Doubt it will go down much for the 970 to Match the 480 as the main reason for its $200 price is due to its 14mn FinFET GPU

With AMD, you get great performance for the price ever since they launched direct x12.
It didn't affect positively NVIDIA cards tough, even loosing some power due to the inclusion of V-sync, not a lot but it is noticeable.
NVIDIA on the other hand grants you some superior graphics that they locked on their cards.
Let's face it. Microsoft helped AMD a lot with direct x12. Probably to get better pricing on their console?
It just bad for NVIDIA that tries hard to sell their cards when Microsoft's API gives great advantage of one company over another. It's not what I would call a fair competition.

@UM,

Isn't the API used the choice of both NVidia and AMD? It would only be unfair if there was an exclusive agreement between AMD and Microsoft, but there isn't. Nvidia simply chooses to focus much more on a different standard.

We still don't have official benchmarks relax and we are going to see benchmarks with stock coolers(that GTX970 is overclocked + cost $330 and the AMD isn't + cost $200). When other companies release their own cards they will run better plus we need to know on what drivers these cards where running on. I can tell your an Nvidia fanboy but its ok.

@Fries agreed

Better support with drivers? Nvidia loves to give less support to older cards.

I keep hearing that but I have not had any issues with either of them. Maybe because I just don't pay attention to the details and I don't benchmark my rig.

I went from 9800gx2, to gtx 460, to hd 6950, to hd 7950, to gtx titan black. I should have never sold my titan black rig :( I haven't had any know issues that I can think of. I want the new 1080 but I'm really interested in what these new AMD cards can do for the price.

It's not so much that AMD drivers cause issues. Rather Nvidia just manage to squeeze more out of the hardware then AMD through theirs. The days of 'broken' AMD drivers are behind us, but Nvidia still do it better. Either way, both are offering great performance for price these days.

It's funny to me mostly because my very first discrete 3d card was an Nvidia Riva 128 in 1997, back when everything was 3dfx or gtfo...and it's driver support was abysmal...Had to wait almost a year before OpenGL support arrived to work properly with Quake 2 and QGL. I was nvidia only all the way up to Vista, and driver support then is not exactly something i'd call...stable...either.

My 280x is the very first AMD/ATI product I ever owned...bought it summer of 2013...and have yet to have a single driver related problem with it (other than a conflict with win 10 still trying to force download amd drivers at random times, but I at least stopped it from installing them)...that includes mantle on BF4, all the 'bad' ogl support for Rage and Wolf: NO and OB as well as Doom...it has performed perfectly on everything i've thrown at it, especially considering it's architecture from 2011...

Just depends on experience I guess...I gave up on PC last gen; Vista was a joke and both consoles walked all over anything PC related for over half of it...that has changed significantly over the past couple of years, but I don't have any modern experience with nvidia to know how much 'better' it is...but, I wouldn't hold them up on the pedestal that many seem to, that's for sure...

Saving to get my first gaming pc. Im very ignorant to tech. Life long hardcore console gamer. How often does the average gamer replace cards? Is it around a 4 year cycle depending on software? Thnx if anyone answers

Dead devil,

There's no clear cut answer. It depends on a lot of factors, mainly motherboard choice that will affect future upgradeability, so in essence it boils down to picking up a good future proof moth/rd and a decent relativly high end GPU that will last you until you cant run new games at your prefered settings.

Say you want 60+fps on all games @1440p and all settings at high or ultra then you will have to get a 980ti or Fury x and above. Keep in mind that each year you will have to drop settings to keep the affortmentined performance so it depends on your personal preferences.

My advice to you would be; mid- high level performance for the next 3-4 years? Get a 980ti or fury x. High to ultra level? Wait for the 1080ti and AMD Vega GPUs.

Forget sli or crosf, too unstable.

@Devil

Whenever you feel it needs to be replaced. RX 480 is a good place to start.

Ah love the disagrees when you actually post facts :D, so many sad people in this world ^_^

Disagrees are definitely not warranted, but a lot of cards are released with drivers tested for currently released games and previous released games.

Drivers do tend to improve performance over time, but lately it depends on how the developer choose to optimise their games. Drivers can only do so much.

I will say this, from my experience with ATI, they tend to drop the ball a bit with drivers which is sad because when they had their XT line (9700, 9800 etc) They were absolutely some of the best drivers ever...so pre-AMD.

Now it's really hit or miss. I remember buying 5870 and my friend bought the 480 GTX, both cards were on par. 1 year later the 480 GTX was nearly doubling my frame rate because there was just the lack of support.

Either way, this card absolutely amazing if you can get 780 ti/970 performance out of it. CrossX will cost u only 400$ and u can compete with the 1080!!!

No not yet. I gave customer service a called last week and they said it should be out for shipping by this week.

Awesome! When is the Ti version coming out? How much do you think it will be?

Ti is most likely set for a Autumn Release, around Nov.

How rediculas really. You can't say a word that's allowed in most PG films and prime time TV but the game is based around killing the enemy team using guns, explosives etc.

It's just backwards.