Hey people! I've been wondering about something. I've gotten myself a new computer, just didn't change my Graphics card, so My question is should I wait until nvida or amd release new gpu's?? I've been hearing and seeing news that amd are gonna bring new tech to the market this year.. But should i wait or not? And i've been thinking of getting a R9 285 it's in a good price range for me . Want some good opinions, because i have an old Gpu already.. (Radeon 6870 1Gb ram)
That depends on how much performance you want. The r9 285 should result in about double the fps, has tripple the vram and is decently priced. If you are struggling you could go for it. The first 300 series gpus from amd will probably be the high end cards, so that would probably shift things around in the higher end bracket.
What might be interesting for you would be the 960, but I think it will most likely perform around a r9 285 for over 200$.
So...If you can get a 285 for under 200$ you can go for it if you want to upgrade right now, r9 290s dropped a lot in price so you might also look at those. If you are fine with your fps at the moment it is always better to wait with gpus.
Make sure that you have enough room, wattage and cooling btw.
I upgraded from a 6970 to a GTX-660ti a few years ago. It was a great upgrade. I would check to see if you can get a cheap 660ti on Ebay. Otherwise, I have seen 760's for under $200 with rebate. That would still be a great upgrade. I would make an effort to get more RAM if possible. It seems like new games increasingly need more than 2gb.
That's one of the Questions SkipP, i've seen that they wanna ditch DDr like memory in favor of something new!!! My question in this case is should i wait or go get a R290? or maybe a 960?? i've heard that the new tech is using 3D memory or something. And also new Titles seem to gobble up VRam LIKE crazy! Dying light, The Witcher 3 , bunchs of of others... :S Also Thanks for the responses!
No, all graphics cards are pretty much using hte same memory these days. Waiting for the 960 might be a good idea. i got a 970, and it is awesome. The reason why I mentioned the 660ti, is that I just sold mine for $100 on ebay (I think in total with shipping it was like $120-something). That would be a great improvement for cheap, and it will not require a PSU upgrade (an R9 290 might).
With that card you will not be rushed to upgrade over the next few months. Also, when you buy and sell on Ebay you never lose that much (buy for $120, sell for $90, buy for $200, sell for $160,...). I bought that EVGA 660ti SC for $300 and sold it for a third that price two years later.
I do think that there will be deals as the 960 comes out and AMD has their releases. Do check deals. I got my EVGA 970 SC (their overclocked version) for $300 as an open box at Microcenter. It was perfect save for missing cables and instructions that I do not need. Keep your eyes on advertisements. NewEgg and Microcenter often have random deals on old video cards.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that games keep loading textures etc in your vram if you have enough of it. A game might use 2.8 gb on a 4gb card, but that doesnt mean it needs that much and a 2 gb card wouldnt be o.k. Skyrim in 1440p with over 100 mods uses about 2,5 gb on my 3 gb card, but when I clear the vram its only around 1,5 gb.
That said, I wouldnt recommend a 1gb card for 1080p anymore, 2gb should be enough for the near future. For higher resolutions or longevity 3 or 4 gb.
Thanks you both! I have a 650 Psu corsair and i don't play at 1080p! just a 720p :( plan to upgrade that part in the future. Maybe il just wait until i can have a decent enough idea of the future cards, to see if they are worth buying. One thing though my pricing in Europe of 960 is just... Something..
There were rumors that the r9 390x was going to be using stacked vram, like the ram would sit on top of the gpu die. It was a confusing but plausible rumor due to a couple factors that I can't recall. But to answer his question everything out uses the same ram tech but with varying bit rates. Higher bit rates help with higher res but for his 720p screen the bit rate isn't even going to be a factor.
If i do upgrade my screen, i will upgrade to 1080p, so i have to take in consideration that, but not right now! Yes i saw that that thing about stacked memory and what not , that would be a jump ! My question in that sense is should I wait for the next Gpu's to see what they bring? ( Just a question, anyone knows a date or something of the kind, for when they are supposed to release?)
R9 285 has 2GB, but is supposedly more efficient with its pcie interface.