I'm building a new rig and wanted to use the new r9 280x but I saw that the xfx radeon hd 7950 is like 215 dollars with a thirty dollar rebate. I am really tempted to just get that. I just want to know if that particular card will carry me through to 2015 or 2016. I know it can max out anything at 1080p.(Not Crysis or metro, of course)
no such thing as future proof, however the 7950 is a very capable card. what do you plan on doing with it? if your just shooting for 1080p it should last for awhile as amd is releasing mantle soon so that should help keep its performance up to par for some time.
After mantle, yes, youll be fine for (I assume) a few years.
Like Arcanum said, though. no such thing as future proof.
I would definitely go with the r9 card, though, if you can at all afford it, its basically an Overclocked 7970. And they are only $300.
R9 is just the market segment of the card and not indicative of it's actual gpu core/performance. Any existing 7970ghz should be doing the same numbers as a 280X
I said r9 in reference to the two options that were listed.
He had the HD7950 or r9 280x as possible options, so I stated that he should go with the r9.
Not that the card is CALLED that, but that it was the only card with the r9 label in his options.
And not really, the 280x is the exact same card as the 7970, but higher clocked, even past the GHz edition, so it WILL perform better, and seeing how its actually a bit cheaper than the GHz edition, it's a better deal.
+1 on the R9 280X because it's about the same as a GTX 770
Thanks for the replies guys! I am building something for my brother. I wanted to go for something cheap that could overpower the consoles. He wanted the xbox one(ew) and as soon as I heard that I set out on a mission to build him something for around 500-600 that would destroy the xbox one. For my personal build, though, I will probably go with the 280x or 290x if that's possible. I currently have a phenom ii x4 955 and two 7770s. That is ok, but it keeps overheating. It was a cheap build to begin with but it is starting to become obsolete. I will probably go with the new i5 4670k or the fx 8350. I'm leaning more towards fx 8350. The 7870 is about 200 dollars and that is only slightly more powerful then the consoles, so when I saw the 7950 for 215 I got really excited. He wants to play games like Cod WAW for custom zombies, Minecraft, and other low end games. But he also wants to play next gen games. At first he wanted to get the xbox one and I could just build him a 250 dollar minecraft pc. But this is WAY better.
NO! DON'T GO WITH XFX!!! TERRIBLE OC! NO VOLTAGE UNLOCK!!!
BUYER BEWARE!!!
The sapphire card is the same price I believe. I don't know how long the rebate is going on but the only thing is that it is 3gb of Ddr5 instead of Gddr5. The performance isn't that much of a difference between the cards but I decided upon the R9 280x. Also I'm not looking to overclock the card because it is only going to be used for light gaming on 1080p and 720p.
Future proof? Maybe if you get 4 of them.
I can get my 8 month old core edition up to 1050mhz on stock voltage now that winter is here. Just picked up another XFX7950 DD for 220$(plus 30$mir) with 3 free games. The DD runs much cooler but I haven't overclocked it as I am Balls deep into the CrossfireX. If the ASUS was on sale I may have went that way but The XFX was a great value. That said I maybe lucky as they do have a poor reputation.
yea i keep hearing alot of people hate on xfx but my xfx 7850dd has been awesome so far. got it overclocked to 925 core clock and 1375 mem clock and it runs great, i could prob overclock it a bit more but its fine for now.i got it on sale and with a rebate and with the amd game bundle so it was an good deal.
idk about branding...but just to be safe im gonna stick with ASUS and Gigabyte just to keep my paranoid self satisfied lol I guess you can call me a tinfoil hat :P