Radeon r280x or GTX 770?

[tongue_of_colicab]

The time has come to send my 560ti with retirement. Last year (I thought I was going to have a whole lot more time to play games than I ended up having) I bought Metro last light, Bioshock Infinity and Tomb raider on steam and I finally want to have a go at playing them. But my 560ti won’t run any of those games close to 60fps without seriously dropping IQ.

I initially thought about buying a r290 but prices are still fairly high and with DX12 coming out in the not too distant future I rather buy a midrange card and save 200 bucks to spend on a DX12 card.

Around the 250 – 270 euro price range it appears there are really only 2 options. A radeon r280x or GTX770.

Where I live the Asus 280x OC is about 20 euro’s cheaper than the asus 770 (which isn’t OC’ed) and according to benchmarks the 280x OC should be a bit faster than the 770.

However there a two things that hold me back from purchasing either card.

280x: Seems to be hit or miss whether you end up with a card than isn’t suffering from artifacts. I haven’t been able to find to reason for this and if it’s fixed by now or not.

GTX770: Only 2GB ram. In Wolfenstein you cannot play the game on ultra settings due to a lack of ram even though the gpu should be fast enough. I would be buying a card that I know is essentially unable to run future games due to a lack of memory. 4GB cards are so expensive you might as well pay 50 euro’s more and get a r290.

Any thoughts on this? Price/performance wise the r280x is probably best but I don’t want to run the risk of having to RMA the thing a dozen of times hoping I end up with a card that works like it’s supposed to.

 

[Blazkowicz]

The R290 is a DX12 card, or so I thought? Even Fermi and Haswell are.

 

[Malo]

What resolution will you be playing at?

 

[iroboto]

The R290 is a DX12 card, or so I thought? Even Fermi and Haswell are.

All GCN cards are dx12 compatible, or at least can run D3D12. I don't know if that necessarily makes it a DX12 card since we're unsure of the rest of the feature sets.

 

[pjbliverpool]

The time has come to send my 560ti with retirement. Last year (I thought I was going to have a whole lot more time to play games than I ended up having) I bought Metro last light, Bioshock Infinity and Tomb raider on steam and I finally want to have a go at playing them. But my 560ti won’t run any of those games close to 60fps without seriously dropping IQ.

I initially thought about buying a r290 but prices are still fairly high and with DX12 coming out in the not too distant future I rather buy a midrange card and save 200 bucks to spend on a DX12 card.

Around the 250 – 270 euro price range it appears there are really only 2 options. A radeon r280x or GTX770.

Where I live the Asus 280x OC is about 20 euro’s cheaper than the asus 770 (which isn’t OC’ed) and according to benchmarks the 280x OC should be a bit faster than the 770.

However there a two things that hold me back from purchasing either card.

280x: Seems to be hit or miss whether you end up with a card than isn’t suffering from artifacts. I haven’t been able to find to reason for this and if it’s fixed by now or not.

GTX770: Only 2GB ram. In Wolfenstein you cannot play the game on ultra settings due to a lack of ram even though the gpu should be fast enough. I would be buying a card that I know is essentially unable to run future games due to a lack of memory. 4GB cards are so expensive you might as well pay 50 euro’s more and get a r290.

Any thoughts on this? Price/performance wise the r280x is probably best but I don’t want to run the risk of having to RMA the thing a dozen of times hoping I end up with a card that works like it’s supposed to.

I'd go with the 280x for the extra memory. They perform about the same and NV seems to have better driver and game support (in terms of exclusive features/gameworks) but that 2GB of memory is going to hurt more and more as this console generation progresses.

Personally if I were buying new right now I wouldn't go for anything less than 4GB. I'd expect that much memory to last out the generation and either the 770 or the 280x obviously have enough core power to do so.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I would stay away from any 2GB card in this time and age.

The 280X is competent, but the chip is 2.5 years old now.
It's going to age pretty fast.
Tonga-based chips seem to be just around the corner, which are said to be bringing 280X performance at half the power consumption and lower cost. They should also bring architectural enhancements and features like TrueAudio.

My guess is there'll be 4GB Tonga cards for about the same price as the current 280/280X models with 3GB.

 

[Blazkowicz]

If you were to play a mini-waiting game still, a card with an AMD Tonga and 4GB memory would be good.
Or backwards (!) there's the Radeon 7970 6GB edition, isn't that funny. Only available as a used card.

