Spec my new GPU :)

[Arthalen]

Rig in Sig. Feels a bit long in the tooth these days, but has been playing my games adequately - but since that's mainly been MMOs, ermm, that's nothing to stressful for what I have.

But I feel the upgrade itch, and want to play some BF4 - so I need a card that's worth the £££ outlay by giving me a decent +% increase over my 6950 and has Mantle - so yes, AMD.

Suggestions?

 

[MoodyB]

Budget?

 

[Qitarah]

For up to £250 I'd go with;

280x gigabyte (great warranty), sapphire vapor-x (I<3sapphire) or the MSI (good warranty support also apparently). If your going for the higher end 280s like the toxic/asus you may as well just get a 290).

£300+: Either the sapphire 290 (Lowest price 290 currently) or get a 290 flashed to 290x.

My general advise if you are wanting to spend above £300 is to wait till January for the aftermarket coolers on the 290s.


Make sure your checking deals of the day, the prices of the 280's have gone up a bit in the last 2 days, so make sure your checking often to get a good deal!

 

[arknor]

gigabyte 280x is ridiculously loud.

had mine a day and think I will RMA it.

so loud it almost drowns out my 5.1 speakers and my neighbours can prob here it through the wall

Unless you have noise cancelling headphones or a runway in your living room I don't see how you could enjoy gaming with one

 

[teppic]

The Gigabyte shouldn't be that loud unless the fans are running at 100%

The Asus DirectCU II coolers tend to be very quiet. MSI's Twin Frozr too. For quietness I'd get the MSI 280X, for warranty the Gigabyte.

 

[arc@css]

The Gigabyte shouldn't be that loud unless the fans are running at 100%

This.

I've always found the windforce coolers very good indeed.

 

[arknor]

The Gigabyte shouldn't be that loud unless the fans are running at 100%

The Asus DirectCU II coolers tend to be very quiet. MSI's Twin Frozr too. For quietness I'd get the MSI 280X, for warranty the Gigabyte.

the fans constantly at 98%..

40c idle.

hits 80c playing bf4 and just sounds like a helicopter , it's not just the noise of the fans either they start to make a rattling/ticking sound like a diesel taxi is sat outside
**** it sticking my 7850 back in and will rma it then buy a gtx770 or something.

it's about as loud as my kettle


This was playing arkham city for 5 mins.

look the fan and temp....

I'd rather pay the extra money for nvidia if it's fairly quiet like my windforce 7850 is even at 100% that's silent compared to this

 

[teppic]

Something's wrong there for sure. I'd avoid the 770 though, if you're unhappy with another Gigabyte 280X then one of the other brands. Techpowerup's review says the fans are noisy, and Gigabyte's odd response is that in Asia people don't care about noise only low temps (!).

As a comparison the Gigabyte 280X under load is recorded at 45dB and the MSI at 34dB.

 

[teppic]

I'd rather pay the extra money for nvidia if it's fairly quiet like my windforce 7850 is even at 100% that's silent compared to this

It's to do with the cooler and fan profile, not the GPU. For example, looking at the same GPU with the three main brands:

Gigabyte: 45dB
MSI: 34dB
Asus: 35dB

Asus 770: 34dB
MSI 770: 36dB
Gigabyte 770: 33dB

It seems Gigabyte's 280X profile is just ridiculously aggressive.

 

[arknor]

It's to do with the cooler and fan profile, not the GPU. For example, looking at the same GPU with the three main brands:

Gigabyte: 45dB
MSI: 34dB
Asus: 35dB

Asus 770: 34dB
MSI 770: 36dB
Gigabyte 770: 33dB

It seems Gigabyte's 280X profile is just ridiculously aggressive.

but it has to be 100% fan and still 80c, the max temp of the card is supposed to be 95 and it's winter ffs!

Seriously I'd rather pay the extra 100 or whatever for a 4gb 770 than put up with this noise because it would drive me insane.

I tried playing bf4 and the noise of the fan was drowning the game out.

I live in a flat so can't just turn my sound up stupidly loud

 

[teppic]

As you can see though, there's no difference in noise between the MSI and Asus 280X and the 770s. The Gigabyte 280X is showing about twice the amount of noise as them in that review.

You could set up a new profile in Afterburner that limits the fan to 70% or something, but if temps are out of control it sounds like a faulty card.

 

[arknor]

As you can see though, there's no difference in noise between the MSI and Asus 280X and the 770s. The Gigabyte 280X is showing about twice the amount of noise as them in that review.

You could set up a new profile in Afterburner that limits the fan to 70% or something, but if temps are out of control it sounds like a faulty card.

looks like normal temps according to reviews :S

same core as 7970 afaik

 

[teppic]

It's the same GPU, yeah. 80C isn't a huge problem, but 100% fans are. Setting a manual profile may remove the problem (even if temps rise a few degrees), but any custom cooler should be able to keep a 280X quiet. My Asus 7970 was the quietest card I've owned.

Also check to see if Gigabyte has released a BIOS update that makes the profile less aggressive.

edit - just had a look, and there is a BIOS update that includes 'Lower FAN speed'.

 

[arknor]

no way I'm risking a custom fan profile with those temps.
anything over 70% is far to loud and anything around 70 is likely far to hot..

I have a huge full tower aluminum lian li a71a as well so it's not like it's so hot because of my case

anyway uninstalled already,

 

[teppic]

70C isn't too hot. The GPU simply throttles if it gets too hot.

There's an issue with the fan profile that may be corrected with that BIOS update, but if you don't want to try it and want to return it that's up to you.

 

[RanxZy]

arknor just try and avoid getting a card with 3 small 80mm fans like the Gigabyte one as they tend to run at a higher rpm than the MSI Gaming Edition for example which has 2 large 100mm fans that can run at a much lower rpm but still push a lot of air.

They have a 4GB 770 Gaming Edition available but just note that the 256bit memory bus on the 770 will let it down a bit although not many games particularly push the memory bus unless you purposely want to use certain settings to do so. The very fast memory clock on the 770s will alleviate problems also.

 

[arknor]

70C isn't too hot. The GPU simply throttles if it gets too hot.

There's an issue with the fan profile that may be corrected with that BIOS update, but if you don't want to try it and want to return it that's up to you.

I meant to put at 70% fan speed it would likely still be far to hot.

arknor just try and avoid getting a card with 3 small 80mm fans like the Gigabyte one as they tend to run at a higher rpm than the MSI Gaming Edition for example which has 2 large 100mm fans that can run at a much lower rpm but still push a lot of air.

Yea looking at the gigabyte rev 2.0 with the black pcb the fans look bigger.
already requested an RMA number under DSR.

looks like the 7970's ran much cooler so guess gigabyte skimped on the cooler....

Anyway reckon I will go with a more expensive nvidia card, don't think I would risk another 280x whilst they are still using 7970 cores

 

[RanxZy]

To the OP, if you need to stay with AMD for Mantle I think the 280X has a good price for the performance and will handle BF4 well, although it might not get 60fps constant on Ultra in multiplayer. Mantle may change this though. Also the 280X is probably around 80-100% better than a 6950 as it beats a 6990.

 

[Bart_Hunt]

Watercooled 290 would be my choice.
Thats what I am putting in my rig anyway, in Xfire x2.
That makes it cheaper, quieter and cooler than any 780 or 290x.

 

[no_1_dave]

has Mantle - so yes, AMD.

You play right into AMDs hands like a little puppet.
AMD says Mantle, naive people jump onto it, even though there are no benchmarks and everything is speculation.

If you want AMD just say so... but to use Mantle as a reason.?.
Or do you know something no one else does?