Purchasing a new GPU (Need recomendations/advice)

[Spev]

Hello friends,

 

I'm at a bit of a conflict right now. I'm currently wishing to upgrade to start playing more demanding PC games. My system build is from 2011, and I'm running an EVGA GTX 580 currently.

 

With the release of the GTX 980/970 I was very interested and it's definitely time for me to upgrade. I've been looking at the 980, it's at the peak of my price range right now, not sure if I'm willing to splurge for performance not much better than a 780 cards for much less. While discussing options with a friend, I had settled on the EVGA 780 Classified, seemed like great bang for my buck for around $350 compared to $500+ for 980. I was sold. Upon further reasearch I noticed the GTX970 was literally about the same price, I was very surprised at first. So I took a good look into it while the only downside to the 970 is that it has less CUDA cores but better clock speeds. I had decided to push my idea of the 780 Classified back and go with the 970 for the most updated tech and Maxwell architecture. 

 

Ya I was pretty excited & thought for $360 that was a great deal & much newer than the 780....then I started reading reviews about coil whine...watched multiple videos showing the coil whine which was awful. This seems to be a plague with the card, and not just a manufacture's remake of it. -_____- I have seen this hugely reported with the 970, not so much the 980 so I'm not sure if it's just the 970 or if it's both.

 

My question is this....what other options do I have currently? Should I just wait for a while, till black friday? Wait for new releases? Is this typically an issue that is solved with GFX cards? Or is this going to be something that will forever plague the 970/980. As you can tell I don't shop for GPUs very often with my last one being the GTX580, I want to buy a solid card that will last me for a while.  Only other higher end options are the Titans....like $1000...not happening....I like the 780 Classified a lot, but I feel with the new architecture out I'm putting myself behind purchasing "last gen tech" if you will with the Maxwell 900 series out.

 

 

 

If these matter for your opinions:

Current rig specs: (might be upgrading whole system soon idk if necessary)

-Intel Core i7-980 Processor

-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

-Corsair Vengeance 12GB DDR3

-GigaByte GA-X58A-OC Motherboard

 

I'm also playing on a single 1080p 120hz Samsung S23A950D. I have no desire to go triple screen or 4k at this time if that affects your suggestions. 1440p might be an option in the future but I'm not up to date on the current monitors and what's best, I've been satisfied with my 120hz Samsung for a while. I simply want the best possible FPS on a single high hz monitor that I can play with games on highest/ultra settings, possibility with monitor upgrade in future.