Time for an upgrade 970 or 980?

Grimlaking

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I run dual monitors. But not multi monitor gaming.

I game at 1080p. No higher resolutions.

My other monitor is not 1080p but still going strong so don't have a need to upgrade it yet.

I do play games like watchdogs but my system right now with it's 6970 is definitly limited by the video card. I feel it is time to replace this one with something newer.

If I go with a 970 I don't need to upgrade my power supply. With a 980 I would consider it.

With the 970 I will eventually go SLI on the 970 once games like Star Citizen are out and will support it.

I want to know your thoughts, should I go with the 970 or 980, or will AMD have something competitive in the next few weeks that I should wait for?
 
you have already answered to you in the post.. go with the 970 and then SLI later.. AMD have nothing in the near future to compete in price performance to Nvidia probably they will be launching their new gen by feb-march 2015.. so nothing in the horizon..
 
Yea I figured. But thanks. Makes me feel a bit better to get some additional support on the decision. ;)
 
your psu should be able to handle the 980, no? It's slightly older, but i remember those units as being rock solid.

I would go with the 980, personally ;)
 
I run dual monitors. But not multi monitor gaming.

I game at 1080p. No higher resolutions.

My other monitor is not 1080p but still going strong so don't have a need to upgrade it yet.

I do play games like watchdogs but my system right now with it's 6970 is definitly limited by the video card. I feel it is time to replace this one with something newer.

If I go with a 970 I don't need to upgrade my power supply. With a 980 I would consider it.

With the 970 I will eventually go SLI on the 970 once games like Star Citizen are out and will support it.

I want to know your thoughts, should I go with the 970 or 980, or will AMD have something competitive in the next few weeks that I should wait for?

The 970 is a great deal right now. Since you mentioned star citizen the R9-290 isn't a half bad deal either considering it comes with the game. You have a 6970 now, which is ok but not great compared to the modern cards. If your set on buying a graphics card now its hard to beat the 970.

you have already answered to you in the post.. go with the 970 and then SLI later.. AMD have nothing in the near future to compete in price performance to Nvidia probably they will be launching their new gen by feb-march 2015.. so nothing in the horizon..

That you know of. Yes, you would expect some sort of leaks, or bits of information to come about before actual launch. This isn't always the case and AMD could very well put out a new card tomorrow. Unlikely but the possibly is always there.

That being said if your buying a card today, I'd recommend the 970. If you care to wait I'm sure AMD will have a new killer card out before the end of Q1 2015, which could be considered instead of the 970/980.
 
I have a GTX 780 and on the weekend i tested out sli. [email protected] 120hz 24" monitor. I also run another monitor but not for gaming.

At 1080 to be honest a 780 overclocked really is enough. Games like bf4 with everything pretty much set to max all but aax2 it would sit around the 70-80 mark, sli i think its was siting on just over 100 to 120. WOW 90-120fps on one 780, sli did nothing. CS and diablo 3 really didn't see any benefit.

Ive been reading around to see if it worth keeping the sli or not. To be honest i think i will go back to single 780 for now and wait for the next gen after then 980 when i get a 2k or 4k monitor.

SLI seem to have lots of issues, some games dont support it and so on. I would sick to the fastest single card you can get if you going to stick with 1080 res. Sli just seemed worthless on a 1080 screen for me.
 
You won't need to upgrade the PSU for either one. Judging by the fact you're running a 6970, that suggests you keep your GPU's for a while. Go with the 980.
 
The bottom line is what do you want bang for the buck or the most horse power regardless of price? I personally went for bang for the buck because I found the value of the 980 not equal to the price performance difference of the 970. I also use a dual monitor system, but only use a single 30" 2560x1600 monitor to game on. The 970 plays everything I want maxed/nearly maxed out at an average 53-60 fps for me, at 1080 you'll have no problems completely maxed out at 60FPS or higher. IMHO unless you move up in monitor resolution or are planning to move up in the very near future, I think the 980's power wouldn't be used fully and you would be wasting your money. The best the 980 will offer you is that your min FPS will be higher than with a 970.
 
I actually think you should actually get a 780 or 780TI for super cheap. Your PSU will be fine with just one card, and you don't really need more firepower with just 1080p. The 1GB extra VRAM won't help you much at that resolution, either. Well except for games that manage their resources badly, which is probably going to be like every console port ever. In which case, just get an an R9 290 as there is no VRAM difference (at least amount wise...).

