£450 to spend

[Stanners]

The problem now is that 680s are all sold out. So, right at this minute AMD don't need to drop prices as they could be the only choice. Nvidia are having shortage problems as they have said so themselves.

If anything mate the 7950 looks like the best card even more now. Overclocked it will trade blows with a 680 and a stock 7970 and costs far less.

You can game in 3D on an AMD card. I do so myself. It's also very cheap. Look around for the LG D2342 monitor. It costs around £150 and comes with two pairs of glasses. You may need to replace them as it seems LG made a mistake and put the wrong glasses in some (ghosting) but Zalman do a nice pair for just over a tenner

Do you just say random things. I can see 680s in stock on Ocuk

 

[Secret_Window]

Ok, here are my 3 options I'm now considering:

1 x 7970 OC - Sapphire OC, Gigabyte OC Windforce, MSI Lightning
1x GTX 680 - any brand purely for BF3 and any other extra performance is a bonus for other games (mostly raw 2D performance in 120hz)
2 x 7950 (for Crossfire) - Sapphire OC, Gigabyte OC

I have given myself about £750 max budget to spend now. I don't want to spend that much, but if it will give me really good performance in all my games and a good performance advantage a year or more then I will definitely consider that as my main option. The problem with that is deciding whether crossfire will be a breeze to do and use or whether a really overly expensive single GPU that is overclocked like the MSI lightning is a better choice for avoiding potential issues with two GPUs. The other problem is whether a single GPU is also enough for 120hz to be taken advantage of properly or if that requires more grunt (two GPUs).

I'm still really undecided about all this and the prices seem to be slowly creeping back up for AMD cards so I feel a bit under pressure.

Also, is my PSU enough for crossfiring a 7950? I'm assuming it is more than enough but want to be sure.

I think theres a hack to run theses screens in 3d with nvidia cards, if it works you could just sli the 570's and jobs a good un

Works but is very buggy and unreliable. Also as each new driver is released the more incompatible the hack becomes. It's not worth me trying to SLI my 570 on the assumption the 3D vision hack will work for all my games and remain working for my games the year ahead. I'd rather not take that risk, plus I think the extra VRAM with a completely new GPU will be more beneficial for new games and future proof.

 

[Rusty0611]

Yeah your PSU is fine for crossfiring 7950's. I think it comes down to if you want a single GPU set up or a multi GPU set up. If you prefer the latter (weighing up the issues that can happen with crossfire) then the choice is obvious.

If not the the choice is tough. I would say the 680 based on my own experience of it and the fact that the 7970 is at best even with the 680. Review sites have it close when both are max overclocked but this is dependent on being able to obtain this "max" overclock.

However, if you can wait then hopefully prices will decrease and you can pick up a pair of 7970's or 680's for your budget. If you want to buy now then 2 heavily overclocked 7950s will serve you well (AMD drivers permitting!)

 

[Secret_Window]

I've decided the gain in crossfire with 7950's is not worth the money. I had a look at the benchmarks and the scaling on some games is definitely not worth £750. Especially, when I take into account a overclocked 7970 or 680 is pretty damn fast on its own for less.

For now it is definitely between a overclocked 7970 or a 680 (I will overclock myself). The question is what I want more; a card that allows me to game in 3D but might still be slow but otherwise excellent in 2D, or a card that is excellent in 2D especially BF3. They are both excellent options, it's a tough call. I think the 680 is best value for money, but I'm not very keen on the reference cooler, after having used many reference coolers in the past and never been satisfied with any. Going for a 7970 I have more options for coolers but will have to pay more for that luxury and still won't necessarily get the same fps in games like BF3 as the 680 unless I can push the 7970 even more with overclocking.

I haven't really heavily overclocked anything GPU wise before (the 570 I'm using now was an overclocked version straight out the box), so I'd need to confident in what I was doing if I wanted to get a 7970 and push it. It also depends on (for me) how easy it is to do this and weighing up the risks associated with doing it. It's a lot of money to spend and I don't want to screw it up.

If anyone can offer their advice on overclocking an 7970 and how safe/easy it is, that would be very helpful for me to know.


Thanks

 

[Secret_Window]

*Ahem*

Now a proud owner of 2x Gigabyte 7950 OC for crossfire. Coming tomorrow morning so will do some benchies then.

It made sense for me to get two cards instead of one where 120hz is concerned and gaming in 3D. Anything less and I probably would be disappointed with the performance (wanted to get fps near 120 in BF3 as close as possible!).