Feedback Wanted Stick with XFire HD6950's or upgrade to GTX 980

[Jaque]

Hey team,

 

I've had my twins for the past three years, and they've done good work for me. It seems that they are starting to hit their limit, though. During Far Cry 3 I could hear them crying (and see the constant stuttering). Let's not even get started on Star Citizen's problems with Crossfire... besides the fact that for me it is currently almost unplayable.

 

So I'm wondering if you think dropping the $600 to upgrade to the shiny new GTX 980 would be a good decision. $600 is a bit of change for me, but given how much time I spend gaming I could justify it. It would also leave room for SLI down the road. Is there something else coming out in the next few months that I'm not aware of? 

 

One of the 6950's is XFX's- the first one failed on me after three days and I just get the feeling that the shoddy manufacturing is manifesting itself somehow in performance, as well. 

 

Thanks brothers n' sisters!

[Osclin]

Personally I'm holding off a little while longer, want to see if they announce a time frame for an upcoming die shrink, or at least a 980ti so I have enough options to make it a real decision.  Everything I"ve seen suggests the 980 is a great card, but if I were forced to buy right now I'd probably go with sli 970s.  Great performance, comparable cost(when buying two) relative to the 980, and so much overclocking room it isn't even funny.  But if you eventually want the power of 2 980s, might as well go 980 then.

[Chimaera]

I am not going to upgrade my GPUs til closer to launch unless, for some reason, the Beta of the game is SOOOOO bad that I can't play it the way I would want. I'm more concerned about whether my CPU will still be "good enough".

[Osclin]

I am not going to upgrade my GPUs til closer to launch unless, for some reason, the Beta of the game is SOOOOO bad that I can't play it the way I would want. I'm more concerned about whether my CPU will still be "good enough".

 

Yeah, I keep telling myself to wait at least until Sq42, but while my 550ti runs quite smoothly on medium settings at the moment it is only a matter of time before the game grows beyond my hardware(i5 2500k won't hold out too much longer as they start adding assets).

[MagicStick]

I am not going to upgrade my GPUs til closer to launch unless, for some reason, the Beta of the game is SOOOOO bad that I can't play it the way I would want. I'm more concerned about whether my CPU will still be "good enough".

Same here.

[EriVel]

If you have to upgrade now, 980.  If you dont need to upgrade now, wait.

[Jaque]

If you have to upgrade now, 980.  If you dont need to upgrade now, wait.

 

Ya, the question for me was "if I were going to upgrade, would this be the card to grab?". And for me I suppose it's not just about SC. Just did 3D Mark 11 on my rig and came back with 9200. GTX 980 (even with a lesser CPU paired) gets 18050. Obviously that's a flawed comparison but it looks pretty tempting.

[Genesis]

Just wait out a little while longer.

[L@neWolf]

If you need to upgrade now as a stop gap. Single monitor setup: GTX 980, triple monitor setup:  SLI 970's.

If you wish to save some money towards your next build, then possibly just a single 970 for a single monitor, they do O\C very well. 

I'm using dual Gigabyte Gaming G1 GTX 970's in SLI and am very pleased, currently OC'd these with +120 on the base clock, and 400 on the memory clock. Room for more, but my goal is not to push the limits, but stability and good temps. Basically comes down to your own cash flow, and long terms plans. I should note that SC is not going to be optimised for awhile yet, so I would suggest concentrating on best bang for the buck for other titles your a playing, with a long term plan of a complete new build closer to when SC is ready for prime time. Rumour has it, some nice GPU's (20nm based) are inbound late next year, which should be the next gen upgrade path.

L@neWolf

[Gremlich]

I think that a single GTX970 would be sufficient for the next 1-1.5 years. And no telling what new GPU tech will be brought out in 6-9 months. Avoid re-investing! I have a GTX760 4GB running two monitors that serves me just fine and I am not worried about having greater performance than 30FPS atm on anything that I play.

[Mumbles9172]

I have upgraded from sli 670s to a 970 that I will eventually sli. They use less power and have better OC capabilities. I only upgraded because I will be grabbing a 4k display on Black Friday. Just be warned 970s have some serous coil whine. EVGA ones being the most notable. Also EVGA has some heats ink issues. I believe MSI 970s don't have this issue. Running the Gigabyte G1 970 and it runs quieter than those 670s when not under load.

[TRON]

I am running a single GTX 670 2GB which is fine for all games at the moment.

 

I will be upgrading but the new tech allowing extremely low power usage in gpu's and much higher bus / memory bandwidth has only just started seeing the light of day. I am waiting until they have a single card with large amounts of memory and large memory bus for an affordable price with low power usage, all in one card that can run any game at 60+ with 4k resolution.

 

They are getting very close to this. Another 6-12 months and we will start to see cards like this.

 

Waiting until the last minute.

[Timziito]

Wait for 980TI or even longer, next release after 900 series will be Nvidia biggest step in a long time.