Hi I have a Saphire radeon HD7870 in my rig at the moment and am happy with it's performance so far but I have been offered a GTX670 oc (Asus) for a good price. and I can't decide if I should go for it or not. The new Nvidia cards are getting good reviews but the 7870 did when it first arrived, looking at bench marks the 670 is well faster in some games like cod but in others it is only about 10 fps better. So the card is better but the question is how much better is it ? Anyone got any thoughts on the issue ? will it make a real difference ? Thanks. Bc.
It all depends on what you're playing tbh. If your trying to run BF3 or crysis2 on a 2560 x 1600 monitor at max detail, then yeah, go for it, otherwise, what's the point?
Hi Thanks for the swift reply. I mostly play FPS like COD and BF3 etc and I don't torture the card with really high resolution. So you may be right is there a point ?
A 7870 is still a brilliant card. It depends on the price of the 670 really, and if you have the money spare...
If the price is that good, then perhaps buy it and resell it for a profit? If you're desperate for that extra 10fps then (assuming you havent already) overclock the 7870. My 7850 maxes out the Catalyst sliders with no settings change and about 2 degree heat rise, for a 15%+ overclock. Pretty easy to do and with additional software can be clocked even higher with relative ease. And it's fun to boot!
Using BF3 at 1080p max detail 4xAA as a comparison, the 7870 does 43/53fps vs the 60/72fps of the 670 (min fps/avg fps). Long story short: stick with what you have.
Well it depends on the price of the 670. Im going to upgrade my card soon (6870) and plan to get a 670 if possible. The 670 is a good deal faster than the 7870 (But not massively so) and also has useful features such as PhysX as well as Nvdias new method of AA and Adaptive Vsync. However, having said that, the 7870 is still a great card and should have enough grunt for anything you throw at is at around 1920x1080. If your a frequent upgrader, id just wait a year or so and get the next 'generation' of cards. If however you only upgrade every few years or so, the extra performance and features of the 670 may be worth the extra cash (For longevity), assuming the price difference is small. Also worth mentioning, Nvidia have a better reputation than AMD for general support, particularly driver related. Although this really is a fairly minor issue as both companies offer effective drivers and good websites with tons of info and AMD have stepped up their driver quality in recent months.
With the advice from here the more I think about it the more I should just stick with the one I have and have a bit of fun with it then spend the cash on a next gen card.
How much is this 670? Depending on the price you could buy it, and like one of the other posters said, re-sell it for a profit.
id buy it if its sub £250 then resell it for £270-£280 + or you could sell your 7870 for £150 and keep it.
Cheers guys. The price for the card is £280 which seemed good as it is about £350 retail and if I could get around the £150 mark for my card that seemed a reasonable deal for a better card. But as you say the 7870 is a good card( mine is the saphire oc version) and the latest AMD drivers have supposedly made a big difference so maybe I should hang on.
Looks like you've already made up your mind, but I wouldn't do it at that price. The 7870 is still a good card - the next gen cards would be a more suitable upgrade (whenever they arrive).
Well £280 is a good price for a 670 (Though I have seen them at that price before, so its not a steal) and if you sell your card,your effectively only paying £130 for it. However if your going to upgrade when the next round of cards come out, why bother? you'd be better off putting that £130 aside for the 700 and 8000 series. Maybe go all out and get a 780 or 8970. You'd even be able to sell your current card for a fair amount to help cover the cost further. However, if you really want the 670, if you can find a buyer for your card then go for it, as if your really set on a 670, you wont be happy until you pick one up deal or not. I might also suggest you take a look at the 7950, you can pick up some great third party variants for under £250 that will allow you to overclock the card beyond the performance of the 670 (even when it has been overclocked). Furthermore with an extra GB of Vram its going to run (and has been shown to) better on higher resolutions, making it that bit more future proof. Even if you don't want to overclock due to the recent driver update, the default speed of the card is very close to the 670. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-065-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1673 Good custom cooler, large overclock and 4 free games. Still my original suggestion remains the same in that your better off waiting until the next round of cards arrives with all the improvements (and price crashes) they bring.
Yeah, the speed upgrade you will get is NOT worth £130. Probably not even £100, unless your existing card was struggling.
Agree with this. Its an OK price (670's go for £280 new anyway, and run so cool aftermarket heat sinks aren't 100% necessary), and unless you are playing at 1600p or more then no reason to upgrade.
Hi I never thought about the 7950, sounds a good idea/alternative. Having said that as you all point out there will no doubt be some new cards along shortly and as this card can hadle all that is there at the moment what is the point. I would like to thank you all for your thoughts and advice, I wanted to see what people thought about the diference between the cards and you have given me plenty of food for thought. Bc. I would also love to see Freespace 3
