3070 upgrade

[The1nonly1]

Currently using a 3070, purchased around the time it was released, and now it's time to upgrade. Budget is around £700 so I'm looking at the 7900XT, would this be a good upgrade? I only tend to upgrade GPU every 2/3 years so it will need to last.

 

[JediFragger]

Budget is around £700 so I'm looking at the 7900XT,

7900XT is a great card with some deals being at £599 or under but they were v popular and oos atm. If you can find a deal close to that then all good!

OcUK have both the Gigabyte at £689 and the Pulse at £699 atm both good cards.

 

[The1nonly1]

7900XT is a great card with some deals being at £599 or under but they were v popular and oos atm. If you can find a deal close to that then all good!

OcUK have both the Gigabyte at £689 and the Pulse at £699 atm both good cards.

Awesome, thanks. Just had a look and the Gigabyte is much bigger compared to my current card and won't fit as the max length is 315mm. The Pulse will by 2mm though.

 

[JediFragger]

The Pulse will by 2mm though.

Yes that is a really good cooler even though it's a more compact one, will serve you well

 

[MCFC_ANDY]

the 7900xt at £599 was a steal, lets hope wasnt a one off for media attention, as they only listing 2 models atm.

 

[JediFragger]

the 7900xt at £599 was a steal, lets hope wasnt a one off for media attention, as they only listing 2 models atm.

I personally think it was just to clear a glut and they'll go back to £649+ but we shall see!

 

[The1nonly1]

Looking at pricing, the cheapest 7900XT is £690 brand new from OCUK. Is the 4070 Super a good alternative at around £600? I only play at 1440p (current monitor is 144hz and no plan to change it) and have no plans to go to 4K. Playing F1 24, AC Mirage, Hell Let Loose, LoL, Planet Zoo and Gray Zone Warfare. It's a massive improvement over my 3070 and while £700 is my max budget, anything less than that is better.

 

[welshrat]

Looking at pricing, the cheapest 7900XT is £690 brand new from OCUK. Is the 4070 Super a good alternative at around £600? I only play at 1440p and have no plans to go to 4K. Playing F1 24, AC Mirage, Hell Let Loose, LoL, Planet Zoo and Gray Zone Warfare. It's a massive improvement over my 3070 and while £700 is my max budget, anything less than that is better.

Really depends on whether you value RT and DLSS, I personally went for the 7900GRE as I realised even the 4070ti super didn't give me the RT I would have wanted for that price and I didn't want to compromise on VRAM. Either way it will be better that the 3070 by some margin

I know the 7900GRE will be somewhat of a stopgap card for me whilst I wait for whatever comes after RDNA 4 (reading PS5 Pro and RDNA 4 news it looks as though AMD is pushing forward with RT), I won't discount NVIDIA but never really happy with their RAM and bus speed options for the mid range.

 

[MCFC_ANDY]

for the money the GRE is the card, unless you can snag 7900xt at 599. 4070 super is poor value. 12gb for nearly £600

 

[pastymuncher]

I went from a factorory overclocked Gigabyte 3070 to the 7900 GRE that I have now and it is a decent step up in performance and a massive boost in onboard memory as the 3070 was running out of it in a few games I play at 1440p. I got the Asrock Steel Legend when it was £529 and it's a cracking card albeit very power hungry unless you undervolt it. That's one thing that AMD needs to work on with their gpu's, they are way behind Nvidia when it comes to power draw. That being said I don't regret switching to AMD at all.

 

[MartinPrince]

I went from a factorory overclocked Gigabyte 3070 to the 7900 GRE that I have now and it is a decent step up in performance and a massive boost in onboard memory as the 3070 was running out of it in a few games I play at 1440p. I got the Asrock Steel Legend when it was £529 and it's a cracking card albeit very power hungry unless you undervolt it. That's one thing that AMD needs to work on with their gpu's, they are way behind Nvidia when it comes to power draw. That being said I don't regret switching to AMD at all.

Yes, I had the 7900XTX for a while and was a little disappointed how poor the power regulation was especially when compared to how efficient AMD CPU's can be. To compound that the XTX was also pulling 100w at idle though this down to an ever pervasive bug in the drivers when using more than one >60Hz monitor.

 

[Tetras]

Is the 4070 Super a good alternative at around £600? I only play at 1440p (current monitor is 144hz and no plan to change it) and have no plans to go to 4K. Playing F1 24, AC Mirage, Hell Let Loose, LoL, Planet Zoo and Gray Zone Warfare. It's a massive improvement over my 3070 and while £700 is my max budget, anything less than that is better.

