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Cannot decide!

Associate
Joined
13 Sep 2012
Posts
212
Location
Belfast
Hey guys!

Been having a stressful few days trying to decide on what GFX to get, and its really starting to affect my uni work as all I'm doing most of the time is researching, researching and researching some more on graphics cards, so I need some help on bringing this madness that's going on inside my head to a close :D

So for the past couple of years I've been (very happily) rocking the GTX 550Ti, but after trying out the BF4 beta, I have realised it's time to upgrade, my budget is £250, give or take £20 if it's really worth it.

I have been a Nvidia guy for the past 6 years or so, but seeing all these AMD's and going by price to performance ratio's, AMD seems to be the way forward!

So I've came up with some cards that I CANNOT decide between, and here they are:

Asus HD 7970 Matrix Platinum

MSI Radeon R9 280X or Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Toxic (When its released)

MSI GeForce GTX 760 4GB

Please if anyone has suggestions or experience on/with any of these cards, don't be shy!
 
280x all the way, the price at the moment is nuts. The Toxic is really nice if you are willing to spend the difference.
 
Can I just ask, why? I mean why the 280x Toxic over the 760, the standard clock speeds are pretty dang close, yet the 760 is £30 cheaper. Is the R9 range great at overclocking or something, and would it be something to do with this mantle also?
 
If your looking to get decent overclocks,

I'd go with the toxic, had my MSI 280X delivered today and while it's a great card, it appears to be voltage locked.
 
Well if you'd asked over the weekend of the 12/13 Oct then it'd have been a unanimous 7970 matrix as it was £222 over that weekend.
But now I'd agree with everyone on the 280x toxic, I'm seriously tempted by it but couple of things stopping me getting 1(or 2). Firstly it's not getting a waterblock(well from ek at least, not sure about the others) so as I'm planning on going watercooling in the near future it would work for me and secondly I'm waiting on the 290x/gtx780ti. If the 290x/780ti turn out to be duds I might end up going with the 280x toxic but really only if someone releases a waterblock for it.
 
Can I just ask, why? I mean why the 280x Toxic over the 760, the standard clock speeds are pretty dang close, yet the 760 is £30 cheaper. Is the R9 range great at overclocking or something, and would it be something to do with this mantle also?


The 760 is rubbish cost more than a 670 and no where near as good, had one and sent it back, bought a MSI 670 PE and that blew it away by some 1400 points in 3Dmark11, only 300 shy of my ASUS 680 DCII OC score, also had the 770 which is great card too, but the 280X or 7970 have that all important extra gig or ddr5, which i would argue its better have and not need, than to not have at all, its your choice so make the right one for you, dont believe the hype, and all the benchmarks you read, there is nothing worth shouting about as far as numbers go between the 680/770 or the 7970/280, DX 11.2 is a plus on the 280, also mantle will be better on the 280 than the 7970 so i have read, other than that there is no real bad choice here if you exclude the 760 ;)
 
Another mild barge into the thread, but why the "MSI Radeon R9 280X" is this significantly better than the other makes etc?
Or is it just the better cooling for one of the cheaper prices?
 
Another mild barge into the thread, but why the "MSI Radeon R9 280X" is this significantly better than the other makes etc?
Or is it just the better cooling for one of the cheaper prices?

Well I put that there because MSI is just a personal preference, I like the look and my previous cards have been MSI and always done me well. But yes your right the cooler is great, on every boot up the fans spin backwards for 5 seconds or so, which keeps dust levels to a minimum, also MSI cards can be used with Afterburner which is a great over clocking utility.

Sorry to barge in on this thread, but what PSU would you need, 650W etc ?

I beleive the minimum/recommended for the R9 280x Toxic is a 600w PSU
 
Just bought the Gigabyte r280x, had the same budget as you and my current card (that i just sold) was a gigabyte 570gtx superoverclock which worked very well ! plus found a great deal on the gigabyte for 275 euros/£233.

i would go for the toxic if you want a monster of a r280x, i didn't get one because i wanted to get the cheapest with a nice overclock and great cooling,the gigabyte does that and i can't wait to test it !
 
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