 

[pjbliverpool]

My guess is there'll be 4GB Tonga cards for about the same price as the current 280/280X models with 3GB.

Although there probably will be 4GB models, it looks like AMD is shipping the reference design with only 2GB which is a complete fail IMO.

 

[homerdog]

What is Tonga?

 

[Blazkowicz]

A new GPU that apparently replaces Pitcairn (7850/7870), all that is really known is that it has a 256bit memory bus but we expect it to have increased transistor density and lower power consumption while still on 28nm (just like Maxwell)

 

[eastmen]

if those are your choices buy the 280x then buy a kraken g10 block and a corsair h60 or 80 and watch your temps drop like a rock.

Best thing I ever did to my radeon 7950 . Temps are 20 degrees less than the old cooling

 

[orangpelupa]

looking at RAM and games nowadays... yeah i agree with the majority here. 280 seems better choice.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

What resolution will you be playing at?

1920x1200.

I would stay away from any 2GB card in this time and age.

The 280X is competent, but the chip is 2.5 years old now.
It's going to age pretty fast.
Tonga-based chips seem to be just around the corner, which are said to be bringing 280X performance at half the power consumption and lower cost. They should also bring architectural enhancements and features like TrueAudio.

My guess is there'll be 4GB Tonga cards for about the same price as the current 280/280X models with 3GB.

That was what I thought as well. I'll probably by a high end card 1.5 years from now. At the rate I currently complete games a 280x should last me long enough for the games I still have on backlog and the few that I'll buy in the future.

if those are your choices buy the 280x then buy a kraken g10 block and a corsair h60 or 80 and watch your temps drop like a rock.

Best thing I ever did to my radeon 7950 . Temps are 20 degrees less than the old cooling

Who cares about temperatures? All modern cards are designed to run at high temperatures. Look at benchmarks e.g. the Asus 280x stays well below 80 degrees so why would anyone bother with a aftermarket cooler?

Anyhow, seems the 280x offers the most value for money. But how about the artifact issues this card has? The majority of amazon reviews mention issues with the card.

 

[Malo]

Just looking at prices I think the 280x is hard to beat for price. Unless you restrict yourself to 2gb then the 3gb is just so much cheaper than the 4GB 770 and at your resolution you will definitely not need over 3gb in the next couple of years.

As for temps I have a 7870 tf2 and it never pushes 60c running it at a considerable overclock.

 

[orangpelupa]

the temperature usually are fine, but do you feel "ok' with the noise? if okay, then no need for aftermarket cooler.

 

[eastmen]

1920x1200.



That was what I thought as well. I'll probably by a high end card 1.5 years from now. At the rate I currently complete games a 280x should last me long enough for the games I still have on backlog and the few that I'll buy in the future.



Who cares about temperatures? All modern cards are designed to run at high temperatures. Look at benchmarks e.g. the Asus 280x stays well below 80 degrees so why would anyone bother with a aftermarket cooler?

Anyhow, seems the 280x offers the most value for money. But how about the artifact issues this card has? The majority of amazon reviews mention issues with the card.

I have 2 silent fans that are each 120mm on the water cooler and since it keeps it so cool the automatic overclocking of the card goes higher vs tiny fans / higher decibles and lower clocks.

Don't know why you wouldn't do it.

 

[homerdog]

Don't know why you wouldn't do it.

You could put that money toward a much faster R9290?

 

[eastmen]

You could put that money toward a much faster R9290?

I dunno the r290x had a ton of heat and noise problems.

Anyway since its an all in one cooler the investment for a new video card would be low. You might not need anything or you might just need a newer bracket and those are about $30 bucks

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I dunno the r290x had a ton of heat and noise problems.

Anyway since its an all in one cooler the investment for a new video card would be low. You might not need anything or you might just need a newer bracket and those are about $30 bucks

R9 290X cards with 3rd party coolers will behave and sound just fine.

As someone who used custom watercooling systems for a couple of years, I'd say stay away from it unless you really enjoy meddling with pipes, pumps, radiators, etc.

The price for buying the system is usually higher than the difference for a better off-the-shelf solution, it's not a comfortable long-term solution because the hidraulics need to be maintained and you always run the risk of getting a fluid leak that screws up all the hardware.


In this case, I would at least wait a few more weeks to see what options Tonga will bring.
The reports about Tonga coming with just 2GB are old and AMD is known for not undercutting on VRAM (unlike nVidia).