You'll use more electricity but you'll get a much cheaper card that will work well for a long time until they release cards with a lot more VRAM that are actually worth upgrading to. I don't think the extra 1GB (maybe if it was 6GB it'd be worth it) and electricity savings are worth the cost over the current all time lows of the 780/Ti. The prices are just ROCK BOTTOM. I'd get one (or two; you could probably get 780 SLI off ebay + new PSU for less than one 980).
 
I actually think you should actually get a 780 or 780TI for super cheap. Your PSU will be fine with just one card, and you don't really need more firepower with just 1080p. The 1GB extra VRAM won't help you much at that resolution, either. Well except for games that manage their resources badly, which is probably going to be like every console port ever. In which case, just get an an R9 290 as there is no VRAM difference (at least amount wise...).

You'll use more electricity but you'll get a much cheaper card that will work well for a long time until they release cards with a lot more VRAM that are actually worth upgrading to. I don't think the extra 1GB (maybe if it was 6GB it'd be worth it) and electricity savings are worth the cost over the current all time lows of the 780/Ti. The prices are just ROCK BOTTOM. I'd get one (or two; you could probably get 780 SLI off ebay + new PSU for less than one 980).

bad advice.. a card like the EVGA 970 FTW with their out of the box 1500+mhz clock easily match a 780TI.. with extra vRAM and lower power requirement (its still 6+6 PCI power connectors).. also run quieter and cooler also DSR comes handy..
 
bad advice.. a card like the EVGA 970 FTW with their out of the box 1500+mhz clock easily match a 780TI

Is that compared to an overclocked 780Ti? I kind of doubt it either way, and the cost of the 780/Ti's is pretty darn low at the moment.

.. with extra vRAM and lower power requirement (its still 6+6 PCI power connectors)

Again, extra 1GB VRAM (3->4) at 1080p is kind of silly. I'm sure people can provide a few examples, but still.

.. also run quieter and cooler

That totally depends on your aftermarket cooler of choice.

also DSR comes handy..

Don't know much about this one admittedly.
 
I will be going with the 970 when pay day rolls around. I want the extra gig of ram simply for future use. (And those plethora of poorly written games porting from console to PC.)
 
Is that compared to an overclocked 780Ti? I kind of doubt it either way, and the cost of the 780/Ti's is pretty darn low at the moment.

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Only 1080P as its what its related in this thread.. and thats a good match in performance for me.. =)

Another good review sadly does not feature the 780TI..
 
Only 1080P as its what its related in this thread.. and thats a good match in performance for me.. =)

Another good review sadly does not feature the 780TI..

The pictures you linked to looks to me like the comparison between a high overclock 970 vs a completely stock 780Ti, considering it almost matches the 980. This is a silly comparison... and if anything the numbers on half (the first two) of those games are ridiculously close together, to the point where a 780 (which by now can probably be had as low as 200-250 depending on the source) is sufficient.

Now, I know these cards have moved forward some in the technology but imo the price drops on the last gen is really drastic compared to most of the other generations. It's big enough to make them tempting... and they'll be a huge upgrade from what you're using and very likely sufficient either way.

But I'll admit the 970 is at a relatively competitive price point considering just how large the performance gap is between these two generations in general (OC mid-range topping offing the top tier of the last gen is pretty hardcore).
 
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The pictures you linked to looks to me like the comparison between a high overclock 970 vs a completely stock 780Ti, considering it almost matches the 980.

its completely out of the box performance..

Here you have the link to the complete review and Overclocking section..

I have to mention that the FTW isn't the fastest 970 out there as we have cards like the Gigabyte 970 G1 with even higher Out of the box clock speeds and higher overclocking ability due to 6+8 PCI power connectors.. that was just an example of how well can perform a GTX 970
 
its completely out of the box performance..

Here you have the link to the complete review and Overclocking section..

I have to mention that the FTW isn't the fastest 970 out there as we have cards like the Gigabyte 970 G1 with even higher Out of the box clock speeds and higher overclocking ability due to 6+8 PCI power connectors.. that was just an example of how well can perform a GTX 970

I noted this two posts ago. It isn't a question of out of the box or not, it's a question of stock vs non-stock. They even stated in the review that you're linking that the 780Ti they used was utterly stock. Consider the fact that a factory overclocked 780Ghz (Gigabyte for instance) iirc matches the 780Ti in performance. Then consider the price point of the 780 at the moment. IIRC there are even 780 Lightnings on sale for south of $300. Granted used but personally I wouldn't care.

