I have around 330.00 for a GPU

[Achilleslastand]

To upgrade from my HD7870......
Ive been doing a lot of window shopping and have been looking at some of the cheaper priced 970s as well as some R9 290s.
Being that my CPU is somewhat power hungry{FX8350}I really don't want to upgrade my PSU which is a Thermaltake SmartseriesM750.
Whatever I purchase I want it to be a noticeable performance upgrade from my 7870.
Your thoughts?

 

[raghu78]

get a R9 290X Tri-X. twice the perf across the board of your HD 7870. massive upgrade. 4GB VRAM. performs like a beast in the latest games.

http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/19976-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-960-g1-gaming/6#pagehead

http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/igry-2014-goda-protiv-sovremennykh-videokart.html

the Tri-X is one of the best coolers. price USD 340 (320 after mail in rebate).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202079

https://translate.google.com/transl...radeon-r9-290-290x-roundup-test/3/&edit-text=

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-8.html

 

[XavierMace]

get a R9 290X Tri-X. twice the perf across the board. massive upgrade. 4GB VRAM. performs like a beast in the latest games.

http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/19976-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-960-g1-gaming/6#pagehead

http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/igry-2014-goda-protiv-sovremennykh-videokart.html

the Tri-X is one of the best coolers. price UDS 340 (320 after mail in rebate).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202079

https://translate.google.com/transl...radeon-r9-290-290x-roundup-test/3/&edit-text=

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-8.html

Twice the peformance across the board of what? He mentions he's looking at a 970, you post bench marks comparing to a 960. Your first link shows the 290X eeking out the 970, your second link shows the 970 faster across the board.

 

[RussianSensation]

970/290X are only 5-6% faster than an after-market 290. However, since most reviewers use highly overclocked i5/7 or even stock i7 4770, your CPU won't give you that 5-6%. The best course of action is to buy a $240 R9 290 like XFX or MSI Gaming on Newegg and set aside that $90 towards a CPU platform upgrade down the line. Your CPU is already a huge bottleneck unless it's overclocked to 4.7-4.8Ghz and it will only get worse for future titles.

Also, if you don't have an SSD, Samsung 850 EVO 250GB is $105-110 on Amazon. $90 is way better spent on that part than stepping up from an after-market 290 to a 290X/970 given your budget.

 

[Silverforce11]

Wait a bit keep an eye open for R290X deals. Might be able to snag a nice Lightning, TriX or VaporX for <$300.

 

[Spanners]

Twice the performance across the board from what?

To upgrade from my HD7870......
*snip*
Whatever I purchase I want it to be a noticeable performance upgrade from my 7870.

I'd guess he means the HD7870.

 

[raghu78]

I'd guess he means the HD7870.

exactly. :thumbsup: anyway edited my post.

 

[el etro]

The best deal would be a 1GHZ R9 290. Anyway, if you want more efficiency, get a GTX 970...

 

[WittyRemark]

GTX970 strix
or better bang for buck R9 290 pcs+
They're the cheapest I could find, except there's a even cheaper xfx R9 290 DD around $245.

 

[PC Master Race]

The 290 would be a beast upgrade IMHO.

 

[boozzer]

sales never last more than 24 hours. he can always go for lesser brands to save 20 to 40$ if he can't get the tri x.

imo, wait till the end of spring. why upgrade at the end of a cycle?

 

[Pneumothorax]

Your psu, while not the best, has plenty of wattage for a single 290/290x. My CF 290x setup with a o/c 4790K pulls close to 700 watts. I don't think your cpu would draw as much as another 290x.

 

[Rvenger]

I would go with a GTX 970 since it seems that the Nvidia cards perform better on the FX CPUs.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2420423

 

[Paul98]

R9 290, great price, performance, doesn't use that much more power than the 970. 290 has 4gb of usable ram, plus you won't reward nvidia on the product they lied about.

 

[RussianSensation]

I would go with a GTX 970 since it seems that the Nvidia cards perform better on the FX CPUs.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2420423

That's not conclusive I don't think. Not only that but he'll get better performance in Mantle games, where the CPU bottleneck would be lifted. NV's performance lately in brand agnostic titles has taken a dive. Look at Evolve. A $240 XFX 290 even beats a $315 970.

 

[kawi6rr]

I have the R9 290 Saphire TriX OC paired with my FX 8350 and I am very impressed with the performance, great card, quiet and runs cool.

 

[GullyFoyle]

This is EVGA's highest performing GTX 970, but is the lowest priced, at the moment. (339.99).

This page at EVGA shows all he improvements in this version

 

[Jhatfie]

No reason to spend extra money, the R9 290 is the way to go. There are several good options out there that are pre-OC'd and run pretty cool and quiet. It will be a big upgrade from your current card.

 

[Attic]

Whatever you purchase at around $300 will be a significant upgrade from the 7870, 50-100%+ improvement.


If you won't be going dual cards down the line then an EVGA SSC 970 for $339 is great option, and the R9 290 non reference are showing up often for $220-250. The XFX DD 290 is solid if you go that route.

There's some back and forth debate on the memory structure of the 970 and how this will effect performance of the card down the road. That'd be my only hang up with reccomending grabbing the added efficiency and slightly better performance in the 970 vs R9 290 for less money.

 

[Cerb]

Another R9 290 vote, here. As long as you aren't OCing your CPU by quite a lot, and then doing the same with the new video card, you PSU should be fine.

 

[svarog19]

290X is way to go and hopefully your power supply has capacity to support it.

AMD will benefit most from DirectX 12, afterall... Xbox One uses same architecture as RX XXX GPU's

 

[blastingcap]

290X is way to go and hopefully your power supply has capacity to support it.

AMD will benefit most from DirectX 12, afterall... Xbox One uses same architecture as RX XXX GPU's

Are current GPUs guaranteed full DX12 compatibility? I don't think so. Partial maybe. On the other hand, games that take full advantage of DX12 won't come out for quite a while (like 1+ years) at best.

 

[Achilleslastand]

Another R9 290 vote, here. As long as you aren't OCing your CPU by quite a lot, and then doing the same with the new video card, you PSU should be fine.

Well that was one my main concerns was not having to upgrade my PSU atm. What is the power draw on an R9 290? Are they the same across the board or differ from model to model?

 

[IllogicalGlory]

Get this 290 for $240 AR. Your PSU is fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3938566&amp;SID=

 

[Cerb]

Well that was one my main concerns was not having to upgrade my PSU atm. What is the power draw on an R9 290? Are they the same across the board or differ from model to model?

Varies from model to model. Expect 250-300W peak (some will be lower than 250W peak, but some over-spec cards can get close to 300W gaming, and the good coolers tend to be on the faster models).

If you haven't overvolted your CPU (or not by much), your PSU should have plenty of headroom.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Thermaltake/Smart_M_750W/