Get Kepler now or wait for Maxwell?

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Deleted member 1183967

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My build consists of an i5-2400 @ 3.1GHz, a GTX 460 1GB, and a 650W power supply. I put it together in June of 2011 and I felt like it was time to upgrade my video card. I was looking for a card that could run modern games in 1080p at high/max settings. I did some research and the card that has the performance I'm looking for and still rests within my budget is the GTX 770 2GB. My research also showed me that the 770 is basically a refreshed version of the last generation's cards, but it still surpasses the 680 in both performance and price. Now, I've never purchased an AMD card and I'm not quite as familiar with them as I am with Nvidia's. If I were to get a card now, would I be better off getting the AMD equivalent of the 770?

My main question is, should I buy a card now, or wait until next year or potentially even 2015 for the new Maxwell cards? Would you predict they will be priced similarly to the 700 series? Are they worth the wait? I'd like to stay within $450.

This is the card I was considering. Is it a 'good' 770?: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CYRVM4A/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
 
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Supernova1138
There is a difference between the regular 7970 and 7970 GHz, namely the default clock speed, the GHz edition has a default clockspeed of 1000 MHz, while the regular 7970 has a lower stock clock speed, I think around 900MHz or so. The 7970s tend to be good overclockers, so you can most likely overclock the regular 7970 to GHz edition speeds if you want to save some money, or spend more for the GHz edition if you want a guaranteed 1000 MHz clock speed and a better chance to overclock even further than that.

As for manufacturer, the biggest differences between them is warranty support and the type of cooler on the card. I personally have had good luck with Sapphire, Asus and Gigabyte are also supposed to be good, but I haven't used them...
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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The closest AMD equivalent to the 770 would be the 7970 GHz Edition. The 7970 GHz is a bit more expensive than the 770 right now (unless AMD has done a price drop on them recently) but comes with four free games. The 770 is slightly faster than the 7970 GHz at 1080p and below, at resolutions above 1080p, the 7970 GHz will either match or pull slightly ahead of the 770 depending on the game you are playing.
As for which one to get, depends on pricing, and whether the four games AMD is offering with their card interests you.

If you are unhappy with your current graphics performance, you might as well upgrade now, Maxwell is a year off, and AMD isn't likely to release their new cards until the end of this year. There is always something new around the corner, so there usually isn't much sense in waiting unless the new lineup is coming out in say 2 months or so.
 
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Deleted member 1183967

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Thanks for the reply. I had another question: Do the manufacturers of a card matter that much? If so, which would you recommend? I found this 7970 on Newegg for just $370 ($350 after the rebate) and it's loads cheaper than some of the other 7970's with the same memory buffer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Edit: I also noticed that there are regular and GHz editions of the 7970. Is there a large difference between the two?
 
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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There is a difference between the regular 7970 and 7970 GHz, namely the default clock speed, the GHz edition has a default clockspeed of 1000 MHz, while the regular 7970 has a lower stock clock speed, I think around 900MHz or so. The 7970s tend to be good overclockers, so you can most likely overclock the regular 7970 to GHz edition speeds if you want to save some money, or spend more for the GHz edition if you want a guaranteed 1000 MHz clock speed and a better chance to overclock even further than that.

As for manufacturer, the biggest differences between them is warranty support and the type of cooler on the card. I personally have had good luck with Sapphire, Asus and Gigabyte are also supposed to be good, but I haven't used them personally. I personally would avoid MSI, I haven't had a good experience with them due to some rather shoddy RMA service.
 
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Deleted member 1183967

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I would overclock the card, so I suppose the GHz edition would be a better choice since it would allow me to get even more speed from it. I don't know how to word this question better, but does the 7970 GHz edition ship overclocked or is 1000 MHz what is comes at by default. I'm just curious because if it already is overclocked, overclocking it more would just push it even further and potentially shorten the lifespan significantly.

If I do go with the AMD card, I think I'll purchase this GHz edition. It's by Sapphire and it's the cheapest GHz edition I could find on Newegg, Amazon and several other sites.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Edit: After doing some more research, I came across the 7970 OC. I'm assuming this is what I was referring to above. It comes pre-overclocked, thus bringing it higher speeds, but also limiting how much further I can overclock it. If this is correct, the GHz edition sounds like the best of the bunch.
 
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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The GHz edition is the best performer out of the box with no tweaking. The GHz edition may be able to overclock a bit further than a non GHz card because the chip is binned higher, though it is very much luck of the draw. If you want to save a bit of money, you can go for the Sapphire OC edition which is clocked at 950 MHz, odds are you could OC it to 1 GHz without any trouble and get GHz edition performance.
 
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Deleted member 1183967

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I apologize for my never-ending list of questions, but I have another one for you. The 7970 was released in 2011, but the 770 was released this year. Does that mean anything? It feels odd to purchase a card that's already two years old.

Edit: I don't want to stray too off-topic, so I'll mark this thread as answered and create a new one.

Edit 2: Of course, I selected the wrong reply as the solution. I'm assuming there's no way to change it?
 
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Supernova1138

Supernova1138

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The 7970 was paper launched at the end of December 2011, it didn't actually become available widely until the start of 2012. The GTX 770 isn't really new technology either, it's a rebadged GTX 680 from last year with a factory overclock put on it. The only really new technology that Nvidia has released this year has been the two GK110 cards, the Titan and the GTX 780, all the other 700 series cards are likely to just be rehashes of last year's stuff.

I think you can unselect a best answer and assign it to another post if you want.
 
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