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Thinking of upgrading from 7870 to (7970,770,280x)

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  • Games
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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November 19, 2013 6:14:57 PM

Hi guys, I am thinking of upgrading my 7870 (1200/1450)
Resolution is 1080p
The cards I have been looking at:
AMD 7970
Nvidia GTX 770
AMD R9 280X.

Is it worth even upgrading to one of the above cards? I just want to max games comfortable at 1080p. (Or should I wait for next gen, whenever that is)
(I have had this system for 14 months and the 7870 has done a fine job since then but it is struggling a bit with newer games maxed out as expected)

Is my corsair gs600 powerful enough to power these cards also.

I like the 770 because of PhysX but the 2gb vram put me off because I want a card that will last me a while, but I am sure games in future will require more than 2gb VRAM.
I am currently playing: Metro Last Light, Borderlands 2, Batman Arkham Origins, Guild Wars 2, Rift, League of Legends.

any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Specs:
Intel i5 3570k (stock)
8gb DDR3 ram
xfx 7870 2gb
corsair gs600

More about : thinking upgrading 7870 7970 770 280x

November 24, 2013 8:29:06 AM

anyone?
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November 24, 2013 8:32:18 AM

personally i think if you can hold out until the beginning of Q2 2014... you would be getting your moneys worth out of an upgrade. i fully expect the 780/r9-290 to drop comfortably into $349 price bracket by that time and a card like those would offer you much more of a performance jump over a tahiti/keplar gpu.
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November 24, 2013 8:38:52 AM

I actually used to run 2x 7870's and was able to play most things absolutely maxed, the issue with that is crossfire in general is just a pain. Was given the chance to switch out my 7870's for 7970's (and pay an extra $150 but thats not bad) and found that most the time the performance was near the same, seems the 7870's crossfire better.

Anyways, I have since refunded the 7970's and decided to do a little test with a 290x and a GTX 780Ti, rather, I bought both of them and ran them both in my system to see which performed the best, by looking at my stats in signature you can see I picked the 780Ti, it outperformed the hell out of the 290x even in AMD games which surprised me.

Now then, on to your question, and sorry for my rant.

600w is fine for a single GPU, I've run a 7970 off 450w in the past (stock with no voltage changes). Now then, what I will say is the games you have listed will run better under nvidia, but if you are like me you will prefer AMD. In that case, you should either upgrade to a 7970 or if you don't mind dealing with crossfire issues in some games you could run 2x 7870 in crossfire (should be fine under 600w assuming you have the slots and mobo spacing).

For reference (took these myself over the span of the last month):
1x 7870 in BF4 maxed settings: 25-35fps avg
2x 7870 in BF4 maxed settings: 40-50fps avg
1x 7970 in BF4 maxed settings: 40-50fps avg
2x 7970 in BF4 maxed settings: 60-80fps avg
1x 290x in BF4 maxed settings: 70-85fps avg
1x GTX 780Ti in BF4 maxed settings: 80-110fps avg (dips to 40-50 in certain areas)
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