Overclocking in general skews things a lot.
 
Here is the rub. I am not big on overclocking. I know shock and awe. I wouldn't mind a higher clocked card out of the box. Another consideration for me is DX12. As I like to get as much life as I can from a card while it can reasonably perform.

also the statement of. DX12 is forever away no games will really use it.

I've played watchdogs on my 6970 and other DX11 games. And when I got it.. Dx11 was a future release.
 
I'm also "stuck" with 1080p for the time being, but went with a 980. It's overkill for the vast majority of games, but it should give you the kind of horsepower to max out nearly every game at 1080p from this point forward. Even notoriously poor performing games like Watch Dogs, Thief, and Crysis 3 can be maxed out and never drop below 60fps with vsync on. That's all I ever wanted, so I appreciate the extra overhead. Plus, you can get a bit more of a boost by OC'ing the 980 if you ever feel the need.

Both are probably fine, but I always lean in the direction of grabbing the single best performing card available whenever I upgrade. I've made smaller jumps and have always regretted it in the long run.
 
@Domingo I normally go with the best of a generation one model down. Because I don't feel the premium is worth it. That's just me though.
 
bad advice.. a card like the EVGA 970 FTW with their out of the box 1500+mhz clock easily match a 780TI.. with extra vRAM and lower power requirement (its still 6+6 PCI power connectors).. also run quieter and cooler also DSR comes handy..

Bad advice recommending EVGA after all of the problems users have seen with EVGA 970s.
Also "out of the box 1500Mhz", I would like to see that. That implies that the card come with a speed of 1500Mhz. The card you mention does not hit that speed so please stop spreading misinformation. This in the only review I could find of it, not hitting the speed you said on it's own, or at all in that review.

DSR still seems like a niche feature. Personally I like it but it's annoying using it with Windows 7 as scaling up DPI can be troublesome in some games & applications. Otherwise everything is tiny!

Grimlaking. Asus Strix 970 and Gigabyte Gaming cards seem to be solid and I personally have not seen any serious complaints of either card. No complaints from friends of mine that have a Zotac reference 980 and 970 non ref cooler. MSi seems solid though I have seen a few comments of minor coil whine. In this case it's better to go with new tech, but I feel you've come to that conclusion already. Yes DX12 isn't here yet but like you said you like to future proof. If you don't mind waiting more there may be 8Gb versions of 980/970 within a few months.
Barring that again, maybe higher end 6Gb+ cards as well in several months.

I am running a G1 Gaming 970 with a 650w it's more than fine to handle a 980. Stock clocks it has hit 1400Mhz boost on its own, I didn't touch a thing. You absolutely don't have to upgrade the HX620 with either single card. I play Watch Dogs at 1080p and am very satisfied.
 
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Well both of my Gigabyte 970s have horrific coil whine, actually more like coil screech. It's so bad that I can actually hear in game especially during quiet scenes. Have to turn volume up to almost 65% to drown out the screech and that just isn't acceptable.

Let's see how Gigabyte's RMA is...
 
Bad advice recommending EVGA after all of the problems users have seen with EVGA 970s.
Also "out of the box 1500Mhz", I would like to see that. That implies that the card come with a speed of 1500Mhz. The card you mention does not hit that speed so please stop spreading misinformation. This in the only review I could find of it, not hitting the speed you said on it's own, or at all in that review.

DSR still seems like a niche feature. Personally I like it but it's annoying using it with Windows 7 as scaling up DPI can be troublesome in some games & applications. Otherwise everything is tiny!

Grimlaking. Asus Strix 970 and Gigabyte Gaming cards seem to be solid and I personally have not seen any serious complaints of either card. No complaints from friends of mine that have a Zotac reference 980 and 970 non ref cooler. MSi seems solid though I have seen a few comments of minor coil whine. In this case it's better to go with new tech, but I feel you've come to that conclusion already. Yes DX12 isn't here yet but like you said you like to future proof. If you don't mind waiting more there may be 8Gb versions of 980/970 within a few months.
Barring that again, maybe higher end 6Gb+ cards as well in several months.

