After having my current PC for almost a year now, I think it seems right to do a bit of upgrading. My main focus this time is the GPU. I'm currently running an HD 7850 and it's great but I'd like a better card. The two that really got my attention is the R9 280X or the GTX 770 but I am torn between the two. I mainly play Skyrim and Fallout as I'm a big fan of that genre but I play most games that come out. I don't want to be running two cards and I'll be overclocking but not to an extreme extent. Should I go for the GTX 770 or the R9 280X or something completely different? I have about £250 for the upgrade and I'll take any suggestions into consideration!
Both are good solutions. I think the 280x is a much more complete card, and probably a little cheaper.
They trade blows in terms of performance. Depending on the specific games you enjoy, one card might out-perform the other.
The 280x has much more overclocking headroom, and game-modding capability.
You might want to take note of the Nvidia Holiday Bundle. They are shipping a few games with the 770, that you might be interested in. Not sure of the 280x has any games.
If I were to order one it would be off Scan and I'm sure there is some AMD package right now but I'll have to check and yeah. I've been swayed toward the R9 280X but I was looking around and you can get a GTX 770 for a similar price and I've heard it's faster. I'll keep looking into it! Thank you for the suggestion!
I would take that with a grain of salt. The 770 isn't faster. They are basically neck and neck. It really depends on the game, but I would give the performance edge to the 280x, after both cards are overclocked. Ignore stock clock performance benchmarks, because they don't show a complete picture.
The 280x is perhaps a little cheaper. If only by £20. but like I said, the 770 comes with games that are worth more than that. I think the R9 cards are excluded from any AMD games bundle. Though, that's one thing I cannot be sure of
I've heard a lot of good things about this card! It's hard to justify because I only really wanted to pay £250 at complete max but if it's verging on a stock GTX 780, it might be worth it...
I actually run a 780, and I can tell you that the 280x Toxic does come pretty close. Has much of the same high-resolution capability. Really is a balanced card, and great for the money. You might also consider the HIS 280x for £230 on the same website.
Two reviews there so you can have a look and compare. Or you could get its little brother...and spend the spare on other upgrades like SSD's or RAM or something :P
Hmmm... Sounds good! I actually need to get an SSD at some point. The HIS 280X sounds like a good idea as it's cheap and I know those coolers and really good. Plus I'll put the extra money aside for an SSD and eventually 8GB of more RAM, once the price comes down anyway.
It's a good card, and it gives me more performance when I need it most. But honestly, the performance difference in the most number of games is so small with these higher end cards. You start to pay more for less in return. The 280x is a sweet spot. It's so close to the 780 in so many games.
+1 also on most benchmarks ive seen lately, the R9-280X in most games beating the GTX770. especialy at higher resolutions. i also think that 3GB of vram on the R9-280X can realy become handy with an heavy modded skyrim. instead of the only 2GB on a normal GTX770. especialy at 1440p. R9-280X is also cheaper in most cases. the Toxic is the Fastest you can get.
yeah but there are offcourse some games that flavours nvidia other run better on amd. OC benchmarks its a bit the same story. but for its price point i would personaly go with the R9-280X. cause of its 3GB of Vram.
The 4GB GTX770 is realy overpriced in my opinnion. in the Netherlands i can get a R9-290 reference for les. ☺
The 4gb 770 doesn't really have any performance advantage over the 2gb counterpart, surprisingly. I saw some benchmarks of the 2gb vs 4gb cards, at various resolutions.
Of course there are games that favour Nvidia. But unless you drop money on a 780, it doesn't really matter. Not a huge difference between the 770 and 280x. It's just that the 280x is a much more complete solution, because of that (as you said) 3gb of Vram.