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£300 graphics card range—which one would you choose?

gerico

gerico

gerico

Associate
Joined
12 Dec 2009
Posts
624
Location
Gloucester, UK
Hey there,

I'm way overdue a new graphics card. I'm currently using an AMD HD 5870, it's seriously old and dieing. My absolute ceiling price would be 300 quid. So I've been looking around reading reviews, opinions and so on.. however I'm now more confused than ever.

I was looking at getting the R9 280x Toxic: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-324-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

It looks like a brilliant card, and I know someone who's had the Toxic and tells me it's a superb card with good overclock potential. Personally the sort of things I do is mainly gaming. I'm a designer, so I do need Photoshop and 3d rendering capabilities, but any low end card can do what I need in the area. I play things such as Dayz (alpha), Arma2 and hopefully with a new card, Arma 3. The rest of the games I play are things like Dota 2, Starbound—all of which run fine.

I did look at the GTX 770 iChill HerculeZ X3: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-030-IN&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

I'm not overly good with stats, and I'm confused as to which would suit me better, or more still, is the better card. Personally I've not preference over NVIDIA or AMD. My AMD has served me so well, I've never had any issues other than when I caused them :)

I'd really appreciate any thoughts and opinions from people in the know.

My Spec:
Running Intel i5 750 2.66GHZ @ 4.00GHZ
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 Intel p55 Motherboard
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
12GB DDR3
 
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GPU wise you cant beat the Sapphire 290 Tri-X for £300, but as said above, you need to do the whole lot to see any gains, you'll be bottle necking the GPU most probably.
 
Tonester0011 said:
Yeah it will defo bottleneck a 290/280 :D
Didn't notice you edit them in, will still give you a boost over the 5870, though yeah, will be limited by your CPU.
Click to expand...

Crap. Kinda hoped I'd get away with that. Might have to look at making some big changes then.. Going off topic, what would be a good cpu to go for? I'm looking over the system bundles at the moment.
 
Ok Tonester, let's say I could raise 1K towards a new rig. What sweet new parts would you go for — i want power! Perhaps I need to start a new thread looking at a whole new rig. Your help, in fact everyones help, been very helpful. You saved me buying a card that I'd not get all the power from. Appreciated indeed.
 
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Would be best to start a new thread :)
But here's a start, swap the 4770k for 4670k if you don't already have an SSD for OS etc, you will need a cooler if your current one isn't 1150 compatable (couldn't spec one either as i don't know your case! :D)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Red £319.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £157.99
2 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (TXD38G2400HC10QDC01) £71.99 (£143.98)
Total : £871.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Edit: Put up 16gb ram because i would assume you wouldn't want to downgrade from your current 12gb. However you could reuse your current ram, though faster ram makes more sense and is more efficient on Haswell :)
 
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Tonester0011 said:
Would be best to start a new thread :)
But here's a start, swap the 4770k for 4670k if you don't already have an SSD for OS etc, you will need a cooler if your current one isn't 1150 compatable (couldn't spec one either as i don't know your case! :D)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Red £319.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £157.99
2 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (TXD38G2400HC10QDC01) £71.99 (£143.98)
Total : £871.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Click to expand...

Man, this would be so lush. Well I'm going to look into this. Thanks for all your help. I will start a new thread nearer to when I'm going purchase just to go over things in more detail and get it right. But cheers for the help fella :D
 
I forgot to add, I'm running a i7 960 @ 4ghz and a 7970 ghz at stock.

Arma 3 runs like a dream at max ( 3000 draw distance). I actually swapped the cou and mobo out for a 3570k clocked to 4.4. I sent it back to save the cash, I couldn't see any difference other than in 3d mark.
 
Flashheart said:
I forgot to add, I'm running a i7 960 @ 4ghz and a 7970 ghz at stock.

Arma 3 runs like a dream at max ( 3000 draw distance).
Click to expand...

Ah nice mate. I'm going to do much more research into whats best to do. I have done well as this rig is around 6 years old. At the time of purchase they were all high spec parts. Would sure like to play Arma 3 soon :) - appreciate the reply.
 
280X or two 290, the GTX 770 is just too expensive for a card that no better than the 280X
 
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Is that £300 to be wholly spent on a graphics card, or do you want the best bang for your buck?

If the former, £300 R9 290,
If the latter, £220-£270 R9 280X
 
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