Inevitable price drops?

[Defy Belief]

Hello.

I'm looking at getting a new card but i'm not buying it yet as the main reason is to be running sweet when BF3 arrives.

I'm eyeing up a 6970CF.

Do ATI have anything upcoming that are likely to drop the price abit? I remember back when the 5870 seemed a huge amount of money now it's only £160. I'm finding it hard to hold off but everything is running fine on my 2gb 4890 right now.

 

[nicktay2605]

The latest rumours suggest that the earliest we'll see the 600 series from Nvidia and the 7000 series from ATI will be the end of this year, though some are suggesting it won't be until 2012, so I'd be surprised if we see price drops any time soon.

 

[Defy Belief]

Damn, I've been doing a lot of research into the 69xx series. Looks like i'll go 6950CF from the look of the difference, plus be a lot less on the psu i'd imagine.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/299?vs=298

Then spend the £100 I save on two accelero extreme coolers I thinks..

 

[harmony]

Right now 6950CF is the best bang for the buck. Unlocking the shaders would give around 3% performance increase, but overclocking to 6970 clock would give roughly the same performance as 6970s.

 

[nicktay2605]

Damn, I've been doing a lot of research into the 69xx series. Looks like i'll go 6950CF from the look of the difference, plus be a lot less on the psu i'd imagine.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/299?vs=298

Then spend the £100 I save on two accelero extreme coolers I thinks..

How about buying 6950's that have a good aftermarket cooler already installed and save the £100 for something else for your system? Either the MSI Twin Frozr III:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-128-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Or the Asus DirectCUII:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-254-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Both are great cards. The MSI is cheaper and comes with Dirt 3 free, but the ASUS card is supposed to be a beast for overclocking. The only downside to the asus is the size of the card, they're pretty heavy on their own, let alone with two in your case, and some people have mentioned the cards can sag a bit at the end.