RADEON R9 280x to GTX 970 !!! Please Help !!!

[Soulfresh_ACV]

Just recently caught a minor PC sim racing bug (blame it on Assetto Corsa) and looking at investing a bit on a GPU that would potentially allow me to be able to be able to play some of the current and upcoming sims (Assetto Corsa and Project Cars) on high if not max settings at 60fps. Been looking around GPU for weeks now and narrowed down to Radeon R9 280x range of cards that is reasonable cost within $300–$400 price range and should last for 3-4 years.



I understand obviously that there are other hardware factors to be considered. Basically only needed for a single screen setup at this stage and my current PC specs is Intel Core i5-3470 3.20GHz / 8GB RAM / HDD 7200RPM / Radeon 7750 2GB (Feel free to comment if you see any other bottlenecks). There are over 60 variants of R9 280x on Amazon which I used as guide for price points before I look for a better deal elsewhere. I have narrowed down these three variants available:

• ASUS R9280X-DC2T-3GD5
• Sapphire Radeon VAPOR-X R9 280X 3GB
• Sapphire Radeon TOXIC R9 280X 3GB

I would love some feedback from owners running Radeon R9 280x with AC and ProjectCars and whether this card is capable to deliver.



Should i wait for another couple of months before buying as prices seems to drop about $100/half-year with GPU?



Does Oculus Rift drain more on GPU or other hardware components like CPU, RAM, HDD etc.? I would love to switch to VR headset as my primary display in the future and by upgrading to the GPU, I can than be able to high-res graphics through the headset.

 

[RReed43]

Have you tried running Assetto Corsa on your current hardware. For a single screen setup you may be capable of running with your current rig and if not you should get a clear indicator of what the bottle neck for increase is. 2GB per screen of VM is a pretty good place to start.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

Have you tried running Assetto Corsa on your current hardware. For a single screen setup you may be capable of running with your current rig and if not you should get a clear indicator of what the bottle neck for increase is. 2GB per screen of VM is a pretty good place to start.

Yes I have been running AC with on current setup in low-mid graphics setting averaging 40 fps only and i did spent time tweaking the settings in AC for best between gfx and frame rate. That's the reason why I see the need to upgrade the GPU to start off with.

 

[chromatic9]

280x is 3.5x faster than the 7750. Your CPU is still good.

We should be seeing new Nvidia cards in the next month or two, the 970 and 980. This might have an effect on prices across AMD and Nvidia but depends how Nvidia target them.

280x is about 40-50% better than my 580. I can play mostly highest settings at 60fps 1080p. the only thing I don't have max is reflections medium cube map faces 3. Reflections set to maximum and cube map faces 6 cut the frame rate to 30fps but don't add much to the real time gameplay.

For the Rift its tricky to forecast as not much software supports it properly and what does is in Beta as well but you're looking at 20-50% drop in frame rate. Then the consumer version may run at 85-95Hz, you'll need 85-95fps as a minimum. Any drop below can cause judder/dizziness. And also may be 2560x1440

I owned the DK2 (sold it a couple of days ago). Due to magnification and distortion done in the Rift, graphic fidelity is lost a fair bit so there's no need to run max settings. Consumer Rift may well improve with a curved screen. DK2 shows much less pixels per object on screen so everything looks much lower in resolution.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

280x is 3.5x faster than the 7750. Your CPU is still good.

We should be seeing new Nvidia cards in the next month or two, the 970 and 980. This might have an effect on prices across AMD and Nvidia but depends how Nvidia target them.

280x is about 40-50% better than my 580. I can play mostly highest settings at 60fps 1080p. the only thing I don't have max is reflections medium cube map faces 3. Reflections set to maximum and cube map faces 6 cut the frame rate to 30fps but don't add much to the real time gameplay.

