Upgrading from HD 5850, GTX 780 or wait?

I currently have a core i5-3450, AMD HD 5850, 8GB RAM, a 650W PSU, an SSD, and two 7200 RPM drives.

i game at 1080p and am having trouble with games like bf4 (new maps and big explosions) in which i have everything set to medium at 1080p with textures high and the framerate drops to 35-40 fps during intense firefights. Games like shadow warrior, arkham origins, far cry 3 tend to look really bad when i can get them to run smooth at 1080p. i don't expect to game at higher resolutions.

my question is, should i upgrade to a GTX 780 now or wait?

criteria for waiting:

• current high end cards' prices drop by more than 15% in the next 3 months
• the CPU becomes a considerable bottleneck for the GTX 780
• the PSU needs to be upgraded to accommodate the GTX 780
• Mantle provides substantial benefits to games i'm interested in

any help is much appreciated!

edit: i should mention i'm interested in games like AC4, metro: last light, which i'm afraid to touch because i'm afraid my pc won't be able to make them look good enough.

CPU won't bottleneck and PSU is fine.

But I'd wait to see the new line from Nvidia coming out in march,IIRC

How much of the 800 series from nVidia is released in March?

I thought they were (the gaming cards at least) wasn't supposed to release before mid-late summer.

Then I don't remember correctly! Tought it was sooner than that and I can't find any links that's confirming that

Just seen the Titan Black Edition has been released.. I'd imagine that any sort of new card from nVidia that would threaten a £700 card for possibly half the price wouldn't be the smartest move.

i suppose i could wait but i don't want to wait until summer. i'm using a card from 2009(!) to play modern high end games, so i think i should be able to make a gtx 780 last 3 years if i stick to 1080p.

Grab a 2nd 5850 for under 100$ and be happy until Maxwell releases

I heard, that the maxwell series could be a target for bitcoin mining, so if that's the case, buy a gpu asap before prices skyrocket like amd gpu's.

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I think it has been back and forth... Depending on when 20nm processes is rolling out.

Yeah, but that software still needs a lot of work. And I think in the end the AMD cards will be better for that although they consume more power as well. Also in Norway they prices hasn't skyrocket like in US... Actually they have been standing still.

Yeah originally it was looking like late Q1 but then TSMC got delayed with there production. According to TSMC and NVidia, it now looking like the delay will push them back to late Q2/early Q3 (so like late June to early august for at least the 880/870).

780 is great upgrade from a 5850, and the 780 kicks on the heels of the 290 and 290x and is the better price to performance ratio then those AMD cards in the USA

cpu isnt a bottleneck

psu is fine

mantle is almost worthless if you have an intel cpu that can feed the gpu. Only the AMD cpu's see the major advantages of mantle with BF4, while Intel based systems see hardly anything weith single AMD gpu's unless your crossfiring and even then there is still issues with AMD's crossfire with the frame timings and even AMD suggests people to use Direct x11 over mantle to bypass stuttering.

local availability is abysmal. the only r9 available here are r9 270. i think i'm gonna go with a gtx 770 since i can't find a gtx 780 for under 750 USD right now.

i'm wary of crossfire, i've heard too many horror stories regarding it and SLI.

thanks for the help, everyone. any other advice?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133489

500$

I think you might not be looking at the right card. The 780 Ti is about $700-750 but the regular 780 is like $500 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127746

Even my local microcenter/bestbuy have them for $520.

GTX 770 isn't a bad value either (its $330-340 for 280x/680 OC performance which is good).

Are you looking at the GTX 780ti or normal 780's? normal 780's are $500 or less online. If you have a Bestbuy near you has a GTX 780 they will price match with online retailers like Newegg or Tigerdirect.

Also SLI is no where as bad Crossfire when it comes to the frame timings.

i live in kuwait and here's an example: http://www.blink.com.kw/product-detail/zotac-nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-3gb-ddr5-vga-card.html

that gtx 780 costs 239 KD which is equivalent to 847 USD, according to google. prices are inflated here. a gtx 770 would cost me almost half that.

also, i don't want to import because of factory defects or other problems. local stores will at least swap your card for a new one if the one you got had problems.

Well then looks like GTX 770 for you then its still a nice card and and is still a massive upgrade from that 5850.

Then just get the 770 (its only like 15-18% slower for half the price in your case).

More like 25-35% when you overclock. I agree if it's twice the price it's not worth it, though.

That sounds a little high. Third party 770s are about 15-18% slower than a Titan while the 780 third partys (such as the superclocked) are only a few percent higher than a Titan (15-18% difference between the 770 and 780 is a fair number)

GTX 780 stock vs Titan at stock at 1080p is a whole 5% difference overall. a 770 vs 780 is around 10% difference at 1080p. So yes 770 vs titan is around 15%. at 1600p then its 20%. So when overclocked 770 it kicks on the heels of the 780 or titan.

thanks for all the help, everyone. i got a gtx 780 and it's gobbling up everything i throw at it.

running bf4 at ultra at 1080p and i get an average of 80 fps on smaller maps, 70 on the big ones.