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[timferius]

I'm torn guys! I need to update my GPU. I've been eyeing the GTX 970, but up here that's looking at about 400-450ish for the card. My other option I've been eyeing is the r9 280x. It's not as powerful, but looks better than the GTX 960, and it's about 100 bucks cheaper. Am I going to regret going for the cheaper card here?

[BigD145]

Go for the best supported card. It sucks to buy software that won't work on your card.

[Graknorke]

Depends what you're using it for. And for comparison's sake, what've you got now?

[timferius]

Gaming, and I have a Radeon 6970 right now. Modern games are finally overtaking my card, so I need to catch up. I'd just rather not spend the extra 100ish dollars if I can avoid it and not suffer for it.

[Graknorke]

The 280x should do alright at new stuff. You'll porbably be getting a bit under 60fps (maybe going as low as 30) on cutting edge stuff graphically. But the power doesn't leave much room for things that are badly optimised and you'll have to make concessions in terms of quality settings as time goes on.

Here's a video of someone using one to play Far Cry 4.

[timferius]

Hmm. Is the GTX more future-proof would you say? I can justify it if i can avoid upgrading for a long while.

[Graknorke]

Well Nvidea has a reputation for better drivers that might extend the lifetime a little. But there's only so much can be done on that front.
For the 970, it'll be getting around 1.5 to 1.3 the framerates of the 280x, not sure how much longer that'd last but it's nothing to sniff at.

[BigD145]

Just don't install nvidia experience. That thing is horrible.

[Aklyon]

Just don't install nvidia experience. That thing is horrible.

Does it do anything worth doing, or is it just for throwing crap at you?

[crazysheep]

It's actually for downloading the latest drivers.

[Rose]

It also tries to set game graphics settings to ones it thinks are optimal, as well as being the place where you control things like shadowplay.

[BigD145]

What it really ends up doing, at least some versions of it, is garble or freeze your software on screen, ctd, or cause other annoyances that make your computer largely unusable.

[Thief^]

Keep in mind that recently AMD have shown some impressive advances over nVidia in DirectX 12 benchmarks of their existing cards (including the 200 series). Look up the Ashes of the Singularity DirectX 12 benchmarks - AMD gets double performance on a lot of it but nVidia actually loses a few percent. Rumour has it that it's related to the fundamental design of the cards, and nVidia can't fix it until their next generation arrives.

It might be worth going for an AMD card if it is for future proofing (and you're buying it now), as more and more games will be DirectX-12 capable in the coming months/years.

[timferius]

The pricing on the R9 290x seems kinda wonky, or is it just me?

[BigD145]

What's the general price comparison versus features between the Nano, Fury, and 300 series? AMD's site is not great for looking at all that.