Buy 980 Ti or wait for Pascal?

HardUp4HardWare

HardUp4HardWare

Supreme [H]ardness
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Aug 30, 2005
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The thousand dollar question.

I am thinking about getting my rig ready for VR.

I want to go Nvidia, I have been on ATI AMD for EVER. Always because it was the cheaper choice.

Now I want a big boy card and I don't want to skimp.

But I also know that once Pascal comes out the 980 Ti will drop a bit. I think.
but I am also thinking I will just hold out and get the 1080 and be future proof for a bit.

I am currently running 6870 x2 in crossfire for 1080P gaming. So I am well past due to upgrade.
 
well rumor mill says new cards are next month so at this point you might as well wait unless you just fine a really good deal.
 
NVIDIA's press conference at GTC is tomorrow. Some new news might come out of it.
 
What to do while waiting? Hmmmm...

What is you all's gut feeling about when pascal will be really out, what the price model will be and how that will effect the 980Ti prices?
 
wait until at least tomorrow or be disappointed. Rumors all say cards unveiled tomorrow, on sale in June. Prices on the 980ti will drop immediately after new ones are unveiled and even more after release.
 
Yeah I will wait. Cheaper to wait....always....that is why I am running 6870s :)

I just really want to be done with AMD cards. and I want to be 100% to get Vive when I decide to.
 
I never wait. Just find a good deal on a used 980Ti around $500. I always have the highest end graphics cards because I always upgrade and it never costs me much to upgrade (I'm patient when buying and selling). Find a good deal and sell your current card(s) for as much as you can even if you have to wait. Unfortunately, you won't get much for your current cards but you can always sell your 980Ti after Pascal has been out a while and dropped in price. The 980Ti will likely be faster than the top end Pascal card until they release the Ti model later in the year.
 
GameHard6 said:
I never wait. Just find a good deal on a used 980Ti around $500. I always have the highest end graphics cards because I always upgrade and it never costs me much to upgrade (I'm patient when buying and selling). Find a good deal and sell your current card(s) for as much as you can even if you have to wait. Unfortunately, you won't get much for your current cards but you can always sell your 980Ti after Pascal has been out a while and dropped in price. The 980Ti will likely be faster than the top end Pascal card until they release the Ti model later in the year.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is what I am going to do. Funny thing is a certain [H] gentleman is going to sell one to me for just that amount.
I suspect you are right about the 1080 Ti and when it does come out it is going to be very pricey.
 
if your goal is for 60fps at 4k 60hz then wait for pascal

If you want to run 98% of the games out there at 60-144fps+ get two 980ti's in SLI , thats if you are at 2560x1440
 
GameHard6 said:
I never wait. Just find a good deal on a used 980Ti around $500. I always have the highest end graphics cards because I always upgrade and it never costs me much to upgrade (I'm patient when buying and selling). Find a good deal and sell your current card(s) for as much as you can even if you have to wait. Unfortunately, you won't get much for your current cards but you can always sell your 980Ti after Pascal has been out a while and dropped in price. The 980Ti will likely be faster than the top end Pascal card until they release the Ti model later in the year.
Click to expand...

You might find a reference 980t i with the crappy cooler. I would invest in alittle more for a better cooling solution to overclock faster than a titan
 
I would still wait. No reason to blow $500 on a card that might be out performed by another at the same price or a tad more. Way I look at it, $500 is some decent change. Rather sink that into a new card then a used one. Plus with the new cards coming out, the price on 980ti will prolly fall like others have said. I've been in your shoes for the last 3 months. Lil while longer won't be so bad.
 
Watching the Nvidia Livestream...

Most DEFINITELY WAIT!


Pascal is a Monster! So glad I didn't bite on the latest 980ti deals. Absolutely worth waiting for.
 
We will see actual performance benchmarks when they release. The hype is always more than what the cards actually do. The 1080 is likely to be slower than the 980Ti.
 
I don't see how any of this screams WAIT, to me it is perfect evidence that it isn't worth waiting.
 
I figure $500 now, see what happens, wait for price drop, sell 980Ti then, buy whatever whenever. It is all a game.
 
I'll probably be ready to go tri-SLI and give you a solid $200 for it in a couple months. Have fun.
 
silent-circuit said:
I'll probably be ready to go tri-SLI and give you a solid $200 for it in a couple months. Have fun.
Click to expand...

The gtx 1080,whatever it will be called, will perform roughly 15% faster than a stock 980ti, if it's also at 1500mhz.

At 1600mhz it would still be slower than an overclocked 980ti,but probably have more vram
 
This isn't a thing like tantric sex where you get some enjoyment while waiting only to have an epic face melting sploosh at the end.

It never ends and you're going to suffer with silicone blue balls until you do something about it. What you want you can have now. And when something better comes along you can have that too.

So do something about it.

ac292f8.png
 
Since no mention of consumer pascal, I'd say go for it and buy. At least now you know and that makes a big difference down the road.
 
I decided to build a gaming PC after about a 6 year hiatus. With all the Pascal news I thought about waiting until late May/June but found a GTX 970 for $268 and pulled the trigger. I'm sure the new cards will be great, but I'd rather not wait. If I had a rig up and running it would probably make more sense to wait though.
 
I'm now in the market for a nice 980ti myself after the disappointing news from nvidia on Pascal.

I'm kinda pissed I missed out on the MSI 980 gold edition that was uber cheap a few days ago -- 550ish is what I remember seeing in the Hard deals section.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
The thousand dollar question.

