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Buy now or wait for Kepler?

sparky05084

sparky05084

sparky05084

Associate
Joined
4 Sep 2011
Posts
596
Hey all.

First off apologies if this is the 100,000th time this has been asked but I can't come to a decision and it's doing my Cadbury's fruit & nut in.

Ok, so I currently own an 8800GTX. She's a fighter I tell you and hasn't given up the ghost yet (touch wood). Now, obviously common sense prevails and ANY current gen GPU would be an improvement over this card.

However, this is where I (and I bet a few others I imagine) come a cropper. AMD have released the 7970 and it is the flagship card at present. The non reference and aftermarket cards will follow and soon Nvidia will respond with Kepler.

This in turn (or I hope) will encourage price drops in the current line up and where one may find good deals (GTX 570 et al springs to mind).

I'm struggling to keep up with it all and I never imagined that picking a GPU would be such a zombie infested minefield of oblivion and endless pain and misey (head explosion imminent).

Now, I need your help fellas as I'm not sure what the best thing to do is. I will be gaming at 1080p and I want to go down the Nvidia route (although the recent talk of the 7950 has got me considering, if only slightly going over to the darkside :D).

Would it be worth waiting a bit and say just using onboard GFX for now (doing a new build soonish) and see what happens or just bite the bullet and buy now?

Thanks all.
 
Why use onboard graphics when you have an 8800GTX? IT's better to hold on to that than sell it. In fact, I'm half considering selling my 580 and getting an 8800 GT/GTX to hold on to till KEpler.
 
Yeah it's an awesome board. Great OC capability. Whole system runs really cool and stable, and more features than I could ever use. Can't really complain :)
 
tF3 is great but I wouldnt pay 300 for a 570. I'd wait it out if i were you. the more recent rumours suggest GTX 660 will be out end of feb/early march. If i were you i'd also hold out for ivybrdge. this way your choices are far fewer, but better :)
 
I doubt the 660 will be much more than £300 as it is a mid-range card. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it was sub £300. It should beat the 580.

Even it doesn't, it will definitely push down the prices of existing cards, and you'll probably see a flurry of used cards selling cheaper than usual.
 
xsistor said:
I doubt the 660 will be much more than £300 as it is a mid-range card. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it was sub £300. It should beat the 580.
Click to expand...

With the 7950 looking like a 580 beater, the 660 if equal to a 580 would fit in nicely sub 300 and make more options available.

Edit:

OP, if you can wait then wait. Prices may well drop, by how much is anyones guess. Only snag I see is that if prices do drop and its only 40 or so pounds on the card you want, would that be worth the 3 month wait.
 
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So people really expect these mid range Keplers to perform as well as the top end Fermi GPUs?

Don't get me wrong, it would be incredible if they do. But looking back through history it's hardly happened.

I'd be quite frankly shocked if it happens.
 
Really not impressed with current pricing so I would just wait if you feel you can.

Since Overclockers has never been out of stock of the cards since launch, as has happened with previous generations, I'm guessing that much of the market doesn't seem that impressed either.
 
ALXAndy said:
So people really expect these mid range Keplers to perform as well as the top end Fermi GPUs?

Don't get me wrong, it would be incredible if they do. But looking back through history it's hardly happened.

I'd be quite frankly shocked if it happens.
Click to expand...
The GTX460 was faster than the GTX285. Even though the 460 was released at <£200, it still outperformed the fastest card of the previous generation, plus it was handicapped by having 15% of it's shaders disabled. The GTX260 was also much faster than the 9800GTX. NVidia do have good history of releasing mid-high cards that beat the best of the previous generation at good pricing.

GK104 (GTX660), should also beat the GTX580 comfortably (maybe even the 7970) but I expect it to cost closer to £300 than the £200 bargains of the past. Hopefully it will arrive during February / March and kickoff the price-war.
 
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ALXAndy said:
So people really expect these mid range Keplers to perform as well as the top end Fermi GPUs?

Don't get me wrong, it would be incredible if they do. But looking back through history it's hardly happened.

I'd be quite frankly shocked if it happens.
Click to expand...

Think you need to recheck the history books on that one.
 
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