According to TPU's database (raster, no upscaling):

4070: 22% faster.
4070 Super: 42% faster.
7900 GRE: 44% faster.
4070 Ti: 52% faster.
7900 XT: 71% faster.

7900 XT is technically a tier above the 4070 Super/7900 GRE and has the biggest bus in that list, with lots of memory bandwidth.

While I can understand wanting to spend less than your budget, it might be a false economy, since £500 doesn't get you much (considered midrange money, tbh) and the raw performance improvement from the 4070 series is not great.

 

[Gray2233]

Totally agreed with the above, coming from a 3070 I'd be looking at a 4070ti super or 7900xt minimum. The GRE's absolutely have more grunt in them if you want to tweak them, but it's ultimately a silicone lottery and you're still going to be behind the XT.

It does depend on your needs and expectations however, I have no regrets moving from a 3060ti to a 4070s but it's not a change that I'd generally recommend.

 

[The1nonly1]

Totally agreed with the above, coming from a 3070 I'd be looking at a 4070ti super or 7900xt minimum. The GRE's absolutely have more grunt in them if you want to tweak them, but it's ultimately a silicone lottery and you're still going to be behind the XT.

It does depend on your needs and expectations however, I have no regrets moving from a 3060ti to a 4070s but it's not a change that I'd generally recommend.

According to TPU's database (raster, no upscaling):

4070: 22% faster.
4070 Super: 42% faster.
7900 GRE: 44% faster.
4070 Ti: 52% faster.
7900 XT: 71% faster.

7900 XT is technically a tier above the 4070 Super/7900 GRE and has the biggest bus in that list, with lots of memory bandwidth.

While I can understand wanting to spend less than your budget, it might be a false economy, since £500 doesn't get you much (considered midrange money, tbh) and the raw performance improvement from the 4070 series is not great.

Thanks both, I'll look out for a 7900xt.

 

[sgoaty]

Definitely 7900xt. It makes a lot more sense now than it did at launch

 

[BUDFORCE]

Yes 7900xt, I did the exact same upgrade 3070 to 7900xt.

The 3070 would be a decent card except the VRAM, and if playing at 1440p it's no good. I'd be playing Fallout 76 at 144fps, then notice huge frame drops, and sure enough video memory use 100%.

I upgraded mainly because of Lamefield all though what a let down that was, but definitely comes into its own on Cities Skylines 2 which eats as much resources as you can throw at it.

If the 3070 has 16 or even maybe 12 GB memory I might not have upgraded.

Anyway, I am really pleased with the 7900xt and it'll last a long time, I've had mine nearly a year, and I can see myself still having this in 4 maybe 5 years.

Currently playing Minecraft on it

 

[welshrat]

Yes 7900xt, I did the exact same upgrade 3070 to 7900xt.

The 3070 would be a decent card except the VRAM, and if playing at 1440p it's no good. I'd be playing Fallout 76 at 144fps, then notice huge frame drops, and sure enough video memory use 100%.

I upgraded mainly because of Lamefield all though what a let down that was, but definitely comes into its own on Cities Skylines 2 which eats as much resources as you can throw at it.

If the 3070 has 16 or even maybe 12 GB memory I might not have upgraded.

Anyway, I am really pleased with the 7900xt and it'll last a long time, I've had mine nearly a year, and I can see myself still having this in 4 maybe 5 years.

Currently playing Minecraft on it

I genuinely think this is the reason NVIDIA keep the absolute minimum they can on their cards. VRAM is massively important and will mean a card last several years longer than it would otherwise. Got to keep the money rolling in. The 6800 I had with 16gb ram that I recently sold had no issues at all other than I like new and shiny and I reckon the guy who bought it will get a further 2 - 3 years out of it.

 

[Joxeon]

7900XT is a great card with some deals being at £599 or under but they were v popular and oos atm. If you can find a deal close to that then all good!

These are the best deals for any GPUs going right now, 20gb vram and raster performance which is only 10-15% behind a 4080 for under 600 quid can’t be argued with in this day and age.

 

[MCFC_ANDY]

getting feeling the 599 7900xt was a one of, as been said either old stock or done for media headlines, i would have bought at 599, how much slower is the gre in %

 

[JediFragger]

how much slower is the gre in %

Prob sits between the 7800XT and 7900XT realistically.