R9 280 vs GTX 960 - better choice?

[kantonburg]

Friend is building his first PC and a $200 or less GPU is his budget. He's narrowed it down to these two, but trying to decide on which to get. What say you guys?

I know the R9 has 3GB vs 2GB on the 960.
The R9 is 384bit and the 960 is only 128bit.

The R9 is also cheaper.

He's using a i3-4160
8GB RAM

Thanks

 

[runzwithsizorz]

IMO 3 gigs or R9

 

[raghu78]

Get the R9 280. 3GB is now the minimum for 1080p gaming. Games like Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor, AC Unity, COD AW, Lords of the Fallen, Dying Light, Evolve use more than 2GB at 1080p at the highest settings.

 

[Leyawiin]

The GTX 960 is faster and with NV's color compression its a different ballgame and you can't directly compare specs. I have an HIS IceQ HD 7950 3GB @ 1100/1400. It runs out of horsepower before that that last 1GB of VRAM would make a difference anyway.

 

[kantonburg]

The GTX 960 is faster and with NV's color compression its a different ballgame and you can't directly compare specs. I have an HIS IceQ HD 7950 3GB @ 1100/1400. It runs out of horsepower before that that last 1GB of VRAM would make a difference anyway.

This was my concern. It's such a faster card so I trying to figure out if the memory or bus is that big of a difference.

 

[Leyawiin]

If he's in the US this is what I would get:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...37&ignorebbr=1

Excellent card and cooler for the money.

 

[Paul98]

the 280 and 960 are actually quite similar in speed, so if I were to chose between those two I would go with the 280 for the extra gig of vram and being cheaper.

 

[Pneumothorax]

If he's in the US this is what I would get:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...37&ignorebbr=1

Excellent card and cooler for the money.

I would pony the extra $20 or so for this card. Honestly, nothing beats a 3rd party cooler 290 for price/performance. My go to recommendation for 1080p for my friends was the 970, but now it's the 290 if they have a PSU that can handle it.

PS Just checked 290 prices and they've gone up quite a bit, seems like the $220 deals were a limited time only promotion to take advantage of the 970 memory snafu.

 

[RussianSensation]

If your friend can't save another $40-50 and wait for a $240-250 deal on an after-market R9 290 (which is 45-50% faster than a GTX960 and a good deal faster than a 280X), the next best deal is the $190 R9 280X Leyawiin linked.

960 is at least 15% slower than a 280X but what makes the 960 such a bad deal is the 2GB of VRAM which makes it already a bottleneck in AC Unity, Titanfall, Shadow of Mordor, Wolfenstein NWO, Dead Rising 3, Evolve. 280X is simply a more powerful and more future-proof card at or around $200.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lklKB5vA0KE

 

[skipsneeky2]

I would get a 3 or 4gb card any day of the week over a 960,surprised it hasn't been mentioned what power supply is powering up this card.It could factor in on the purchase decision and choice.

 

[kantonburg]

I would get a 3 or 4gb card any day of the week over a 960,surprised it hasn't been mentioned what power supply is powering up this card.It could factor in on the purchase decision and choice.

He picked this up the other day

http://slickdeals.net/f/7671308-550...r-free-shipping-tigerdirect-com-seasonic-made

His estimated wattage from pcpartpicker right now is 348W including the 280.

 

[shady28]

Friend is building his first PC and a $200 or less GPU is his budget. He's narrowed it down to these two, but trying to decide on which to get. What say you guys?

I know the R9 has 3GB vs 2GB on the 960.
The R9 is 384bit and the 960 is only 128bit.

The R9 is also cheaper.

He's using a i3-4160
8GB RAM

Thanks

The main question that needs to be asked is what kind of PSU he has (preferably the brand / model, but overall capacity if not). The R9 280 can draw nearly twice as much power as the 960. If this is an OEM box with a typical 300 - 350W PSU, even the 960 may be too much for it.

From Tom's, power draw on 2 different 960s (both OC, but one much more than the other) and an R9 280 :
960 / 960 / R9 280
144.00 119.00 249.00

The R9 280 has more than double the reference 960's power draw, and over 100W more than a heavily OC'd 960.

At 1080p indexed FPS (ie, average FPS for the benchmarks they did) :
960 / 960 / R9 280

78.50 72.90 72.70

So basically it is a wash in terms of performance. The only thing to consider is cost, and if the PSU is up to the task.

 

[best_2015]

Go for the R9 280. I must admit that the GTX 960 is a bit faster, but 3GB and 384-bit memory bus does make a difference. The R9 280 performs a bit better than the 960 at higher resolutions. It seems like a mixed bag of choices, but I would like to go with the R9 280.

 

[notty22]

If your friend can't save another $40-50 and wait for a $240-250 deal on an after-market R9 290 (which is 45-50% faster than a GTX960 and a good deal faster than a 280X), the next best deal is the $190 R9 280X Leyawiin linked.

960 is at least 15% slower than a 280X but what makes the 960 such a bad deal is the 2GB of VRAM which makes it already a bottleneck in AC Unity, Titanfall, Shadow of Mordor, Wolfenstein NWO, Dead Rising 3, Evolve. 280X is simply a more powerful and more future-proof card at or around $200.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lklKB5vA0KE

A typical agenda driven answer, you have dozens and if not more posts attacking a card (960) sorely on price. Yet remained a blind eye when the r9 290x launched at over 550+ ,plus the mining tax. That cost was supposed to allow suckers who had 3 generation old card to upgrade indefinitely! But of course we have endless 100 long rants why that is not happening. Any unbiased intelligent reader can glean who has bias, and agenda. I don't need to step away from my computer at all to recognize, blind deceptive facts. One has to wonder why you don't ever follow your own advice. 1 Help AMD to increase market share...2 to upgrade to current generations to mine coins and upgrade for generations to come forever....FOR FREE!. Because you can't, a strawman argument. Because that was all emotion driven BS.

