Saving Now For Future Upgrades

DISCLAIMER: I would not consider myself an expert on graphics cards, maybe an informed individual though. The information below is based on my own opinion and rampant consumer speculation. What is written below does not reflect the opinions of AMD or nVidia.

With the 680M and 7970M in an all out brawl for the title of best mobile GPU (nVidia holding most reliable and ATI/AMD best price to performance ratio) and myself on the cusp of ordering a new laptop I began to think about the rumored 7990M.

My initial idea was to buy the AMD Radeon 7970M; one of the two highest end mobile GPUs available. Then a new thought came to mind. Buy a laptop with an older GPU (say the GTX 660M or 675M), and upgrade to the 7990M come the suspected release this holiday season. This would allow me to save money now and then jump

Now for those of us that don't know, the AMD Radeon 7990M is an unannounced GPU that would essentially be a rebranded 7970M with higher clock speeds. This rumored GPU would be compatible with the current connection ports Up until the next generation of GPUs comes out and further innovation is needed to compete in the market.

This plan however, has some flaws. Many people are skeptical of the 7990M, they believe it simply won't happen with the current graphics card generation.
Others believe that AMD/ATI has no reason to release a new graphics card after the success of the 7970M. In fact relying on the 7990M to replace my older card could backfire if the 7990M isn't released or the next generation of GPUs don't support current connections.

My conclusion is that without further information I cannot rely on rumors and speculation to determine my choice of graphics card. I will be purchasing the 7970M unless more information surfaces or AMD officially declares their newest release schedule.

 

Yeah, its best not to trust internet rumors. Especially ones about high end products months away from being shipped (look at how insane apple ones get lol). Best to stick with what you know is a safe bet.

 

Well I wouldn't consider the 7970 a safe bet considering how many complaints we have heard about AMD's drivers, graphics switching, and performance problems. I haven't ordered my M17X yet though so hopefully I get a none defective card with functioning drivers.
Does anyone think that Dell shipped defective cards anyway? I know Clevo had back orders for a while when the problems popped up.

 

That's what I'm thinking. It's more of a driver flaw correct? I hope I don't receive a defective one

 

My 7970M Crossfire setup is working perfectly. I've had a few hiccups here and there, but that was my fault for flashing the VBIOS.

The ONLY game I have any issues with at this time is The Witcher 2. With everything on Ultra sans Ubersampling, when looking around FPS dips down to 40.

Other games like Crysis 2, Max Payne 3, BF3, Metro 2033, the 2 new Batman games, Skyrim, Dues Ex: HR, Dirt 3, Dirt Showdown, Fable 3, Far Cry 2, Bulletstorm, L.A. Noire, and Tribes: Ascend all play buttery smooth at max settings in Crossfire.

Other folks seem to have issues with crossfire and 7970Ms, but I did a fresh windows install when I got this rig and am just not having any issues other than what game to play on this sweet machine!

 

If you play the 'wait and see what comes out next' game then you will ALWAYS be waiting. Its not like the card is at the end of its cycle. When the 7990 comes out, there will be another card on the cusp of release, then a card after that, then after that and so on. The 680m and 7970m are both new cards and this is a great time to buy (especially the 7970 for the price).

 

Exactly.

The only thing that would prevent me from buying right now (if you wanted Nvidia) was the prohibitive price. If anything like the 580m pricing, we should see that tail off in the months to come....THEN you could weigh up any options of any freshly released cards....but as pointed out above, if you keep postponing, you will never buy. Because AW (or any other high-end machine) is kinda "bleeding edge" graphics, there is always gonna be a bigger and badder option available just a few months after you buy...even if you wait and buy what you think is worth waiting for!

 

Hello friend, my limited experience suggest one rule:

Choose you spec based on your need!
Focus on the kind of games you are planning to play in the next 12month and make your decision on that!