I still find little reason to upgrade.

[mingsoup]

Current system:
i5-750 @ 4.2Ghz.
6990
8 GB of ram.


6990 will still beat 7970 if crossfire is working, [and we don't get too tessellation heavy]. Right? Well at least in AVP. I have trouble doing the upgrade/downgrade depending on game/drivers. I want my upgrade to be and upgrade.

i5-750 @ 4.2Ghz still seems relevant, particularly given the recent anandtech.com article on choosing CPU for gaming and the remarks on Nehalem that were made. The i7-950 remarks seem relevant to the i7-850, which the i5-750 @ 4.2 Ghz kept up with if not outpaced in gaming when those procs were around.

The other thing I'm hesitant about is the multicore AMD procs in next gen and how that will effect PC gaming. Maybe AMD will come back and a AMD hexcore will be the new goto.

I'm interested in next-gen , FFXIV ARR, and The Secret World. I have trouble running TSW and ARR at max settings. TSW crossfire for all intents and purposes is totally broken. I don't know the state of scaling in ARR.

 

[cbrunny]

FFXIV you should be able to run at max smooth as silk.

There is a benchmark somewhere online for it. I hit just over 10k in the "Score" at 1080p max with a single 7970 and I believe there is CF support. So you'll be fine.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The other thing I'm hesitant about is the multicore AMD procs in next gen and how that will effect gaming. Maybe AMD will come back and a AMD hexcore will be the new goto.

That's not going to happen.

Game development and engines are becoming more multi-threaded which is different from "mult-cored".

Games will increase their thread count to get more out of the PS4 / X1 cores, but a 3.x GHz intel core can run 2 threads with better performance than 2 of the 1.x GHz cores on the PS4 and X1 running single threads.

 

[toyota]

no way I would hang on to a 6990. inconsistent performance and a power hog compared to a modern single card that can match or beat it.

 

[Stuka87]

A 6990 only beats a 7970GE in specific cases. A 290/290X will blow it completely out of the water.

 

[mingsoup]

Thanks for the replies.

no way I would hang on to a 6990. inconsistent performance and a power hog compared to a modern single card that can match or beat it.

A savings of 3$ a month for a $$$ purchase doesn't do it for me. Which modern card, because in certain instances the 6990 will still beat a 7970, if not a 7970Ghz~280x. [AVP in particular]

A 6990 only beats a 7970GE in specific cases. A 290/290X will blow it completely out of the water.

290x is gonna blow everything out of the water.

FFXIV you should be able to run at max smooth as silk.

There is a benchmark somewhere online for it. I hit just over 10k in the "Score" at 1080p max with a single 7970 and I believe there is CF support. So you'll be fine.

Frame crawl in cities and hitching pretty much everywhere, unfortunately. I think i scored about 13k on max.

 

[PontiacGTX]

If you are going to change gpu to a setup more powerfull than a 770gtx you would upgrade your cpu, can bottleneck high end cards unless you play at 1080p res

 

[bystander36]

If you are going to change gpu to a setup more powerfull than a 770gtx you would upgrade your cpu, can bottleneck high end cards unless you play at 1080p res

You got that backwards on the 1080p thing. The higher the res, the more work the GPU does. The CPU work doesn't change, so as you are more GPU bound, the less it matters if you have a fast CPU.

And the point being, the first i5's and i7's, if OC'ed to 4Ghz or near, are still very competitive today. They compare to AMD current high end, which is pretty amazing for how old they are.

I have an i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz, and have a hard time justifying an upgrade. I want some real improvements when I upgrade.

 

[ruhtraeel]

There's no reason to upgrade for you. I had two 5870's and it sill ran everything pretty much maxed (provided it didn't take too much VRAM) to this day. I was just tired of the crossfire issues that it had.

If you have a 6990, you don't need to upgrade.

If you have like ancient or no hardware, get a newer card because they have similar performance to a 6990 for less than half the price.

