How many years should the 7970m game for?

How many years should the 7970m game for?

 

Uhh, a lot. I have a Mobility Radeon HD 4650 in my laptop (although I should be ordering a P150EM with the oh so sweet 7970M at the end of the month) and I can still play everything that comes out. Granted, not at 1080p, and definitely not maxed out, but still play - yes.

 

There's no set time.

Cards such as the 9800M GTX (4 years old) are still going strong, as are GTX 260M's (3 years old), 5870M's (2 years old) etc. There should be no reason it won't be a strong contender 4 years from now.

 

We won't know until Sony and Microsoft announce the specs of their next consoles. Given rumors, it sounds like they are going to be pretty economical this time and try and release hardware they won't lose money on for several years. If this is true, then the 7970 might be able to play games (console ports) for quite a bit longer. I would give you a minimum of 3 years before you even find a game you can't run on high/max settings.

 

if you're not to fussy...the 7970m will last you years. If you are a chronic like me, the 7970m will last untill the next generation or about 6-8 months

 

I say three years. Multiplatform system requirements are what they are right now, and we're dealing with 7 year old dinosaur GPUs.

Even if the new console specs are "conservative" by today's desktop standards, they'll still be 5-7x faster than the 360/PS3, and that's a huge leap in the closed box environment of console development. The target goes from barely 720p and a shaky 30fps to a mandatory 1080p/30fps. PC gamers will feel that bump.

Plus if anything the efficiency of ports will get worse, at least initially, as developers come to terms with the new hardware.

 

1st year awesome

2nd year great

3 year decent
depending on your pockets upgrade 3rd year for keeping high end graphics

or if your cheap/poor a decent 4th year of gaming at mid graphics at that point.

 

or if you're like me, you'll get the midranges (9600m gt in 2008, gt 555m in 2011) and feel obselete the 3rd year :/

 

I'd say 7970 can get you through 2 years of high end gaming, and then much longer on mid settings and older games.

To stay ontop of high settings and new games, no top card really last more than 2 years.

 

Because bandwidth and fillrates are reaching desktop standards the life of the GPU should be much longer than they were a few years back.

The problem you are going to face is new engines being released that require the latest hardware for instance frostbite 2 showed this because it was chewing up mobile cards that before it was released were performing near the top.

Also with the rate they are increasing the performance of cards in 2 years the jump from the 5870M -> 6990M -> 7970M is pretty scary. In 2 years time this card will be well out of date but it should still performance anywhere from 2-4 as most high end cards should.

 

yes and no. Yes to the game engine well said. That is a very good point. To the second part not really. The reason why there is such a difference is because the 7970 was a gem in a dozen. It was a die shrink and an architectural change in one. This is very very rare. We stuck with 40nm for ages and thats why the performance change this time around is huge. We probably will stick with this process for a good 3 generation just like the last one. GPUs lack the change in die size because they reply on other companies to make them for them.

 

The next Intel tick is 2014 so I stand by what I said 2-4 years it will run for and in 2 years something will be easily outperforming it even with the same DIE size.

Each year they improve the performance drastically and release better high end models as I said you only have to look at the jump from 5870M to 6990M and they were both a 40NM process. Not to mention technology advances are happening quicker and more drastic than they used to 1st Gen to 3rd Gen of Core I models. Boom.

Also Directx 12 will eventually arrive.

 

The gtx 260m still perform well in games.. Its at the level of a gt550m..

 

i agree the 2-4 years all i was saying that this year is particularly special/different from normal years for GPUs. It comes once in a great while where its the best time to hope onto a new upgrade.

 

Until Doom 4 comes and blows the world of graphics cards again...

 

lol doom 3 looks bad in my eyes because it looks so over the top fake....best way for me to describe its graphics is like watching 300...yuck. though they require a good card even today to play it. My 260M still has issues with it overclocked lol. Only played it once very briefly to give it a try.

 

The 7970M is phenominal I totally agree with that and I am just biting the bullet and holding out to see what the 7990M produces but this was also said about the 6990M back when it was released it was a such a huge step with 40nm and the options that the 32nm process brings will open even more doors.

I am sure it will be said about the 9970 in 2 years time as well.

 

the thing is
7970m = 2x 6970m
6990m = 2x 5870m

we had enormous gpu growth in 2 years, dunno about how the 4870m compares to the 5870m

 

Well I am just now upgrading to a 7970m system after years on a desktop 9800 GT. That card can still run most games on decent settings and is essentially 6 years old (being more or less the same as an 8800GT). I'll be surprised if I feel compelled to upgrade in less than 3 years unless the industry goes to some super high res and/or 3d stuff before then.

 

hopefully we will switch to quad HD or something like that in the next 2-3 years as a standard.

 

Till death if ur playin at 1280*800

 

I expect all current cards to work perfectly fine until the new consoles release, then I doubt it will matter if you have a 7970m or something older, game requirements are basically going to double overnight with the new consoles, and current GPUs likely will not cut it anymore.

 

Until Maxwell 22nm comes out in 2014

 

As many years as an AMD 6970M gamed

 

It was mostly static, infact had the 4870M been equipped with GDDR5 it likely would of been a bit faster.