I am running a G1 Gaming 970 with a 650w it's more than fine to handle a 980. Stock clocks it has hit 1400Mhz boost on its own, I didn't touch a thing. You absolutely don't have to upgrade the HX620 with either single card. I play Watch Dogs at 1080p and am very satisfied.

i've never recommended the 970 FTW exclusively, i've used just a as a mere example, the same as used the Gigabyte G1 (and that card have some serious issues too if you don't know)

when you look about issues in internet you will find that the most thing you will hear about it are people complaining you never find people creating threads: "hey i have 2 hours with my card and its working perfect" people that does not have problem tend to not make post as the same way people with problem do... all cards have problems all manufacturers have problems, shouldn't i recommend MSI because the horrible fan buzzing and coil whine? or Asus because Strix fans not working properly.? i've never recommended any specific brand or model, just examples... which also bring me to the second thing.. i do not tend to use exclusively reviews to talk about clock speeds.. I use forum and friends as experience apart from my own experience as I work with massive amount of GPUs.. i've used the EVGA 970 FTW and gigabyte G1 GTX 970 as examples because those are the cards I tend to find better clocked out of the box in the real world gaming and even better clocks by just increasing the power limit target.. and just that.. that does not mean all cards can do the same clocks. my 780 do 1228mhz out of the box and i know others can't pass from 1100mhz.. my 660TI do 1333mhz out of the box and others can pass from 1200mhz that mean i can't take my cards in consideration when speaking?. your card have a boost clock of 1329 and you say has hit +1400mhz out of the box that implies that the card comes with a speed of 1400mhz?.. nope right? it comes with 1329 boost clock to whatever the luck of the draw allow you to reach which in this case its ~1400 can I use your card as reference too when speaking to other people? =)..
 
Well both of my Gigabyte 970s have horrific coil whine, actually more like coil screech. It's so bad that I can actually hear in game especially during quiet scenes. Have to turn volume up to almost 65% to drown out the screech and that just isn't acceptable.

Let's see how Gigabyte's RMA is...

Wow dude. Well there ya go OP! Seems to be luck of the draw with 970s. Maybe it's really a quality issue & part of the reason 970s are priced much lower compared to 980.
I lucked out with no coil whine in my G1 970, hell I even realized one of my cpu fans was dying on me as it's now louder than my video card.

n=1. GL with that, I had no luck in the past when trying to use them for a broken fan 5870.
I want to hear how it goes.
 
Yeah bottom line I return these to Directron and eat the 15% restocking fee, or try to sell these locally and hope someone bites. (I'm sure there's gotta be someone desperate and deaf enough that they wouldn't mind the screech :p)

Maybe I really ought to grab a 980 and be done with it. Especially since blowers are much more prevalent on 980, and because the Gigabyte G1 970's cooling is so effective, it becomes its own worst enemy since in SLI the bottom card dumps all its heat to the top card and the top card runs 10-12C hotter!

Not to mention because of their length they heat up the PCH in my X79 like no tomorrow. Goddamn!
 
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I never said you "exclusively" recommended it did I?

I said my card hit 1400Mhz boost. My card as an example. I never said G1 Gaming cards will hit 1400Mhz boost.

You said "card like the EVGA 970 FTW with their out of the box 1500+mhz". This could lead to someone with less experience in the GPU arena to think the EVGA 970 FTW cards should do 1500Mhz without a tweak at stock which is known as "out of the box" performance. I have seen a disproportionate amount of Evga 970 users with problems compared to other Oem card makers, which is why I said bad advice.

Yes I am aware all cards have & electronics have problems no matter the MFG. Who would've thought ? :rolleyes:

Regardless of what you meant to say it's how you said it that matters and what others may take away from it. I am here to help others make an informed buying decision any way I can.


Bah what a release eh? Tough being on the bleeding edge/first world problems!
 
Here is the rub. I am not big on overclocking. I know shock and awe. I wouldn't mind a higher clocked card out of the box. Another consideration for me is DX12. As I like to get as much life as I can from a card while it can reasonably perform.

also the statement of. DX12 is forever away no games will really use it.

I've played watchdogs on my 6970 and other DX11 games. And when I got it.. Dx11 was a future release.

I kind of don't even see what's worth discussing at this point with you, considering you are (and very likely were before even making this topic) dead set on the 970, no offense. I was merely defending the 780/Ti as viable choices for a person looking for good bang/buck at the moment. People are eyeing the 970 hungrily... and likely for good reason. However, the last generation dropping significantly also makes them attractive options.

