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Wait or buy :S

Threepwood

Threepwood

Threepwood

Soldato
Joined
29 Sep 2011
Posts
6,137
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melee island
Title says it all really, recently built a nice new rig but was slightly limited on cash so I skimped out on a graphics card and am just biding my time with an old 8800 :p

So, what would YOU do?

Buy now with around £250 to spend...

... or wait for ati to hopefully release some new cards next month?

Or would you wait even longer and stockpile the cash till January sales?

Help me out, because it's driving me nuts!
 
Wait. It's already November, 7 series will be out soon(ish), then give it a few weeks after that so you don't get creamed with the 'early adopter' tax. I know it's tough, but that's what I'd do and is in fact what I'm going to do although my current card is a touch better than your 8800 :)

At the end of the day though, it's your money and down to you. You've already been pretty patient...
 
You've already been pretty patient...
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Sure have :P

Grabbed a second hand gaming laptop last year to keep me going tho, I had a plan see...

... I told myself 4, hell almost 5, years ago (when I bought my first really epic gaming rig from ocuk) that the moment a laptop could do better than that desktop *only* then would I own a laptop. I mean who wants a laptop that you cant play some real games on?

ANYWAY, a year and a half down the road and I'm feeling the pinch on it, and even tho it preforms okay really... it was DEFFO time to feel the might of a desktop once again!

What am I blithering on about... so, yeah, that's the scales tipped in favour of waiting.

Any other suggestions to further twist/untwist my melon?


Edit: Hmm, I guess I should also point out that I'm not a big fan of ati gpus... mainly because of constant bleeding driver issues.
 
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I'm in the same situation (minus the laptop) with my 4850 card. It plays BF3 ok on low but I'm very tempted by a 6870/6950/560ti but I think I'm going to wait. There's nothing worse than buying a new card and then a few weeks later they all drop in price and there's new even more powerful cards available.

So I say wait!
 
Haha im in the EXACT same position I even have the same card as you an 8800! Im upgrading in a couple of weeks and basically ive decided to buy the whole rig with the exception of the graphics card. Im going to wait till Nvidias next offering as I bought the 23 inch Asus on one week only last week and want to use 3D with it.
 
Well, I'd think of it like this, a 580gtx is £350 now because its the fastest single card, when a 7970 is both £300, and 50% faster, how much is the 580 going to be worth, not much. Basically the more a card is worth, the harder it will depreciate when new stuff comes out so the worst value think you can do right before new stuff comes out is buy the most expensive kit, that's a truly terrible idea, rather like someone who bought a 6990 a day or two ago, £565 for the cheapest at a quick check and will likely be essentially matched by a single card using probably less than half the power, at only £300 ish.

However, how much value will say a 5850 lose from today compared to 2 months from now. Answer is, not nearly as much, the cheaper and the older the gen, the less far it has to fall.

If you can wait at all I'd do that, but another pretty decent option is having a look on the MM for a really good priced second hand card, 460gtx, 5850, 5870, maybe a 6850 or something along those lines. They should be pretty damn cheap anyway and in 2 months, they'll be worth a little less but not much. Honestly I don't know how much say a 5850 is going for, but lets assume you can get one for £80 second hand, in 2 months, it will still probably be worth £60 to sell on again.

So that's a pretty decent back up plan, something cheap and second hand to tide you over, and then jump on a new gen card when available.
 
I'm in the same position, biding my time with a GTX285 which, luckily, handles BF3.

I am away from my main rig for 4 months though so by the time I am back in March something juicy should be on the market.

Really do not fancy going back to Red though. Not had a good ATi experience since my 9800 Pro. I might hold out for Kepler.
 
Sin_Chase said:
I'm in the same position, biding my time with a GTX285 which, luckily, handles BF3.

I am away from my main rig for 4 months though so by the time I am back in March something juicy should be on the market.

Really do not fancy going back to Red though. Not had a good ATi experience since my 9800 Pro. I might hold out for Kepler.
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Given you have a GTX285 it's not like you've given the 4xxx, 5xxx or 6xxx series GPUs a fair chance to win you back?

I couldn't give a toss which I go for. Whichever of the new 28nm GPUs is faster/cheaper is the one I'll get.
 
kmax86 said:
http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-28nm-amd-gpu-volume-shipments-in-2012/13871.html

just seen this. idk about the credibility but im slightly disappointed. if this is true it will be jan or feb :(
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It could be true, but not from that source, Fud are literally useless for this kind of info.

TSMC have already stated, officially that they've been shipping final products to AMD and Nvidia, both of which have confirmed this as well.

Several sites, AFTER this claimed TSMC wouldn't be able to ship anything for weeks and production had only just started.

There's nothing to say what TSMC produced was high end, mid end, mobile, whatever, but when a company officially states shipments have happened, then rumour sites manage to print rumours that directly contradict that, you can ignore the rumours for certain.


Its very hard to know what's happening when, the only accurate and believable reports are as follows, AMD has taped out the high end, mid end, and probably low end and mobile parts, they are waiting on manufacturing basically, when manufacturing can go, they'll be made, volume will dictate release. If TSMC can only make 100 cards a week, it would take months to build up a releasable supply, if TSMC can give them 100k cores a week, they can launch soon after shipments start, all that is unknown at the moment.

Nvidia haven't by all accounts, taped out the high end, have taped out the low end and some mobile stuff. Tape out to launch is basically 4-6 month timeframe, this would mean if TSMC could produce 100k wafers a month from this month, AMD are ready to go, Nvidia still wouldn't be able to get high end Kepler's out for months and months from now.


Its also likely that the low end/mobile from AMD and Nvidia are a mix of 40nm/28nm and not particularly fast products. IE the cheapo and not very good mobile parts, if the highest end Kepler or HD7000 series mobile launch before the desktop versions, I'll eat my hat(this hat might infact by so small you can't see it without a microscope but I'll promise to eat it).

The relatively good news is, as soon as either company gets a midrange card out, we should be looking at near current top end performance. So current top end at a cheaper price point with less power, and almost the entire current ranges having to drop in price...... why would anyone buy a 6970 for £270, when a say 7870 with similar performance, would be available around the £150-200 bracket. Same goes, if you end up with £150 6950/6970's, £180 7870's, then 560/570gtx's will have to tank in price as well.

Best case, early december, worst case, probably late Jan for at the very least AMD midrange, at best AMD high end.
 
Thanks for all the replies :) esp drunken master.

What CPU/PSU you got?
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I took the chance and grabbed a 2500k shortly before BD was released when they ( the 2500k's) were speculatively cheap in anticipation of BD results. Glad I did.

Coupled that with a 850w OCZ gold power supply ( not the £150 ones, the ones they had for £99 a while back ).

So I should be good I think? Correct me if I'm wrong tho!


So yeah, back to drunken, thanks, you make perfect sense. I doing a bit of selling old componants on the bay atm (I'm not MM worthy yet, I should have joined the forum years ago /doh) so I think that I will keep an eye out for a tide me over while waiting. Tnx. :)
 
nope i could not wait!!! i have just ordered a MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC Twin FrozR II 2048MB to replace my 8800gt.hopefully will last me about 3years.
 
I've ordered all my new parts and left the graphics card out too. At first I was going to get a 570 thinking it would last me a few years. If that's the case, then i'll wait a month or two and get the 570 when it's cheaper, or even better the 7xxx may be cheaper and better.
 
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