5970 life ?

86JR · 9 Jan 2010 at 20:26

Thinking hard about purchasing the 5970 VTX.

I was just wondering if anyone can guess how long it will last untill i need to upgrade.

Im guessing three years ? Its a lot of money, but im sick of swapping stuff out, if i had to buy again id just buy a prebuilt from ocuk. Just lost interest really. The rest of my pc is up to spec but i HAVE to run an ati card untill i have new IPS monitors, as my hdtv is hdmi and nvidia have a driver error so i have a 1" black bar on the left of the screen in vga, and a messed up display in HDMI.

twist3d0n3 · 9 Jan 2010 at 20:27

get it watercooled and overclock it and it'll probably last longer

Rroff · 9 Jan 2010 at 20:31

TBH it may not be long... ATI's next series looks like being a fair decent shift in performance and if nVidia can get their issues sorted they should be able to perform well. DX11 looks like ramping up quicker than any previous generation so first gen DX11 cards will probably become obsolete quicker than normal.

psychas · 9 Jan 2010 at 20:43

i doubt it last long hardware goes fast these days , in 3 years time we will be on dx 13 , rather get 5870 then u can upgrade it after a year

Ritsugamesh · 9 Jan 2010 at 20:51

I'd be inclined to agree with the current consensus, both ATi and nVidia are bringing out new dx11 range cards in the near future, if you can sit tight for now and wait to see what shows itself then you will probably benefit in the long run, hopefully with a more powerful and better cooled, thus more reliable card.

jamiehavok · 9 Jan 2010 at 21:07

it wil probably last you at least until the next generation of consoles come out. 2012? and a bit after but games will start to not be runnable on the higher detail settings is my guess. there might be some big pc game that pushes the limits that is later ported to ps4 or whatever or a "future proof mmo" like eq2 was just before then however but with the current state of pc gaming its unlikely.

arc@css · 9 Jan 2010 at 21:21

I think it would have a long life. Not unexpectedly short.

86JR · 9 Jan 2010 at 21:35

Ritsugamesh said:
I'd be inclined to agree with the current consensus, both ATi and nVidia are bringing out new dx11 range cards in the near future, if you can sit tight for now and wait to see what shows itself then you will probably benefit in the long run, hopefully with a more powerful and better cooled, thus more reliable card.

Thats the thing, if i keep doing that id never buy a card, this is what everyone said when the 4870 was out etc.

corei5 · 9 Jan 2010 at 22:01

more reasonable is dont upgrade your card if its not really necessary to upgrade it, if the card can still handle the games then stick with it. Yet 5970 is a powerful card tbh but i dont know compare to fermi but if nvidia fermi is cost more or watsoever the card then stick with your current card.

Galea · 10 Jan 2010 at 14:18

I think it will have a longer life than the 4870x2 and the 8800GTX had.

Personally I'm sure it would last me longer than 3 years. I've been using my 8800GT since November 2007 now!

Martini1991 · 10 Jan 2010 at 14:21

psychas said:
i doubt it last long hardware goes fast these days , in 3 years time we will be on dx 13 , rather get 5870 then u can upgrade it after a year

New DX will come out with a new O.S,

Ritsugamesh · 10 Jan 2010 at 20:25

I'd say just go for it then mate, the 5970 tears through anything but Crysis and if later on in it's life span, say two-3 years you need more juice I'm sure they won't still be sat at £500 and you can crossfire two of them.

Galea · 10 Jan 2010 at 21:11

Ritsugamesh said:
I'd say just go for it then mate, the 5970 tears through anything but Crysis and if later on in it's life span, say two-3 years you need more juice I'm sure they won't still be sat at £500 and you can crossfire two of them.

That's what I'm planning to do.
My next upgrade will be a CF motherboard...

It doesn't do bad at all in Crysis either. Keep in mind that at 1920x1200 you really wouldn't be needing 4xAA so the fps would go much higher.

Source of benchmark.

bigjimmyauk · 10 Jan 2010 at 21:20

jamiehavok said:
it wil probably last you at least until the next generation of consoles come out. 2012? and a bit after but games will start to not be runnable on the higher detail settings is my guess. there might be some big pc game that pushes the limits that is later ported to ps4 or whatever or a "future proof mmo" like eq2 was just before then however but with the current state of pc gaming its unlikely.

don't know where u get that from sony are not planning on another console for at least 5 years minimum

Rroff · 10 Jan 2010 at 21:29

Those numbers look well wrong to me... specially as the 5970 usually does worse than 5870 cf - and its doing well over double the performance of a 5870...

Galea · 10 Jan 2010 at 21:43

Rroff said:
Those numbers look well wrong to me... specially as the 5970 usually does worse than 5870 cf - and its doing well over double the performance of a 5870...

You know what... I see it strange too, lol. I mean the 5970 getting twice the FPS of the GTX 295 in Crysis?

In fact I posted in the forum where I got the graph from about this, so they check if there's a mistake.

I'll be updating in this thread when I get a reply.

capriboy1978 · 10 Jan 2010 at 21:45

I cant see why you'd need such a card tbh, even to save the hassle of upgrading. After all other than an ancient game there's not much else around that needs that much grunt at 1920x1200 with enough aa to look good. Sure crysis looks purty but so does Kate Winslet and life would be pretty dull if thats all I had to look at

Given that the arket caters for the masses and factor in the popularity of the consoles I don't see any reason not to buy a 5850 now and xfire another if and when you need to, by which point you'd prob get a used one cheap or one on offer. If your really feeling flush and love gaming at 100's of fps for some reason substitute the 50 for a 70 and i doubt you'll see the need to bother.

ntemples1 · 10 Jan 2010 at 22:37

Galea said:
You know what... I see it strange too, lol. I mean the 5970 getting twice the FPS of the GTX 295 in Crysis?

In fact I posted in the forum where I got the graph from about this, so they check if there's a mistake.

I'll be updating in this thread when I get a reply.

I have a HD 5970 and those figures are a little high, I am getting 50-60 fps constant whilst playing at 1920 1200 with 4xAA enabled and everything at Very High settings, infact when I put the AA up to 16x it still averages at 52fps. Pretty damn good! and I can tell you crysis is much more fun at those framerates and it looks awesome!

Great GFX card!

JonnyG1982 · 10 Jan 2010 at 22:49

Feel free to buy one but wait til the price goes down (if they ever do). It cost us UKer's £550+ for something the yanks are buying for £400. Were being robbed blind. People need to hold back and refuse buying til it forces retailers to lower prices. You may as well wait for nvidia's answer as hopefully itll be around in 2 months.

capriboy1978 · 11 Jan 2010 at 09:24

It's not all the retailers - it's unfair to lay it all the price difference at their door. Some more than others yes and we cetaintly don't help ourselves snapping them up like we have but ati as well as the entire distribution chain will have had a hand in getting the prices to were they are.

Keep waiting is usually bad advice in this game but atm with gpu's I'm inclined to agree. As we all know there's no real competition and supply has struggled to meet demand. Even my dog would tell you that this isn't good for the consumer.