Looking for a worthy upgrade for my VTX3D Radeon HD 7970 GhZ Edition (GW2, WoW)

[Medizon]

Hi there,

I desperately need an upgrade for my gpu. Playing mostly GW2 and WoW and would like to set up streaming via xsplit. Especially when playing GW2 the coil whine gets extremely annoying even with vsync activated. When doing a greater event with many players, the FPS drop from 40-50 to 10-11. I just want a gpu within the budget (300€ / Germany) to run all of the above as smooth as possible.

Running an Intel Core i5 4670K and 12 GB RAM on an MSI Z97-G45 Mainboard. Playing at 1080p atm but considering going for 1440p.

Any suggestions for solving my problem are highly apreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Azurenys]

http://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00NNXVPS2/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?qid=1435823456&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&keywords=gtx+970&dpPl=1&dpID=41tKaV7SfYL&ref=plSrch

A little over your budget but its worth it over a 960. Zotac isn't the best brand but it will still be a beast when it comes to new stuff.

[fixx]

GTX 960/970 are NOT worthy upgrades over 7970 GHz edition. 970 is only about 30% faster at max fps. You'd have to look at 980ti or Radeon Fury to see a big improvement.

OP should instead try to diagnose if something is thermal throttling for example, or what else might cause the sudden drops. MSI Afterburner should work for showing the CPU/GPU temperatures and loads while game is running.

[Deleted]

GTX 960&970 arent comparable, you are talking about a mid range and a (pretty mich) high end card there. (with a little OC the 970 is as fast as a stock 980)

In raids my GTX 970 is getting bottlenecked by my 2500k at 4,3 Ghz (The 970 is sitting in raids at 50-70% load, but the CPU is maxed out)
While questing and dungeon running i'm getting constant 60 FPS on ultra, in tanaan for example is my GPU load near 90%, while my CPU is at 50%

I can only speak for 1080p, but the time i tried downsampling from 1440p, i got around 45-50 fps in the open world (everything maxed out), and the GPU was the bottleneck.

If you are aiming for 1440p gaming 300€ wont be enough. (I think you'd need a 980, and upwards to be a little bit futureproof in 1440p gaming)

I highly recommend the GTX 970, i got mine from Amazon warehousedeals (the packaging was scratched, omg...) for 301€ (The Zotac one)

Edit: I think that, iirc, WoW highly favors nVidia GPUs, be it because of the architecture or something else, dont know really, but i've read it very often.

[Azurenys]

GTX 960/970 are NOT worthy upgrades over 7970 GHz edition. 970 is only about 30% faster at max fps. You'd have to look at 980ti or Radeon Fury to see a big improvement.

OP should instead try to diagnose if something is thermal throttling for example, or what else might cause the sudden drops. MSI Afterburner should work for showing the CPU/GPU temperatures and loads while game is running.

Even by your words, how is 30% faster not a huge improvement? Plus it supports the upcoming DirectX12 which will be a game changer for many.
Not to mention it will probably be cooler than the AMD if OP spends a bit more on a Gigabyte/Strix version... Less power draw too.

All of that sounds worthy to me.

He could do 1440p with it if he clocks a bit, like said above and removes AA or Shadows.

[fixx]

Even by your words, how is 30% faster not a huge improvement?

We're talking about throwing some $400 at the card here. I don't know about you, but I don't even bother thinking about GPU upgrades before it's at least 50% higher fps than with previous card, preferably double (meaning skipping one or two generations between upgrades).

You need to keep in mind 7970GHz is somewhere between R380 and R390 in performance so it's not crap by any means. Besides the missing DX12 support.

[Deleted]

The problem is not the gpu and its performance.The problem is that nvidia cards run in wow specifically alot lot better than amd. Same cpu and you can see one giving away 15-20frames higher than the other. Unfortunately thats how it is, linked a some benchmarks in wow draenor that show it in a recent thread. Even a gtx760 runs better than an R9 290X in wow, and i am talking in both min and max frames, sad...

[Bigvizz]

The problem is not the gpu and its performance.The problem is that nvidia cards run in wow specifically alot lot better than amd. Same cpu and you can see one giving away 15-20frames higher than the other. Unfortunately thats how it is, linked a some benchmarks in wow draenor that show it in a recent thread. Even a gtx760 runs better than an R9 290X in wow, and i am talking in both min and max frames, sad...

Here's wishing for a more balanced market. /fingers crossed

[fixx]

The problem is not the gpu and its performance.The problem is that nvidia cards run in wow specifically alot lot better than amd. Same cpu and you can see one giving away 15-20frames higher than the other. Unfortunately thats how it is, linked a some benchmarks in wow draenor that show it in a recent thread. Even a gtx760 runs better than an R9 290X in wow, and i am talking in both min and max frames, sad...

Doesn't really affect minimum and average FPS which is more CPU bound, only the maximum FPS which is mostly irrelevant.

[Medizon]

Thanks for the replies so far. Went ahead and checked the loads of my system with the MSI Afterburner today. While CPU and RAM being at an average 50-70% load during gw2 on high settings (didn't even bother to go ultra settings as my gpu would go batshit insane) however the gpu had like a 100% load all the time while being at a steady 70 °C temperature. I guess the temperature is okish but the constant coil whining and the fps drops during events with more than ~30 players make it very uncomfortable to play.

Didn't test load during WoW yet as it's not bothering me remotely as much as GW2 does. WoW has a steady 30ish fps in 20-man raid environments infight without any noticeable coil whine which is completely fine by me - even if I think that it's rather weak for a gpu of this calibre... But that's a first world problem.

[Deleted]

Doesn't really affect minimum and average FPS which is more CPU bound, only the maximum FPS which is mostly irrelevant.

Usually it should not, but in this case unfortunately it seems that it does.

[Artorius]

Even by your words, how is 30% faster not a huge improvement? Plus it supports the upcoming DirectX12 which will be a game changer for many.
Not to mention it will probably be cooler than the AMD if OP spends a bit more on a Gigabyte/Strix version... Less power draw too.

All of that sounds worthy to me.

He could do 1440p with it if he clocks a bit, like said above and removes AA or Shadows.

His current card is also compatible... And he probably won't notice great FPS difference going into 1440p at WoW with his current card, his card can handle it just fine. The game isn't exactly heavy at the GPU department.


Frame rate drop at high populated scenarios is going to happen with both GPU brands, even if Nvidia runs WoW more stable.
Sincerely, from my experience people tend to have much better WoW experiences after giving their CPUs an OC.

[Evildeffy]

Usually it should not, but in this case unfortunately it seems that it does.

I should smack you upside the head for not actually acknowledging this in my previous post about the same matters...

Also I told you last time, deep linking images won't work for that website, so for your future linking experiences you can use the following link:

Warlords of Draenor - Patch 6.0.2 - Multi-GPU Benchmarks - November 2014

[Deleted]

I've no idea what you mean, works perfectly for me, can't you see the images? Maybe its you?

[Evildeffy]

I've no idea what you mean, works perfectly for me, can't you see the images? Maybe its you?

Unless you are a frequent visitor of that website you will not see the image.
You need to have the cookie from that website, which means you'd have to open the website first and THEN use your link to see the picture.

Otherwise it will show to everyone else as a "deeplink" which that website does not tolerate.

Hence why I've given you a directly saved link you can re-use for future occasions if you want to link it so everyone can see.
Also... /smack upside the head.