Not content with 7870...

[Coxey]

Hey there.

As the title suggests I'm not content with my 7870 even OC'd - although I certainly appreciate the huge boost it did give me from my 5770.

I'm thinking of flogging it off and purchasing a 7970, so does anyone advise against that for whatever reason - if not, what 7970's do you recommend? (I'm not into upping voltz for GPU's, nor watercooling them - just put in, maybe get an extra 50-100MHz OC and that's it)

Sound is a moderate factor, but I've never gone for a 100% silent system.. (Basically load fan noise = irrelevant to me)

On the flip side, I could alternately swap to an i7 3770k setup, although that wouldn't gain me as much frames in games (I'm guessing), However I do a moderate amount of rendering which would be the sole reason for upgrading to this.

With all this being said, are any new generations inbound soon that are worth waiting for? (GPU / CPU)

My current choices:

1) Upgrade cooler, attempt to OC CPU further + buy 7970
2) Upgrade to i7 3770k system
3) Wait.

 

[grassman]

So whats wrong with the 7870 exactly?

Think you should look to a new CPU rather than GPU tbh. Your CPU is good enough to hold out for Haswell though so that's what I would do.

 

[Coxey]

Nothing is 'wrong' with it I guess. I just had a terrible (Unlucky) expierence, it took 3 RMA's to finally get a working unit.. and after 2 months of RMAing I almost ended up... Begrudging the card (As stupid as that is).

Initially when I used it, it was amazing and I was happy, although I was just hoping it'd run things a tad smoother. I may be being picky, and right now I do play known un-optimized games. I also don't have the confidence in it to max out upcoming titles I am going to be playing (Arma 3, GTA V, Watch Dogs). I just want one year where I can max out the settings and play comfortable without compromising.

Also @ the Haswell statement, that's what I was thinking... We'll see what they bring, supposedly around June/July? Or is that rumor shenanigans..

 

[NeverBackDown]

Haswell will not bring as much of a boost as a gpu will to games, last i checked it should only be about 5-10% faster(this was a few months ago.) Going to a 7970 will probably gain you an extra 15fps boost with a higher minimum frame rate as well. But then again the new 8000 series cards should be coming out this quarter(Q2.)

 

[grassman]

Nothing can run GTA IV smooth :\ Just lock it to 30FPS

Whatever the 7870 CANT run at 60FPS neither can the 7970 this is from my own personal experience with the two of them.

opps Just noticed you said V and mentioned games that are nowhere near there release date =|

 

[Coxey]

Suprisingly GTA IV is one of the things I'm 100% pleased with.. Perhaps you mean with mods?

Either way, I'll save up my pennies and see what the future gen brings I think.

Still going to buy a new CPU cooler, as my current one makes a ton of noise.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Haswell would be my first upgrade, first gen i5s are really hot and actually can start to bottleneck the high end cards

 

[alienware]

But then again the new 8000 series cards should be coming out this quarter(Q2.)

Where did you hear that? last I heard the 8000 cards were coming out at the end of the year but were just rebranded 79xx cards and only for OEMs like Dell.

The last bit of news I read was AMD saying they were not going to bother answering to Titan.

Nothing can run GTA IV smooth :\ Just lock it to 30FPS

GTX 670 SLI most certainly does.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Was a rumor i read in sometime in Jan, the OEMs will recieve rebranded cards. However i am pretty sure(again last i heard) that the 8xxx will actually be a slight update. Titan? lol no need to answer it because actual next gen gpus should be on par with it anyway.