R9 280 vs GTX 970

StickyIcky

I'm looking at Graphics Cards as I haven't bought one in two years. I got the GTX 560 Ti currently and I'm playing Far Cry 4 on 1980 x 1200 and it's unable to play on High Detail without sucking kinda.

I'm looking at the GTX 970 which I'd buy but the R9 280 looks pretty good too and a fair bit cheaper.

I'm wondering about two things...

1) Price vs Performance for 1920 x 1200 gaming.. would the R9 280 be great for current games at high detail? I'm guessing yes it would be fine.

2) G-Sync (nVidia) vs Free-Sync (AMD). One thing that's ALWAYS pi**ed me off about gaming is 'tearing' and I can't wait until that goes away with the new 'sync' monitors.

I read that AMD / Free Sync compatible monitors in the future will be €100 cheaper than the G-Sync versions. So is that another tick in the R9 280 box?

Your thoughts and slaggings would be appreciated.

kn2k10

970 performs on par with an usually slightly above the R9 290x.

Which card you want is based on the games you're playing I guess. You can max out anything with he 970 on 1920x1200.

StickyIcky

Yip. I'm sure the GTX 970 would be the best choice if money was no object. However the R9 280 looks a fair bit cheaper and like it still might play modern games (Far Cry 4, Battlefield 4, etc) just fine. Hence I could save myself over €100. Then like I said in the future the Freesync monitors would be cheaper too. Any thoughts on that? Or would I be better off sucking it up just spending the extra cash? I just hate spending cash when I don't need to..

kn2k10

StickyIcky wrote: »

Yip. I'm sure the GTX 970 would be the best choice if money was no object. However the R9 280 looks a fair bit cheaper and like it still might play modern games (Far Cry 4, Battlefield 4, etc) just fine. Hence I could save myself over €100. Then like I said in the future the Freesync monitors would be cheaper too. Any thoughts on that? Or would I be better off sucking it up just spending the extra cash? I just hate spending cash when I don't need to..

Well I've seen people benchmarking BF4 on Ultimate setting with a resolution of 1280x1024 on a R9 280 and receiving around 60 FPS. Although you want to play at an even higher resolution, so I don't think it will play well on Ultimate settings at least.

970 is an amazing cards and comes with great technologies on board. Really I'd just tell you to get the 970 so you'd have no problems at all. Worth the extra €100 IMHO.

TerrorFirmer

If you're dead set on spending as little as possible, to answer your question the R9 280 has an excellent price to performance ratio and will easily run new games at 1080p high.

It will run BF4 at ultra 1080p fine, minus the AA. It's also a massive upgrade on the now low-end 560Ti.

However, if you're the kind of person that likes to run all his games at 1080p high settings, you might as well just get the GTX970 now as it'll save you upgrading down the line for the €100 that's in it.

StickyIcky

Damn you guys....

You convinced me to get the GTX 970 :-D

Do you guys have any preference for which GTX 970 is the best choice?

I'd be most interested in a price / performance and noise ratio. I like to have my PC as silent as possible. Also important is after sales service. If something goes wrong with the graphics card, good warranty coverage etc would be nice.

Thanks guys I appreciate your input and lack of slaggings

Genghiz Cohen

StickyIcky wrote: »

Damn you guys....

You convinced me to get the GTX 970 :-D

Do you guys have any preference for which GTX 970 is the best choice?

I'd be most interested in a price / performance and noise ratio. I like to have my PC as silent as possible. Also important is after sales service. If something goes wrong with the graphics card, good warranty coverage etc would be nice.

Thanks guys I appreciate your input and lack of slaggings

I'm a big fan of the Direct CU-2, so the Strix is probably a great card. Nothing to back that up with, so be careful

Luck100

Asus Strix and MSI Gaming 970's are silent at idle (fans turn off completely). Gigabyte Gaming G1 is a large (very long) card with 3 fans, backplate, and higher power limit and better overclocks out of the box. If you want a smaller card, the EVGA 970's are more compact than the others. I have a couple of the Gigabyte G1's myself in SLI.

EoinHef

Have a look here and theres plenty of info on 970's
http://www.overclock.net/t/1514085/official-nvidia-gtx-970-owners-club

Luck is fairly bang on though about the 970's. The G1 is louder at idle but is very quiet under load and the other 2(msi,asus) are quiet at idle and fairly quiet under load but wont overclock quite as high as the G1. Still though from what i see most 970's should achieve a decent overclock no matter the brand. EVGA cards are the cheapest(ones with ACX cooler rev 1.0) also from what ive seen so check a few reviews for those. And EVGA also have a good returns policy,so i wouldnt nessacerily say just because there cheap there bad,could be a good option for you at around €320

Tbh,im maxing a lot of games at 1440p with 1 970 so you wont really be stressing the card to much at 1080p so id imagine as long as the cooler is decent there wont be much noise from the card. Thats as long as you dont only play Crysis 3,Arma 3 and Metro:pac:

StickyIcky

Awesome guys thanks!

EoinHef

Luck100 wrote: »

I have a couple of the Gigabyte G1's myself in SLI.

Hey Luck,how are the temps if you dont mind me asking? Going to be adding another G1 down the line. Currently,even overclocked,the max temp ive seen is 60C with just the one and thats only with benches rather than games.

Dard23

If you're willing to wait and shop around you can pick up some great deals. I bought the msi r9 290 gaming for 230 from Amazon Warehouse France used but in like new condition. The performance is insane, very close to gtx970 before overclocking. Just a tip.
Also check German Amazon.

TheDoc

The link above is where I've been following 970 discussion, as it looks like the card I want.

I've settled on the Gigabyte G1 brand, my case has the room for it. Good shout on the Amazon warehouse as well, they are expensive enough so any savings would help

Luck100

EoinHef wrote: »

Hey Luck,how are the temps if you dont mind me asking? Going to be adding another G1 down the line. Currently,even overclocked,the max temp ive seen is 60C with just the one and thats only with benches rather than games.

Sorry EoinHef, I missed your post somehow. Temps are higher with SLI but still quite good. I have good airflow (with side intake fans blowing on the gpus) and an empty PCIE slot between the cards which also helps. With the default fan profile + overclocked to 1550 MHz my temps get to the high 60's running a continuous loop of firestrike for 15 minutes.

In-game temps are a lot lower, although I usually use vsync. BF4 at full ultra + 4x MSAA at 2560x1440 runs pegged at 60Hz without fail, and it's only averaging around 50% gpu load. Temps are in the low/mid 50's.