Which GPU will be a better Choice?

Hardware Hub GPU
1

Hey Guys,

I have decided on the AMD Radeon R9 290, 290x series but I haven't decided between these two.

The Shapphire is a 290 with Vapor-X clocked at 1030Mhz Core clock and up to 1050Mhz in OC mode and effective frequency of 5.6 GHz. It has 2560 Shader Cores and 40 Compute units.

The Price is: £367.46

Here is a Link: http://www.dabs.com/products/msi-amd-radeon-r9-290x-4gb-pci-e-3-0-hdmi-gaming-962X.html?src=7

And the MSI is 290x where things get a little interesting. Its core clock is 1000Mhz up to 1040Mhz and effective frequency of 5 GHz. But it has 4 more compute uints and 2816 Shader Cores.

The Price is: £399.00

Here is a Link http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphire-technology-amd-radeon-r9-290-1050mhz-4gb-pci-e-3-0-hdmi-vapor-x-9CL5.html?src=7

So which one should I choose and what will the benefits be of one over the other. I'm looking for the slowest FPS degradation in the long run. And does the increase in Shader Cores and Compute units relay bring to the table.

Also here are the two builds I'm thinking of running one of them on.

Build 1: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3AW7W

Build 2: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3Cter

I'm leaning more towards the AMD but I can consider the Intel if can convince me.

2

To be honest, Intel/AMD doesn't really matter. Both of those builds are sufficient, and you've got appropriate motherboards for each chip. Great!

Personally, I would go with the R9 290 if gaming is the only consideration. If you want a card for productivity, the 290x would be the best fit. They actually perform equally well in games. Better to save £30 and buy some games or snacks!

3

I agree go for the 290 and I would personally go with the i5 build as I have seen it perform better sometimes when gaming then the FX processors mostly in single threaded games or poorly coded games.

4

That's true. I have a slight tendency to go with Intel processors for my preferred games. But the AMD platform is really versatile e.g streaming and editing. So both have their merits.