B-Riz
"Overall, mining should not be a consideration when buying a card for playing games."
While I mostly agree with this statement, it's a nice option for many of us to be able to pay off these cards with alt-mining while you're *not* playing games. This shouldn't be ignored.
I think the perfect upgrade for you would be to sell your 7950 which would net you a lofty sum at the moment and then take the proceeds to be put towards a non mining card such as a Geforce 780. It would probably only cost you a hundred bucks or so.
Good luck.
I could also buy a Mustang GT and MAYBE win some money street racing to offset the purchase of the car.
Funny thing, none of the reviews for the 290 / 290x talk about how many kh/s these cards get, they show benchmarks and whatnot with FPS numbers.
I never said I needed or wanted to upgrade, merely the R9 290 at $399 was a logical upgrade from a $349 7950.