Graphics Card For 3200x1800 Gaming? (Under £300)

[darthenrahl]

I'm looking to finally upgrade my now ancient 7850. I've been just about getting by overclocking it bit by bit over the years (Now at 1200 clock 1480 mem and this is on a 1440p display mind you so I'm just about staying above 20fps which is acceptable for me since I don't play games competitively

I'm looking to buy something in the sub £300 region that will give me a relatively smooth experience playing on a downsampled res of 3200x1800, the cheaper the better really as I'm also upgrading my cpu and mobo so I'd be happy with more money to spare for those.

It seems like my only choices really are the 290x and 970 but its a tough choice. Firstly, is the 970s borked memory really an isssue or just an issue on paper, and would it be an issue at 3200x1800?

Secondly, how massive are the 290x's? I have a coolermaster cm690, not sure if its sufficient.

Thirdly. Is the power usage of the 290x enough to make a big difference to your electricity bill? I'd only really game a 3-4 hours a day tops.

Thanks.

 

[shadow_boxer]

Just out of interest why would you want to game on a presumably 4K screen at 3K? I always was under the impression that the screens native resolution would be best. If so I'd personally stick with gaming at 2560x1400. There isn't huge difference between this and 3200x1800 from a visual point of view and gaming at the screens native resolution would be better. Not to mention you'd get much better performance from your new GPU be it a 290, 290X or GTX 970.

 

[darthenrahl]

Its a 2560 x 1440 screen. I thought that was 1440p? Anyway 3200x1800 seems to be the closest res you can downsample from on a 2560x1440 display. Anything higher and I'd be out of single gpu territory. Wouldn't even that difference in res help with aliasing? I have a problem where I cant play games at all with aliasing so anything without msaa is a no go, i thought maybe that small downsample would help for games without proper aa, at least a little since aa is already less of a problem on 2560x1440. Keep in mind I think 25fps at the very least is acceptable so I can spare the gpu power for all this downsampling and aa at the expense of fps.

 

[shadow_boxer]

Can I ask what monitor you have?

Any of those cards would be a great upgrade for gaming at 1440p and you should be able to hit 50-60fps in the majority of titles will some tweaked settings. Personally I think the R9 290 offers the best value for money at just over £200.

 

[darthenrahl]

I have the DGM IPS-2701WPH 27"

So do you know anything about the real world performance cost of the dodgy 0.5 gig of memory on the 970? I see it has some nice overclocking headroom but I'm not sure if the memory issue will affect fps at high resolutions much, especially with downsampling.

 

[CEUOTC]

Plenty of B Grade bargains to be had atm

 

[RanxZy]

Secondly, how massive are the 290x's? I have a coolermaster cm690, not sure if its sufficient.

Thirdly. Is the power usage of the 290x enough to make a big difference to your electricity bill? I'd only really game a 3-4 hours a day tops.

Thanks.

A 290X would be more than fine with 690w PSU. There won't be a big difference in your leccy bill. Even if you played for 4 hours every day for 5 days a year it would be less than £2 difference a month.

 

[Poneros]

Plenty of B Grade bargains to be had atm

Jesus, look at those 290 and 290x prices. Wish I'd been paid already!

 

[old gamer]

i can help here, i had the same monitor and 970 sli and 290, did not like dsr with the 970's it looked and felt like fake 4k where vsr on the 290 looked much better imo. so i say go 290 or 290x and enjoy