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Best Bang for the money - GFX choice

smogsy

smogsy

smogsy

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im looking at updating my Everything you need to know about amd/nvidia thread with a conclusion & some helpful pointers for people not in the know.

one thing i need your help with is choosing best bang for the buck in each cat

im thinking:

High end
970
290

Medium
280x
750ti/760

this is to help point people in the right direction if they have no clue what to pick

please reply with your suggestions the most common will put in my conclusion.
 
970 is obviously a fantastic card for the money, has dx12 low power and clocks high with 4GB VRAM. If you want to be picky, the weak point is the smaller 256bit-bus at higher resolutions.

But the 290X at the moment is also a monster card for the money, True Audio, big 512bit-bus, 2800+ Stream Processors and 4GB VRAM. But if you wanted to be picky, slightly older tech, only dx11.2
 
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If it was my money, I'd be getting a 970.

New games are starting to use more and more Vram, so 4GB is a minimum IMO for a card these days. even at 1080P.
 
ok, if the 290 is £200 or less then its the bang for buck especially if that includes games, for enthusiasts any power\heat etc issues don't matter, for the everyday person then the 970 is very tempting.

At the medium end I think I'd go for the 760, though its close with the 280. :)
 
TonyTurbo78 said:
970 is obviously a fantastic card for the money, has dx12 low power and clocks high with 4GB VRAM. If you want to be picky, the weak point is the smaller 256bit-bus at higher resolutions.

But the 290X at the moment is also a monster card for the money, True Audio, big 512bit-bus, 2800+ Stream Processors and 4GB VRAM. But if you wanted to be picky, slightly older tech, only dx11.2
Click to expand...

Correct me if i'm wrong but don't all GCN based cards (inc. 290X) support DX12 already? 290X is the best value for money card at the moment imo. The 290X should be better at 4K due to its larger memory bus.
 
yeah correct, my fingers took over without explaining fully. AMD came out and said they will support dx12 didn't they a while back, but how many of dx12 features remains to be seen. Will it be full support or just compatible that's the question.
 
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Looking at £170 for a 290 after selling the AMD reward code, maybe even cheaper if you get lucky, unrivaled/ridiculous bang for buck at that price.
 
TonyTurbo78 said:
970 is obviously a fantastic card for the money, has dx12 low power and clocks high with 4GB VRAM. If you want to be picky, the weak point is the smaller 256bit-bus at higher resolutions.

But the 290X at the moment is also a monster card for the money, True Audio, big 512bit-bus, 2800+ Stream Processors and 4GB VRAM. But if you wanted to be picky, slightly older tech, only dx11.2
Click to expand...

290/x support DX12 just as much as 970 support it. :)
 
Bought recently and have yet to install but was torn between 970 x 2 or 290 x 2.

End choice was made for me with the ocuk xfx 290 DD offer of £200 per card with game vouchers- Better bang for buck than the 970.:)

It was a close call as the 970 is newer tech (for what that is really worth) and is much more power efficient but has only the 256 bit interface (which can ,I read, cause issues if you want to run a 4k monitor - which I do) -
The 290 on the other hand has the 512bit interface and is approx.£50 cheaper per unit :)BUT I did have to buy a new psu costing £140 :(.

Overall taking the above into account and the facts that I will be watercooling (whichever cards I bought they would be watercooled!) -which does not breach warranty for the xfx cards :) , I get 2 game packs and will sell at least one and although , because of power concerns, I have bought a new psu (1000w) such will be used again and again I decided that the xfx was the best bang for buck call:D

It was , however very , very close and I would probably have gone with the 970's bar the last minute reductions in price.
 
What to choose

As a complete newbie to the forum, please go easy, I stumbled upon this discussion as my first point of call in deciding what to do.

I'm really just starting to look at upgrading my system and deciding which way to go for my, and my 9 year old son's gaming experience.

We have a PS3 at home and an xbox 360. I use the PS3 mainly, my son the xbox but both him and my 7 year old daughter have started to use my tower to play Roblox, Minecraft and other such games.

I'm wondering if I should buy a PS4, XBOX one, or upgrade my rig to play games on.

I have dual 1080p screens (no idea on rest of spec) and a Phenom X6 on an AMD 3+ socket motherboard (a gigabyte one, no idea on spec). Was about £65 from CCL. I have 16gb of vengence ram and 2 SSDs.

I guess you'll ask me what PSU I have, I have no idea!

I'd like to go up to the FX8350 (or different at your recommendation) and then I was thinking a GTX760 or 750ti etc. I realy have NO CLUE what I'd need or how much to spend.

I'm not an online gamer so it would be just for playing the games mentioned above with the view to start playing some other stuff on there. Be nice if it woulc handle World of Warcraft too as eldest daughter when she comes home from Uni likes to play that.

I have a big silly cooler thing (about £20) on CPU at moment so could I reuse that? :D

I think the GC is a HD6500 or something like that. Do I need to upgrade?

All help, for this helpless guy, is really appreciated. :rolleyes::confused::confused::confused:



PS - please feel free to move this comment if it would get better answers elsewhere.
 
Radeon R290 is also a valid high-end option if you can source one significantly cheaper than a 970. Especially if you don't care about power draw.
 
Boomstick777 said:
Best bang for buck imho,

High end
970
Click to expand...

If I was to buy a graphic card now choose between the 970 and 290, I would probably spend the extra and go for the 970...but purely from bang for bucks point of view, I don't think the 970 is better bang for bucks than the 290.

The 970 cost 25-30% more than a 290, but it is not 25% faster...they trade blows with one another in most games, except GameWorks titles, which it may be noticeably faster.
 
290 is easily the best bang per buck GPU especially when they are on sale @ocuk for £200....

Once again people seem to forget the 3 free games you get i.e. alien isolation, starship citizen, BF 3, tomb raider, sniper elite 3 etc. Sell the codes on and get at the very least £40
 
People also seem to forget the 970 runs a lot cooler and quieter than the 290 and 290x and that does not seem to have been taking into consideration.
 
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