Who's going to wait out the 970/980 craze?

I decided to build a new gaming system when I saw what the 980 had to offer. The system in my sig (Not the mac, duh) will be arriving today/tomorrow. I don't think I'll be disappointed.
 
If a 980 Ti with 8 GB VRAM becomes available I may be tempted. Otherwise, I'll wait and see what transpires with the Titan series.
 
Staying put. Nothing in my backlog justifies an upgrade from my 770 at 1080p and I don't buy GPUs for future performance. Also, my next video card will match the frame buffer on the PS4/XBone because devs are lazy.
 
Running a modestly OCed 780 (non-Ti). I can hold out for the 980 Ti. The performance delta between what I have and what is now available just isn't compelling. But the Maxwell with more cores will likely change that calculus.
 
I am on the fence. I do so like new toys to play with, but a 970 does not really have a raw performance advantage over my 780 Classified @ 1300mhz and the 980 is compelling, but I may wait to see if AMD has an answer incoming.

what voltage offset are you using for that 1300?
 
It was either go GTX580 SLI or get one GTX970

One of them draws ~650W from the wall at load :rolleyes:

MSI GTX970 Gaming is on order hope its a performance increase
 
If your selling 770/780/780Ti or 280x/290/290x to get these new cards then that is not a win in my book but more of a lose as the only way to save face is useage of said card.
 
Have a 780 in one machine and 6870CF in another.

Both still seem good for 1080p.

That said, the most graphically demanding game I play right now is Rome2... Which may be the reason for that (plus the fact that I am perfectly fine with running medium settings).
 
If your selling 770/780/780Ti or 280x/290/290x to get these new cards then that is not a win in my book but more of a lose as the only way to save face is useage of said card.

Newer tech, much lower temps and power use disagrees with you.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I can't hold off. The idea of a gtx970 in a smokin' little gaming rig(@1200p) that sips from a quality 400watt psu just tickles me to no end.
 
I've actually considered getting a second 680 due to a bunch of them going for cheap on the FS/FT, but I have to wonder if the 2 GB VRAM is going to bite me sooner rather than later. I have no desire to go above 1920x1080 at this time, but even at that resolution it's looking like newer games are requiring 3+ GB.
 
I'm not really "waiting it out", I mean, the 560ti I'm using now is sufficient for what I'm currently playing, but by the time I have cash set aside to buy one I'm hoping the 970s will have dipped under $300. Maybe some competition from AMD's new parts will cause some price readjustments by NVIDIA in another month or two.
 
Using a pair of 780Ti's in SLI here - going on 9 months now. Both water-blocked and OC'ed. While the 980 is a nice card, I'm going to hold out for 20nm Maxwell or the next gen (Pascal). The 980 only offers a max performance bump of 5% over what I have (perhaps 10-15% if overclocked) - just not enough to warrant an upgrade. I'm also just gaming @ 2560x1600 on a 30", so plenty of power on tap currently. Nice to see the tech progressing though!
 
While the Geforce GTX 970 tickles my fancy, I'll be seating this one out since I just bought water blocks for my Radeon 7950s.

Also I tend to skip a video card generation and buy the old model used on ebay.
 
Waiting on a version of the 980 with 8GB of RAM before I really consider upgrading.
 
I am just not impressed with the performance on the 980s.

I have had three Titans since a bit after launch, purchased for $800-$900 each (coming up on two years now!). From the reviews I have looked at, the 980 is as little as 5% faster in a few games or as much as 20%, with the vast majority of games at 10-15%. I would give up my 6GB of VRAM to "upgrade," which I actually need for my 7860x1600. Moreover I would give up 3 cards that are already tuned and known to be reliable/decent clockers in exchange for potential problems.

What it really comes down to is performance...I can't believe that I have achieved very close to top end performance for almost 2 years and will continue to be near the top of the heap until the Titan successor comes out. It's actually kind of pathetic that after all this time, Nvidia's so-called "next" generation is giving refresh-level performance gains. Even though many people derided the Titans as overpriced (and maybe they were if you bought at full retail instead of finding a deal), I think mine are shaping up to be shrewd buys in terms of money spent vs. amount of time as an elite viable card.
 
I am just not impressed with the performance on the 980s.

I have had three Titans since a bit after launch, purchased for $800-$900 each (coming up on two years now!). From the reviews I have looked at, the 980 is as little as 5% faster in a few games or as much as 20%, with the vast majority of games at 10-15%. I would give up my 6GB of VRAM to "upgrade," which I actually need for my 7860x1600. Moreover I would give up 3 cards that are already tuned and known to be reliable/decent clockers in exchange for potential problems.

What it really comes down to is performance...I can't believe that I have achieved very close to top end performance for almost 2 years and will continue to be near the top of the heap until the Titan successor comes out. It's actually kind of pathetic that after all this time, Nvidia's so-called "next" generation is giving refresh-level performance gains. Even though many people derided the Titans as overpriced (and maybe they were if you bought at full retail instead of finding a deal), I think mine are shaping up to be shrewd buys in terms of money spent vs. amount of time as an elite viable card.

I've actually been thinking about getting a stock Titan as the prices have greatly plummeted. I just can't get used to all the power it will be draining and the heat it will be giving off.
 
I'm going to either:
1. Wait until 780 drops to $250 or below.
2. Wait until Pascal.

However, if I wanted a 9xx, I'd likely reserve a backorder for a Strix 970 and wait for it to ship.

