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AMD R9 Cards
Question:
I am in the market for a new vid card. I am using a GTX 260 which is finally showing its age. I was stupidly trying to wait out the 7950s when they were coming down in price and missed the sub $200 prices on it (got called away for work).
Now being a family man on a budget, but who enjoys gaming....I have a dilemma. I dont really want to spend the 300 bucks on a R9 280x, and the 200 prices of the R9 270x is alot more appealing.
Unless by some miracle for Cyber Monday and an unknown stash of 7950s are released by newegg for the low $200s, will the R9 270x really be that far of a step down from the 280x? The most demanding game i just bought is BF4, so looking for a card that can come close to maxing it out, while not breaking my wallet. I want to try the AMD cards this time around, so no trying to push me to Nvidia.
Trying to compare the two cards on various websites and such, it seems like there is a discrepency on how much of a difference i will see.
Specs are:
Phenom II x4 965
8 gbs ram
1080p monitor
asrock extreme 3 870 mobo
antec earthwatts 750w psu
Thanks in advance!
Comments
From what I have heard the R9 270X is just a rebadged 7870 essentially.
Here's the comparison between the two
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635-3.html
Same article compares them using BF3 the 270X is slightly better for it.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635-9.html
yeah what i am asking essentially, like my gtx 260 which has lasted me almost 5 years on near max gaming, if the 270x would do the same. while the 280x is more "future proof", its also 100 bucks more.
I am willing to bite the bullet for the 280x, wife may kill me :P, but is there a huge difference between the two cards.
edit: just saw your edit.
so scratch the 7870 for now.
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question if you dont mind....
what games/resolution do you play? I am just trying to get a feel for what this puppy can handle. I been out of the vid card loop since i bought my old card, and havent had an AMD card in forever.
also, will i notice a difference between a 3gb vid card or 2 gb? I am not using multiple monitors, and i know that plays a big effect on vram.
Just found a nice graph that might help you out.
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page3.html
From what I have seen the R9 280x really seems like the best deal maybe you will be able to find one for under $300 on Monday so your wife wouldn't kill you if you bought one. XD
I'm still waiting for my new cards to arrive. Right now I'm still playing with my 6850 and for the most part it still runs my games ok. Most of my games are not very demanding except for Tera, the 6850 tends to take awhile to render objects in that game and it stutters from time to time. I run all my games in Screen Ratio: Wide 16:9, Resolution: 1920x1080, Full Screen.
I don't think you will see any difference between 2GBs vs 3GBs, unless your doing crazy stuff besides gaming, otherwise stick with 2GBs.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I have a 280x....its great.
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Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Basically, Radeon R9 270X = Radeon HD 7870, and Radeon R9 280X = Radeon HD 7970, though the clock speeds on the "new" cards are a little higher.
The R9 270X has 20 GCN compute units, the R9 280X has 32 compute units, and the R9 290X ($550, so it's out of your budget) has 44. For comparison, the R7 260X has 14, the R7 250 has 10, and the R7 240 has 6. Performance is roughly proportional to the number of compute units. Your GeForce GTX 260 is a very different architecture, but probably about equivalent in performance to a hypothetical card with 8 GCN compute units. (Actually, not hypothetical: that's a Radeon HD 7750.)
So a Radeon R9 270X would be a worthy upgrade, offering you 2-3 times the performance of what you have now. But the R9 280X is a lot faster yet, and probably better in performance per dollar.
Its maybe rebeadge but 280 is a littlebit improved on 79xx series and its future proof for midrange. There should be a 280 under 300 somewhere.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
last question:
I think i might just pull the trigger on the r9 280x (looking at the asus one), but still researching..
Will my antec earthwatts 750 handle it? i am a bit confused on what needs to be on the 12v rails compared to what my psu can put out. The card recommends 500W, which my 80+ 750 can dish out, but some people say i need at least 40A on the 12V rails, and this part confuses me.
To OP.
I give another vote to the 280X, there is quite a bit of difference in power between the 270X and the 280X.
Also, if you plan on keeping the card for a long time to get the best bang for the buck, it would be most clever to go with the 280X, simply said.
I'm pretty sure that your power supply can handle it just fine.
You can have a look in the case though and see if you find the info on how much juice is running on the 12V rail on the PSU info sticker.
If not, just look up your power supply model on google, you'll be sure to find some info on it.
For a pure FPS difference standpoint between 270X / 7870 and 280X / 7970 have a look at this link a little below.
7970 is the one with blue bar on the top and 7870 is the one with red bar on the bottom on each game down the list.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/770?vs=857
In most of the games the difference in average FPS is quite high.
All between 10-15-20 average FPS more.
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
In the end it's all up to you if that's worth the extra money or not.
Though, as you already know, newer games released will keep pulling the FPS more and more down.
So doing a proper upgrade when you decide to upgrade graphics card is more wise in my book.
P.S ... I go with whatever card is the best choice at the time of purchase, I'm not an AMD or Nvidia only fan.
Right now I strongly feel that AMD has the better lineup, Nvidia messed up quite a bit with their 700 series, in terms of strength vs price ratio.
Sure, Nvidia had price drops when the AMD 290 and 290X came to market, but I still hold a bit of a grudge against them when it comes to the 700 series.
I don't want to support them this time around at least, but who knows in the future.
Anyway, I'm out of here, good luck with your choice!
The people and the friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them~
You should not expect near max gaming out of any video card being released currently for more than 2 years. The GTX260 came out just after the transition of console generations. Graphics as they are right now are pretty much locked to the console generation and not the PC generation. So right now we are in the transitioning phase between 2 consoles and in another 2 years that transition should be complete. Considering the next console generations process node. It will be next year before you can get a GPU that will last for a while.
I think you will be quite surprised on how vastly the graphics technology has improved since 2006, and we are finally about to see that progress be used as 64-bit exclusive titles and DX11.2 becomes standard.
Many years ago, computers mostly used the +5 V and +3.3 V rail, so you didn't need much power on the +12 V rails. Some power supplies built for that era are still around. Today, computers mostly use the +12 V rail, so a power supply with a high nominal wattage that can't deliver very much on the +12 V rail isn't useful in modern computers.
For what it's worth, watts = volts x amps, so 12 V * 40 A = 480 W on the +12 V rail. A good modern power supply will be able to deliver nearly as much on the +12 V rail as it can in total. So if you have a 750 W power supply that can deliver 720 W on the +12 V rail(s), you're fine. If it's a 750 W power supply that can only handle 360 W on the +12 V rail(s), it's a relic of another era and should be replaced.
Antec's first EarthWatts power supplies from about 6 or 7 years ago had some issues, but if you have a more recent version, it should be fine.
DirectX 11.2 will never be commonly used. It doesn't offer much over DirectX 11.0, but it is exclusive to Windows 8.1, meaning that people still running Windows 7 won't be able to run it.
For comparison, how many DIrectX 11.1 games are there? And that added more over DirectX 11 than 11.2 added over 11.1.
Keep an eye out for deals. I picked up a 7950 (3GB) for $131 after $30 rebate from Newegg a few days ago.
Cyber Monday is tomorrow...
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371026
you rock dude...thanks.
My statement was not in regards to current PC tech. It was examining the current console tech and looking forward. The XBone will be using DX11.2 like the XBox360 used DX 9.0c. It was almost an immediate transition to 9.0c and not many developers moved on from that since then despite the advantages of DX10 and DX11. I am pretty positive that developers will latch onto 11.2 like they have 9.0c.