Bottleneck?

Moneymaker

Hi guys,

I'd like to replace my aging GTX285 with a R9 280.

I have an i7-920 which is an older quad core and 8gb of RAM.

Basically would I be wasting money just buying the card, or should I replace the CPU and motherboard too?

marco_polo

Moneymaker wrote: »

Hi guys,

I'd like to replace my aging GTX285 with a R9 280.

I have an i7-920 which is an older quad core and 8gb of RAM.

Basically would I be wasting money just buying the card, or should I replace the CPU and motherboard too?

Not really the CPU is still pretty decent, the R9 280x is the same ballpark as a the same as a HD7970 GHz. (You mean r9 or R9 280x but it doent matter a whole lot)

The i7-920 is featured in these reviews, paired with very powerful GPUs, and keeps up with almost all modern CPUs for the most part. It may shave a handful of FPS off the card in the worst case, but nowhere near enought to consider replacing it IMO. (And nothing a bit of overclocking couldn't fix if you were up for it either )

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/670-metro-last-light-performance/page6.html

Moneymaker

Just the reply I wanted, many thanks

Moneymaker

If anyone can recommend a good 280 to buy i'd really appreciate it.

Can't quite afford a 290.

Also would getting a 270 instead and using the spare cash for an SSD be a better investment?

Been looking at these;

http://www.hardwareversand.de/4096+MB/143286/Gigabyte+Radeon+R9+270X+WindForce+3X+OC%2C+4GB+GDDR5%2C+2x+DVI%2C+HDMI%2C+DisplayPort.article

http://www.hardwareversand.de/3072+MB/109594/MSI+R9+280X+GAMING+3G%2C+AMD+Radeon+R9+280X%2C+3GB+DDR5.article