Just seen 7970 Price @ £452.15 inc vat.

555BUK · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:45

I prefer the broadband pricing strategy, where real competition forces continually higher performance at continually lower prices year on year. We need more players in the GC market.

Final8y · 30 Dec 2011 at 14:05

LOAM said:
I can only really speak for myself on that, Its not really about being the only game for the life of the card as I/we have no idea what will be released in the future that may take my/our fancy. However It would for me (personally) be the only game that I bought it for. If that makes sense.

I have other reasons to stick with ATI, I use 3 monitors and IIRC I could only do that with NV if I went SLI (that and the issues I have had historically with NV and multi monitor support).

Fair enough.

sparky05084 · 30 Dec 2011 at 14:09

The question is, will the release of this card encourage price drops in the Nvidia range because I for one am not going to buy this card. Not at them projected prices anyway.

TheGamingGeneral · 30 Dec 2011 at 15:04

Even at that price, I suspect OC will run out of stock at that price, people will pay it, fastest single GPU commands a premium. I wonder though how much Nvidia will accept a drop in sales before they try and start a price war (if indeed they do at all).

Mr Krugga · 30 Dec 2011 at 16:21

GeneralD said:
Even at that price, I suspect OC will run out of stock at that price, people will pay it, fastest single GPU commands a premium. I wonder though how much Nvidia will accept a drop in sales before they try and start a price war (if indeed they do at all).

They did that with GTX 400 so I imagine it will happen at some point (possibly with the release of AMD mid-range).

Gibbo · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:19

Mr Krugga said:
They did that with GTX 400 so I imagine it will happen at some point (possibly with the release of AMD mid-range).

Yes but more likely to happen on 560Ti if anything. I think NVIDIA have stopped desktop production now on GTX 570/580 and now were just eating away at stocks in reserve I think.

psychas · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:23

expensive bugger i'll settle wit ivy bridge upgrade

BigAndy87 · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:46

ask nvidia a price cut then amd will follow suit most likely, when your on top you dont make the move 1st on pricing i would imagine.

Mr Krugga · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:54

Gibbo said:
Yes but more likely to happen on 560Ti if anything. I think NVIDIA have stopped desktop production now on GTX 570/580 and now were just eating away at stocks in reserve I think.

Ah, good to know.

So Kepler is in full production mode and you will hopefully reserve some backstocks of GTX 570/580s because there are imminent rebates coming and customers will be pleased to find out that they might get a cheaper upgrade by going SLI with their current cards.

psychas said:
expensive bugger i'll settle wit ivy bridge upgrade

Irrelevant if you're a gamer.

I'm also planning on putting my money first on the desktop platform upgrade but going from an i5 750 @ 3.8GHz to an i5 3570K will cost me £150 ish and won't warrant any major improvements in games.

TheMorningStar · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:18

£350 would be the max I would pay for a 7970 or any gfx card for that matter and that would be if I was a little flush. I have rarely paid over 200 traditionally 9700pro/9800pro/x800xl/x800xt/3870 have been my main cards over the last 10 years or so, 3870 being the cheapest at £125ish, I was really going to splash out with the 7900 generation but the pricing is just to silly, so unless I am amazed and AMD re-evaluate their card pricing, a second hand 6870 for £80 ish or a 6950 for £150ish will get my monies. Maybe if the 78xx come in at under £200

ICDP · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:45

LOAM said:
I haven't been able to fine a single other BM comparison that pitted a 3gig 580GTX against a 3gig 7970 with BF3 included (I can only fine 1.5gig vs 3gig).

If you know of one (not being sarcastic, genuinely interested) then please link me

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html

This one shows both varieties of GTX 580 compared to HD 7970, they bench BF3 at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. In BF3 the HD7970 is at most 10% faster than the GTX 580 3GB in BF3. The other benchmarks show the HD7970 in a much better light.

It is a good card and an excellent increase in speed ove the HD 6970 and equivelants. Over the stock GTX 580 it is on average 25% faster overall, so not that good an investment IMHO, even less so over the 3GB 580s. Though in the past people bought the GTX 580 even though it was on average only 15% faster than the HD 6970 and GTX 570. The HD 7970 will sell just fine, despite the hefty premium, the GTX 580 proves this.

vapor matt · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:45

I got one thing to say, as it dosnt work in my mac i don't care how much it costs

but it would be nice to upgrade my 6870 in my mac!

and you PC boys should think yourself lucky, apple are still charging £370 for a 5870 over 2 years old :eek:

StonedPenguin · 30 Dec 2011 at 19:05

vapor matt said:
and you PC boys should think yourself lucky, apple are still charging £370 for a 5870 over 2 years old

wow!

Shayper · 30 Dec 2011 at 19:26

ICDP said:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html

This one shows both varieties of GTX 580 compared to HD 7970, they bench BF3 at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. In BF3 the HD7970 is at most 10% faster than the GTX 580 3GB in BF3. The other benchmarks show the HD7970 in a much better light.

It is a good card and an excellent increase in speed ove the HD 6970 and equivelants. Over the stock GTX 580 it is on average 25% faster overall, so not that good an investment IMHO, even less so over the 3GB 580s. Though in the past people bought the GTX 580 even though it was on average only 15% faster than the HD 6970 and GTX 570. The HD 7970 will sell just fine, despite the hefty premium, the GTX 580 proves this.

This.

Soooo much whining in this thread. I remember the 480 costing a bomb yet not being overly faster than the 5870.

gurusan · 30 Dec 2011 at 19:44

The 7970 will overclock over 40% at a minimum, the same can't be said for the GTX 580.

oweneades · 30 Dec 2011 at 20:19

Locky said:
Reason this card costs as much as it does, they need to claw back some money from faildozer, well that's my take on it anyway.

Unlikely TBH.

AMD will be making a nice profit on Bulldozer in its intended market; Servers. The desktop market for Bulldozer is small fry in the grand scheme of things.

555BUK · 30 Dec 2011 at 20:27

gurusan said:
The 7970 will overclock over 40% at a minimum, the same can't be said for the GTX 580.

Makes you wonder why AMD didn't set the clocks higher if such headroom is readily available. Either they are holding something back for Kepler, heat and noise becomes too high, or they don't like the sound of capacitors going pop.

Personally, I'd very much like to see how far the retail cards clock.

Jokester · 30 Dec 2011 at 20:28

It does seem a beast for overclocking, think I might just actually go for an IB + 7970 combo come the time.

Gazzer777 · 30 Dec 2011 at 20:56

The OC cards look amazing 1335MHz on the Core :eek:

No doubt the N fanboys will still claim it's not 'good' enough for BF3 lol, at those clocks I think it beats GTX 590 and HD 6990?

TheMorningStar · 30 Dec 2011 at 21:13

vapor matt said:
I got one thing to say, as it dosnt work in my mac i don't care how much it costs

but it would be nice to upgrade my 6870 in my mac!

and you PC boys should think yourself lucky, apple are still charging £370 for a 5870 over 2 years old

I always thought you could just flash the cards with a Mac bios?