A lot are doing that but I don't think we'll see 7970s much below £240 or so. Since they're EOL the clearance ones aren't being made any more. Just 2-3 weeks ago the Matrix was going for about £380.
Both of those ASUS ones have a DirectCU II cooler which are fantastic. The slower clocked one will easily clock up to the one which is clocked higher so I would save the £40 ish and get the slower one. I don't think you need a new CPU. The difference between a first gen i7 and a second/third gen will not be big enough to warrant a change. The i7 860 is still a very decent chip, especially at 3.8GHz. It'll pack a good punch. I completely disagree that it "needs" an upgrade.
I did consider waiting, but last time I did that I missed out. I suppose it's not long until release and the card I want is on "pre-order" anyway. I'm going to see what it's like with the i7, i'm sure it will be okay at the settings i'll be running. What is the "now" CPU out of curiosity? (best performance\price)
Performance comes at a cost, but the best one is easily the 4770K. Seriously though, your CPU will be fine. You may lose a couple of FPS, but nothing major. Your CPU is still faster than any of AMDs chips so don't even consider going down that route. At £230 for a 7970, I would not pass that up to be fair. It's a very good price and a very powerful card to say the least.
I second this, Hawaii as AMD call it is set to launch in a week so either there will be further price drops on current 7970s and/or a better equivalent!
It'll be fine in single player, it may struggle a little in multiplayer. The best CPUs for BF4 will be the 4770K and the FX-8320 (or better). The new AMD cards will be announced in a week or so, but the deals on the 7970s are ending very shortly.
^^Lol, was just about to say I'm looking for a replacement card for my trusty 5870 and I'm eyeing up the 7970 as well, or the new 9970 should it be feasible.
The 7970 Matrix is now £269 inc delivery at ocuk. Very hard to resist. They also guarantee you'll get it on pre-order.
I'm rocking an i7 920 stock with a 5870 and I'm getting about 70 - 80 fps on BF3. The older i7 chips still hold their own!
This bit on the OCUK offer is bugging me. Is that to lure people into shifting the last few cards because the new cards are that much better performance per £. Or is the new replacement at RRP not that great perfmance per £ and the 7970 deal a one off that you don't want to miss out on. Need insider info!
No single reference. Lots of them. BF3 multiplayer can struggle a little on older CPUs at times, and the minimum recommended specs for BF4 are much higher. There's nothing to suggest that single player will be very intensive. The new game is heavily optimised for 8 threads, and in games that follow this, generally the i5s and older i7s can struggle compared to a 3770K / 4770K. The game was demoed on 8350s for ultra settings - where this is necessary in multithreaded games for good performance, it normally means an i7 is a good idea too.
Ha. Well they've said that the 7970s are EOL. No more are being made. That doesn't mean they're going to sell all of the remaining stock before next week, but once they're all gone that is that. They do the deals via the partners themselves, so they tend to do a low price deal and order up all the remaining stock for these things. They're pretty open about the process.
I'm just questioning whether or not i'm going to miss on out the 7970 to find the new card is faster but a lot more expensive so performance per £ isn't as good. I should just shut up and wait I haven't thought about new kit all year, now i'm getting all overly excited
New Top range GPU's normally launch's around £400. I would buy a 7970 and save £150+ no way is the new card going to be 60% faster.
At best the new GPU will be 25-30% faster than the 7970 in my view. That'd put it ahead of the GTX 780, which sells for over £500. The new one will be less than that for sure, but I'd be surprised if it is much under £400.
Every Intel generation since the 920s gains about 5 to 8% performance wise. The OP is only missing out on ~20% CPU performance at best I'd say. The chip is still more than capable. Big deal if it was demoed on a 8350. I bet an Intel quad would still **** all over it and then laugh.
