I'll let you decide if it is a worthy upgrade. Do you have any specific games in mind? The 7870 can play 9 out of 10 games (or more!) on ultra settings 1080p. That includes Battlefield 4. And the 7870 is Mantle compatible, so you will secure the use of that.
Rough comparison on stock clocks:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/858?vs=857
7870 has a good bit of overclocking headroom, so it should be a little faster than that. Card:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-111991620g
I mean, if you wanted to get the motherboard now, you could even wait until Nvidia's 800 series is released before you pick up a new GPU. The mobile variants of the 800 series are going to launch early 2014. The desktop variants will follow that - though, we don't know how long that will be.
Mainly BF4, bio shock, need for speed, mainly action games really.
BF4 and Bioshock love AMD cards. And they aren't the most intensive of games. The 7870 can easily handle those on ultra. And the 7870 can play Metro LL on at least high or very high settings. I made some edits to my last post with a few benchmark results (out-dated, the 7870 will be faster now following driver improvements and any overclocking you decide to do).
I included the cheapest 7870 I could find that's got a decent cooler. If you sell your old motherboard, you'll have a few extra pennies to chuck at a GPU of your choice.
Thanks for that, I've read that a lot of my favourite games are in favour of AMD. I'll have to consider the 7870! If you were in my position what would you do?
Well, I don't think 1080p gaming requires much more than a 7870 or a GTX 760 at the most. That's enough to play almost all games with ultra presets and a good amount of AA.
I see a lot of people using 780s at 1080p, and the truth is that most games won't even use that power.
Fact is, the 560ti can still play games. I think you could grab a motherboard now, and then wait as long as you please to see what develops. But £130 is a bloody good price for a 7870. Though, I would be tempted to pay the additional ££ for the M5A99X to secure dual GPU setups.
If you sell your old motherboard for a few pennies, you might save up for a 120GB SSD. There's a few SSDs that I can recommend around the £60-70 price point.
There's a lot you can do here to get a good, balanced system.
Just been looking at some benchmarks of the 7870 compared to the 560tI and dear lord does that look tempting!!
People underestimate GPUs. You don't need big money for a good gaming experience at 1080p.
Many of the more expensive cards are used for productivity and surround gaming (3 panels). The 7870 usually sells for more than £150, so the card I have shown you has a lot of bang for buck.
it was only a couple of months ago that I swore that the gtx 770 and above was the only way to play games at 1080p smoothly...... Go how wrong I was!
You can use the 7870 for a good amount of Skyrim mods too. Yeah, it's a very balanced card for 1080p gaming.
I used to think 1080p ultra-tier gaming required two GPUs.
You learn something new everyday, I may have to get the 7870 first, seeing as it's on sale then the new mobo later this month, do you think AMD or Nvidia will release anything soon, sub £200?
AMD have already done their launch. Mostly just rebrands. The 270X is just an up-to-date 7870 which sells for quite a bit more. Nvidia won't be releasing anything for near 6 months, I suspect. As I said, the 800 series have mobile GPUs out soon, but the desktop GPUs won't release for months. And when they do, they will be more expensive than they're worth. Which is usually the case with Nvidia GPUs.
Ok thanks for the information :) I may have to consider nabbing myself one of those 7870's, I was thinking about getting a 270x to replace my 560ti but if its just a rebranded 7807, then what's the point!
I would still prefer a 270X. I played Bioshock Infinite on an HD 7850 1GB just fine, on my Core2Duo e8600.
I'm also going to point out that 670s are around $300 USD right now.
so the 7870 will be even better :D