For the Rift its tricky to forecast as not much software supports it properly and what does is in Beta as well but you're looking at 20-50% drop in frame rate. Then the consumer version may run at 85-95Hz, you'll need 85-95fps as a minimum. Any drop below can cause judder/dizziness. And also may be 2560x1440

I owned the DK2 (sold it a couple of days ago). Due to magnification and distortion done in the Rift, graphic fidelity is lost a fair bit so there's no need to run max settings. Consumer Rift may well improve with a curved screen. DK2 shows much less pixels per object on screen so everything looks much lower in resolution.

My CPU is barely utilised in AC when I have debug info on.

As for drop in frame rate in Oculus Rift, is this primarily GPU bottlenecks? Sounds like more hardware upgrades will be needed to drive it when consumer version comes out which is still unknown in terms of timeframe. So from your humble opinion, is it worth getting 280x?

 

[Sele1981]

I have the ASUS R9280X-DC2T, awesome card! Super silent and very powerful. I bought a used one for only 140€ and am damn happy with it. I can run AC one a single screen with everything fully maxed out (except reflections on 3) and get about 80-100 FPS with 10 AI cars. But don´t know how it performs on an tripple screen.

Maybe you wait for the R9 285x

EDIT: I upgraded to an Xeon 1231V3 (new Ram and Mainboard too) wich brought me a huge performance boost. Before, I had an Intel Q9450. The Xeon brought me about 20-30 FPS in AC. But the Q9450 is a very old CPU. Your I5 is still pretty good.

 

[chromatic9]

My CPU is barely utilised in AC when I have debug info on.

As for drop in frame rate in Oculus Rift, is this primarily GPU bottlenecks? Sounds like more hardware upgrades will be needed to drive it when consumer version comes out which is still unknown in terms of timeframe. So from your humble opinion, is it worth getting 280x?

It's mainly in rendering two views and distortion. There's lots tricks to ease the load though.

AMD have already started dropping prices on 290x. Nvidia should be launching new stuff in the coming weeks so I'd hold on, you should get more value for your money or get the 280x cheaper. If you can't wait then its still a decent GPU with a decent amount of vram.

Not worth waiting for the Rift though. I'd get a GPU to enjoy then look at the Rift and what's needed later on.

To bore you more about GPUs, the current gen as we call is at 28nm chip process. It's been at 28nm for 3 years this Christmas. 2015 is when they will try for 20nm or 16nm. This is where the big jumps in performance come from.

My 580 is best of the 40nm. The best 28nm cards are 70-100% better than mine.

So right now is not a good time to future proof for an Oculus Rift as we're going to get much more performance in 2015/16 as well they'll be designed for higher bandwidth loads.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

It's mainly in rendering two views and distortion. There's lots tricks to ease the load though.

AMD have already started dropping prices on 290x. Nvidia should be launching new stuff in the coming weeks so I'd hold on, you should get more value for your money or get the 280x cheaper. If you can't wait then its still a decent GPU with a decent amount of vram.

Not worth waiting for the Rift though. I'd get a GPU to enjoy then look at the Rift and what's needed later on.

To bore you more about GPUs, the current gen as we call is at 28nm chip process. It's been at 28nm for 3 years this Christmas. 2015 is when they will try for 20nm or 16nm. This is where the big jumps in performance come from.

My 580 is best of the 40nm. The best 28nm cards are 70-100% better than mine.

So right now is not a good time to future proof for an Oculus Rift as we're going to get much more performance in 2015/16 as well they'll be designed for higher bandwidth loads.

Like everyone else who can build a PC from scratch but not when it comes to choosing the right parts and following the news properly on the hardware (esp. GPU) your feedback and insight is invaluable and very much appreciated. I shall wait a bit like you said maybe late October/November as I'm not in a desperate rush to make the purchase. I'd just bought a PS 4 and wouldn't mind holding off a bit.

I guess I will have to bite the bullet when the time comes without the expectations of 280x being future proof for the rift. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it the thing to look out for in the GPU is being able to drive the resolution of the dual screen in the Oculus Rift?

 

[chromatic9]

Like everyone else who can build a PC from scratch but not when it comes to choosing the right parts and following the news properly on the hardware (esp. GPU) your feedback and insight is invaluable and very much appreciated. I shall wait a bit like you said maybe late October/November as I'm not in a desperate rush to make the purchase. I'd just bought a PS 4 and wouldn't mind holding off a bit.

