If you going for Nvidia, go for the 970 instead of the 960. It will last you far longer and is better bang for the bucks. The Radeon cards I leave to Quizz, hes the expert on them.
I'd LOVE to buy my computer parts from newegg but sadly I'm from europe (Malta) and they don't ship here My best bet is by amazon and maybe (Have never actually bought any parts from it) ebay, unless I buy it from some store where I live.
Quizzical, I see you didn't mention the R9 280x, people say it's better than the R9 380 and the price difference while not small it's not out of my budget potentially. Do you feel the 380 is better? Or you suggested the 380 cause it's cheaper?
I'm not sure I'll get it from amazon but their prices are comparable with my where I live so better than nothing.
What I list depends pretty heavily on the price tag. If I found a Radeon R9 Fury or a GeForce GTX 980 for $200, I'd tell you to get that and ignore everything else because that's such an awesome deal. Which is why you won't find them at those prices today, or likely ever.
What you really want to do is not just pick the first thing that comes up, but look down the list a ways and pick the cheapest option. For example, it's pretty trivial to beat the prices on all three of the ones you listed:
Amazon's site is a pain to search through, so there might be better deals yet, but I'm not willing to scroll through pages and pages of them for you.
A Radeon R9 280X is maybe a little better than an R9 380, but it's not much better. If they're the same price, then you can get the 280X, but I don't expect that to happen and would advise against paying a large price premium for the 280X.
If the choice is between a Radeon R9 380 and a GeForce GTX 760, then a lot depends on what happens to be cheaper. If you can get a GTX 760 for at least 10% less than the cheapest R9 380, then go ahead and do so. If the cards are the same price or the Radeon is cheaper, then get the Radeon instead. A reasonable person might quibble with my 10% cheaper threshold and say it should be 5% or 15% or something instead. If someone tells you to ignore one of the two GPU vendors entirely without regards to price or performance, then I'd recommend ignoring the troll unless you have very unusual needs that you haven't raised so far.
I'd LOVE to buy my computer parts from newegg but sadly I'm from europe (Malta) and they don't ship here My best bet is by amazon and maybe (Have never actually bought any parts from it) ebay, unless I buy it from some store where I live.
Quizzical, I see you didn't mention the R9 280x, people say it's better than the R9 380 and the price difference while not small it's not out of my budget potentially. Do you feel the 380 is better? Or you suggested the 380 cause it's cheaper?
I'm not sure I'll get it from amazon but their prices are comparable with my where I live so better than nothing.
More memory is useful for very high resolutions or AA but then the GPU won't usually keep up anyway. There is not really a point in having more than 2GB memory unless you are looking at high end graphics cards. 2GB is fine for GTX 960 range card.
Don't ask rapid AMD supporters if AMD products are better...
More video memory basically lets you use higher resolution textures (only if the game offers them!) and higher monitor resolutions. In the price range that you're looking at, I wouldn't worry too much about a card having only 2 GB, as it's not like you're going to be gaming at a 4K resolution on any of those cards, anyway. That said, 4 GB is better than 2 GB, so if they're the same price or doubling the memory only costs you an extra $5, then have at it. But don't pay an extra $50 for more video memory.
but with $ vs eur exchange rates...anything can happen.
380x is definitely boost, its not huge, but its there, also depending on teh game. It is tempting though ;P
Personally id go for it, the price difference is still a bit too much over 380, but i wouldnt expect it to go much lower, 10-15 eur lower maybe, around 25-30 so id say there will always be that "is it worth it" question depending on situation at that moment.
Ye, i looked for some reviews first and it seems fine, its a bit limited in OC due to wealer cooler and 2x6 pin power connectors, but it still does fine, thats why i linked that EVGA SC, as thats a couple of eur more expencive but with all bells and whistles.
probably gonna play around with it for a week or so to see how its doing and then decide to sell it or not. Maybe keep it to play through FO4 and then ditch it ;P
I still have another 2 weeks+ before deciding on a card. I really wish to get an R9 290 or 280x over the 380x since it has better performance (Specially the 290) but if all else fails I guess the 380x will do.
One reason I wanted to get a GTX 970 is to get rainbow six for free :P Well we can't have everything hehe.