I sold one of my Asus DCUII OC 780s to a friend for $250. The other is for sale as well -- I just haven't had time to take pictures and write up a listing. :)
 
I sold one of my Asus DCUII OC 780s to a friend for $250. The other is for sale as well -- I just haven't had time to take pictures and write up a listing. :)

If I had the money, you'd be shipping it to me today. :)
Sadly, I have to wait until around Thanksgiving or Christmas...or tax return for worst case scenario. :(
 
I initially purchases an eVGA 970 SC but it wasn't stable @ stock, back it went.

However, the more I think about it the more I'm now convinced to sit this series out. I don't own a game my boosted 7950 can't run great at 1080p.\

EDIT: Picked up a second 7950 boost on ebay for $88 shipped. Good to go now.... much cheaper option for approx. same performance in Xfire
 
Last edited:
I don't think I can wait out much longer, still on a GTX 260/Q6600 combo. My upgrade will have to be this upcoming Black Friday and I plan on getting SLI 970's
 
I don't think I can wait out much longer, still on a GTX 260/Q6600 combo. My upgrade will have to be this upcoming Black Friday and I plan on getting SLI 970's

If the BF/CM sales are strong enough, then you might as well get three because, fuck yeah. :p
 
I will. There is no point in "upgrading" to 970 and 980 is too expensive for my liking.

Actually, I wouldn't get 780 either if not the fact that upgrading from 7950 to (eventually) 780 was pretty much free thanks to mining and reselling GPUs...

I was considering second 780, but probably not going to do that, mainly because of possible VRAM limitation in future
 
Already got two MSi GTX 970's, the entire system doesn't even break 500W on load (OC'ed).

I find it funny how people are making excuses whether or not to pull the trigger. Sure, 700 series prices have been slashed, but then again, you don't really need to make the move if you have a 780 or its ti, and especially if you're limited by cash.

I already made my decision long ago when I saw 750 ti's performance figures. For me, it wasn't just the performance as much as it was the performance per watt figure that sold me.

I have ran two 780's, easily closing in at 700W, now I have a little over 200W to spare.
 
I have ran two 780's, easily closing in at 700W, now I have a little over 200W to spare.

This would be the sole reason for me to get a 970 or 980...the performance per watt for the price.

However, I'm going to wait until the Maxwell process shrink emerges and then make the determination if I want to jump, depending on pricing. AMD should have their 380X/390X flooding the market by then, so it'll be a great time to see which is the better option regarding price, performance, efficiency, and availability.

Realistically, I'm likely going to get a 2nd 780 and then wait until Pascal emerges (and AMDs post-3xx release) until upgrading.
 
I was literally hovering on the "buy" of the 970 GTX, and even found a good buyer for my 290X. But then... then I just said "no" to myself. first - I want the 1440p 21:9 display, and in heavy textured games the 970 is having problems with its 256 bus in that resolution. '

The other reason I wanted to upgrade is G-Sync, but then, the TN, even with G-Sync sucks balls and I rather get nice Sammy MVA 21:9 screen than TN-quality :) The third is power consumption - but then, the loss I'd have to recover from selling my 970 GTX would be the difference in power consumption for a year

So, i'm now waiting for some nice 384/512-bus fully unlcoked 20nm NVIDIA card. Then I'll upgrade. Of course, if I'd be moving from something much lower than 290X or building my first PC, I'd get 970 GTX hands down. But 1070GTX is what I'm looking for.
 
I have two GTX 980s in SLI. I upgraded from GTX590. Huge upgrade, I mean massive upgrade. It was also a HUGE mistake. First of all, the performance just is not there. The performance in BF4 for example, is just not all that impressive, subjectively. I know the numbers are high in the benchmarks, but I just do not feel like this is a future proofed rig. I might be CPU bound, however.

It blows the freakin doors off of Crysis 3. That is a trip to play with this rig, but that is old news.

Also, the lack of VRAM makes me worry. I think the console ports are going to be lazy and require more vram than they should, but guess what, that is going to end up being OUR problem when we can't run those games maxed out. Also, I think the bus speed issue has been downplayed. I saw some benchmarks where 780ti beat it at higher resolutions--that just should not be the case in any scenerio.

I know the price and efficiency is tempting, and I was due for an upgrade, but I regret buying two of these cards because this is not a forward looking card. It fits the bill for some applications, but for a no compromise experience even at 1080p I don't think this is the one. I'd return it if I could. It may be the fastest thing out there, but it is not fast enough. I think a single 980 with 6 or 8 gb of vram would be a great investment and would get you through when those variants come out, if ever. The 4GB card...meh.

At most, buy ONE single card. Do not SLI these cards. You will run out of VRAM before you can tap into all that power. That is my opinion.

This is just an example of how you can't just throw money at a system and end up satisfied. It is all about timing. I think 20nm Maxwell is the one that is going to have the performance to last through most if not all of this console generation. This card---not so much I think.
 
Last edited:
waiting for 20nm Maxwell 980ti or 970 later this year. Shadows of Mordor already requires 6GB to max out ultra settings and I'm betting GTA will also need 6GB if not 8GB.
 
I have two GTX 980s in SLI. I upgraded from GTX590. Huge upgrade, I mean massive upgrade. It was also a HUGE mistake. First of all, the performance just is not there. The performance in BF4 for example, is just not all that impressive, subjectively. I know the numbers are high in the benchmarks, but I just do not feel like this is a future proofed rig. I might be CPU bound, however.

With an i7-920, you are most definitely CPU-bound.

With that said, I'm only planning on buying one 980 myself. :)
 
Waiting for pascal before I buy one new again.

I will replace my SLI 460s with 660s once the price comes down.
 
Back
Top