Right now I'd be willing to bet you could find a used, high stock overclock 780 (which would perform nearly as well as a 780Ti) for very cheap, even compared to the 970. Maybe even some with warranty still in tact and barely used. Plus in general I think the 780's have had less QC issues.

As for DX12... I won't really comment too much, except that I will note that by the time DX12 is out in the wild to the point where you need a graphics card that supports it... will there be much more competitive graphics options available? The VRAM climb is coming along fast thanks to lazy developers, and these cards only have as much as AMD's current line (and 1GB more than Nvidia's, which frankly might not be enough at the rate we're going). They're good bang for the buck, but I think right now they're kind of a trap.
 
I never said you "exclusively" recommended it did I?

I said my card hit 1400Mhz boost. My card as an example. I never said G1 Gaming cards will hit 1400Mhz boost.

You said "card like the EVGA 970 FTW with their out of the box 1500+mhz". This could lead to someone with less experience in the GPU arena to think the EVGA 970 FTW cards should do 1500Mhz without a tweak at stock which is known as "out of the box" performance. I have seen a disproportionate amount of Evga 970 users with problems compared to other Oem card makers, which is why I said bad advice.

Yes I am aware all cards have & electronics have problems no matter the MFG. Who would've thought ? :rolleyes:

Regardless of what you typed out that's what some may take away from it and I am here to help others make an informed buying decision any way I can.

in that point you got me, and i guess i should have expressed myself better.. =) no point to discuss but im also trying to help people and will take your point into consideration to do a better job and express myself better in post.. =)... good?..
 
in that point you got me, and i guess i should have expressed myself better.. =) no point to discuss but im also trying to help people and will take your point into consideration to do a better job and express myself better in post.. =)... good?..

Hey were all in this together. Just trying to keep us [H]onest. I'd expect no less from anyone else. :p
 
IBah what a release eh? Tough being on the bleeding edge/first world problems!

You know this is actually my first time being an early adopter, since GM204 just proved to be irresistable. But you live you learn I guess (or just stick with your guns and don't cave lol)

#firstworldproblems indeed

I kind of don't even see what's worth discussing at this point with you, considering you are (and very likely were before even making this topic) dead set on the 970, no offense. I was merely defending the 780/Ti as viable choices for a person looking for good bang/buck at the moment. People are eyeing the 970 hungrily... and likely for good reason. However, the last generation dropping significantly also makes them attractive options.

Right now I'd be willing to bet you could find a used, high stock overclock 780 (which would perform nearly as well as a 780Ti) for very cheap, even compared to the 970. Maybe even some with warranty still in tact and barely used. Plus in general I think the 780's have had less QC issues.

My personal take is that 780/780 Ti is not worth getting right now because their value is simply going to go downhill from this point onwards. Once the early frenzy dies down and stock levels return to normal, a 780/780 Ti will be a very hard sell unless you already have one and just want another for SLI.

I know people don't want to drag overclocking into the equation, but fact is we have a $370 970 that can be overclocked to stock 980 level and beyond, matching the 780 Ti at stock (or even edging it out). So for the 780 Ti to stay competitive, it will have to be priced at least as low as if not lower than the $370 970, otherwise there'd be no value in grabbing a last gen card that runs hot and is power hungry, and could potentially be memory limited in the future because of lazy/incompetent devs who can't optimize to save their lives.
 
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My personal take is that 780/780 Ti is not worth getting right now because their value is simply going to go downhill from this point onwards. Once the early frenzy dies down and stock levels return to normal, a 780/780 Ti will be a very hard sell unless you already have one and just want another for SLI.

This is assuming you'll even want to sell the card before it goes down in value. IE you don't keep it and choose to keep upgrading. So suppose something worth upgrading to comes around, just like this scenario, what makes you think this model will be worth any more? I don't even bother selling my old cards, I just hand them out to friends who desperately need something better than what they have. I usually keep my cards for around 4-5 years.

I know people don't want to drag overclocking into the equation, but fact is we have a $370 970 that can be overclocked to stock 980 level and beyond, matching the 780 Ti at stock (or even edging it out). So for the 780 Ti to stay competitive, it will have to be priced at least as low as if not lower than the $370 970, otherwise there'd be no value in grabbing a last gen card that runs hot and is power hungry, and could potentially be memory limited in the future because of lazy/incompetent devs who can't optimize to save their lives.