Just in case you require the information on the other parts, here it is:
CPU - Intel Core i5 4670k Ram - - Corsair Vengance 2 x 4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz Mobo - - Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero
2 - Once I receive the card, I'm going to format before going to windows 10 from 8.1. Will I be able to format before doing the upgrade to windows 10? Or will I have to upgrade THEN format? This is asked since I currently have the nvidia drivers installed.
3 - Do you consider I get some extra cooling for the card? This sapphire version seems to have 3 fans over the other models which have 2, but it's also the OC version which has 1000 Mhz clock speed from 947 Mhz.
Your power supply should handle the card just fine, so long as you're not further overclocking it or doing something otherwise outlandish.
At some point, I read that Microsoft is now accepting valid Windows 7/8/8.1 keys as also valid Windows 10 keys, though you'd need a Windows 10 DVD or USB stick to install 10 directly. Microsoft really wants everyone to upgrade to Windows 10. But if you're going to format and re-install, you'd better have the key for the old OS handy.
You'll need a decent amount of general case airflow to handle the card, but don't otherwise need to modify it. 1 GHz is hardly outlandish on the Radeon R9 290; the same Hawaii chip has a stock clock of 1 GHz in the R9 390 and 1.05 GHz in the R9 390X. And the card has PowerTune to cap power consumption and save you in case you happen to run something that pushes it insanely hard.
Ye, just wanted to point out that no OC is nonsense.
Thats with 2x290+OCed i7 and lots of accesories (6 fans, each drawing 2-3 w for instance)
Peak draw in STRESS test (at the wall) 660 W.
So lets say 87% efficiency = 574 W delivery.
So yes, PSU capable of delivering 648 W can handle 2x290 and OCed i7, let alone i5 and 1 290
So no worries there.
Thats a quality PSU. All those outlandish numbers for PSUs are because people buy no name PSUs rated at high watts, that cannot really deliver 70% of that.
Since there is no standard in naming PSUs, random 750W PSU, or even 850W PSU could actually be weaker than your TX650.
The only value that really matters is 12v rail and what spec says about it - your TX650 has 54A = 648W. If you go on and check random other PSUs specs youll see that it varies wildely from what it says on the box (never higher though ;P )
So when i say "quality 550w PSU" i dont mean what it says on the box, i mean what says on 12v rail. It could say "1000w PSU" on the box, if it has 46A on 12v its still 550w PSU
Ye, just wanted to point out that no OC is nonsense.
Thats with 2x290+OCed i7 and lots of accesories (6 fans, each drawing 2-3 w for instance)
Peak draw in STRESS test (at the wall) 660 W.
So lets say 87% efficiency = 574 W delivery.
So yes, PSU capable of delivering 648 W can handle 2x290 and OCed i7, let alone i5 and 1 290
So no worries there.
Thats a quality PSU. All those outlandish numbers for PSUs are because people buy no name PSUs rated at high watts, that cannot really deliver 70% of that.
Since there is no standard in naming PSUs, random 750W PSU, or even 850W PSU could actually be weaker than your TX650.
The only value that really matters is 12v rail and what spec says about it - your TX650 has 54A = 648W. If you go on and check random other PSUs specs youll see that it varies wildely.
So when i say "quality 550w PSU" i dont mean what it says on the box, i mean what says on 12v rail. It could say "1000w PSU" on the box, if it has 46A on 12v its still 550w PSU
And yes, better than 380x
Routinely pulling 574 W from a 650 W power supply is a bad idea. It might work, but it's playing with fire, especially as the power supply ages.
I'm not saying that he can't further overclock the R9 290 at all, especially if he leaves the power tune cap unchanged. I'm generally against overclocking video cards, as the stock clocks tend to be fairly high to begin with.
But I am saying that if he does something outlandish (e.g., liquid nitrogen overclocking), that could very well make his system cause trouble.
Ye, just wanted to point out that no OC is nonsense.
Thats with 2x290+OCed i7 and lots of accesories (6 fans, each drawing 2-3 w for instance)
Peak draw in STRESS test (at the wall) 660 W.
So lets say 87% efficiency = 574 W delivery.
