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Help deciding on GPU - 280, 285 or 280X?

Confused Stu

Confused Stu

Confused Stu

Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2009
Posts
2,727
Location
Gillingham, Kent
Hi everyone. I find myself in a quandary and need your help.

A friend of a friend is doing some building work for me in exchange for me making him a PC for his son. We've agreed prices so (for the first time ever) I'm actually having to stick to a budget on a PC build! He wants a PC that can run the latest games on a 1080p TV for the next few years, is as small as possible, and to look cool/"bling". Think a Steambox and you're on the right lines as to what he's after.

I'm looking at putting together a build into an EVGA Hadron Air - this should provide the small form factor and the cool/bling requirement, especially with a couple of LED strips inside. However, the small case does present it's own issues, most notably an official 267mm maximum GPU length and potential cooling issues as there's only about a single PCI slot-sized gap between the GPU and the PSU.

The card will be paired with an i3-4350 (or 4360) as the extra £60 to move up to an i5 would mean downgrading the GPU, which I don't think is worth it for a purely gaming machine. It'll have 8GB of DDR3, a 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD and a DVD drive

I'm torn between a 280, a 285, or a 280X. The 280X is the fastest and people have managed to get them to fit into the case, but it's also the most expensive (£195) so I'll have to cut a corner elsewhere to fit this in to the budget. I'm also concerned how loud/hot it'll be in such a small case. The 280 is much cheaper (£156) so I can spend extra elsewhere but may have the same heat/noise issues to some degree. The 285 brings Mantle and TrueAudio to the table (XDMA crossfire doesn't really matter with a miniITX build) and looks to run cooler/quieter than the other two cards but is the extra £20 over the 280 worth it when they perform the same? Also, the loss of 1GB of VRAM doesn't sit too well with me, but then the card will only ever be running 1080p.

I keep swinging between the three cards and really do need to make a decision. Is it worth cutting costs elsewhere and getting the 280X over the 285, or should I stick to the 280 and use the money on other parts of the build (bigger SSD or better keyboard maybe?).

What are you thoughts?
 
kylew_is_back said:
I will never recommend a GPU with only 2GB this day and age, so the 285 is out of the question.
Click to expand...

Why not? If you reach 2gb of used VRAM with a 280x, you're probably running a newish game at max details and getting not great FPS. So you lower the details a bit, enjoy the good FPS and you don't worry about the VRAM cap, thereby making the 285 a valid option. :D

My suggestion is 285.

EDIT, I've just noticed the you will pair it with an i3 which, in my opinion, makes Mantle a must.
 
Last edited:
Confused Stu said:
Hi everyone. I find myself in a quandary and need your help.

A friend of a friend is doing some building work for me in exchange for me making him a PC for his son. We've agreed prices so (for the first time ever) I'm actually having to stick to a budget on a PC build! He wants a PC that can run the latest games on a 1080p TV for the next few years, is as small as possible, and to look cool/"bling". Think a Steambox and you're on the right lines as to what he's after.

I'm looking at putting together a build into an EVGA Hadron Air - this should provide the small form factor and the cool/bling requirement, especially with a couple of LED strips inside. However, the small case does present it's own issues, most notably an official 267mm maximum GPU length and potential cooling issues as there's only about a single PCI slot-sized gap between the GPU and the PSU.

The card will be paired with an i3-4350 (or 4360) as the extra £60 to move up to an i5 would mean downgrading the GPU, which I don't think is worth it for a purely gaming machine. It'll have 8GB of DDR3, a 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD and a DVD drive

I'm torn between a 280, a 285, or a 280X. The 280X is the fastest and people have managed to get them to fit into the case, but it's also the most expensive (£195) so I'll have to cut a corner elsewhere to fit this in to the budget. I'm also concerned how loud/hot it'll be in such a small case. The 280 is much cheaper (£156) so I can spend extra elsewhere but may have the same heat/noise issues to some degree. The 285 brings Mantle and TrueAudio to the table (XDMA crossfire doesn't really matter with a miniITX build) and looks to run cooler/quieter than the other two cards but is the extra £20 over the 280 worth it when they perform the same? Also, the loss of 1GB of VRAM doesn't sit too well with me, but then the card will only ever be running 1080p.

I keep swinging between the three cards and really do need to make a decision. Is it worth cutting costs elsewhere and getting the 280X over the 285, or should I stick to the 280 and use the money on other parts of the build (bigger SSD or better keyboard maybe?).

What are you thoughts?
Click to expand...

Hi Stu,

In your situation i would be looking at a 285. You won't have the grunt to use more than 2gb vram anyway. The 285 is nipping at the heels of the 280X.
 
Zethor said:
Why not? If you reach 2gb of used VRAM with a 280x, you're probably running a newish game at max details and getting not great FPS. So you lower the details a bit, enjoy the good FPS and you don't worry about the VRAM cap, thereby making the 285 a valid option. :D

My suggestion is 285.

EDIT, I've just noticed the you will pair it with an i3 which, in my opinion, makes Mantle a must.
Click to expand...

I have a GPU with 3GB and you can't imagine how many new games use more than 2GB Vram, in fact 3GB vram are just not enough for some games, imagine what will happen in a year. but if you are planing to play old games 2GB are plenty.
 
kylew_is_back said:
I have a GPU with 3GB and you can't imagine how many new games use more than 2GB Vram, in fact 3GB vram are just not enough for some games, imagine what will happen in a year. but if you are planing to play old games 2GB are plenty.
Click to expand...

What GPU? :)

If it's a 290 or 780 then yes, they often use more than 2GB, while allowing comfortable FPS. The point was, to push a 280, 285 or 280x into the +2GB territory, your kill your FPS as the cards are simply not fast enough.
 
Zethor said:
What GPU? :)

If it's a 290 or 780 then yes, they often use more than 2GB, while allowing comfortable FPS. The point was, to push a 280, 285 or 280x into the +2GB territory, your kill your FPS as the cards are simply not fast enough.
Click to expand...

HD7950+R9 280 CF (OC 1100MHz), even titanfall (an incredibly easy game to run) at max settings I can only use 2xAA at 2560x1440 before I ran out of Vram or I can choose high textures instead of ultra textures and 8xAA before I ran out of Vram again. And that is going to be the trend, thanks to consoles that have weak GPU's but a lot of vram.
 
crossfirex is a situation where vram requirements relative to card power shifts significantly in favour of increased vram cards which is why your experience is different.
 
David Bisset said:
crossfirex is a situation where vram requirements relative to card power shifts significantly in favour of increased vram cards which is why your experience is different.
Click to expand...
That is why I mention titanfall because it is an incredibly easy game to run, only ONE 280 OC can run this game at max settings, 2xAA, 2560x1400 at around 80fps, but if you want 4xAA you ran out of Vram.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, they're all really appreciated.

In this situation, the PC will only ever run a single GPU and a maximum of 1080p, so 2GB should be enough to run most new games - until the PC is so old that a 280/285/280x core is too feeble to run games anyway!

Definitely looking like the 285 is the right choice for this situation, mainly from a size/heat/noise point of view. Is there anything I should be looking at from the Green side of the fence currently in the same price range, or is the 285 currently the best bang-for-buck in this segment?
 
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