Hardware & Technical GTX 980 $550 - should I wait another month?

Snowdog

S
With the $100+ drop in price this month should I wait another month or two before buying the 980? Do you think it will drop more or is this the price until after Christmas?

GTX 780 - $400 +
GTX 980 is about $550

My Wife said I could get the 980 but should I wait another month? I don't think it will drop much more prior to Christmas, what do you guys think?

Any suggestions, Should I be looking at any particular brand? Zotac, EVGA, Asus?

Its a lot of money so I want to make a good choice :)

Thanks guys
 

Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
Philip Coutts
Hmm the eternal question of when to buy!? Generally speaking graphics cards come down in price over time but usually the biggest drops are when they release the next generation. It's a tricky one. Overall my advice is to buy the best you can afford and make the decision with what you know at present. If it was me I would get the 980 now but then I'm impatient!

Good luck with whatever you decide.
 

Snowdog

S
Genophix said:
What's your current system like pal?
Click to expand...

GTX 560 TI
i7-3370 3.4 Ghz
8 gb ram
SSDD primary drive
64 bit OS Win7
Mother board - Biostar TZ77XE4 with 2 PCI 3 slots

2 - 27 inch monitors, getting a 3rd when I get the vid card

x55 HOTAS

10 gb internet
 
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[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
personally I would not even consider a 780


for me, it would be either 780Ti, 970 or 980, depending on your needs and rest of your rig.

the 780ti I would not consider either TBH myself, as I am happy to overclock, however if you are not an overclocker, the 780ti comes with a game which makes it cost effective.

but, my choice, IF I was a single screen 1080p gamer IMO its an easy decision, a GTX970 with custom cooling so you can OC the nads off it.

if you are a 3 screen gamer, or a high res gamer, or a "rifter" then its a tougher call, the 980 may be worth the extra wedge.

As for waiting..... imo we may see a game bundle coming with the 9x cards around xmas, but imo we wont see big price cuts till AMD get themselves back in the game.
 

MajorEpeen

MajorEpeen
I would try to wait a little longer. The price may drop when stock normalises. I am wondering how long it will be until the 980Ti or the next Titan is released. This may affect prices. The release of the R9 390X should also affect prices but I do not know how far out that is.

You could consider getting a 970 as the performance difference is not that great but the price difference is.

2x 970's will give you even greater performance if you could consider that.
 

Snowdog

S
zamalek said:
If your mobo supports PCI Express 3, definitely the 980. If it doesn't the difference will be marginal.
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Yeah I have the Biostar TZ77XE4 with 2 PCI 3 slots .. it just keeps getting better :) looks like the GTX 980 is in my near future .. now I just have to decide on what company..Zotac, EVGA, Asus? or some other?
 

Calebe

C
I have the Gigabyte GTX 970 and in open space it is over 200 FPS, at stations over 100. As your going 3 monitors you can go 970 SLI for not much more then the price of a 980. Both cards easily overclock and both have 4 gig of ram on the card.

Should you wait for a price drop, or wait for the TI version or a price drop? The eternal question buy now or wait. I was in that board I wanted a new card but decided I would wait for Maxwell and I am glad I did. Faster, cheaper, runs cooler at less power then the previous version. I would say buy now, only reason I doubt the price will drop much is as I said above they do better then the last generation for less money, less heat, less power used. So doubt any price drop. Enjoy the extra speed today.

Calebe
 

Sub

S
zamalek said:
If your mobo supports PCI Express 3, definitely the 980. If it doesn't the difference will be marginal.
Click to expand...

Not true at all. even a PCI E 2.0 slot would be fine, we haven't saturated 2.0 yet...

You'd see something perhaps like a 5~10% drop in performance over 3.0 with a 980 and most of that is because of power delivery and more about an old chipset and probably an older CPU than bottlenecking the card itself.

If you want the card now, get it now. It's LEAGUES ahead of the card you have now. You won't regret it, and it's got less power draw than your current card and will give out less heat so you win either way.

If you think you can save a few bucks by waiting, and really feel you need to, then wait. But it's always a case of when to jump, and whenever you do, you'll be happy, but the longer you wait the less value you will ultimately get out of the card because 'something newer' will come along sooner.

If it were me, on that spec rig, I'd go for it. 980's are wicked cards.

_Agamemnon_ said:
I'd go for the Asus GTX 980 Strix.
Click to expand...

From what I heard of the 780 Strix, I'd be avoiding the 980 Strix like the plague...
 

Anjin San

Anjin San
Kon'nichi Wa Snowdog

You could of course wait for Black Friday, which I believe is the 28th November. And hope that the bargains your looking out for are part of the sales!

Mata Ne
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
With the Christmas season, there will be promotions. Perhaps 10% - 15% ?
I suspect that the third generation of Maxwell, will be fantastic for the first half of 2015. Wait or not to wait. This is a difficult question
 

GuruNot

GuruNot
The 970 seems to be very good value for money at the mo, a friend recently upgraded to one and synthetic results compared to my 780Ti were :

i5-3570k & GTX970

Firestrike 9199
SkyDiver 21145
Cloudgate 17852
IceStorm 143919

i7-2600k & GTX780Ti

Firestrike 10225
SkyDiver 24256
Cloudgate 23823
IceStorm 136431

Now considering the 970 costs half as much as my 780Ti and uses considerably less power and run cooler, aint bad at all. Especially as you could get two in SLI for what I paid for my 780Ti.

As with all things computer, the moment you buy something it is superseded , so just choose the moment and go for it.

There are rumours we may see GM200 based cards before the end of the year, http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti-gtx-titan-x-coming/ , this may result in another price drop but initially the new cards will come in at a premium.

As for cards:

EVGA GTX 970 ACX 2.0

or

EVGA GTX 970 SuperClocked ACX 2.0
 
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Antmax

Antmax
I just got a 970 for $350 inc tax.It's quite a bit cheaper and only 8-10% slower than the 980 stock. Can be overclocked to equivalent speed.

I found no need to overclock. Both my games run at 1080p at 60+ fps Vsync.

ED docked runs at about 95fps on the 970 where my old 650 was about 23fps.

So I've had no need for overclocking.

If your running at over 1080p like 4k or something, maybe a 980 is worth it.

I wouldn't get a previous gen 7x card. They run hotter and use an extra 100w of power.
 
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