What Graphics Card should I get?

[ImmortalMamba]

This is my current rig.

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K
MoBo: ASUS Sabertooth
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz (GB)
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970

I want to upgrade my graphics card only problem is that I'm having a hard time choosing which card. My budget is below 1000$

 

[Iron124]

Below $1000...for the card itself? Or for the whole rig?

 

[ImmortalMamba]

Graphics card.

 

[oskerw]

The 7970 is still an excellent performer! It is essentially an r9 280x. Have you tried overclocking it?

 

[caqde]

What do you want out of your new GPU compared to what you have (higher resolution, multi monitor gaming)?. Your current 7970 is still pretty high on the performance list. Even though there are faster single GPU cards like the 780TI and R9 290(X). There hasn't been any major GPU release since the Radeon 7000 series to date and likely won't happen until early/middle of next year.

 

[MasterMace]

With that CPU, I'd recommend a GTX 780

 

[Iron124]

Alrighty then, that is one hell of a budget.

There is nothing a 290x can't run on Ultra, and it comes in at $505. http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Version-PCI-Express-Graphics-11226-00-40G/dp/B00HJOKARI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1405738097&sr=8-5&keywords=r9+295

If you want to spend $1000, you can buy two and crossfire them.

Or, on the NVIDIA side of things, a 780 Ti

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Superclocked-Dual-Link-Graphics-03G-P4-2884-KR/dp/B00GMTGJIU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405738224&sr=8-1&keywords=780+ti

Both of these cards are in the "badass" rank, and can max anything you throw at them. But if you do wind up doing anything that incredibly intensive, your i5 would bottleneck it far before these start struggling.

 

[ImmortalMamba]

What do you want out of your new GPU compared to what you have (higher resolution, multi monitor gaming)?. Your current 7970 is still pretty high on the performance list. Even though there are faster single GPU cards like the 780TI and R9 290(X). There hasn't been any major GPU release since the Radeon 7000 series to date and likely won't happen until early/middle of next year.

it is a beast of a card no doubt. But, its that next gen games are starting to come out and i am unable to run my games at a quality that I'd wish whereas before I could run ultra and get a constant 60 fps. Like in Watch Dogs at Ultra it lags crazy or is that happening with everyone else?

 

[Iron124]

What do you want out of your new GPU compared to what you have (higher resolution, multi monitor gaming)?. Your current 7970 is still pretty high on the performance list. Even though there are faster single GPU cards like the 780TI and R9 290(X). There hasn't been any major GPU release since the Radeon 7000 series to date and likely won't happen until early/middle of next year.

it is a beast of a card no doubt. But, its that next gen games are starting to come out and i am unable to run my games at a quality that I'd wish whereas before I could run ultra and get a constant 60 fps. Like in Watch Dogs at Ultra it lags crazy or is that happening with everyone else?

Watch Dogs was very poorly optimized, even more-so on the AMD side of things. There's a reason nobody uses that game for benchmarks, even the heartiest rigs have trouble running it on Ultra because it doesn't know how to utilize the power that's actually there.

 

[caqde]

What do you want out of your new GPU compared to what you have (higher resolution, multi monitor gaming)?. Your current 7970 is still pretty high on the performance list. Even though there are faster single GPU cards like the 780TI and R9 290(X). There hasn't been any major GPU release since the Radeon 7000 series to date and likely won't happen until early/middle of next year.

it is a beast of a card no doubt. But, its that next gen games are starting to come out and i am unable to run my games at a quality that I'd wish whereas before I could run ultra and get a constant 60 fps. Like in Watch Dogs at Ultra it lags crazy or is that happening with everyone else?

Based on what I have seen Watch Dogs is just a really badly optimized game. Although a better GPU should give you better FPS. But it seems a lot of people don't get the FPS they would prefer in that game regardless of how good their GPU is.