 

[Headfoot]

A typical agenda driven answer, you have dozens and if not more posts attacking a card (960) sorely on price. Yet remained a blind eye when the r9 290x launched at over 550+ ,plus the mining tax. That cost was supposed to allow suckers who had 3 generation old card to upgrade indefinitely! But of course we have endless 100 long rants why that is not happening. Any unbiased intelligent reader can glean who has bias, and agenda. I don't need to step away from my computer at all to recognize, blind ignorant. One has to wonder why you don't ever follow your own advice. 1 Help AMD to increase market share...2 to upgrade to current generations to min coins and upgrade for genertion to come forever....FOR FREE!. Because that was all emotion driven BS.

Myopic. Also direct ad hominem. Wasted space and words.

Back to the topic:
In reality, OP you should tell your friend that there is the R9 290 and it is 40-50% faster than the 280 or the 960, and he can get it for $250 instead of $200. It's an incredibly bad idea to spend $200 when another $50 gets you a colossal increase in performance unless there's absolutely no way he can swing it. He may not know that he can get so much more performance for another $50. Many would increase the budget to accommodate such a superior price/performance position. Either that or reduce $50 out of the rest of the budget (cheaper case, drop the disc drive in 2015... etc.)

 

[kantonburg]

The main question that needs to be asked is what kind of PSU he has (preferably the brand / model, but overall capacity if not).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817207013


Seasonic rebrand

 

[notty22]

Myopic. Also direct ad hominem. Wasted space and words.

Back to the topic:
In reality, OP you should tell your friend that there is the R9 290 and it is 40-50% faster than the 280 or the 960, and he can get it for $250 instead of $200. It's an incredibly bad idea to spend $200 when another $50 gets you a colossal increase in performance unless there's absolutely no way he can swing it. He may not know that he can get so much more performance for another $50. Many would increase the budget to accommodate such a superior price/performance position. Either that or reduce $50 out of the rest of the budget (cheaper case, drop the disc drive in 2015... etc.)

Report the post. And then explain why AMD has to drop prices launched over 2 years ago to compete with current tech/features. AMD owners validated their own purchases will dismiss these key features to feel better about themselves, except for the ones that payed 500+ for them used or new and then needed water blocks, cooling system to do what Maxwell does stock. Sad. Buy whatever you like. You will learn the hard way.

 

[Headfoot]

Report the post. And then explain why AMD has to drop prices launched over 2 years ago to compete with current tech/features. AMD owners validated their own purchases will dismiss these key features to feel better about themselves, except for the ones that payed 500+ for them used or new and then needed water blocks, cooling system to do what Maxwell does stock. Sad. Buy whatever you like. You will learn the hard way.

Already did.

I bought a 290 at release and I still have 4 GB of VRAM and just as many ROPs as they said it would have, even all this time later

 

[notty22]

Already did.

I bought a 290 at release and I still have 4 GB of VRAM and just as many ROPs as they said it would have, even all this time later

I'm glad numbers alone make you feel special, how long is your card? FGS

Bye

-Rvenger

 

[Paul98]

Myopic. Also direct ad hominem. Wasted space and words.

Back to the topic:
In reality, OP you should tell your friend that there is the R9 290 and it is 40-50% faster than the 280 or the 960, and he can get it for $250 instead of $200. It's an incredibly bad idea to spend $200 when another $50 gets you a colossal increase in performance unless there's absolutely no way he can swing it. He may not know that he can get so much more performance for another $50. Many would increase the budget to accommodate such a superior price/performance position. Either that or reduce $50 out of the rest of the budget (cheaper case, drop the disc drive in 2015... etc.)

I would also suggest this, not only is the 290 faster, but is newer than the 280, has 4gb of vram, supports more features than the 280.

 

[netxzero64]

get a used 280x/290/290x. they are all over the place and is cheap. you get more performance in return.

 

[kantonburg]

get a used 280x/290/290x. they are all over the place and is cheap. you get more performance in return.

Have a recommendation where to buy used? He may consider that.

 

[SimianR]

That Sapphire 280X posted in this thread is an amazing deal. If you are in the US, grab that one.

 

[Headfoot]

For Sale Trade forums here on Anandtech. Bought lots of stuff here and never had a problem. You can get really cheap used stuff too a lot of the time. I just picked up a 7950 Boost w/ aftermarket cooler (e.g. the same as a 280) for a secondary computer for $100.

You can find reference 290's for $200, fan is pretty loud if you want it to not throttle so I'd suggest you only get an aftermarket 290.

 

[shady28]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817207013


Seasonic rebrand

That has a 45A single 12v rail which calculates to 540W, but the overall PSU is rated for 550 and more amps come from the 3v/5v rails. In practice, your probably have about 500W total.

Technically you could run an R9 290, but they are mostly 280-300ish. You can wait and get whatever comes out cheap with mail in rebates etc and maybe get it for $240+ tax/ shipping.

Right at / just above the $200 price point you get R9 280X (with rebate) or 960 (without rebate). 280X is (a little bit) faster, but will generally be louder and will consume a lot more power. All of these are $199 or more + tax and S/H.

R9 280 will be less expensive than the 960 (~$180 without rebates, ~$170 with), will perform about the same, but will likely be noisier and will draw a lot more power and put off a lot more heat.

If the budget is strict <= $200 the option is basically an R9 280.

Might want to listen to some of these cards in the link below as well. High power cards are typically quite noisy under load (unless you mod them, but that's more time and $$).


https://www.youtube.com/user/rasamaha2000/videos