Selling my GTX 470s... Help me pick the replacement

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Rogue_Apprentice

Limp Gawd
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Feb 6, 2010
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I am selling my GTX 470s and I would like some advice on what to replace them with.

I play BF3 and Skyrim. That's it. 3 1080p monitors in surround. I would say I play BF3 most of the time though. Right now I run at about 40-50 fps with all high settings and no AA. Anything more and I hit a VRAM wall. I would like to improve upon that and be able to run Ultra settings with HBAO on. :D

Budget is about $500-$600.

The obvious choice is probably the 7970 but from researching the forums here the driver problems is a big concern. :confused:

I would really like to save a bit and get a 7950 and overclock the $#%& out of it and try and come close to 7970 level of performance.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
If you're going big i'd get either a GTX 580 or 7970. Personally, I have never had single card driver issues with AMD, ever. Some CAP's (for crossfire) take a week or two longer with AMD than NV, though. But there aren't any single card driver problems so to speak. I've not had any issues with nvidia -or- amd drivers, so I guess i'm one of the lucky ones? Things to ask yourself:

- 7970 is faster overall, but expensive
- a new GTX 580 is also expensive
- a used 580 is probably easy to find and cheaper,i've seen some on ebay for 400$ or so.
- do you value physx ?
- do you want single card eyefinity?


You really can't go wrong either way, 580 or 7970. Although, i'd get a used 580 if you go that route - they're pretty cheap now used.
 
No I don't value physx. Don't play any games that use it.

If I went with a 580 I would need 2 of em to do surround and I don't want to give that up. That blows my budget.
 
Funny you should mention that extide because right now on my local Craigslist there is a pair of of 6970 2gb cards for 450....
 
Personally i'm not a fan of buying older gen. That is me though. I would rather have a single card present gen rather than older gen dual.

Consider that you can easily recoup your investment in a 580 or 7970 by selling it used, that won't be the case with the 6950. I would personally either get a new 7970 or a used/new GTX 580. IMO!
 
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The only problem I see with the 580 is that while you won't have the VRAM limitation anymore you'll definatly be down on raw compute. So you'll be able to bump up texture related settings, but have to drop down other settings like ambient occlusion, etc.. You'd really need to still go two cards at this point to run BF3 with maxed out settings with a resolution that high.

So either buy two 580's, look at the AMD route, or wait this summer for the faster single card.
 
Id go for a 7970 and never look back. If you get a sapphire branded card aswell it will have any adpaters you need for your eyefinity setup included in the box.
 
Leaning towards a 7970 but of course now they are out of stock. My auction ends in 24 hours and I want something on the way before I send out my cards.....
 
Where is your auction. I could use a second GTX470 if yours are EVGA.
 
Not looking to max things out just run at a respectable frame rate with at least High settings with some ambient occlusion on.
 
Rogue_Apprentice said:
Not looking to max things out just run at a respectable frame rate with at least High settings with some ambient occlusion on.
Click to expand...
In BF3 multiplayer, my 7970 overclocked to 1300MHz gets 50-65FPS avereage (depending on the map) @ 2560x1600, everything maxed and 4xMSAA. If I turn off MSAA and use post-processing AA instead, those averages climb to 60-80 FPS average.
 
Thanks for the info Mr. K6, I would be happy to get that rate at 5760 X 1080 with lesser settings. Sounds like its possible.

I get weird issues now depending on the server I am in. Some servers I can run higher settings than others. Mostly a memory usage issue. The 3gb of a 7000 series card should (I hope) alleviate this problem.
 
Mr. K6 said:
In BF3 multiplayer, my 7970 overclocked to 1300MHz gets 50-65FPS avereage (depending on the map) @ 2560x1600, everything maxed and 4xMSAA. If I turn off MSAA and use post-processing AA instead, those averages climb to 60-80 FPS average.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty aggressive OC that many people will not be comfortable with, be it for heat/noise reason or other. Also, the OP is running about 50% more pixels than a 25*16 monitor. IMHO, he is still gonna need 2 high end cards to get what he wants.
 
I am fairly happy with the frame rates I get now I just would like a touch more eye candy without running out of Vram....I hope that the 7970 can do that.

17 hours left on auction then a choice must be made. I can't go without my BF3 fix for too long...;)
 
The Sapphire OC version of the HD7950 looks like a solid choice for value and extreme single card performance. Looks like a very low produced car. Price at Newegg was $479.99 when it was released. Out of stock at newegg right now. I wouldn't pay more than $429.99 for it.
 
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I'm in a similar boat as you with my 5850s. The 7970 was a ray of hope for me because a single 7970 is overall faster than my dual 5850s and your dual GTX470s. However, it would kinda be a lateral move (except for getting 3x more ram!!). Personally, I'm waiting for the 7850/7870/7890 and GTX660/GTX660Ti and getting a pair. If history is any lesson, two of those lesser cards should dominate a single 7970. If they have at least 2GB on ram on them, even better. I'm waiting till they are out and then see how they do. I'm figuring the prices will be like the following:

GTX660 and 7850 - $250
GTX660Ti and 7870 - $320
7890 -$370

I'm hopping for lower, but that $550 price on the 7970 casts a heck of a shadow and I don't think nVidia's gonna be our savior with these ever increasing graphics card prices. I mean, the 6970 has barely budged in price since launch.
 
The 2GB 28nm cards at lower price points could fit the OP needs but he wants a card right now.
 
If you can wait, i would see what the next Nvidia card can do since they should be out soonish. Im in the same boat looking to move from dual 470s.
 
Maybe an article comparing the Following to a single 7970 would be helpful:

5850 in Crossfire
5870 in Crossfire
6850 in Crossfire
6870 in Crossfire

GTX470 in SLI
GTX480 in SLI
GTX460 in SLI
GTX560 in SLI
GTX560Ti in SLI

Considering that both the GTX590 and Radeon 6990 all kept up with or beat the 7970 in most benchmarks, I don't think it's needed to see how a 7970 compares to a 6950,6970,GTX570 or GTX580. It would be helpful for those that decided to skip the last generation (GTX5xx/Radeon 6xxx) since they doubled up a couple generations ago, or for people who have a single Mid-level card from this past generation (GTX560/Radeon 6870) and to see if getting an additional one (reasonable cheaply) will provide more performance than getting a Radeon 7970. I'd love [H] to do it as I believe they have the best testing method of all the sites I visit.
 
Rauelius said:
Maybe an article comparing the Following to a single 7970 would be helpful:

5850 in Crossfire
5870 in Crossfire
6850 in Crossfire
6870 in Crossfire

GTX470 in SLI
GTX480 in SLI
GTX460 in SLI
GTX560 in SLI
GTX560Ti in SLI

Considering that both the GTX590 and Radeon 6990 all kept up with or beat the 7970 in most benchmarks, I don't think it's needed to see how a 7970 compares to a 6950,6970,GTX570 or GTX580. It would be helpful for those that decided to skip the last generation (GTX5xx/Radeon 6xxx) since they doubled up a couple generations ago, or for people who have a single Mid-level card from this past generation (GTX560/Radeon 6870) and to see if getting an additional one (reasonable cheaply) will provide more performance than getting a Radeon 7970. I'd love [H] to do it as I believe they have the best testing method of all the sites I visit.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what needs to be done. I think this would apply to a much larger audience than just what the new stuff does against the cards from the previous release. There has got to be a ton of people out there who, as you said, skipped the last round of cards and are running CFX or SLI setups and want to know how the 7970 does against these setups.
 
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