So, I finally got a job and my plan is to replace my graphics cards. I'm going to have to wait a few weeks before I have enough cash stashed away (damn living expenses.) I'm thinking that my budget will be about $400-$500. I'd really rather not breach $500.
I know that new AMD cards are about to be released, but everything "above" the RX 480 is speculation. So I'd like this discussion to pertain to current generation cards. If a comparable card comes out, I will probably purchase that card. I am also developing an indie-game using C++/OpenGL. For testing purposes, I need an AMD card. (My brother has an NVIDIA card.)
I was thinking that an R9 390x, but what do you guys think? Do you think it will be able to beat my current setup?
Performance wise 7950 = R9 280 ~ R9 380... So for the sake of simplifying the discussion, you own R9 380 Crossfire... Keep in mind, CF does not always work. Some games don't scale at all... As for the Rx 480, the expected performance, from the AMD announcements is around the R9 390X level. So basically, 200-230$ GPU will give you very similar performance to your current setup.
Thanks for finding those graphs, I was having a hard time getting some performance information on the recent cards.
It is interesting that I've had these cards for 3+ years, and the performance is still fairly good. It seems to me that the RX480 CF is a good option, it would essentially (in an ideal synthetic benchmark world) be like doubling the performance I already have.
At the time, 7950 was the second highest end GPU after 7970... When it got rebranded as R9 280, it became mid range. Now it is low end/mid range... What you also need to keep in mind is, that R9 280 was like 5% faster than 7950, and R9 380 is rebrand of R9 285, that was like 5-10% faster than R9 280... So the difference between 380 and 7950 is about 10-15% performance. Best thing you can do is wait for reviews on 29-th... The numbers, that the manufacturers show are not really trustworthy...
Yup. That's why I'm ready to move on from them. I'm ready for new horizons.
I hope AMD stays true to their word about the RX480. If it really has >5TFLOPS, it's going to be pretty impressive. It will definitely be comparable to the HD7950 CF. For a single card, that is a really nice value.