 

[mingsoup]

One more little thing I saw. @ 1080p haswell vs ivy vs sandy vs Nehalem? 100% disappears at 1080p in this review.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...74770k_ipc_overclocking_review/5#.UmFMCVDkt0o

I mean its totally gone across 4 games. Now how that would effect an MMORPG I dont' know, but its benchmarks like that which really don't do it for me.

 

[cbrunny]

Frame crawl in cities and hitching pretty much everywhere, unfortunately. I think i scored about 13k on max.

What driver version are you using? FFXIV & Square Enix claim crossfire is supported in FFXIV with driver version 13.9 or higher.

 

[Makaveli]

I would stay with what you have also.

See whats out in summer of 2014 then look at the upgrading question again.

 

[Jacky60]

I have 2x6990 and I can say they are pretty consistent these days, the drivers seem to work and on more demanding games they are on par with and often out-perform 7970GE (at 880 or above bios switch). If power use is an issue then upgrade, same goes for RAM limitations. A 6990 is power hungry but has the muscle to beat most contemporary cards most of the time.

 

[Makaveli]

I have 2x6990 and I can say they are pretty consistent these days, the drivers seem to work and on more demanding games they are on par with and often out-perform 7970GE (at 880 or above bios switch). If power use is an issue then upgrade, same goes for RAM limitations. A 6990 is power hungry but has the muscle to beat most contemporary cards most of the time.

Its been a while since I looked at the specs of the 6990 is it just two downclocked 6970 cores?

 

[toyota]

Its been a while since I looked at the specs of the 6990 is it just two downclocked 6970 cores?

lol you have the whole internet right in front of you.

bam 1 second later http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/

 

[Makaveli]

lol you have the whole internet right in front of you.

bam 1 second later http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/

haha I was at work when I posted it didn't have time to search something else came up

 

[ozzy702]

It really just depends on the game you're playing and the resolution you're playing at. BF3, BF4, and a handful of other games will tap out your CPU and GPU both at 1080p, let alone at 1440p or higher.

 

[tential]

That's because there aren't really games coming out that make older cards REALLY obsolete like there used to.

I used to think these next gen games would do that, now I really don't think they'll do absolutely anything to change the PC gaming scene really.

 

[cmdrdredd]

290x is gonna blow everything out of the water.

We don't know that at all. There isn't really enough software out there (games wise) that makes many setups feel old yet. Probably will be quite a while before things get to unplayable levels.

 

[tential]

We don't know that at all. There isn't really enough software out there (games wise) that makes many setups feel old yet. Probably will be quite a while before things get to unplayable levels.

Even if it "blew everything out the water" like you said, you don't NEED a card like that to play games at great settings already.

There's a lot more brand loyalty out there than I thought. Even if R290x was 20% faster I don't think it would get wide spread pick ups because people dont' necessarily need it. If it did, and the 7 series pricing just dropped more I'd probably just pick up 2 of those and CF instead.
The only people this REALLY matters to is super enthusiasts as they will take up the BULK of the purchases. And they are going to upgrade second new process node graphics cards come out anyway.

If you put a R290x in my setup vs my HD7950 I probably wouldnt' even notice tbh.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Even if it "blew everything out the water" like you said, you don't NEED a card like that to play games at great settings already.

There's a lot more brand loyalty out there than I thought. Even if R290x was 20% faster I don't think it would get wide spread pick ups because people dont' necessarily need it. If it did, and the 7 series pricing just dropped more I'd probably just pick up 2 of those and CF instead.
The only people this REALLY matters to is super enthusiasts as they will take up the BULK of the purchases. And they are going to upgrade second new process node graphics cards come out anyway.

If you put a R290x in my setup vs my HD7950 I probably wouldnt' even notice tbh.

That and people building new systems from the ground up may opt for the higher end cards. People running GTX 670s/680s/7950/7970s probably won't jump over. I'm betting most people don't find their current setup too slow yet. I know I don't...not quite yet. There may be the occasional person who will buy the latest stuff because they can afford to and for no other reason than to have the best hardware. Like you said though, there isn't a need. With these cards it's just a want which is cool if that's what someone is into.