Opinion on gfx card upgrade!

[Tonyh]

So my time has come were i have finally decided to upgrade my old card for a new one. So what I need is everyone to please help me make a choice on this.

A) Gigabyte ATI Radeon 7970 HD 925MHz 3GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI
B) A 7950 when they are released on 31 of jan!
C) Zotac GeForce GTX 580 772MHz 3GB PCI-Express HDMI
D) Sapphire Technology ATI Radeon 6970 HD 880MHz 2GB PCI-Express HDMI
E) EVGA GeForce GTX 570 797MHz 1280MB PCI-Express HDMI SuperClocked
F) None of the above ( Please suggest a card)

My budget is capped at about 600€ or £500.
Please and thank you :-)

[DMS]

What motherboard are you using? At first glance, the 7970 seems to be the fastest of the above cards but all the reviews I have seen have used a PCIe 3.0 capable board. Not quite sure how it would compare with the competition if it's limited to 2.0 but I would be tempted to go for one anyway due to various other factors.

[DMS]

Interesting review here which seems to cover pretty much all the cards you mention. I would suggest looking at the results and paying little attention to the conclusions. Anandtech seems to have become a bit pro nVidia over recent times. NB: the results were gained using a PCIe 3.0 board so it is still difficult to truly consider like for like if you board is only 2.0.

[edit] found a review here that compares a 7970 at 3.0 vs 2.0. In reality, with current games, it seems to make very little difference.

[2o2o]

Reality is crossfire 560ti still outperform all of the above at about the same price, the one i would choose from you list is the 570 because only high end gamers need to spend big amounts to max out frames and resolution for the average gamer above 30 fps is fine I know the 30 fps things has been disproven but its not going to distract or detract from the game. As for 3.0 v 2.0 on 7970 there is no difference the diff between 3.0 and 2.0 is bandwidth and even the 7970 still only just goes fast enough to use the extra bandwidth 3.0 provides. We will be waiting for the 8970 before we see massive changes.

Edit: Oh and the tests using a 3.0 board unless they are 2011 sockets aren't using PCI 3.0 anyway because sandy bridge doesn't support it.

[DreamingSheep]

Reality is crossfire 560ti still outperform all of the above at about the same price, the one i would choose from you list is the 570 because only high end gamers need to spend big amounts to max out frames and resolution for the average gamer above 30 fps is fine ...

Yeay, I got something right!! Installed my second 560ti yesterday. I'm fairly certain my brother-in-law is getting better frame rates than me on his 3GB 580 when playing on Ultra graphics settings. I'm still getting 40+ most of the time but there is a noticable difference in how smooth it renders things compared to running on High.

I agree completely with the concept that 25FPS should actually be enough but you do notice the difference when you've been playing at 60FPS+, specially when it suddenly has to render an explosion behind a sandstorm and you suddenly drop FPS to below 25

The only other differences in the systems are the CPU (his is an older quad core, mine a 2500K. he's on 32GB RAM, me 16GB & he's on an older motherboard too, one of the Gigabyte USB3's against my Asrock Ext4 Pro3).

[2o2o]

There is still a weakness to Crossfire and SLI and it is simply support, games with full support will crush anything a 580 can do but one a minor compatibility problem can cause the system to believe it is rendering frames at the limit of the 2 GPU's whereas in reality they are using about 20% of the capability. Ram is pretty much meaningless in games.

[Tonyh]

Sure ill get two 3gb 580 in crossfire keep everyone happy im thinking of a 3gb 580 alright though. im getting a new psu modular corsair 750watt and new am3+ motherboard