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A simple yes or no...
- Thread starter yannis76
- Start date
What resolution do you run?
Anything faster than what you have is an upgrade. Whether it makes financial sense? that all depends.
What I can tell you, using the latest games, is that both Metro : Last Light and Crysis 3 will quite easily push a 7970 overboard. It simply does not have enough power to max out either game.
The R290 will make much more sense (financially) than anything Nvidia make as Nvidia still have their heads up their, I mean in the clouds.
Anything faster than what you have is an upgrade. Whether it makes financial sense? that all depends.
What I can tell you, using the latest games, is that both Metro : Last Light and Crysis 3 will quite easily push a 7970 overboard. It simply does not have enough power to max out either game.
The R290 will make much more sense (financially) than anything Nvidia make as Nvidia still have their heads up their, I mean in the clouds.
Simple No.
Also GTX770 is not an upgrade. And worth to get another 7970 or 280X and crossfire them with your 7970. Is cheaper providing you all power you might need to get from R290/GTX780
Soldato
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- 6 Feb 2010
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I would say no.
Let me put it this way:
If the 290 launch at £350, would it worth the extra £100-130 over the 280x (7970) if buying choosing between the two? Probably yes, considering for that price premium there should be a good 30% performance gain over the 280x, plus the TrueAudio feature etc;
however is it worth upgrading from a 7970 to a 290? No.
Not only it's only same gen 1 tier up upgrade, but also also accounting the amount of loss when selling off the 7970, one would most likely only get £160 back after selling, and have to pay another £200 for a 290.
Let me put it this way:
If the 290 launch at £350, would it worth the extra £100-130 over the 280x (7970) if buying choosing between the two? Probably yes, considering for that price premium there should be a good 30% performance gain over the 280x, plus the TrueAudio feature etc;
however is it worth upgrading from a 7970 to a 290? No.
Not only it's only same gen 1 tier up upgrade, but also also accounting the amount of loss when selling off the 7970, one would most likely only get £160 back after selling, and have to pay another £200 for a 290.
Soldato
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OK just done some poking back through my benchmarks, and I can tell you that -
Tomb Raider (Max settings on all settings with TressFX)
Hitman : Absolution (Max settings 8XMSAA)
Crysis 3 (max settings 4XMSAA)
Metro : Last Light (Max settings 8XMSAA or could be 4, whatever the max is)
Far Cry 3 (max settings max FSAA)
Are all unplayable on a single 7970. You can reduce the settings down to get them playable, so I guess it depends on what you're prepared to sacrifice.
IMO at the top level with very high AA the 7970 simply isn't fast enough. That's what the forthcoming 290, the 290x, the 780, the forthcoming 780ti and Titan (as well as the 7990 and 690 if you like your dual GPU cards) are for.
So, there's definitely an upgrade there and one that will give you things you don't have with a 7970. However, what you're prepared to pay to have those games running maxed out is what is in question here.
If you have the money and don't mind if you lose a bit? upgrade.
If you want to save some money? reduce settings.
I really can't put it any simpler than that.
Tomb Raider (Max settings on all settings with TressFX)
Hitman : Absolution (Max settings 8XMSAA)
Crysis 3 (max settings 4XMSAA)
Metro : Last Light (Max settings 8XMSAA or could be 4, whatever the max is)
Far Cry 3 (max settings max FSAA)
Are all unplayable on a single 7970. You can reduce the settings down to get them playable, so I guess it depends on what you're prepared to sacrifice.
IMO at the top level with very high AA the 7970 simply isn't fast enough. That's what the forthcoming 290, the 290x, the 780, the forthcoming 780ti and Titan (as well as the 7990 and 690 if you like your dual GPU cards) are for.
So, there's definitely an upgrade there and one that will give you things you don't have with a 7970. However, what you're prepared to pay to have those games running maxed out is what is in question here.
If you have the money and don't mind if you lose a bit? upgrade.
If you want to save some money? reduce settings.
I really can't put it any simpler than that.
Thank you all. Some points I want to add:
1) I game at 1080p but mainly strategy games and not so much action fps. The latest game was Rome II and there were times with huge armies at extreme quality where the game would slow down.
2) Money is an issue. for the last years I always buy second hand and I plan to go on this. Adding a 2nd 7970 would make sense but I dont have the space or the power. On the other hand I also have a GTX 760 so maybe I could SLI this card?
Thx
1) I game at 1080p but mainly strategy games and not so much action fps. The latest game was Rome II and there were times with huge armies at extreme quality where the game would slow down.
2) Money is an issue. for the last years I always buy second hand and I plan to go on this. Adding a 2nd 7970 would make sense but I dont have the space or the power. On the other hand I also have a GTX 760 so maybe I could SLI this card?
Thx
Soldato
- Joined
- 6 Feb 2010
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- 14,583
That problem you are facing is probably more to do with CPU than your 7970 to be honest. Try turning down the graphic settings...if the frame rate doesn't improve, then you are CPU limited, rather than your 7970 being not fast enough.
SLI the 760. You'll net close to GTX 690 performance and the crappy memory bandwidth shouldn't ever be an issue @ 1080p.
Bad advice. Nvidia have zero SLI support in Rome 2. AMD has some, but its only scaling of 20-40% at best. For the games he's playing multi gpu is just a bad idea.
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I can run Crysis 3 at Max settings (with the exception of full msaa - I have it at 4x) at1440p on my 7970- at 1080p this card should knock any game out of the park.
I wrote on another thread about some slight driver issues that I've experienced with AMD cards recently but when they work the hardware is phenomenal.
I had considered a shift to nvidia but the current cards that you've listed i.e. the 770 and 780 don't represent enough of a jump tbh.
Adding an extra 7970 and cross firing definitely makes more sense I think but I had a 5850 crossfire setup and got pretty annoyed at the amount of games I played that couldn't fully utilise it.
I wrote on another thread about some slight driver issues that I've experienced with AMD cards recently but when they work the hardware is phenomenal.
I had considered a shift to nvidia but the current cards that you've listed i.e. the 770 and 780 don't represent enough of a jump tbh.
Adding an extra 7970 and cross firing definitely makes more sense I think but I had a 5850 crossfire setup and got pretty annoyed at the amount of games I played that couldn't fully utilise it.