6970 is it worth it?

Sieg

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
213
I'm looking for a new card to play BF3 and Skyrim with. With 7xxx cards launch soon...next year?... I'm not sure what to do. I'm selling my xfx 6850 so I chip some money off the new gpu. The problem are should I really wait for the 7xxx series or go ahead and upgrade now to play those games. I could do crossfire but it's really hot where I live and my 6850 maxed out at 75c stock(sure I can just watercool it but it's not worth it). Alternatively I could get a 6950 with dual bios http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...02945&RandomID=955677624218316120110908110953 and try to unlock it. What do you guys think? :confused:

*note* I game on 1920x1080 and I usually sell my old stuff when I get new stuff to save money.
 
Dont.

The 7xxx series wont be that far off. I almost bit on the 6950 toxic, but I didnt. I'm sticking with my 5850 until I see what the 7xxx brings. Bonus is, if the numbers dont justify it, people like you and I can get in on the 6950/6970 at lower prices than if we buy now.

Hold off a bit, I dont think you'll regret it.
 
75C is perfectly fine, you're not in the danger zone until you exceed 90C on a regular basis.
 
At the very least, wait until closer to Skyrim/BF3 release day. Hopefully by then they'll be better information on when exactly the 7xxx series is coming, and what performance will be like.
 
Think about it this way -- would you rather spend upwards of 400-500 dollars now and have at most 3-4 months of "awesome" gaming, and then find out your card is suddenly worth 1/3rd and "obsolete"

-OR-

turn down the settings a bit, enjoy the game, and when the latest and greatest comes from AMD - pounce on that shit and rock a badass 7000.

It might sound stupid -- but factor in the power savings vs performance. If you wait for the 7000 and it sucks down only 150W vs 300W+ figure that much savings over 1 or 2 years worth of gaming/folding/bitcoining = just chill for now

I'm rocking a GTX280 - I want to upgrade so bad, but will continue to enjoy gaming in Bad Company 2 1920x1080 with all the eye candy on until BF3 rolls out. Even then... I'm willing to play BF3 with a few eye candies turned off if needbe until I have a next gen card in my bod.
 
Unless you live somewhere where you don't have to pay for energy bills, bitcoin won't make its return on current hardware any more. The energy cost usually outweighs what you earn.
 
How much are you looking to spend on the GPU?

In terms of GPUs out now, the GTX 580 is the superior card at 1920x1080. Any resolution above that would benefit from the 6970 (best card at 2560x1600 or whatever it is).

If you are looking to upgrade completely, I agree with the others in waiting for the next release.
 
The GTX580 is superior to the HD6970 even at 2560x1600, the problem is it isn't superior by much considering the large price increase.
 
7xxx and 6xx might be coming but you still need something to use till they show up. I threw my hat into the 6970 ring and I've never been happier at 1920x1080. The cards are getting kinda hard to find now, though.

A bit because they're ramping down production to focus on 7xxx but also because of the bitcoiners buying up 6xxx hardware hand-over-fist. Although if you're attempting to resell your 6970 I have the feeling it'll hold value much better than a GTX580, especially if bitcoining persists.

But if you're not into crossfire, possess a bottomless wallet, and want the best single gpu performance on the planet... then the GTX580 is what you want. However if you decide to back off to a GTX570, then might as well get a 6970 anyways.
 
If he already got a 5850 then its best to wait for the next generation cards. Overclock the 5850 and you got 5870 speeds. 6970 isn't that much faster. Besides what game is he playing now that is unplayable on the 5850? You don't upgrade now to play games released in the future. Its like shooting in the dark.
 
How much are you looking to spend on the GPU?

In terms of GPUs out now, the GTX 580 is the superior card at 1920x1080. Any resolution above that would benefit from the 6970 (best card at 2560x1600 or whatever it is).

If you are looking to upgrade completely, I agree with the others in waiting for the next release.

I have about 400. I could get an extra $130 from selling my 6850. I'm also waiting for Bulldozer and pcie 3.0 but I do want to play BF3 and Skyrim at 1920x1080 with some AA enabled and get good fps.
 
Unless you live somewhere where you don't have to pay for energy bills, bitcoin won't make its return on current hardware any more. The energy cost usually outweighs what you earn.

That's true. Hopefully 7XXX series can be energy efficient. I live in the West South Central, so energy that goes into the AC is pretty significant. I just moved into a new house and the electricity cost more than a 6950 2gb.
 
Well, 28nm will mean they're significantly better, but by the time they're out, bitcoins will probably be of such little value, the situation will be even worse then than it is now with HD6 cards.
 
I'm rocking a GTX280 - I want to upgrade so bad, but will continue to enjoy gaming in Bad Company 2 1920x1080 with all the eye candy on .

1920x1200, dx11, 8xAA with 4xSuperSampling, 16xaf and you're doing all this with gtx280? i dont think so pal.

im only coming at you like this because you said "all eye candy"

im sure you're not aware of what that means.
 
I would imagine there'll be a plethora of video cards + BF3 game vouchers when BF3 launches. So best wait till then.

Obviously you won't hear about them till after BF3 launches as announcing future products stalls current sales.
 
1920x1200, dx11, 8xAA with 4xSuperSampling, 16xaf and you're doing all this with gtx280? i dont think so pal.

im only coming at you like this because you said "all eye candy"

im sure you're not aware of what that means.

Yep, that is like saying a GTX 460 maxes the game out lol.
 
1920x1200, dx11, 8xAA with 4xSuperSampling, 16xaf and you're doing all this with gtx280? i dont think so pal.

im only coming at you like this because you said "all eye candy"

im sure you're not aware of what that means.