I guess I will have to bite the bullet when the time comes without the expectations of 280x being future proof for the rift. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it the thing to look out for in the GPU is being able to drive the resolution of the dual screen in the Oculus Rift?

Just found out Nvidia is also bringing out a 960 in the next month so looks good for a bit of a shake up in the $300 range.

Oculus DK2 is a single 1920x1080 screen split into 960x1080. Rendering two views and distorting to a higher res to create the FOV increases the load. Consumer version will most likely be around 2560x1440

What might ease the load is a curved screen or different optics so a smaller buffer resolution is needed. You can ease the load by interpolation which gets the other frames data instead of rendering from scratch. There's other stuff like wasted pixels so you could have less data for surrounding areas until you look there for example.

DK2 is 75Hz and needs 75fps so not only do you need a GPU which can do high resolution for a future Rift. Oculus people have said around 85-95Hz likely for the consumer version.

Some games can become CPU bound if you have enough GPU power to run at 100fps. A certain CPU could limit you to 70-80fps in a small amount of games so you may need to upgrade to something faster.

I think maybe a 280x or 290x will give a reasonable experience in the Consumer Rift but there's so much to finalize it's hard to say.

 

[chromatic9]

Looking like the GTX 970 will be priced at $330 and has the performance of the 780. That's very good value. In other words its 290x performance for the price of a 280X

We might see some retailers jack the price for a few days or hours though.

AMD will have to reprice their stuff, or you can wait to see what they do, maybe they launch better cards but the 970 is already very strongly priced.

Exciting times in the $300 range

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

Looking like the GTX 970 will be priced at $330 and has the performance of the 780. That's very good value. In other words its 290x performance for the price of a 280X

We might see some retailers jack the price for a few days or hours though.

AMD will have to reprice their stuff, or you can wait to see what they do, maybe they launch better cards but the 970 is already very strongly priced.

Exciting times in the $300 range

That's great and appreciate the update. I'm sure others will find this just as helpful.

 

[chromatic9]

As predicted, AMD have cut $150 off the R9 290X, its now $399.
R9 290 is $299

I'm close to getting a GTX 970 but just going to see what happens and to see if I buy any games needing a new card in November. Most likely get a 970 to tie me over till 20/16nm gets going.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

As predicted, AMD have cut $150 off the R9 290X, its now $399.
R9 290 is $299

I'm close to getting a GTX 970 but just going to see what happens and to see if I buy any games needing a new card in November. Most likely get a 970 to tie me over till 20/16nm gets going.

Much appreciated. Ever since you mentioned about GTX 970, I'm slightly reluctant now to buy R9 280x. Even though I do not have the money now as I'd spent all on a PS4, I'd changed my mind and decided that if I'm going to upgrade, I'll go for one of these GTX 970 as I'm convinced that they will really be able to cope with better than PS4 graphics and specs will still be good enough for most games for 3 years. MSI GTX 970, EVGA GTX 970 or Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 is still around $300.

That will be next year though but god knows if much more mods/features are available on PC for ProjectCARS than I might break the bank early

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

As predicted, AMD have cut $150 off the R9 290X, its now $399.
R9 290 is $299

I'm close to getting a GTX 970 but just going to see what happens and to see if I buy any games needing a new card in November. Most likely get a 970 to tie me over till 20/16nm gets going.

Much appreciated. Ever since you mentioned about GTX 970, I'm slightly reluctant now to buy R9 280x. Even though I do not have the money now as I'd spent all on a PS4, I'd changed my mind and decided that if I'm going to upgrade, I'll go for one of these GTX 970 as I'm convinced that they will really be able to cope with better than PS4 graphics and specs will still be good enough for most games for 3 years. MSI GTX 970, EVGA GTX 970 or Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 is still around $300.

That will be next year though but god knows if much more mods/features are available on PC for ProjectCARS than I might break the bank early

FYI. After all that waiting, couldn't wait much longer and bought EVGA GTX 970 (FTW Edition) two days ago after GTX960 was announced and confirmed that the only GPU good enough and reasonably priced that will last 3-5 years is still GTX 970.

