Upgrade my Radeon HD 7950 now? Or Wait?

skylanepilot · Apr 8, 2015

Hi everyone,

I currently have an i5-4590/asus h97 gamer pro/16gigs ddr3/samsung 850 evo on the way. I'm replacing my old and true Phenom 940 setup. Since I'm tearing everything down, should I replace my 7950 now? What do the next 3 months look like as far as GPUs?

The 7950 does fine for me. It's stable while overclocked in ATI Catalyst, but I want it to be able to run The Witcher 3 when it comes out.

Please let me know your thoughts. From what I've read, it looks like the R9 280X is the best bang for your buck in the $250ish price range.

disturbed force · Apr 8, 2015

I would keep your 7950 for a few more months and see what AMD's 300 series is like, the 280x really isn't worth the upgrade in my opinion.

You can also find 290's in that price range, and they would be a much better upgrade. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150697&cm_re=290-_-14-150-697-_-Product

Onus · Apr 8, 2015

As a rebadged and slightly tweaked HD7970, the R9 280X is only a slight upgrade to an overclocked HD7950. I'd save your money for something more substantial, if you need it.

rolli59 · Apr 8, 2015

I just upgraded from HD7950 to GTX970 to go to 280X (renamed and tweaked HD7970) is not enough performance jump to warrant upgrade.
The HD7950 should still do fine.

jovce17 · Apr 8, 2015

wait 3 more months ...R9 300 series is shedueled to be released by then

skylanepilot · Apr 8, 2015

This is why I love this forum. Thanks for the fantastic and lighting fast responses! I will hold on to this video card and see what the future brings.

Thanks very much

WhiteSnake91 · Apr 8, 2015

I've also had the upgrade itch before but for 1080p tbh the 7950 is still a great card. I've been able to play any game on ultra, without the taxing msaa, or at worst, 1080p high settings even with my i5 3570k at stock.

The only real substantial upgrade would be gtx 970 level, but I think that's overkill for 1080p, of course that all depends what details you want to crank up, but I got out of the rat race of having to crank everything up, that'll eat your wallet alive.

anyway, it struck me as odd Witcher 3 lists the i5 2500k as minimum intel cpu, but the way slower phenom x4 940 as minimum AMD. That doesn't make sense, and they also list the hd 7870/gtx 660 as minimum gpu. That struck me as odd too seeing as it'll run perfectly fine on the way weaker consoles. That means our hd 7950 is barely scraping above minimum spec, I'm calling unoptimized. Maybe the devs think everybody is going to use their very taxing ubersampling mode, but I'm certainly not. I expected a $330 gpu at the time (hd 7950) to last longer than ~2 years. Certainly didn't see it barely scraping above minimum specs...which is ridiculous as it'll run fine on the way weaker consoles. I'm going to wait for video reviews.

I've actually been having random BSOD that points to driver problems so I ordered a gtx 660 on a good deal, it's a step below my 7950, but pretty much on par with the 7870, which played 64 player bf4 conquest on 1080p ultra (no msaa) at a constant 60fps with my stock i5 3570k, so a gpu on the 660-7870 level is certainly no chump, which is precisely WHY the high Witcher 3 requirements scream unoptimized to me. I like CD Red, but the specs are too high.

skylanepilot · Apr 8, 2015

WhiteSnake91 :

I do feel like the 7950 is still decent. I honestly think it will breathe even better when I put a better CPU/memory behind it. I'm definitely not one to want every game on max settings, so I hope the Witcher's minimum requirements are off. Or, I hope it looks good at medium-high settings and can be played at 30+ fps. I hope it's not another Crysis situation where that game required such ridiculous hardware to drive it at max settings.

coozie7 · Apr 8, 2015

You'll find that the old HD7950 will do much better with the faster CPU/MB/RAM behind it.
Wait and see how Witcher3 runs, if it's OK you've saved yourself <>$250 if not, well, you were going to upgrade to a R9 290 anyway, weren't you?

skylanepilot · Apr 14, 2015

coozie7 :

Thanks for the reply. I have my new build going, and yes the 7950 runs NOTICEABLY better with the new processor behind it. I will wait and see.

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Upgrade my Radeon HD 7950 now? Or Wait?

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Onus

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rolli59

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jovce17

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skylanepilot

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WhiteSnake91

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coozie7

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skylanepilot

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