Here’s the deal, I’m still running an old AMD 5870. I bought a new motherboard and CPU (i7-4770K) a bit more then half a year ago, but I kept the graphics card. It’s now close to 5 years old, but working without problems, and actually works satisfactory to everything I play now anyway, at 1920x1080 (that my monitor can handle).
But still, I’m considering buying a new card (christmas money in the pocket and all).
A Sapphire R9 290 (not 290X) Tri-X OC (overclocked with better cooling, very quiet according to tests) can be had for 2490 SKr (and I have an extra 100 SKr coupon too).
A Nvidia GTX 970 can be had for around 3300 SKr. I think it’s most likely a better card, but it’s getting close to what I’m willing to lay out at the moment anyway.
The question is, should I buy the 290 card and get less raw power but good bang for the buck, or should I bite the sour apple and get the 970, or should I simply stay low a bit longer and get whatever comes next? I have until tomorrow to decide if I want to get the 290 using the coupon.
I have a good idea about the advantages of the 970 over the 290, but the power issue is more or less a non-issue for me, the extra heat will just heat the apartment a little extra. But will the extra power of the 970 make any difference when playing COD, ARMA2, CivV etc at 1920x1080 (or in the future perhaps 2560x1440)?
I stuck with NVidia because of advice from the ATAG forum about reported graphic issues with ATI cards and Cliffs. I’ve got the 780 and no probs and runs lovely plus I game at 1080p (on a 42 HDTV), and any smaller I will never see the buggers. (joys of getting older, my 5 year son spots them quicker than I do now)
I believe Baz with his 290 was having some graphic issues with Cliffs?? Otherwise I would have gone the Red route for a change but as I fly it had to be NVidia.
Asking a question if you do need a graphics card is like when some asks you in bar if you want another beer.
The answer should be: always
To answer your question more specifically, once you go beyond the older generation card e.g 5870, so long as there’s enough RAM on the card, most of the current SIMs have no difference in performance. In fact I haven’t seen system performance for ages and it hasn’t had a new component in the last 12 months and that includes new releases such as Elite Dangerous. It’s not like the old h/w race, gap we had with IL2.
With CoD there’s pro’s and cons. Have they fixed the Nvidia horizon bug yet? ATI’s has issues too, again these are game issues not faults with the cards or drivers, they just materialise on these platforms.
I need to check my card, but I’m ATI something or other FWIW, but with CoD you won’t see any performance issues"with any current generation card, aside from the specific bugs associated with the card which are already reported and easily found on the forums.
