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R9 380 Or GTX 960?

Casterina

Casterina

Casterina

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17 Nov 2011
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852
R9 290/X Or GTX 970?

I'm looking at the R9 380 and the GTX 960 graphics card which is between my £160 budget that can run games such as Call Of Duty, Battlefield, Tom Clancy, Fifa, Counter Strike and other FPS games on Medium/High settings with good FPS on my 23" LCD monitor at 1920x1080 resolution.

Out of the two, which one has better performances and good overclock that will last for 3-5 years?

My specs are,

Case: Corsair Graphite 230T
CPU: Intel i5 3570K 4.2GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77 D3H
PSU: OCZ ZS 550W
 
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Holliday said:
Another option would be to get a second-hand 290 or 290x. I've seen 290's go as low as £130. Really good bang for buck.
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Plus it will fair a lot better in games 3 years down the line than either the 960 or 380. At 1080p you'll be able to crank everything up on most games and get approx 60fps. Just depends how you feel about buying second hand.
 
Definately try to source a 290 or a 780 as they will offer more performance and you could even ultra most settings at 1080p.

A 380 and 960 is ok but at 160 pounds you can get a lot more for your money

P.s i am not sure if ocuk still have any of the 780's left that they had on offer to clear stock.
 
Holliday said:
Another option would be to get a second-hand 290 or 290x. I've seen 290's go as low as £130. Really good bang for buck.
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The R290 or 290X is better than R9 380 and GTX 960? I thought the higher number means better performance

Ian Evey said:
Definately try to source a 290 or a 780 as they will offer more performance and you could even ultra most settings at 1080p.

A 380 and 960 is ok but at 160 pounds you can get a lot more for your money

P.s i am not sure if ocuk still have any of the 780's left that they had on offer to clear stock.
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I can stretch my budget a bit more but I see the R290 and GTX 780 at around £190-200 used, will they both work on 550W PSU?
 
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Yes they will work on a 550w

Higher numbers do not always guarantee better performance. Its just the latest version, usually with updated features and lower power requirements, noise and heat.

I can't comment on AMD, but Nvidia do make improvements with each new release.
Went from a 780 to a 970 and its a bit better, but not by much (still got the 780 in the other machine)

I think a 4gb 770 would be fine for your requirements too (but I've never used one)
 
Casterina said:
The R290 or 290X is better than R9 380 and GTX 960? I thought the higher number means better performance


I can stretch my budget a bit more but I see the R290 and GTX 780 at around £190-200 used, will they both work on 550W PSU?
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Yes, unfortunately for those that don't follow the graphics card ranges closely you could easily think the 380 is higher in performance than the 290. Basically the 380 is a renaming of the previous midrange to make it look newer/faster. The 290 is pretty much a 390 with 4GB so it's a lot faster than the 380.

If you can I would go for a 290 over a 780, it's generally faster and has a bit more vram too. The best 290 models are the Sapphire Tri X, Powercolor PCS and the MSI Gaming. Try to avoid the reference cards if possible.
 
BriT said:
Should be able to get a 780 below £150.
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The cheapest on the bay is around £190 used however it will probably be cheaper on OcUK marketplace but I don't have 1000 posts to access it.

RanxZy said:
Yes, unfortunately for those that don't follow the graphics card ranges closely you could easily think the 380 is higher in performance than the 290. Basically the 380 is a renaming of the previous midrange to make it look newer/faster. The 290 is pretty much a 390 with 4GB so it's a lot faster than the 380.

If you can I would go for a 290 over a 780, it's generally faster and has a bit more vram too. The best 290 models are the Sapphire Tri X, Powercolor PCS and the MSI Gaming. Try to avoid the reference cards if possible.
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R9 290 and 290X is roughly around £190-200 used, is it worth it?
 
Casterina said:
The cheapest on the bay is around £190 used however it will probably be cheaper on OcUK marketplace but I don't have 1000 posts to access it.


R9 290 and 290X is roughly around £190-200 used, is it worth it?
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If you can't access the members market try Gumtree or Reddits /r/hardwareswapuk , defo don't pay more than £150 for a 290, not sure about 290x. And as someone said try to avoid 'reference' cards, which are basically the stock coolers before third party companies make their own.
 
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Casterina said:
... I thought the higher number means better performance...
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For both companies the numbering scheme roughly is generation, then tier, then a random 0 or occasionally 5.

The most important figure is tier, though generation can matter too.

AMD:
290 is top tier of last gen.
380 is lower performance

nVidia:
960 = mid-tier of current gen
780 = high tier of previous gen (aye, i know, there shoulda been an 8 but their naming went a bit wonky with laptop and OEM parts)

In both cases the higher tier previous card is faster than the newer one.
 
Had a look around but not too keen on used graphics cards as it may have some problems down the line once the buyer protection has run out.

For now, if I had the budget of £160-180, which graphics card (New) would you choose?

I may wait till Black Friday sales, if I upped my budget to £200-220, which graphics cards am I looking at for the money?
 
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New for £160-180

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xfx-...ess-graphics-card-r9-380p-4df5-gx-228-xf.html

New for £200

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-209-ms.html

Unfortunately there seems to be a big gap in the market around the £180-220 price range, something neither team seem to have addressed, there is rumour of a 380x hitting mid November so maybe hold on and see what thats like. It's a bit of a minefield of late gpu shopping because all the new mid range cards offer little gain over the previous generation.

The last option is to keep an eye on the powercolor 390's, they crop up new for £229 now and again.
 
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