So yes, PSU capable of delivering 648 W can handle 2x290 and OCed i7, let alone i5 and 1 290
So no worries there.
Thats a quality PSU. All those outlandish numbers for PSUs are because people buy no name PSUs rated at high watts, that cannot really deliver 70% of that.
Since there is no standard in naming PSUs, random 750W PSU, or even 850W PSU could actually be weaker than your TX650.
The only value that really matters is 12v rail and what spec says about it - your TX650 has 54A = 648W. If you go on and check random other PSUs specs youll see that it varies wildely.
So when i say "quality 550w PSU" i dont mean what it says on the box, i mean what says on 12v rail. It could say "1000w PSU" on the box, if it has 46A on 12v its still 550w PSU
And yes, better than 380x
Routinely pulling 574 W from a 650 W power supply is a bad idea. It might work, but it's playing with fire, especially as the power supply ages.
I'm not saying that he can't further overclock the R9 290 at all, especially if he leaves the power tune cap unchanged. I'm generally against overclocking video cards, as the stock clocks tend to be fairly high to begin with.
But I am saying that if he does something outlandish (e.g., liquid nitrogen overclocking), that could very well make his system cause trouble.
Thats a peak draw in stress test. I havent yet seen a game that does anywhere near that. You can take 10-15% off that for most demanding games out there.
And OCing is great, you get some more performance from your parts. If youre afraid and dont want higher power draw just dont touch voltages/power limit, and you can STILL OC without any negative effects. Though obviously not as much as with raising voltages.
Thats a peak draw in stress test. I havent yet seen a game that does anywhere near that. You can take 10-15% off that for most demanding games out there.
And OCing is great, you get some more performance from your parts. If youre afraid and dont want higher power draw just dont touch voltages/power limit, and you can STILL OC without any negative effects. Though obviously not as much as with raising voltages.
If the performance increase of overclocking were free without any negative side effects, then why don't they make the stock clocks higher?
It's really a question of how much you value reliability. Overclocking does increase performance, but at the expense of making cards more likely to fail. GeForce and Radeon cards are already clocked pretty high at stock, even before factory overclocks. Quadro, Tesla, and FirePro cards for markets that demand reliability are the same GPU chips clocked much lower.
Youll have to ask them on their policies of setting stock speeds. Im currently running 5% OC with voltages on stock (and its not even maximum). If you dont fiddle with POWER settings there is NO more power draw.
And some GPUs are made to be OCed. Like that TRI-x.
Comments
R9 380 2GB 199 eur
http://www.amazon.de/MSI-R9-380-2GD5T-Cards-ATI-PCI/dp/B00ZPOCGLW/ref=sr_1_222?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449391998&sr=1-222
GTX 960 2BG 202 eur
http://www.amazon.de/MSI-GTX-960-Graphics-Card/dp/B00SKTY7A2/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449396122&sr=1-3&keywords=gtx+960+2gb
GTX 960 4GB 219 eur
http://www.amazon.de/ZOTAC-GeForce-Graphics-Card-4096MB/dp/B00UJ74QLS/ref=sr_1_16?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449395666&sr=1-16
380 4GB 219 eur
http://www.amazon.de/PowerColor-AXR9-380-4GBD5-PPDHE-Grafikkarte/dp/B00ZUWDRY4/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449396001&sr=1-6&keywords=r9+380+4gb
380x 258 eur
http://www.amazon.de/XFX-Radeon-Black-GDDR5-DisplayPort/dp/B0187NIPJO/ref=sr_1_474?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449392626&sr=1-474
GTX 970 332 eur
http://www.amazon.de/Zotac-GeForce-Graphic-Card-DDR5/dp/B00NNXVPS2/ref=sr_1_599?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449393606&sr=1-599
339 eur
http://www.amazon.de/Nvidia-GeForce-Superclocked-Cooling-Graphics/dp/B00NSXYEQW/ref=sr_1_605?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449393673&sr=1-605
R9 390 346 eur
http://www.amazon.de/PowerColor-AXR9-390-8GBD5-PPDHE-Grafikkarte/dp/B00ZUWD8LQ/ref=sr_1_609?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449393673&sr=1-609
So you can get 380x for same price you linked 380 above and 280x you linked costs 342 eur
GTX 960 is not worth buying since its slower than R9 380.