No, again this is really silly thinking. The issue is NOT with dragging overclocking into the equation, it's comparing highly overclocked cards to stock cards. I've been repeating this over and over. Can someone read the posts, or do we just respond to little cutouts and ignore everything else? Just because the 970 overclocked performs similarly to the 780Ti (and 980 actually) at stock does NOT mean it should share the same price bracket with the 780Ti! A 780 Ti can be similarly overclocked, and the performance gap widens yet again. Overclocking is fine, but you have to compare apples to apples. Overclocked to overclocked, stock to stock.

And I've already addressed the VRAM thing (try quoting the whole post). My entire reasoning in thinking these are a bit of a trap is that I do not think these will actually be sufficient in the coming wave of crappy devs. That is, these are priced competitively from a performance standpoint but I don't think they're actually going to be futureproof in that regard at all. Consider that they only have as much VRAM as a 290/X (which can be obtained even cheaper now!).
 
No, again this is really silly thinking. The issue is NOT with dragging overclocking into the equation, it's comparing highly overclocked cards to stock cards. I've been repeating this over and over. Can someone read the posts, or do we just respond to little cutouts and ignore everything else? Just because the 970 overclocked performs similarly to the 780Ti (and 980 actually) at stock does NOT mean it should share the same price bracket with the 780Ti! A 780 Ti can be similarly overclocked, and the performance gap widens yet again. Overclocking is fine, but you have to compare apples to apples. Overclocked to overclocked, stock to stock.

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OK :eek: please Read this.. :eek: (Thanks GoldenTiger for Find the review :D)

Base clock are listed in the graph, actually ingame boost are GTX 780TI= 1228mhz, GTX 780=1300mhz, GTX 970= 1530mhz.

there ya go:

Asus_GTX_970_Strix_Metro.png


Asus_GTX_970_Strix_Hitman.png


Asus_GTX_970_Strix_Tomb_Raider.png


Asus_GTX_970_Strix_Sleeping_Dogs.png


and thats it.. a 780 with good clocks, a 780TI with good clocks and a 970 with good clocks..
 
Yeah, and:

- the results are all over the place and seem to be dependent on the game, and don't even make sense sometimes
- the results are generally very close together. Like 1-2 fps apart across all models near the top.
- there is not a comparison of each of them at max and average overclocks (actually where are the base clocks even listed?)
- this is all one manufacturer.

Are you actually looking at what you're linking? If you go on Ebay right now there are lots of 780's to be had for around 220-270 (bids only, the Buy it Now guys are still overcharging). The Ti's for about 400$. To me that seems easily competitive considering the charts you just showed. Plus they're only going to go lower.
 
This is assuming you'll even want to sell the card before it goes down in value. IE you don't keep it and choose to keep upgrading. So suppose something worth upgrading to comes around, just like this scenario, what makes you think this model will be worth any more? I don't even bother selling my old cards, I just hand them out to friends who desperately need something better than what they have. I usually keep my cards for around 4-5 years.

I could throw the question back at you and ask: why bother upgrading to something that you know is currently losing value and will continue to do, instead of something that will keep holding its value at least until the end of this year? You made the argument that one may not care for selling the card and just keep using it, but that's a red herring. It doesn't change the fact that the intrinsic value of 780 Ti will simply continue to drop over time, whereas the 970 will hold its value for now.

Currently 970's price/performance ratio is simply unbeatable, and last I checked AMD doesn't have anything in the works for this year. So short of the 960 usurping the 970, the 970 will continue to hold its value until AMD gets off its ass. Yes I know GM200 is also in the works but I've stated at least 5 times on this forum why GM200 will not have any significant impact on 970 so I'm not gonna repeat myself again.

No, again this is really silly thinking. The issue is NOT with dragging overclocking into the equation, it's comparing highly overclocked cards to stock cards. I've been repeating this over and over. Can someone read the posts, or do we just respond to little cutouts and ignore everything else? Just because the 970 overclocked performs similarly to the 780Ti (and 980 actually) at stock does NOT mean it should share the same price bracket with the 780Ti! A 780 Ti can be similarly overclocked, and the performance gap widens yet again. Overclocking is fine, but you have to compare apples to apples. Overclocked to overclocked, stock to stock.