Looking forward to receiving it from Amazon in a bit over a week and really looking forward to max out all the settings in Assetto Corsa and Raceroom Experience.

The reason why I'd chosen EVGA over the others simply because this is the only GTX 970 GPU currently available in the market with dual fans that will fit my Corsair Air 240 and have international factory warranty (read that somewhere)

The only thing now really that I might need to speed money on possibly later this year is a SSD while waiting for Win 10 imminent release. Hope that my current 7200RPM hard disk/8GB RAM won't be the bottleneck of frame rates.

Hope I made the right decision on purchase timing, price and selection.

 

[guybo]

HDD speed has nothing to do with FPS. It can not be a bottleneck for frame rates. A SSD will load tracks & mods much more quickly though. Once you are on track, the HDD/SSD is irrelevant.

 

[chromatic9]

FYI. After all that waiting, couldn't wait much longer and bought EVGA GTX 970 (FTW Edition) two days ago after GTX960 was announced and confirmed that the only GPU good enough and reasonably priced that will last 3-5 years is still GTX 970.

Looking forward to receiving it from Amazon in a bit over a week and really looking forward to max out all the settings in Assetto Corsa and Raceroom Experience.

The reason why I'd chosen EVGA over the others simply because this is the only GTX 970 GPU currently available in the market with dual fans that will fit my Corsair Air 240 and have international factory warranty (read that somewhere)

The only thing now really that I might need to speed money on possibly later this year is a SSD while waiting for Win 10 imminent release. Hope that my current 7200RPM hard disk/8GB RAM won't be the bottleneck of frame rates.

Hope I made the right decision on purchase timing, price and selection.

There is a small issue with the 970 that's come to light in the last week or two. The GPU video memory is fine up to 3.5GB and then the remaining 0.5 is slower.

You shouldn't worry too much its still a great GPU. A 290 290X and 980 don't have this issue. On Maxwell the video memory is tied to the rest so when you design the 970 you have to disable some of the memory side. It's quite complex minor issue and very much on the new architecture. The upshot is games will sit around the 3.5 3.6GB most of time and can up to 4GB if pushed hard and may or may not see some stutter. This aspect is being tested by people this week. You still have 4GB technically, just that its not a full link for that last 0.5GB.

Right now a single 970 is running out of performance anyway for it to matter at 3.9GB. You have to run games at 4k and for supersample to get that high but things might change in future games.

I feel its more of an issue running 970 SLI. You have much more GPU power and that remaining half a gig will be of use.

If you want a refund you should have no problem if bought recently. I'm keeping mine since I knew it was a cut down 980 and something has to give being much much cheaper than the 980. The price and performance is great for me.

I should note a cut down whatever is not bad, its the norm in chips like the 290X and 290, 680 and 670 just that the 970 handles it different and this info wasn't made clear by NVidia.

I did my own tests on AC Unity and didn't have a problem running it at 3.8GB

More details can be read here
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

There is a small issue with the 970 that's come to light in the last week or two. The GPU video memory is fine up to 3.5GB and then the remaining 0.5 is slower.

You shouldn't worry too much its still a great GPU. A 290 290X and 980 don't have this issue. On Maxwell the video memory is tied to the rest so when you design the 970 you have to disable some of the memory side. It's quite complex minor issue and very much on the new architecture. The upshot is games will sit around the 3.5 3.6GB most of time and can up to 4GB if pushed hard and may or may not see some stutter. This aspect is being tested by people this week. You still have 4GB technically, just that its not a full link for that last 0.5GB.

Right now a single 970 is running out of performance anyway for it to matter at 3.9GB. You have to run games at 4k and for supersample to get that high but things might change in future games.

I feel its more of an issue running 970 SLI. You have much more GPU power and that remaining half a gig will be of use.

If you want a refund you should have no problem if bought recently. I'm keeping mine since I knew it was a cut down 980 and something has to give being much much cheaper than the 980. The price and performance is great for me.