And at these prices R9 390 is still a bit better buy than GTX 970, but both are fine.
There is 10-15 eur shipping fee that you need to count on.
The prices are so much better than co.uk! I had no idea.
That will make future purchases less stressful to find good deals.
What you really want to do is not just pick the first thing that comes up, but look down the list a ways and pick the cheapest option. For example, it's pretty trivial to beat the prices on all three of the ones you listed:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Club-3D-Radeon-Internal-Graphic/dp/B00FRCJUG6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1449418031&sr=8-4
http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Radeon-Graphics-Card-GDDR5/dp/B00ZCBDVW6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1449417923&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Nvidia-Version-PCI-E-Graphics/dp/B00SJ8FZZ0/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449417998&sr=1-5
Amazon's site is a pain to search through, so there might be better deals yet, but I'm not willing to scroll through pages and pages of them for you.
A Radeon R9 280X is maybe a little better than an R9 380, but it's not much better. If they're the same price, then you can get the 280X, but I don't expect that to happen and would advise against paying a large price premium for the 280X.
If the choice is between a Radeon R9 380 and a GeForce GTX 760, then a lot depends on what happens to be cheaper. If you can get a GTX 760 for at least 10% less than the cheapest R9 380, then go ahead and do so. If the cards are the same price or the Radeon is cheaper, then get the Radeon instead. A reasonable person might quibble with my 10% cheaper threshold and say it should be 5% or 15% or something instead. If someone tells you to ignore one of the two GPU vendors entirely without regards to price or performance, then I'd recommend ignoring the troll unless you have very unusual needs that you haven't raised so far.
More video memory basically lets you use higher resolution textures (only if the game offers them!) and higher monitor resolutions. In the price range that you're looking at, I wouldn't worry too much about a card having only 2 GB, as it's not like you're going to be gaming at a 4K resolution on any of those cards, anyway. That said, 4 GB is better than 2 GB, so if they're the same price or doubling the memory only costs you an extra $5, then have at it. But don't pay an extra $50 for more video memory.
Malabooga linked me a R9 380x card http://www.amazon.de/XFX-Radeon-Black-GDDR5-DisplayPort/dp/B0187NIPJO/ref=sr_1_474?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449392626&sr=1-474
It costs 38 euro more than the regular 380 http://www.amazon.de/PowerColor-AXR9-380-4GBD5-PPDHE-Grafikkarte/dp/B00ZUWDRY4/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1449396001&sr=1-6&keywords=r9+380+4gb
I think I might go for the 380x unless there's some discount on the 290/x or GTX 970 (Doubtful).
It seems while the jump between the 380 to 380x not that huge, people say it's quite significant boost in performance.
Also theres:
http://wccftech.com/amd-r9-fury-x-nano-price-cuts/
http://wccftech.com/nvidia-cuts-prices-900-serie/
but with $ vs eur exchange rates...anything can happen.
380x is definitely boost, its not huge, but its there, also depending on teh game. It is tempting though ;P
Personally id go for it, the price difference is still a bit too much over 380, but i wouldnt expect it to go much lower, 10-15 eur lower maybe, around 25-30 so id say there will always be that "is it worth it" question depending on situation at that moment.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_380x_4gb_review,1.html
Nice selection of games. Its really up to you if you think its worth it. 380 is still very potent.
That's quite a good deal actually eventough I kinda despise zotac cards.
Zotac has 5 year warranty though, so bleh, ill bug them a lot if it craps out. I dont even know if im going to sell it or keep it yet ;P
Though for 277 it was a no brainer
Never again.
http://www.pcgameware.co.uk/reviews/graphics-cards/zotac-geforce-gtx-970-review/
probably gonna play around with it for a week or so to see how its doing and then decide to sell it or not. Maybe keep it to play through FO4 and then ditch it ;P
I still have another 2 weeks+ before deciding on a card. I really wish to get an R9 290 or 280x over the 380x since it has better performance (Specially the 290) but if all else fails I guess the 380x will do.