And you missed my point, which is if I'm going to be buying yesterday's tech when I know something newer and better is here, you better give me a damn good reason to buy old over new. And getting more performance for less money would be one of them. The fact that the 780 Ti overclocked has the potential to beat the 970 is its only saving grace at this point.

And I've already addressed the VRAM thing (try quoting the whole post). My entire reasoning in thinking these are a bit of a trap is that I do not think these will actually be sufficient in the coming wave of crappy devs. That is, these are priced competitively from a performance standpoint but I don't think they're actually going to be futureproof in that regard at all. Consider that they only have as much VRAM as a 290/X (which can be obtained even cheaper now!).

Sufficient or not, 4GB of vram is better than 3GB no matter how you spin it. And it's not like a 4GB 970 costs more than 3GB 780 Ti. If anything it's the other way around, so I'm not sure why you keep clinging to the "oh but 4GB won't be sufficient anyway so it doesn't matter" argument. Also, just to give one specific example, 4GB could help in borderline cases, such as Watch Dogs on Ultra where 3GB is just an utter stutterfest but 4GB helps alleviate most of that stuttering.
 
I could throw the question back at you and ask: why bother upgrading to something that you know is currently losing value and will continue to do, instead of something that will keep holding its value at least until the end of this year? You made the argument that one may not care for selling the card and just keep using it, but that's a red herring. It doesn't change the fact that the intrinsic value of 780 Ti will simply continue to drop over time, whereas the 970 will hold its value for now.


Everything is losing value and will continue to do so. The minute you open that card, it's losing value.

The rate at which things lose value is not set in stone as some linear function, though. It's essentially random and up to the whims of the manufacturers. Such as Nvidia deciding to release these cards now.

So the question of how long you plan to use the card is VERY relevant. If you're planning to use it for 4 years, then what good does it do that it will hold its value for 1 year (which is unlikely anyway by the way)? Either option will do, and it simply depends on your intentions. Also keep in mind that a 780 is selling cheaper by the day anyway. As long as the resale value is proportional to the price difference, then all of this is irrelevant.

Currently 970's price/performance ratio is simply unbeatable, and last I checked AMD doesn't have anything in the works for this year. So short of the 960 usurping the 970, the 970 will continue to hold its value until AMD gets off its ass. Yes I know GM200 is also in the works but I've stated at least 5 times on this forum why GM200 will not have any significant impact on 970 so I'm not gonna repeat myself again.

Umm no. Price performance has never been a strong point of higher tier cards (or Nvidia in general), be they 780, 680, 290, etc. If you want to talk simple price/performance, there are probably very low tier cards which still outperform the 970 in that department. Furthermore with the R9 290/X's price drops, it already easily competes... supposing you have a sufficient power supply. The 780 will soon be in the same bin.


And you missed my point, which is if I'm going to be buying yesterday's tech when I know something newer and better is here, you better give me a damn good reason to buy old over new. And getting more performance for less money would be one of them. The fact that the 780 Ti overclocked has the potential to beat the 970 is its only saving grace at this point.

No, regarding the 970, its most natural competitor is the 780, which can match its performance (and overclocked, the Ti's performance).... and soon enough (right now if you're willing to Ebay) at a lower price. I'm going to estimate anywhere between 75 and 100$ lower during retail sales.


Sufficient or not, 4GB of vram is better than 3GB no matter how you spin it. And it's not like a 4GB 970 costs more than 3GB 780 Ti. If anything it's the other way around, so I'm not sure why you keep clinging to the "oh but 4GB won't be sufficient anyway so it doesn't matter" argument. Also, just to give one specific example, 4GB could help in borderline cases, such as Watch Dogs on Ultra where 3GB is just an utter stutterfest but 4GB helps alleviate most of that stuttering.

It's not about whether 4GB is better than 3GB or not. It's a question of how good it is as an upgrade in this era of increasing VRAM requirements. Everyone coming to this card is doing an upgrade. Either because they have the itch or because they really need one. My question is at 4GB is this really the one they want?

Yes the price performance is pretty good for release cards, but considering the atmosphere of the gaming industry... I'm not sure if these cards are actually as good of an idea as they seem, especially for someone looking for some degree of futureproofing. If people are just upgrading on an itch, I question the wisdom of buying this over a last gen that will offer similar performance at less price while waiting out the storm for something truly better. These will degrade in value as you use them either way, just a matter of what degree they do so.
 
Everything is losing value and will continue to do so. The minute you open that card, it's losing value.