LOL herp derp somebody mouths off, talks trash and doesn't know wtf they're talking about.

"8xAA with 4xSuperSampling": Not sure what you're talking about here, BC2 uses MSAA. You probably don't know what you're talking about either.

Secondly, a GTX 280 could play BC2 with max settings at 1920x1200, might have to cut down MSAA to 4X (I think 8X is too much anyways). You wouldn't get a silky smooth framerate, but you'd probably average about 30.
/edit I'll give you the GTX 280 doesn't do DX11, but I doubt the difference is very much.
 
Last edited:
LOL herp derp somebody mouths off, talks trash and doesn't know wtf they're talking about.

"8xAA with 4xSuperSampling": Not sure what you're talking about here, BC2 uses MSAA. You probably don't know what you're talking about either.

Secondly, a GTX 280 could play BC2 with max settings at 1920x1200, might have to cut down MSAA to 4X (I think 8X is too much anyways). You wouldn't get a silky smooth framerate, but you'd probably average about 30.

To the enthusiast community 30 FPS is not an acceptable framrate. If I drop below 60 FPS I notice it instantly. A GTX 280 cannot max out BC2 @ 1080p, if so then I wasted $700 on my SLI setup.
 
To the enthusiast community 30 FPS is not an acceptable framrate. If I drop below 60 FPS I notice it instantly. A GTX 280 cannot max out BC2 @ 1080p, if so then I wasted $700 on my SLI setup.

Then what exactly were all the enthusiasts doing playing Metro 2033? I can guarantee that game is not going to maintain 60 FPS at max settings except on very few rigs. On my rig it sometimes drops down into the 30s, and even if I had 6970s it wouldn't do too much better. I enjoyed the eye candy of the game so when i was just playing with one "6970" I played with max settings and dealt with it.

The guy didn't say he maxed the game out at 60 FPS. Of course as enthusiasts we enjoy playing at 60FPS but don't belittle a guy when he's scraping by on lesser hardware still enjoying a game.
 
Last edited:
yeah rumors stating the 7970 is gonna be 3x faster then the 6970 or i think it's the 7970 , either way waiting is best option right now instead of spending it now and unsatisfied when its worth 100~$ or so down the road.
 
yeah rumors stating the 7970 is gonna be 3x faster then the 6970 or i think it's the 7970 , either way waiting is best option right now instead of spending it now and unsatisfied when its worth 100~$ or so down the road.

Nobody knows for sure but with the trend of ongoing releases for the past few years it is probably at least x1.5 or better.

Then what exactly were all the enthusiasts doing playing Metro 2033? I can guarantee that game is not going to maintain 60 FPS at max settings except on very few rigs. On my rig it sometimes drops down into the 30s, and even if I had 6970s it wouldn't do too much better. I enjoyed the eye candy of the game so when i was just playing with one "6970" I played with max settings and dealt with it.

The guy didn't say he maxed the game out at 60 FPS. Of course as enthusiasts we enjoy playing at 60FPS but don't belittle a guy when he's scraping by on lesser hardware still enjoying a game.

I'm not belittling him for having lesser hardware, just don't spread misinformation. If you cannot reach 60 FPS loosen up a few settings and enjoy the game.
 
Metro 2033 is not exactly the same as Bad Company 2, for the main reason that you don't play Metro multiplayer. As infuriating as it is, for massively demanding games, living with <60fps is acceptable for single player games. Competitive multiplayer though, no thanks.
 
Well, I say acceptable. What I mean by that is playable, but not ideal. You could live with it, but you wouldn't want to, if you could avoid it. I always try and get more than 60fps where I can for FPS games. For strategy games I don't really bother. For example when Bioshock 2 came out and didn't have a crossfire profile yet (I was running two 4870X2s back then), I dropped to 1920x1200 because I couldn't stand the 38fps I got at 2560x1600.
 
well, only if your CPU isn't also up to par (e.g. Starcraft 2). There's no reason RTS games bend the rules, just that people are willing to accept lower frame rates for obvious reasons. Back when there was almost nothing that could run it, I used to play Supreme Commander Forged Alliance at around 17fps. Cringeful, but it was playable like that, where an FPS obviously wouldn't be.
 
I don't think you can say that with certainty.
I know many people who would completely disagree, me being one of them.

60 FPS is my absolute minimum, single player or multi player.

Completely agree.

I find it infuriating, even in SP games, if I can't have the framerate that allows for quick thinking and shooting. I don't wanna have to rely on auto targetting mechanics to make up for poor framerates.

So I'll always dial the settings back to maintain as close to 80 fps average as I can. I'll usually sacrifice AA first before anything else. Tesselation is first to go since it's barely noticable in any game I've seen it in.
 
Aren't the newer 7X00 series cards aiming for the midrange like how the 6850/6870 were, if so then, the current high end will be equal to or better than the impending releases right? i.e the 6850/6870 <5850/5870 in some games/situations.

The true 79xx cards aren't due to till Q1 2011 or later....all from the rumour mill of course, but it has some logic to it.
 
Aren't the newer 7X00 series cards aiming for the midrange like how the 6850/6870 were, if so then, the current high end will be equal to or better than the impending releases right? i.e the 6850/6870 <5850/5870 in some games/situations.

The true 79xx cards aren't due to till Q1 2011 or later....all from the rumour mill of course, but it has some logic to it.

There's a good article at PC Perspective SPECULATING about the new releases, which makes good sense.
I would imagine the 7000 release will be like the 6000 series, in that the initial release will see the midrange level come first and then the enthusiast class be released some time in 2012.
 
Back
Top