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R9-280X Regret

Noxia

Noxia

Noxia

Soldato
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30 Dec 2010
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I got a brand new MSI Gaming OC R9-280X off the members market for £140. Initially I was delighted but then I started to look at benches and stuff and I'm worrying a bit.
My last rig had a 780 Classified and it ran most games great at 1440p, I am however now back to 1080p gaming and thus I'd want to max things out as much as possible. I feel this card may fall short though and I'm not sure on what a suitable replacement might be.
780ti is overkill for 1080p, a 780 is probably still a good shout and I loved the MSI Gaming version of that for quietness but I know AMD have been producing some cards that easily trade blows with the 780 etc for less money.
I suppose I'm asking what is the "best" card for my needs, 1080p single monitor gaming with an aim to max out most games with exceptions of the usual suspects. Build not complete yet but CPU is a 4790k and will have 8gb ram so fairly standard setup. I do intend to play most games on my PS4 though so I may be worrying for no reason as I tend to play older games and 4x types, but I basically wanted to get this PC built ready for Beyond Earth and hopefully Elite one day.
 
Also picked up one cheap second hand, struggles a bit at crazy settings but its mostly fine for 1080p. If you want to max everything out I would suggest more power.
 
I do not have a brand preference, I'm just conscious that I was spoiled with the 780's and I feel this may now be too much of a backwards step and I was just taken away by the price :)
I'm going micro ATX so don't really want dual GPU due to heat and the fact I've always been a one GPU man (although that one was the most powerful I felt I could get at the time).
290X do look good I need to research a bit more.

A quick look and it seems they are same price as 780 and just about the same performance (bitTech reviews). I thought they were supposed to be bang for buck cards not just almost as good as their NVIDIA counterparts.
 
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Ha yeah, I still maintain the perfect size monitor for me is 24" so I'm happy in that respect, the 27" 1440p was just too much.
 
Tried a overclock?


My 280x clocks like a demnon


Might just give you that extra 10-15% your looking for
 
Not even in a rig yet, just worrying before I've even got that far. Thing is I'm sure it would be great for someone coming from a less powerful machine but I know what I'm like and if it cannot match my 780 (which in all fairness cost £150 more at launch) I may get shot of it very very quickly. It's just worth more if I sell without using it. The proof is in the pudding as they say, I may be fine with it.
 
Your 280X should perform similarly at 1080p as the 780 did at 1440p (in fact it should be slightly quicker in term of raw FPS seen as there isn't *that* much difference between the two of them).

The 280X is still a great card and at £140 it was a steal.

Get it clocked up to around 1200-1250 on the core and you will be nudging close to stock 780 performance anyway.
 
That's what I want to hear :) The silly thing is I know full well that even medium settings will look great, I just hate having to turn lots of options off to play a game. Then again, most console games are 30fps so I could always lock the frame rate to that on some stuff and it would handle easily I expect. Bit of a last resort though.
 
Your 280x will be more then capable at 1080p , I have the msi 270x and that runs everything at high/ultra at 1080p with no AA for the more demanding titles and at a solid 60fps as I prefer to have that over looks, I have 2 in xfire now but that's just me wanting more fps and thinking of maybe a 120hz screen :)
 
Not ones I play I guess. I know some are killers and I expect Witcher 3 to be one but that's probably ps4 for me.
 
Noxia said:
That's what I want to hear :) The silly thing is I know full well that even medium settings will look great, I just hate having to turn lots of options off to play a game. Then again, most console games are 30fps so I could always lock the frame rate to that on some stuff and it would handle easily I expect. Bit of a last resort though.
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You won't have to run Medium settings with a 280x at 1080p
 
280x's are a good card put it in enjoy :) 780 is about a 290 but since you were at 1440p i would expect the difference overall to be smallish depending on how great of a clocker your classy was
 
Noxia said:
I suppose I'm asking what is the "best" card for my needs, 1080p single monitor gaming with an aim to max out most games with exceptions of the usual suspects.
Click to expand...

Well, personally I would have suggested a 280X lol, have you tried overclocking yours? an MSI 280X gaming with a decent OC should be nearing GTX780 numbers.
 
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