Looking to upgrade video card.

Hey guys so I plan on doing a new build this summer and wanna start slowly gathering parts.

First I wanna get a new video card to use in my current system though.

I currently have a 7970Ghz Edition and am looking to upgrade to an nvidia card.

Money isn't a problem and i've been looking at this card here.

I'm not expecting the biggest jump in FPS but a tad bit.
Any advice would be appreciated.

At 1920x1080 7970ghz is only about 25% slower then a GTX 780ti But with the newer Nvidia drivers for direct x 11 games its gone up but its still not a big jump like 35%. At 1600p then its over 40%. and the 290x is abit lower then 780ti.

Now for $730 and getting only a 35-40% increase in performance is really a waste of money. If you want more performance and if you have a motherboard that supports Crossfire(which still has issues) see in getting another 7970ghz.

If your dead set on a gpu upgrade and your motherboard supports SLI. I would go for an overclocked GTX 780 and overclock it some more and be on par with a 780ti for $200 less. Or you could go the 4gb GTX 770 SLI route spend less then 780ti and be around 20% faster. Or if your wallet can go with two GTX 780's for 1k and be nearly twice as fast as GTX 780ti.

Ok sounds great.

My motherboard does support Crossfire but I was told not to bother with it as it can be apain

When Crossfire works its great but AMD still has not fix the frame time issues and is really bad with Direct x 9 based games.

So what processor/motherboard and psu do you have?

Here's my current build.

It's the Processor/Mobo I kinda wanna get away from. I've stuck with AMD for a long time, but it seems Intel is the way to go nowadays.

DO NOT do Crossfire. Single card solutions are always best. If you have the money then I would get the 780ti because it'll still be a great card when you need to upgrade the rest of your computer.

As already been said, get another 7970 or 280X which is the same GPU, the gain will be equal to single 780ti.

Why are you upgrading?

The only reason to get SLI, is if you want to burn money.. Ive had SLI.., its not worth it.

You spend a shitton of money on GPUs, you have double the heat production, and power consumption. That you also have to dissapate...

And for what 50 to 75 percent more performance if youre lucky, and on next gen a single card beats you SLI...

Not worth it, that my 2 cents worth :P

Personally I don't see the point in upgrading from a 7970.

I'm sure between us we can come up with better gaming related things to spend your money on ;)

Animal, since your not using intel , but a Phenom 2 X6, your best option would be getting a new cpu,motherboard and reuse your DDR3.

You can grab an i7 4770k with a good cooler and a Z87 motherboard and you will see much better gains per dollar then spending $500-$750 on a gpu or gpu's.

It's what I'm thinking. But if you're doing it start with CPU and mobo - get a Haswell i5 or i7 and wait till GTX 800 and R9 300 series(es) are out.

Depends on your situation. For example, I have a HAF 922 with an additional side fan, so heat dissipation shouldn't be a problem. You generally get more performance for less money when you SLI.

I'd wait for nvidias next gen cards, they'll be out soon enough probably. I don't really think you should be tossing 800 dollars away on such a minor upgrade. Your current card should be able to hold you over. But if money is no object, then i guess do it. Probably only 10-20fps more gain... i wouldn't do it though, i'd need a big performance jump to buy a 800 dollar card.

I have a 680gtx its around same as your card in performance and haven't hit any games i can't max out yet. Most I game at 2560x1440 sometimes... if i hit gpu problem i game at 1080p on my tv, depending on the game.

This you would be better of going with a new cpu then a new gpu later if you feel you need it.

Extra power to just play with.

Alright, i'll definitely look into that. I'm not all that tech savy when it comes to PC builds. I just know how to put them together and what does what.

What exactly would the CPU replacement do that my current CPU doesn't or isn't pushing enough I guess.

Well, an i7 is about 40% faster clock per clock then the P2 X6, which means that apps and games that only use 1-4 cores you can expect much better minimum fps, higher averages too. Even with games that make use of the 6 cores in that phenom you will see a difference. Say your getting 60 fps average in BF4 MP with the X6 with the i7 you could see steady 80 average. Then for minimums with the X6 say you would get 50 fps with an i7 it be 60 minimum. Also the i7 can feed data to your 7970ghz better then that X6 can which again you will see better gpu usage and better performance in general.

Leave the GPU till the very last minute. No point having it sit there losing value.

Gotcha.

So essentially it's better to upgrade the CPU/Mobo due to the current CPU I have essentially not utilizing the hardware I have. (the simplest gist of it.)

yep

Its pretty useless upgrading from 7970GE to 780ti...Little performance boost huge costs..The same amount of VRAM(next-gen games might use a lot of VRAM)I say wait wait for next-gen maxwell parts and then get the best..That might be worth it..Right now I would be surprised to find a game that 7970GE could not run on ultra settings.

I don't want to pry too much. But, is the 7970GE lagging for games already?

Isn't the 7970 a rebranded r9 280x? Are you having performance issues or something? Personally, I wouldn't upgrade until I needed to. Your CPU however could use a upgrade. May I suggest a AMD 9370?

It just has trouble with Anti-Aliasing and has a huge performance cost so I have to keep it from anywhere 2-4

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone in the thread for being such a great help!

Things you can spend money on to enjoy gaming/your PC more:

Monitor

Mouse/Keyboard/Controllers

Sound

Games!

Sell gpu!

@Animal-Mother Buy a used 290 for $300 cause those fricken miners just saturated the market with them. Pray that it unlocks to 290x. Throw an aftermarket cooler if needed. ??? Profit.

A new cpu will smooth all the hiccups though.

What have you decided to do ?

As @04dcarraher in the thread said i'm going to upgrade the CPU/Mobo this upcoming weekend to a 4770K and the Z87 Mobo so I can reuse the ram.