HD 7970 + 3 free games or HD 8000 series?

[smb00123]

Hey guys

Basically the "Never Settle" bundle is going on atm for the AMD 7970 (and other 7000 series). The games are:

-Far Cry 3
-Hitman
-Sleeping Dogs

I'm probably only going to play Far Cry 3 and Sleeping Dogs, but that seems like a good deal to me

The dilemma:
In a couple of months, the HD 8000 series will be coming out with supposedly amazing step up in performance.

Should I buy this great deal for the HD 7970 or should I wait and buy the HD 8970 a couple months after it's release?

Another option is to buy the 7970 now with the offer, then after HD 8970 comes out, the 7970 price will drop and I can buy another to crossfire. But is it worth it?

I'm upgrading a 5 year old PC in mid-2013 because that's when the new Haswell CPUs from Intel are coming out and DDR4 RAM will be introduced.

So basically, I don't want the 7970 graphics card to become obsolete in a year or two after HD 8000 series.

What do you advise?

Thanks.

P.S. I'd probably not spend more than £400 for a GPU (so perhaps the HD 8950 if it's within the price range)

 

[vahn0100]

unfortunately, no matter what route you go, you card will be obsolete in a year or two, thats how it always goes with graphics cards and processors. As for the ddr4, at the moment, most people cant get a significant amount of change going from 1600 mhz to 2100mhz. so when ddr4 comes out with its initial rate of 2200mhz, its really not going to speed up your comp noticeably as the games and programs havent advanced far enough to tax the ddr3 speeds yet.

 

[stingstang]

Can't say if it's a deal or not, since there's no listen price. those are good games, though.

 

[bystander]

What is your current system? If you plan to upgrade your whole system in a few months, perhaps you should just wait until then, unless you are having serious performance issues.

 

[renz496]

if you really need the performance right now just get 7970. and 7970 will not become obsolete in two years time. not if you only play with single monitor. also like bystander just said you might want to hold on purchasing the card right now if you consider to make full system upgrade in the very near future. by the time haswell comes out there should be few model from the 8k series (maybe mid to high end model) if the rumor about amd releasing their 8k series in Q2 this year

 

[blazorthon]

unfortunately, no matter what route you go, you card will be obsolete in a year or two, thats how it always goes with graphics cards and processors. As for the ddr4, at the moment, most people cant get a significant amount of change going from 1600 mhz to 2100mhz. so when ddr4 comes out with its initial rate of 2200mhz, its really not going to speed up your comp noticeably as the games and programs havent advanced far enough to tax the ddr3 speeds yet.

A Radeon 5870 from like five years ago is not obsolete today. Why would a higher end card from the current generation be obsolete in a year or two when the Radeon 5870 still won't be obsolete that soon? Even many mid-ranged to high-end DX10.1 cards aren't obsolete yet and that's stretching back another year or two from the Radeon 5870.

Furthermore, depending on the platform, the memory most certainly can matter. For example, Core 2 and AMD owners should get very good memory or at least overclock more affordable memory if they want to get a good performance boost.

 

[Guest]

A Radeon 5870 from like five years ago is not obsolete today. Why would a higher end card from the current generation be obsolete in a year or two when the Radeon 5870 still won't be obsolete that soon? Even many mid-ranged to high-end DX10.1 cards aren't obsolete yet and that's stretching back another year or two from the Radeon 5870.

Furthermore, depending on the platform, the memory most certainly can matter. For example, Core 2 and AMD owners should get very good memory or at least overclock more affordable memory if they want to get a good performance boost.

Obsolete is a word thrown around too often in computing. The most correct word (usually) is superseded. For some, having a hd 6970 is terrible as it is outdated etc etc. However, I have two in crossfire and my system is pumping! Obsolete is in the eye of the beholder!

 

[rdc85]

They maybe quicker but I'm doubt it will be cheaper or as same price/performance...

It will need sometimes before the price start to drop...

IMO :
I don't see why need to wait... buy now, and play those games...

time is one thing money can't buy (well there some exception )

 

[smb00123]

Thanks for the response.

I WAS going to build a PC in Jan (now) but after reading about the new CPUs and RAM etc. I decided to wait a couple months.

I will be BUILDING from scratch, not upgrading, sorry about that. So if I bought the 7970 now, I would probably hold on to it until I get the rest of the parts in June-August.

Unless I could use 7970s in the meantime on my current system?
It's an Dell Inspiron 530 with
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66Ghz 12 mb cache
4GB 800Mhz DDR2 (4 x 1024)

so as you can see, it's pretty old and will probably bottleneck the 7970s.

So with that in mind, do the people who recommended 7970s still recommend them?

Also I'm aware that DDR3 1600 and 2133 barely have a difference, but DDR4 seems to be the best thing for in the future when games will be closer to supporting those kind of speeds. Kind of a psychological thing.

Thanks

 

[renz496]

at stock clock it will be held back the a lot. so i think it is better for you to wait until you make your system overhaul. about the DDR4 stuff i read somewhere that it might only become the norm around 2015 so before that it could be the memory company would charge more for the module. also i heard about the only Haswell EX will get DDR4 treatment. the mainstream version (such as socket 1150) might only still on DDR3 only.

 

[blazorthon]

Games aren't in any way part of the system that is needed to support memory speeds. Games will work regardless of memory speed and memory type. Whether or not the memory's performance is good enough to not bottle-neck the games is another thing. Since gaming is generally not a very memory bandwidth nor latency bound workload, DDR4 is probably not going to make much of a difference in the short term for gaming and won't matter until several years after it came out except for specific applications that are very sensitive to memory performance.

I can understand the psychological impact of it, just don't expect it to make a big difference. At best, a new GDDR based on DDR4 would be the next big thing for memory as far as gaming is concerned except for how greatly DDR4 would improve APU performance.

 

[darksparten]

It doesn't matter either way, the Promotion ended recently and AMD cards no longer come with free games.

I'd have reccomended waiting anyway, good luck!

 

[smb00123]

Ahh, thanks for the help guys!

Looks like I'll be waiting a couple months, but I guess it will be worth it