GTX 670 or 770 or Maxwell

[Ravyu]

Hi guys,

Upgrading from AMD HD 7850

I'm wondering, should I go for the GTX 670, 770 or wait for Maxwell. The reason why I want to upgrade is so that I can be ready for Nvidia's cool stuff like the Project Shield. So I was wondering, should I just stay with my card for another month, and wait for the 770 to roll out, or one more year, for Maxwell. Or should I just buy a 670 now.

I'm not so much in a hurry, but the prices of the 670 look very tempting and in my country, last gen products are pretty much nonexistent (GTX 570 disappeared one month after 670 was announced).

 

[miguksaram]

See this for a better break down but ultimately if you aren't satisfied with your current performance and can afford to sell your AMD card the "upgrade" to a GTX 670 will easily last you until Maxwell. The GTX 700 series cards are only predicted to increase performance per watt efficiency which for most desktop users is not worth the wait (very important for laptops on the other hand).

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/386394-33-wait-series

 

[Ravyu]

So if this is true, won't the price of the GTX 770 be nearly the same? I can just wait for about a month to buy my new one, though I don't mind waiting for maxwell

 

[Zeus8577]

I'm pretty sure they won't be coming out In a month. I read around that they will come out around Q4 of 2012. There is also speculation of a card being released in July. It will be on the price point between 680 and Titan. Do yourself a favor and don't play the waiting game. Get the 670 and enjoy it. It will certainly last you till Maxwell and then you can enjoy a real upgrade. Maxwell is worth waiting for. Plus the 670 is cheap right now. Well 370 dollars is not cheap but it's better than spending lots of money when the 700 series comes out. Don't play the waiting game! Future Proof does not exist!

 

[Dnaangel]

Honestly, All upgrades from now till 2015 are pretty much a waste. Pretty hefty platform upgrades coming to the market then. If you can, try to squeeze another 2 years out of your existing system. Maybe a small GPU upgrade to get you though.

What so great about 2015?

-Maxwell (Nvidia Gpus) **Coined the most revolutionary tech step discrete graphics have yet to see**
-Brand new form the ground up Skylake Architecture from Intel. Supposed to be pretty ground breaking
-DDR4 Ram. Only servers will support this till 2015
-Hoard of new technology's coming from motherboard vendors in 2015 as well
-Last FX Bulldozer Revision from AMD (Excavator).
-Brand new GCN Architecture supporting AMDs Gaming Evolved campaign (Radeon HD? they are keeping both the naming and specs pretty tight-lipped). Will be anxious to see what comes out of the Red Camp in 2015.
-NexGen SSD's

 

[eric4277]

Their roadmap showed Maxwell to release in 2014, not 2015. Would probably be this time around 2014. I am worried about how much the 8000 series refresh of the 7000 series will improve making these 700 series cards worthless or not.

 

[Dnaangel]

Their roadmap showed Maxwell to release in 2014, not 2015. Would probably be this time around 2014. I am worried about how much the 8000 series refresh of the 7000 series will improve making these 700 series cards worthless or not.

Yes, it will be INTRODUCED next year. I listed it mainly as another reason to wait for a full platform upgrade in 2015. Maxwell will be released next year, but in 2015 when the rest of the platform is coming into play the Maxwell refreshes will be out or coming out. I guess you could grab up the first of the Maxwell's (8xx) but if your're like me and waiting for a FULL platform upgrade in 2015, then mind as well grab the new Maxwell's (9xx). The numbers over the last 7 years tend to show a biggest increase of performance with the refreshes. This is mainly due to manufacturers weeding out bugs and maximizing the architectures potential.

I think the new Sea Islands (Radeon HD 8xxx) should be giving the green camp (Nvidia) a hard run for their money. Though AMD fans will have to wait a little while longer as Sea Islands wont be introduced until later this year at the soonest, though most reports show it as a Q1 2014 release. AMD stated that their GFX products to be postponed, as AMD is re-structuring their company to avoid total bankruptcy. In this process their GFX products are getting delayed, which would put it on par with the release of AMD's "Piledriver" FX CPU, as the Desktop (FX) and Server variants wont be released until 2014. Only the Mobile Piledrivers (APU's)will see light in 2013.

The last leaked report I read showed a mid grade 8850 to be on par performance wise as a GTX 670, at almost half the cost. If thats the case, Im anxious to see what numbers a Radeon HD 8970/8950 will spit out.

The 8xxx series is not a refresh of the 7xxx series (7xxx series was a refresh of the 6xxx series "Northern/Southern Islands"), not sure where you got that from. Though some of the lower end models will be re-brands (AMD has done that many times now). 8770 and up are all on the new GCN core codenamed "Sea Islands" followed by it's refresh "Volcanic Islands" (Radeon HD 9xxx).

Since 2005, the best rule of thumb when determining if a GFX series is a refresh or not, is to look at the very first number. If it is a even number it is a new architecture, if it is an odd number its a refresh. Intel has also been following this pattern since 2010 with their CPUs.