One reason I wanted to get a GTX 970 is to get rainbow six for free :P Well we can't have everything hehe.
1 - Will my Corsair tx 650W be enough? Link: http://www.corsair.com/en/tx-series-tx650-80-plus-bronze-certified-650-watt-high-performance-power-supply
Just in case you require the information on the other parts, here it is:
CPU - Intel Core i5 4670k
Ram - - Corsair Vengance 2 x 4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
Mobo - - Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero
2 - Once I receive the card, I'm going to format before going to windows 10 from 8.1. Will I be able to format before doing the upgrade to windows 10? Or will I have to upgrade THEN format? This is asked since I currently have the nvidia drivers installed.
3 - Do you consider I get some extra cooling for the card? This sapphire version seems to have 3 fans over the other models which have 2, but it's also the OC version which has 1000 Mhz clock speed from 947 Mhz.
That's all I think.
Thanks
At some point, I read that Microsoft is now accepting valid Windows 7/8/8.1 keys as also valid Windows 10 keys, though you'd need a Windows 10 DVD or USB stick to install 10 directly. Microsoft really wants everyone to upgrade to Windows 10. But if you're going to format and re-install, you'd better have the key for the old OS handy.
You'll need a decent amount of general case airflow to handle the card, but don't otherwise need to modify it. 1 GHz is hardly outlandish on the Radeon R9 290; the same Hawaii chip has a stock clock of 1 GHz in the R9 390 and 1.05 GHz in the R9 390X. And the card has PowerTune to cap power consumption and save you in case you happen to run something that pushes it insanely hard.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-29.html
And having decent airflow in your case is always recommednded, 2-3 fans is enough.
Still, much better than a 380x.
Thats with 2x290+OCed i7 and lots of accesories (6 fans, each drawing 2-3 w for instance)
Peak draw in STRESS test (at the wall) 660 W.
So lets say 87% efficiency = 574 W delivery.
So yes, PSU capable of delivering 648 W can handle 2x290 and OCed i7, let alone i5 and 1 290
So no worries there.
Thats a quality PSU. All those outlandish numbers for PSUs are because people buy no name PSUs rated at high watts, that cannot really deliver 70% of that.
Since there is no standard in naming PSUs, random 750W PSU, or even 850W PSU could actually be weaker than your TX650.
The only value that really matters is 12v rail and what spec says about it - your TX650 has 54A = 648W. If you go on and check random other PSUs specs youll see that it varies wildely from what it says on the box (never higher though ;P )
So when i say "quality 550w PSU" i dont mean what it says on the box, i mean what says on 12v rail. It could say "1000w PSU" on the box, if it has 46A on 12v its still 550w PSU
And yes, better than 380x
650W is on lower end but it should be still okeyish.
I'm not saying that he can't further overclock the R9 290 at all, especially if he leaves the power tune cap unchanged. I'm generally against overclocking video cards, as the stock clocks tend to be fairly high to begin with.
But I am saying that if he does something outlandish (e.g., liquid nitrogen overclocking), that could very well make his system cause trouble.
And OCing is great, you get some more performance from your parts. If youre afraid and dont want higher power draw just dont touch voltages/power limit, and you can STILL OC without any negative effects. Though obviously not as much as with raising voltages.
It's really a question of how much you value reliability. Overclocking does increase performance, but at the expense of making cards more likely to fail. GeForce and Radeon cards are already clocked pretty high at stock, even before factory overclocks. Quadro, Tesla, and FirePro cards for markets that demand reliability are the same GPU chips clocked much lower.
I might give a try on my CPU in the future considering I have water cooling but nothing else.
Youll have to ask them on their policies of setting stock speeds. Im currently running 5% OC with voltages on stock (and its not even maximum). If you dont fiddle with POWER settings there is NO more power draw.
And some GPUs are made to be OCed. Like that TRI-x.
Just take a peek at this, for example:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/kfa2-geforce-gtx-970-oc-silent-infin8-black-edition-4096mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-world-gx-010-gx.html
features:
"5 + 2 Phase enhanced power system with 8 + 6-pin inputs delivers up to 50% more power for overclocking, can support up to 225w"
"- Extreme factory overclock with huge OC potential"