Windows 7: AMD 7000 Series

How many of you are running AMD 7000 Series in your gaming PC's. I will really appreciate if you people can tell your benchmark scores cause in reviews they use latest possible hardware which not everyone runs so can't really rely on them.

I've read loads of reviews about these and come to conclusion that 7870 is best bet at the moment to go for as 7970 is way too expensive.

Moment of truth, shall I ditch my 5770 crossfire and buy one 7870 or wait for prices to go down further.

Thanks

I would hold, the two current series out right now Nvidia's as well.
These are stepping stone improvements. I honestly believe the next generation will come quickly (fall/winter)
and will be a much larger improvement in real world performance.

The best numbers to look at would be at hardware compare where they just take the actual features of the card and put them head to head for you.

Honestly the 7970 is a serious beast it actually blows away my current card that handles bf3 maxed without complaint. Which is actually kind of my point too though your crossfire rig should be getting pretty good frames even if it's a middle card that kind of sucks at anti-aliasing. I'm guessing your overall experience gaming is not too different from mine right now. (see my specs)
So why bother getting in a rush?
I could be wrong about this, but I am seriously expecting a 7 series nvidia and a 8xxx ati before the end of the year.
...and at the moment I don't see the actual need to upgrade considering the list of games on the horizon and the fact most of them have rather middle range recommended reqs.

The new bioshock I think is among the heaviest reqs of any games comming out before the end of summer anyhow.

Normally just to be fair I would recommend a nvidia equiv for you.
Right now there sadly isn't one, even the gtx680 is slower not by a huge amount but it is slower, and more expensive. So unless you wanted to play with some heavy physx games I don't really see why you would want nvidia right now.

+1

Couldn't agree more but just wanted to see real world benchmarks.......

The best way to get a real idea is hardware compare. Unfortunately I just looked and they do not have the stats for crossfired 5770s (they have crossfire stats for many other cards) which makes it harder to say. I did notice your rig wasn't that far off mine on the heaven benchmark though. I was surprised by that to be honest. I have a 5850 and this gtx580 is an improvement over it, but not a drastic one with the exception of maybe batman arkham city, and bf3 with AA on. Where you really can tell how much horsepower the gtx580 has. I still consider them both good cards.

I'm rambling now, the truth of the matter is I was hoping hardware compare would answer a lot of your questions and it still might if you just jump between comparing various cards you have a good idea about.

Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare

As you can see the gtx580 at least in the way of memory bandwidth is a good marker. I still consider it a good buy, but as you can see the 7970 is noticeably higher.
(and I got my gtx580 for 100 bucks plus shipping from ebay)

I already looked at that website but results don't seem appealing to me as no actual gaming benchmarks are there. Also AA doesn't matter, as it only fools the eye to make image look smoother

Before I had this gtx580 I may have agreed with you about aa.

It makes a significant difference.
significant.

Only on the nvidia card though, my 5850 in the other machine, it starts choking and blurring the second you try to crank up aa.

I'm not going to push this issue because it will likely just sound like fanboyism, it's not though, it is what I see with my own eyes.

And it doesn't fool anything it actually works to eliminate jagged edges which in games with large worlds does make a huge difference. In some games it even helps to clear up effects and motion.

The actual purpose of aa is to eliminate 'image noise' (ideally to remove it but that rarely happens)
I'll have to be honest with you this is the first card I've had in my life that has made me a believer in it myself. Nvidia, and ATI alike.

Now that I've finally seen it functioning the way it was apparently meant to, I'm a much bigger believer in it.

Agree, I know nvidia is far better than amd at the moment, its not fanboyism mate, these are facts. Its just I can't justify the price you pay for them.

In benchmarks, numbers are much higher but in actual game play, difference is not that big. So I think the moment amd wins price per performance. Only if nvidia matches the prices to amd cards, amd will be doomed!!!

if you want a amd card then just choose the one that performs well enough for what you want it to do like chose my 6870 because it does everthing I want it to do and can max all my games with out problems so i'm happy.