, the 9950 may well be within the $300 range within a few months and simply be a single GPU version of the 9970 and may be faster than an OCed Titan in it's own right.

This would force Maxwell to be rushed which is basically a solution that puts a powerful CPU on the GPU chip which in theory could then blow away the 9970 if it works.

Since some of these cards are going to be benched by the end of this month, there is no reason not to wait.

 

[vanillatech]

From what I can tell, the 670GTX is slightly faster than a 760GTX and here in the UK it's about £25 cheaper too! I am 95% sure that I'll be getting the 670GTX Zotac next week, because although I do prefer ATI(AMD) as a rule, the 7950 seems a little slower at stock and I don't think the i5 Haswell I'll be buying at 3.3Ghz will be able to max a stock 7950, so OC'ing it would probably be pointless.