{"id":31388,"date":"2012-01-25T15:48:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T13:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=31388"},"modified":"2012-02-03T17:54:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T15:54:35","slug":"dont-upgrade-your-graphics-card-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/31388-dont-upgrade-your-graphics-card-yet","title":{"rendered":"Don’t upgrade your graphics card yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a follow on from “Hardware you should buy right now<\/a>“, we\u2019ve decided to put together reasons why you shouldn\u2019t buy a graphics card just yet.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of exciting things set to happen within the next few months, let\u2019s take a look at a few of these.<\/p>\n

AMD 7000 series<\/h3>\n

AMD\u2019s recently released 7970 is making waves, as high-end cards often do. Combining impressive performance figures with a range of new and interesting features like ZeroCore and Eyefinity 2.0, comparing the 7970 to anything else on the market makes AMD\u2019s new high-end offering the obvious choice for gamers. There are some things you should take into account however.<\/p>\n

The first is price; the card starts at around R6,500 locally, which is a lot. More than most gamers would be willing to spend on a single card.<\/p>\n

Secondly; the HD7970 can only currently be compared last-generation offerings from AMD and Nvidia, so of course the HD7970 will clean the floor with everything else. If it didn\u2019t the card would be a failure.<\/p>\n

Finally; AMD is preparing to launch the lower-end HD7000 series graphics cards in the next few months. These will cost less than the HD7970 and chances are good that they\u2019ll offer a greater price\/performance ratio while still retaining all of the new technology found in 7000 series cards.<\/p>\n

\"Amd<\/a>

Amd Radeon 7970<\/p><\/div>\n

Nvidia Kepler<\/h3>\n

Nvidia also have big plans for the coming months. The Kepler architecture is the latest generation of Nvidia technology, with the cards being based on an all new 28nm manufacturing process. It will bring features such as PCI Express 3.0 support and DirectX 11.1, and compete directly with the AMD 7970 series.<\/p>\n

Once Kepler is out, gamers will have a wider choice of graphics cards available to them, and there is a good chance Nvidia\u2019s new cards will put pricing pressure on AMD\u2019s 7000 series. Once the dust has settled, expect either price drops from AMD, or competitive launch prices from Nvidia.<\/p>\n

\"nvidia<\/a>

This is a GTX580, but if you close your eyes and imagine, it turns into a Kepler based card<\/p><\/div>\n

Don\u2019t care about the latest generation of tech?<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019re not interested in the latest high-end technology and would be comfortable grabbing current AMD 6000 series or Nvidia 500 series cards, you should also hold off on upgrading.<\/p>\n

When stock of the new series of cards lands, chances are good that retailers will try to clear their shelves of old stock, meaning sale prices.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in the second hand market, keep an eye out once the new high-end cards launch. All of the early adopters will look to shift their old cards once the replacements arrive, so expect a wave of \u201cold technology\u201d to hit the local second hand market.<\/p>\n

\"old<\/a>

Old tech is still cool!<\/p><\/div>\n

Bottom line<\/h3>\n

There is a time to buy a new graphics card, but that time isn\u2019t now.<\/p>\n

Rather hold off for a month, or two, or three, or even four if you have too. You\u2019ll have access to a range of new exciting technology available at aggressive prices, or slightly older but still capable technology at clearance sale pricing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No buts, you should hang on a while longer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":31392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7],"tags":[1051,21,45,2120],"class_list":["post-31388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-hardware","tag-amd","tag-headline","tag-nvidia","tag-nvidia-kepler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31455,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31388\/revisions\/31455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}