I am thinking about getting my rig ready for VR.

I want to go Nvidia, I have been on ATI AMD for EVER. Always because it was the cheaper choice.

Now I want a big boy card and I don't want to skimp.

But I also know that once Pascal comes out the 980 Ti will drop a bit. I think.
but I am also thinking I will just hold out and get the 1080 and be future proof for a bit.

I am currently running 6870 x2 in crossfire for 1080P gaming. So I am well past due to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Future proof = AMD
VR = AMD

HTC Vive Experiences Optimized for Radeon™ Graphics

Just go for a Nano.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
I'm sorry, is there a solid, tangible reason AMD is somehow future proof and VR optimized? I don't see it.

Give me some kind of technical reason why this is so?
Click to expand...
VR optimized is badly worded but founded in fact, finer grained preemption helps for law latency adjustments to the perspective projection

As for future proof he's probably gonna say 8gb vs 4gb on mid-high end
 
Ieldra said:
Yeah because of async right??
Click to expand...

1) No, AMD has better VR tech right know.
2) 290,290X still realiable GPU's today. "even HTC recommends 280X"
3) Drivers are better than nvidia at this moment.
4) Better DX12 support

if you can get 980ti for $500shipped buy it. i sold my 980ti 4 months ago for $580.
maybe down the road you can resell it for $300-350

Good Luck
 
wantapple said:
1) No, AMD has better VR tech right know.
2) 290,290X still realiable GPU's today. "even HTC recommends 280X"
3) Drivers are better than nvidia at this moment.
4) Better DX12 support

if you can get 980ti for $500shipped buy it. i sold my 980ti 4 months ago for $580.
maybe down the road you can resell it for $300-350

Good Luck
Click to expand...

1. No it doesn't, AMD does have an advantage in VR, but you appear to just be parroting what you heard somewhere

2. So is a gtx 780, or 780ti, just because performance increased immensely in the last year or so for Hawaii it doesn't day anything about the future. You have to release a shitty, underperforming product to be able to improve its performance massively a few years later

3. Based on which quality metric exactly?

4. No, nvidia has better dx12 feature support
 
Ieldra said:
1. No it doesn't, AMD does have an advantage in VR, but you appear to just be parroting what you heard somewhere

2. So is a gtx 780, or 780ti, just because performance increased immensely in the last year or so for Hawaii it doesn't day anything about the future. You have to release a shitty, underperforming product to be able to improve its performance massively a few years later

3. Based on which quality metric exactly?

4. No, nvidia has better dx12 feature support
Click to expand...

LOLLLLLLL
 
How would you feel buying a GTX780-Ti a couple months before the launch of the GTX980 and GTX970? Figure that, but this year.
 
wantapple said:
1) No, AMD has better VR tech right know.
2) 290,290X still realiable GPU's today. "even HTC recommends 280X"
3) Drivers are better than nvidia at this moment.
4) Better DX12 support

if you can get 980ti for $500shipped buy it. i sold my 980ti 4 months ago for $580.
maybe down the road you can resell it for $300-350

Good Luck
Click to expand...


I have mostly nVidia cards (check out the sig) but I fully agree with this. When I see my 3 year old R9-290(oc'd to R9-390 specs) beating the ever living shit out of my GTX970 and coming very close to my GTX980-Ti in the first DX12 game, Ashes of the Singularity, tells me that AMD indeed planed further ahead and is the more future-proof choice.
 
Rauelius said:
I have mostly nVidia cards (check out the sig) but I fully agree with this. When I see my 3 year old R9-290(oc'd to R9-390 specs) beating the ever living shit out of my GTX970 and coming very close to my GTX980-Ti in the first DX12 game, Ashes of the Singularity, tells me that AMD indeed planed further ahead and is the more future-proof choice.
Click to expand...


Man I understand your pov, I really do, it's just that this discussion is repeated nauseam; I have no vested interest in debating it, it's just for the sake of consistency.

1. A 970 has a 1200mhz reference boost clock.

2. Hawaii performance has improved immensely over the last year, if AMD had the foresight to make a more future proof architecture why did they lack the foresight to write a driver a driver stack that didn't suck

3. A 390x performs like a fury X in the dx12 game AMD claims has the best 'async' implementation

More relevant to this thread, I'm really on the fence about selling my 980ti, I was way more inclined towards selling before Gp100 announcement

As you can see below, the 290X got much bigger boosts to performance since it was launched, whereas the 780Ti roughly remained the same, with much more limited gains

780tiVs290xVsTitan-driver-c-1.jpg


Here is a bigger picture with more recent games being benchmarked

Big-Pic-fix.jpg



There is nothing surprising about these results to be frank, overclocking both 290x and 780ti will inevitably be to the advantage of the latter as it is has more headroom

The 290x was always the fastest gpu on paper, it just didn't perform
 
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Rauelius said:
I have mostly nVidia cards (check out the sig) but I fully agree with this. When I see my 3 year old R9-290(oc'd to R9-390 specs) beating the ever living shit out of my GTX970 and coming very close to my GTX980-Ti in the first DX12 game, Ashes of the Singularity, tells me that AMD indeed planed further ahead and is the more future-proof choice.
Click to expand...
That's just one game. Just as likely that AMD's developer relations paid more attention to that particular title. It's far too early to call a DX12 winner in the current generation-- and the next generation is coming up fast.

Also, Ashes is a particularly good case for DX12's CPU offloading tech-- even if AMD is far ahead there, the impact won't be anything like Ashes in games that don't have thousands of units flying around.
 
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