Modern GPUs with longevity

[Meatapult]

Hello, I've just finished building a new gaming pc to upgrade my nearly 4 year old pc.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4EwU

That's my current build, and as for graphics cards I'm using my old 9800gx2 sli'd with a second one I acquired from a friend for $50. Sli'd these 2 cards are still competitive (tho outdated) with today's better cards. I'd like to eventually move to a tri-monitor surround setup and unfortunately 9800s don't support that.

While researching cards I've found that some modern cards seemed to become outdated very quickly, while others, such as the gtx295 and my beloved 9800 seem to never go out of date. Now I'm wondering, what cards if any that are coming out shortly/ already released do you believe will be able to stay competitive for more than 2-3 years?

 

[nottheking]

What do you mean by "go out of date?" The natural progression is that each new, the bar is raised yet more in terms of power. It's just a matter of how long it takes a card to sink away out of sight from the top.

Dual-GPU cards like the 9800GX2 and GTX 295 are examples of those that are so powerful when they come out, that it takes a while to sink away, but their power ages the exact rate that others do. The same sort of thing will happen with high-end successors like the GTX 590 will do much the same. Alternatively, weaker cards will still hold up, just to a lower bar.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The dual GPU cards were substantial improvements and had a fairly decent price / performance ratio. This is getting less and less so. It's long been "accepted wisdom", not to buy the top of the line CPU as the 2nd best was half the price and just a notch down in performance. Yet, this strategy didn't apply to GFX cards ...... till now.

For example.....

A 590 gets you 881 fps in Guru3D's test suite for $750 at a cost of 85 cents per frame
A 580 gets you 616 fps in Guru3D's test suite for $500 at a cost of 81 cents per frame
A 570 gets you 524 fps in Guru3D's test suite for $340 at a cost of 55 cents per frame

But now.....

Two 560 Ti's gets you 862 fps in Guru3D's test suite for $410 at a cost of 48 cents per frame. How do ya justify a pair of 580's when it costs 2.5 times a pair of 560 Ti's and gets just 10% more fps ?

How do ya justify $750 on a 590 when ya can come within 2% of the 590's performance for just 55% of the price ??? Especially when adding an other 590 nets you just another 10% performance increase.

I think the most viable cards will be the ones which provide the best bang for the buck. Right now I'd say the 6870 and 560 Ti fit that bill....more so for the nVidia cards as they age, the can find additional life as a PhysX card.

 

[nforce4max]

If you are thinking about cards that will hold up performance wise for many years long after they have become obsolete hard to find collectors items then sad to say post G92/GT200 era cards are not even built as well compared to the older cards. The newer cards have a lot of nice features but their poor build quality and design shortens their life span immensely. Some last barely 6 months of regular daily use while some might last two or three years before kicking the can.

For something to upgrade to better research a lot into the design and quality of the cards before just looking at the performance charts. Cards that have next to nothing to cool the power vrm should be avoided while cards that have very few power vrm phases yet easily load 200w ect while under stock or near stock clocks are ticking time bombs.