The 4870 mobility had a 4870 desktop core down clocked where as the 5870 mobility used a 5770 desktop core.

 

thanks!

I thought as much, but having nothing in terms of how they behave downclocked couldnt make the leap

 

Well the HD4870m and HD5870m and their desktop counterpart share the same basic architecture with the HD5000m having tweaks, DX11 etc etc.

The main difference for mobile is that the HD4870m had a much lower core clock headroom as well as overclock capability. While it would have surely had higher memory bandwidth than the HD5870m, the sheer raw power advantage of the HD5870m would surely kept it ahead.

But yeah, it was esscentially the same card.

 

Again, you can not use any mobile GPU released in the last 5 years as the barometer, because the 7970M will have next-gen consoles release in year two of its lifespan.

We've been spoiled by the laughable 360/PS3 GPUs, but that nirvana is going to end relatively soon.

 

How do you think I feel with the 5650m lol!

I wish I could get a new lappy but just can't afford it yet *sigh*. Hoping when (if?) I get a job at the end of my degree next year I'll be able to afford a brand spanking new super omnipotent top-of-the-range graphics-munching monster beast - just in time to reap the benefits from the console refresh too!

 

Nothing wrong with the 5650M I am quite happy with my 540M GT in my M11 it gets a lot more use than my Clevo

 

In terms of raw horsepower I'd be surprised if the consoles are any more than half of the 7970M.

 

I concur. Current rumours even place consoles with HD6700 class GPUs. Far behind what's available on the higher end.

Of course consoles have their advantage of being able to squeeze power much more easily, but still I doubt we will be that outclassed.

 

Remember I just paid the price of a launch console for my next graphics card....

 

You can't judge the console GPU like you would if it was in a PC. The PS3 has been running on a glorified 7800 series Nvidia GPU, and you see it's running games with graphics which an actual 7800 could never hope to pull off.

Them bumping up to 6000 series GPUs and GDDR5 memory will bring huge improvements.

 

I wanted to upgrade to an acer 5942g with 5650 but resisted. I hope I will be able to get something like an amd 7770m or nvidia gt 650m. These cards are a big boost. By the way your 5650m was 40nm dx11 15-19w card which is one of the best mid range cards and plays any game on high at 720p at 30fps+ I believe. My 9600m gt gddr3 still holds its own. My cpu is the most frustrating in terms of when encoding. I don't know if I will upgrade to ivy bridge and 28nm graphics unless I find an incredibly cheap deal.

I just wish they still made 16:10 screen laptops, I have 16:9 laptops lying around and they look rubbish if I am honest in terms of how low down they look. Its like it has less height and more width.

Anyway 5650 is good enough for 720p gaming but if you upgrade get a 7770m or gt 650m or higher for 1080p gaming. 7870m would be ideal.

 

running at ultra low resolutions, framerates and texture details then sure it could.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer'

its a nerfed 7800...more like a 7600

 

If you can overclock that card as much as I have overclocked my nvidia card in my acer, It should last you around 4 years. I can still play battlefield 3 at about 35-38 fps on low. But I am getting a 7970m for my sager.

 

You are forgetting that resolution, details, etc. are lower on consoles compared to PC ports, and, in A LOT of cases, those console ports are HORRIBLY optimized - which effectively ruins things for PC gamers (who usually have a generation or two better hardware by comparison).

 

7 -> 8 -> 2xx -> 4xx -> 6xx

make that 4 distinct generations.

 

OR 7->8->9->2->3->4->5->6

7 total distinct/rebranded lol

 

There were no real 3 series on desktops and I did not include shinks/rebrands

 

The optimization is pretty much my whole point. You see how it is now? Think of how "horrible" it will be when console-centric developers are coming to terms with hardware that's 7x more powerful than what they currently have.

Also, let's not overlook how graphically incredible some of the 1st party developed games have been, especially on the Sony console.

 

I think mine will last for 6-12 months till something substantially better from AMD comes. Probably an 8970M.

After my mistake of buying a 580M (as I thought it was better than a 6990M as all the Nvidia fanboys said - it wasn't at all from my experience), I will staying away from Nvidia... who seems to almost always cater for the rich fanboy.

 

I would say that both AMD and Nvidia cater to “the rich fanboy” in the sense that we’re talking several hundred dollar components in roughly $1,500+ machines. These aren’t financially challenged people problems…


I hope my 7970m will last for a year or two, but I plan on upgrading once something worthwhile comes along.

 

Some people are still on a budget when they buy a gaming laptop. I remember when there was a massive price difference between 6990M and a 580M for pretty much the same performance. Plus whenever the 680M comes out to compete with the 7970M, it's gonna cost absolute loads...

 

It will be future proof for at least a couple of years.

I absolutely can't wait for the console refresh. The PS3 and 360 are holding graphics in the dx9 win xp era. It is high time for this to change. Hopefully graphics will in the next 5 years get so lifelike that pc games like in the old days will focus more on mechanics, gameplay, plot and length. If the graphics look perfect and can't get better then who cares how much more powerful the next gen of GPU's get

 

Oh we forgot low FOV and large guns.

 

As long as you're willing to play on the worst graphics settings you're good to go for a few decades! Seriously though, I would guess high or ultra settings on games for at least 2 years.