Cheap 590 upgrade?

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Kardonxt

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Apr 13, 2009
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I'm looking to upgrade my GTX 590 to something it bit more consistent. Unfortunately I'm back to being a poor college student and can't afford another $700 GPU. Recently I've been playing a lot of mmos that dont support SLI or Xfire and it's really killing my frames at 5760x1200

I'm heavily considering a 7970ghz since they are selling cheap enough that selling the 590 and waterblock will pretty much cover the cost of a used one.

Would the 7970 Net me a big drop in games that properly support SLI? Particularly at 5760x1200?

I was also looking at the 770 but I think 7970 water blocks are more readily available on the used market and the extra gb of vram could come in handy at high res.

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Or do I wait and see if the 9 series brings out something in a few months? I'm itching to sell my 590 before it becomes worthless however.
 
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My thinking is you sell your 590 and get a used 7970. I looked it up briefly and it appeared that the difference was generally nominal at your resolution. It is much more significant at lower resolutions. But at your resolution there is very little difference on many games. With a used 7970 you can sell it for nearly what you paid for it when the 8 (edit apparently its the 9xxx series) series comes out. Then you can gauge for yourself whether getting the 8 series is worth it depending on their benchmarks for your particular games. BTW, I have a 590 I am looking to sli so if you do end up wanting to sell it, PM me. If you don't play the games that don't use sli very often, it probably isn't worth changing out. Do the games do crossfire?
 
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Thanks for the input. Those were pretty much my thoughts.

Nope most mmos don't support multiple gpus xfire or SLI. I had the same problem with my tri 5870 setup back in the day But didn't play enough MMOs to care.

If I end up selling i'll let you know.
 
I don't think that model supports voltage control but ya I think that's the plan. Now to see if I can find one used with a water block lol.
 
Man in my opinion this isnt good advice your basically upgrading to a lesser card?honestly i would sell the 590 and just get a gtx 780
 
The water block just because i like to watercool my gpus for better overclocks and to keep things quiet.

As far as a downgrade my thought is It's only a downgrade in games benefiting from SLI. In most mmos I am pretty much getting GTX 580 performance out of my 590 currently. At 5970x1200 res the cards seem to trade blows even with games that support SLI.

A 780 would be great but it's out of my price range right now. I suspect it will be dropping in price when AMDs 9 series hits.
 
Banenwn said:
Man in my opinion this isnt good advice your basically upgrading to a lesser card?honestly i would sell the 590 and just get a gtx 780
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If this guy is looking to be as frugal and smart about using his money now is a terrible time to buy a 780 and a reasonably good time to buy a 7970. Also, just look at what he wants to do. He wants to play mmos that don't use crossfire or sli. For that purpose, a single 7970 Is much superior and he could easily trade in his 590 and get one with some cash. If he buys a used or even on sale 7970 now, he can resell it in a couple of months for probably only a 10-30 dollar loss and by then the 780 will have dropped in price by more than that.
 
greybaby said:
If this guy is looking to be as frugal and smart about using his money now is a terrible time to buy a 780 and a reasonably good time to buy a 7970. Also, just look at what he wants to do. He wants to play mmos that don't use crossfire or sli. For that purpose, a single 7970 Is much superior and he could easily trade in his 590 and get one with some cash. If he buys a used or even on sale 7970 now, he can resell it in a couple of months for probably only a 10-30 dollar loss and by then the 780 will have dropped in price by more than that.
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I dont consider 15% performance increase superior and im not sure what a used 590 goes for but im betting he could easily get $500 for it and for another $150 he has a gtx 780.Not sure why you think its a bad time to get a 780 when with a slight overclock they will match a titan.Dont expect the 780 to come down in price anytime soon even when the 9000 series come out
 
I'm watching ebay auctions now. I'm am expecting to get $350 out of it if I want a reasonably quick sale on the forums. From what Kyle is hinting at we will most certainly see a 780 price drop. Most aren't going to pay a $100 premium for a slower card.

Depending on what AMD shows in the next hour I may pick up what I'm am expecting to be a flood of cheap 7970s or one of their new high-ends. I hope HardOCPs review will include eyefinity res and we wont have to wait for a part 2.
 
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