I should note a cut down whatever is not bad, its the norm in chips like the 290X and 290, 680 and 670 just that the 970 handles it different and this info wasn't made clear by NVidia.

I did my own tests on AC Unity and didn't have a problem running it at 3.8GB

More details can be read here
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

Thanks for the heads up. I'd also been following on this rather complex issue. Since Nvidia is finally acknowledging and addressing the issue, which they reckon should be able to minmize the stuttering issue that some people noticed with a future driver update which is at least a good start.

To be honest, specs on paper isn't the reason why I bought this card for but more so of the benchmark from various sites which had showed how capable this card is. I reckon if this memory allocation issue was discovered/corrected right from the start and reported by various media outlets' review, I'm sure lots of people will still buy the card. People are mainly upset because they felt this is a coverup and being lied to by Nvidia which is understandable. I just need to know if the stuttering issue that some had reported could be address or not since one of the reason why I bought GTX 970 is the capability to do SLI for 4K in the future so it kinda affects me.

Anyway I haven't received my card yet lol. It's either early or late next week until I receive the shipment from Amazon. However, I bought the card Friday late last week so I'm not sure if I'm entitle to a refund/exchange or not. At least free Steam credits would be nice lol.

Should I wait and see what Nvidia can come up with in terms of the driver update before installing this card in or not? Do you think there'll be a 4.5 GB or a GTX 975 version lol?

 

[chromatic9]

Should I wait and see what Nvidia can come up with in terms of the driver update before installing this card in or not? Do you think there'll be a 4.5 GB or a GTX 975 version lol?

For 4k dual GPUs I'd wait till AMD release theirs. I wouldn't recommend 970SLI. You can still use the 970 and sell it later, its a good 1440p 1800p card in my opinion. If NVidia announced its was 3.5GB with a 0.5 buffer zone I still would've bought it 4-5 months ago and I've already got a lot of use. I don't see NVidia releasing anything very soon unless sales drop off. Were still waiting for the real new cards, we've been on 28nm for 3 years now. The next cards will be much better at handling 4k

Here in the UK a 970 can be had for £2xx while a 980 £4xx. 970 is a great stop gap until the GPU manufacturing gets going again which is 6-12 months. A lot depends on what type of games and how high the settings and textures are. 970 SLI relies even more on NVidia drivers dancing around 3.5GB.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

For 4k dual GPUs I'd wait till AMD release theirs. I wouldn't recommend 970SLI. You can still use the 970 and sell it later, its a good 1440p 1800p card in my opinion. If NVidia announced its was 3.5GB with a 0.5 buffer zone I still would've bought it 4-5 months ago and I've already got a lot of use. I don't see NVidia releasing anything very soon unless sales drop off. Were still waiting for the real new cards, we've been on 28nm for 3 years now. The next cards will be much better at handling 4k

Here in the UK a 970 can be had for £2xx while a 980 £4xx. 970 is a great stop gap until the GPU manufacturing gets going again which is 6-12 months. A lot depends on what type of games and how high the settings and textures are. 970 SLI relies even more on NVidia drivers dancing around 3.5GB.

Once again, appreciate your insight on the matter. I am actually more concern about GTX 970 performance with Oculus Rift VR CE when it does come out rather than 4K to be honest. Even though I read that GTX 970 will struggle to sustain the minimum 90fps and SLI is not recommended with latency issues, it's too early to say and until the consumer version comes out, maybe SLI in conjunction with Directx 12 will alliviate latency issues.

As crisp as 4k image will be, it will never provide the same immersion from a VR headset which I consider as the biggest thing since force feedback for sim racers.

 

[chromatic9]

Nvidia is doing VR SLI where each GPU will render one half of screen to reduce latency. Sounds good in theory and 1280x1080 per GPU if a 2560x1080 screen is used should be easy enough for a 970 but obviously I don't see buying cards a year before Oculus is out a good idea, I'd invest or plan after the reports are out. A 970 is good GPU for that long wait. No way should people be buying 2x 980s in preparation either.