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Hardest decision ever! Need pro tips!

You're on 1080p now but going 4k in future, so you're inevitably going to be changing GPU(s) at that time. For that reason, here's what you need to do:

Buy a 970.

/thread
 
Chieftec should be reliable enough, even if not perfect, but that can wait for another day.

As he is willing to wait, and is talking about 4K in a year or so, it would be a better idea for him to wait, as newer cards in his time frame are likely to be substantially faster in the 4k space and just get a temporary, cheap, faster card to make his 1080p 144Hz experience more pleasant if he really has the itch now. Neither the 970 or 980 are that great at 4k really.

He has a 6870, so he can get a substantially faster card for under £100, and the £150-200 saved can go to much better use once newer cards are out/the current gen have reduced with age.
Bear in mind what he is coming from! :)

@OP
The 7950 Boost (the 7950 is slightly slower, the 7970 and 7970 GHz edition are faster) is not far off your old 770
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1033?vs=1037

If you are happy with that level of performance to hold you by, given the price of the 79**, this would be the economic way, and then come 4k, you can re-evaluate all the cards and spend the money saved on the best 4k card you can get at the time, which may well be better than the 970s.

Is getting the best you can NOW more important to you; or simply getting something decent that will improve your 1080p experience, and then getting something suitable later and trying to make use of your money effectively?

With your CPU you shouldn't really notice a major bottleneck on any of the options in most cases, just bear in mind your PSU may struggle with some dual card setups.
 
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While the AMD cards are good, the Nvidia cards deliver better frames due to lour over head in the drivers.

That will help you know end in getting to 144Mhz in much more games.

So go with a GTX970 or if you don't mind paying the premium get a GTX980.
 
almighty15 said:
While the AMD cards are good, the Nvidia cards deliver better frames due to lour over head in the drivers.

That will help you know end in getting to 144Mhz in much more games.

So go with a GTX970 or if you don't mind paying the premium get a GTX980.
Click to expand...

Na i dont think so! You sound Omega jelly? I've not heard of this before lol.
 
Rangerjr1 said:
I heard it once before, and it was when i asked a 3dmark developer why the combined scores are higher on nvidia even though physics and graphics are the same, i dont believe it 1 bit lol
Click to expand...

Not anyone plays 3dmark though we mostly play games of which the 970 is just the better all round card.
 
r7slayer said:
Na i dont think so! You sound Omega jelly? I've not heard of this before lol.
Click to expand...

It's actually very well documented on the internet.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-nvidia-337-50-driver-performance-review.html

There's quite a few user made threads that contain benchmarks that also show some massive improvements.

IIRC one guy went from having a frame rate in the 70's with his GTX78 SLI in the first Crysis to over 100fps with the new 'reduced overhead' drivers.

I've noticed it myself when I moved from AMD to Nvidia while using the same CPU, Mobo and RAM.
 
For the person who asked if i wrote this on my phone, yeah i did :))

Alexrose1uk said:
Chieftec should be reliable enough, even if not perfect, but that can wait for another day.

As he is willing to wait, and is talking about 4K in a year or so, it would be a better idea for him to wait, as newer cards in his time frame are likely to be substantially faster in the 4k space and just get a temporary, cheap, faster card to make his 1080p 144Hz experience more pleasant if he really has the itch now. Neither the 970 or 980 are that great at 4k really.

He has a 6870, so he can get a substantially faster card for under £100, and the £150-200 saved can go to much better use once newer cards are out/the current gen have reduced with age.
Bear in mind what he is coming from! :)

@OP
The 7950 Boost (the 7950 is slightly slower, the 7970 and 7970 GHz edition are faster) is not far off your old 770
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1033?vs=1037

If you are happy with that level of performance to hold you by, given the price of the 79**, this would be the economic way, and then come 4k, you can re-evaluate all the cards and spend the money saved on the best 4k card you can get at the time, which may well be better than the 970s.

Is getting the best you can NOW more important to you; or simply getting something decent that will improve your 1080p experience, and then getting something suitable later and trying to make use of your money effectively?

With your CPU you shouldn't really notice a major bottleneck on any of the options in most cases, just bear in mind your PSU may struggle with some dual card setups.
Click to expand...

I might just wait.. I think its the best. I'm not playing that many games atm anyway so maybe waiting is the best.
 
It may well be, 4K is still very new.

If you want a cheap upgrade for a little more oomph and don't want to go all the way up to £100/79**, see if you can find a cheap 7850, they can be had in the £50-60 region now, so probably about £30 after you sell your card, and are about half as fast again as the 6870:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1076?vs=1336

Many of them overclock nicely too ;)

That's just a pure budget option though if you wanted a bit of a boost economically, as, as you put it you are not gaming much :)
I was using a solo 7850 with a medium overclock for about half a year after having to sell my GTX670, and it does surprisingly well in a lot of games at 1080p. I'm currently running crossfire after my Mrs got an upgrade for her machine :)
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
It may well be, 4K is still very new.

If you want a cheap upgrade for a little more oomph and don't want to go all the way up to £100/79**, see if you can find a cheap 7850, they can be had in the £50-60 region now, so probably about £30 after you sell your card, and are about half as fast again as the 6870:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1076?vs=1336

Many of them overclock nicely too ;)

That's just a pure budget option though if you wanted a bit of a boost economically, as, as you put it you are not gaming much :)
I was using a solo 7850 with a medium overclock for about half a year after having to sell my GTX670, and it does surprisingly well in a lot of games at 1080p. I'm currently running crossfire after my Mrs got an upgrade for her machine :)
Click to expand...

I will have a look on that card!
I think my mate got two of those.. And i think he is willing to sell me one cheap :)
 
Even better then :) whilst no longer cutting edge, the 7850's are still very capable, especially on later drivers and if you get one that clocks into the 1050-1100+ range, which bumps them up towards 7870 speed.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1034?vs=1336
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013..._directcu_ii_video_card_review/6#.VLJ00fmsXA0

Nice little improvement over the venerable 6870 without breaking your wallet and helping you last a bit longer :)

Take this review as an example which puts the cards side by side, and also shows a 7850 @1050 core.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-hd-7850-and-7870-review,23.html
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
Even better then :) whilst no longer cutting edge, the 7850's are still very capable, especially on later drivers and if you get one that clocks into the 1050-1100+ range, which bumps them up towards 7870 speed.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1034?vs=1336
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013..._directcu_ii_video_card_review/6#.VLJ00fmsXA0

Nice little improvement over the venerable 6870 without breaking your wallet and helping you last a bit longer :)

Take this review as an example which puts the cards side by side, and also shows a 7850 @1050 core.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-hd-7850-and-7870-review,23.html
Click to expand...

Looks sweet!
 
Yep, 7850s are stonking cards for the price. I got almost 3 years of really decent performance out of it before finally swapping for a GTX 970. If you want a cheap card as as stopgap till Nvidia/AMD roll out their big guns for 2015, either this or the 7950 might be the way to go:) Hold out if you can, things might get interesting this year.
 
Anyway, What good psu's are there? I'm looking for a 850-950W That can do SLI, and dosen't sound like a jetplan like mine does.
I got zero knowledge about psu's ;d
Since some wrote that my 5 year old Chieftec isn't that "OK"

Anyway here is a picture of its specs :
157dav4.jpg
 
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simple answer is take 4k out of the equation.

then its pretty simple.

970/980gtx.

you wont be playing comfortable with any single card so dont even try.
 
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