pinaklonkar

1) Build quality is average and calls for care. 
 
a. Cracked corners has been the topic of interest for many Shield users. I have been using it for two weeks without any case and no cracks yet, fingers crossed. My case will arrive in a day and then it's not leaving the case.  
 
b. The buttons are awkwardly placed and while the volume rocker is alright, the power button is simply gone wrong. Putting the tablet to sleep and wake it up is an ordeal with the almost flat button.
 
c. The screen is a fingerprint magnet and so is the back. The screen itself is far from those found on Samsung and Apple products in terms of viewing angles. But the color reproduction, sharpness, brightness, contrast, etc. are absolutely fine.
 
d. The speakers sound great but the grill will attract dust.
 
e. There is no thumb / side palm rejection built into the device, so reading a book comfortably was a nightmare once you are used to holding the tablet like a book without worrying about. I think it is a very important feature to have in hand-held tablets. Also, finding a good ePub/eBook reader was a bit painful and I am still not satisfied as I keep comparing everything to iBooks. 
 
2) PC streaming works alright if you have an ungodly fast internet. I found this feature not useful at all, actually. It's not like you are going to be 2 states away and want to play your PC games on Shield and will find a sufficient connection to do so. And when you are at home, you'd rather play on PC for the full experience. The "GRID" games need a controller (almost all of them) and they do work well. But today there are no more than 20 games and even those are 2010-2013. 
 
3) App2sd app should allow moving apps to SD card.
 
4) No. 
 
5) Yes you can connect a bluetooth keyboard for regular typing within apps but not a mouse/touch pad. Not in games at least. For games you do need the nVidia controller. 
 
Overall, for just the tablet, $320 is a little too much but I still haven't returned it. I know the 8 inch iPad mini (2014) is almost 2 generations behind iPad Air 2 in terms of CPU so options are limited. This is probably the best Android tablet available as of today and maybe Nexus 9. But if you are into "apps", Apple today unfortunately is still the way to go, even if it is iPad mini. 

GTX 970 FTW!

Risk of rain, then

Take the 970, a stupid iPAD can wait.

The thing is, I somehow think (or made to think) that many games we play are optimized for nVidia cards. It could be a very ignorant opinion but I have experienced issues with the cards I have, not saying it is not because of cross fire so can't really blame AMD cards. I agree that R-series may save me some money compared to GTX 970 and may even perform a bit better coupled with my AMD CPU, but it is just my perception. 
 
Techspot website says this: 
 
"The final head to head battle takes place at ~$370 between the R9 290X and GTX 970 (the GTX 780 can also be found in this price range but is pointless with the GTX 970 around). With the same price as the R9 290X, the GTX 970 is 4% slower but consumes 16% less power, so it could be the better choice. Due to AMD's aggressive price cuts, the battle between the R9 290X and GTX 970 is closely fought, but we think Nvidia wins this one. However, it's hard to ignore the R9 290 from a value perspective as it is 24% cheaper. Given that the GTX 970 costs 32% more and delivers just 16% more performance, we have to question if you should buy either the R9 290X or GTX 970 over the much cheaper and not significantly slower R9 290."

5850's are complete utter crap at this point, they lack the Vram/tesselation power.
 
Grab the 970 and save up for an intel platform, even Sandy Bridge would blow you away.

Don't waste money upgrading your CPU. Phenom II has better single core performance compared to FX at the same clock speeds, which is more important in games then having more cores that are individually weaker
 
A 970 will only give a significant performance increase if VRAM is an issue with the two 5850s. If you have the 1GB versions in CF then upgrade. If the 2GB versions then don't, wait till the next generation of GPUs from AMD or Nvidia

Just a guess, but I would think you'd get better value from a CPU upgrade, and hang on to your dual 5850s for now.

I stuck with my Crossfire HD 5850 for a few years. Then I upgraded to a single HD 7970. The performance increase was quite significant.
Then you compare a single HD 7970 to a single GTX 970. Huge increase.

Should be a decent upgrade, as long as the CPU doesn't bottleneck your rig.  Most likely any AMD cpu will bottleneck in games.  I myself purchased a GTX 970 in my FX-8320 rig.  my cpu was bottlenecking big time! I upgraded to an i5 4690k and kept the extra parts for a second rig (for my wife).
 
I love AMD, but the sad truth is that their CPU's have fallen way behind intel in the gaming department.

If your CPU and RAM is limiting two 5850's, it will limit the 970 the same and you won't be gaining anything at all.
 
Which AMD CPU do you have? FX or Phenom?
RAM is DDR2 or DDR3?
5850 is no slouch, but not a powerhouse in modern titles, and is limited to it's 1GB framebuffer, reducing detail levels in the game may bring acceptable performance.
 
If using a Phenom (NON-FX) CPU,.....Upgrade your CPU/Motherboard for the best experience.

Dear experts, 
 
I have two ATI RadeON HD 5850 connected in crossfirex mode but the COD Advanced Warfare struggles to keep up. I am running on a quad core AMD 64 bit CPU with plenty of RAM. I have installed the game on HDD (not SSD). 
 
Do you think it is time for me to upgrade to a single card like GTX 970 4GB? Do you think I'll gain performance across the board (for all games) to justify the price? 
 
Thank you.