The rate at which things lose value is not set in stone as some linear function, though. It's essentially random and up to the whims of the manufacturers. Such as Nvidia deciding to release these cards now.

So the question of how long you plan to use the card is VERY relevant. If you're planning to use it for 4 years, then what good does it do that it will hold its value for 1 year (which is unlikely anyway by the way)? Either option will do, and it simply depends on your intentions. Also keep in mind that a 780 is selling cheaper by the day anyway. As long as the resale value is proportional to the price difference, then all of this is irrelevant.

Because if you want to keep your cards for 4 years, I assume you want to futureproof it as much as possible. In that case unless you grab the absolute top of the line flagship card now, and add another one in SLI later, trying to keep your cards for 4 years just isn't going to happen these days, unless you're ok with either <60 frames or sacrificing a lot of graphical fidelity down the road.

Just look at GTX 480 from 4 years ago, now it can't even catch up with a decidedly mid-tier 660 Ti, and even 480 SLI is just barely faster than a 680, which is already starting to show its age. So if your goal is to keep the cards for 4 years, then clearly you don't care about resale value, so yes in that case it won't matter, but you'd also be barking up the wrong tree looking at the 780 Ti, or even the 980 if that was your goal.

Umm no. Price performance has never been a strong point of higher tier cards (or Nvidia in general), be they 780, 680, 290, etc. If you want to talk simple price/performance, there are probably very low tier cards which still outperform the 970 in that department. Furthermore with the R9 290/X's price drops, it already easily competes... supposing you have a sufficient power supply. The 780 will soon be in the same bin.

No, regarding the 970, its most natural competitor is the 780, which can match its performance (and overclocked, the Ti's performance).... and soon enough (right now if you're willing to Ebay) at a lower price. I'm going to estimate anywhere between 75 and 100$ lower during retail sales.

Very low tier cards will barely be sufficient to max out games at 720p, let alone 1080p. I didn't realize this had to be explicitly stated, but obviously when I said price/performance ratio, I meant relative to cards of similar caliber.

And once again, you basically restated "must offer better performance at lower price if old tech wants to compete with new" except in a different form, so seems like you're in agreement with me here.

Those $220 780 cards you speak of on eBay are all used, and starting bid =/= final sales price. In fact, the cheapest BNIB 780 I could find is the Asus Strix 780 that goes for $319 after a $20 rebate on Newegg. Looking at the chart a few posts above, that exact 780 card just managed to tie the 970, so even at $319, it's just a barely passable deal, given the Strix 970 could be had for $349.

It's not about whether 4GB is better than 3GB or not. It's a question of how good it is as an upgrade in this era of increasing VRAM requirements. Everyone coming to this card is doing an upgrade. Either because they have the itch or because they really need one. My question is at 4GB is this really the one they want?

Yes the price performance is pretty good for release cards, but considering the atmosphere of the gaming industry... I'm not sure if these cards are actually as good of an idea as they seem, especially for someone looking for some degree of futureproofing. If people are just upgrading on an itch, I question the wisdom of buying this over a last gen that will offer similar performance at less price while waiting out the storm for something truly better. These will degrade in value as you use them either way, just a matter of what degree they do so.

Well currently short of getting gouged for an overpriced Titan (Black), you're stuck with 4GB vram, unless you went with the 780 6GB, but good luck finding one, and one that isn't clearly way overpriced.

Thus given the lack of options, 4GB is still better than 3GB. If you're upgrading on an itch then resale value becomes extremely important as that would be your primary mechanism for recouping your costs later on, so there's no point buying something that's already behind the curve.

There is only one scenario in which buying old tech makes sense, and that is you know for sure you want GM200, be it Titan II or 980 Ti, and you just want a good placeholder to game on in the meantime, AND you manage to land an amazing deal for a new last gen card. Given the potential plummet in value of 780 and 780 Ti, I'd say you'd have to be able to buy them for at a bare minimum $100 cheaper than 970 in order for it to be worthwhile, and we're clearly not there yet.
 
Guys.. stop trying to sell me on buying your older 780ti. I'm not going to do it. I plan on buying current gen hardware when I can. This is why I asked between a 970 and 980. If by the time it comes to buy AMD has a direct competitor for price/performance I will put it into the mix. Your older gen card merits are being simply ignored. I don't enjoy buying used PC equipment. Call me a fool but it never has been something I want to do.
 
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