GTX 770 vs Radeon HD 7970 vs R9 280x

All of those are good cards, the 770 has a slight edge over the AMD cards, uses a bit less power and SLIs a bit better so far.

In Battlefield4 280x is a bit better and cheaper also so go with it. Toxic but make sure u have a solid 550watt psu atleast.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/battlefield_4_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark,7.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7406/the-sapphire-r9-280x-toxic-review/6

Get the 770, that would be my choice.

Someone will be along to tell you to get another 280x or 7970 GE shortly. I suggest a 70 for every reason you have listed, all of them. The 770 is an up clocked 680, the 280x is an underclocked 7970 GE by 50MHz on the core and memory.

Their performance is too close to bother talking about here, but would be interested where the 280x beats the 770 in overall performance, your source?

The $30 difference is worth the price for a solid card that has solid drivers.

Im on the same boat. Then I dont know where you saw a 280x benchmarked overall better than a 770... The 770 is indeed slightly faster overall.

But Im debating the same thing 280x or 770. Was dead set on a 280x. But I am going with Nvidia for once. Was so happy with my current Intel upgrade(did AMD for over a decade), that Im am starting to REALLY dislike AMD. Mainly for problems Ive had with their hardware. Hell current problem with my 6790 is "Payday2, force AA/AF thru eyefinity and then load payday2 and watch your screen blur pure white and you cant see nothing" was the nail in the coffin for me.... Only thing I like about them now is competition to keep prices in check.

Only thing that makes me debate the two cards, is the vram sizes. If the 770 had 3gb or more at $330 or cheaper, then it would be a no brainer. Then givin how good bf4 runs without mantle for me, I dont really give a care for it and think it WILL not be the game changer, that it is being built up as.

But shadowplay interests me alot. Physxs is just icing to me, dont think much of it. Then gsync seems like bliss to me, for I hate my screen tearing in certain games(arma2/dayz). Then Im also in the market for a new monitor, waiting for more gsync models.
Only thing I can really hit Nvidia for, is they seem like d*ck Heads.... But I guess if my stuff was better than everyone elses, that I would seem like a d*ck too...

Far as 2gb vram vs 3 or even 4gb. Every single benchmark i seen shows no true difference. But then I read "word of mouth" about frame drops from vram, but NEVER seen it benchmarked....
Then givin my current card is only 1gb vram. I play bf4 med to high, my vram is in full use. Then I DO NOT see any huge framedrops. I bet you would with mods in skyrim, because thats not made by the developer.
Untill someone can show it benchmarked, Im leaning on this not being a HUGE issue as some say. But rather for future games with multiple monitor setups or ridiculous resolutions.

On that note. Im waiting for black friday. Probably will not see a 770 on sale, but heres hoping for a 770 with 4gb vram on sale. Otherwise Im going with a 2gb 770, unless the 4gb versions creeps below 350... Any higher and I might as well wait and buy a non-reference design 290(non-x). Which nvidia has no better offering at that price point.
Then currently the 770 comes with 3 games that I would like to own, but never pay full price for. Which is why I dont own those games. Where as with amd, I own any game on there that I want already. Then they do not offer it currently on the 280x.

My first post about this, after almost 2 months of daily research.... So enjoy my somewhat book of a rant

I just got the 280x and my brother got the 770. We are playing BF4 right now and both handle it on ultra with no problems. I'm even using 1920x1080 res and get similar framerates as him on a smaller screen. For me the selling point was the larger bandwidth and more vram. It may not seem like a big deal now, but back in the day people said 1gb of VRAM would be all that you ever need. So it just seemed more future proof. To get a 770 with 3gb+ of VRAM was a huge price difference from a 280x. You can't go wrong either way really, if you're a fanboy one way just go that way, but the bandwidth and vram might mean the difference in a couple years between having to drop another $350 to upgrade your card or being able to hold out for another game or two.

Look at the resolutions. Well thats probably the only one benchmark where I see the 1gb extra making the difference. Look at the benchmarks at 1080p which is what the OP will be using. Then see the tables flip.

Just like everybody says. If you plan to do very high resolutions, basically anything past 1080p. Then the extra vram helps depending on the game. Or when you want to do multiple monitor setups.

But given that "280x toxic" is currently $359 on newegg. That puts it in the ballpark of the 4gb version of the gtx-770... So the extra VRAM now goes to the 770....

But If your going to spend 360+ you might as well buy a 290(non-x) which is $400 and smokes both cards... Id just much rather have after market cooling for it. Which who knows when we will see them. Month? 2-6months? nothing concrete that Ive seen.
Then playing the waiting game, just blows... Because once you wait for that moment of reveal. Then you see the next thing previewed to be revealed, then your waiting all over again. Only reason Im playing the waiting game, is for black friday sales.

You really want to get a 280x so why not just get one, they are really good cards at a great price.

You said it was faster than a 770 and I questioned where you got that data, now you say it's as fast as a 780. I am sorry but what you are saying is simply false about this, you are getting bad data somewhere.

the 280x toxic has been proven to be as quick as a stock gtx 780

WOW, will it keep up with an overclocked 780?

depends on ambit temps and if you get an awesome chip at that point. Tahiti XT is just awesome. iver been able to crank both my msi 7970's to 1325/1700 but my rads were getting toasty at that point but with the right 7970/280x im sure you could get it to mildly OC'd 780 speed.

i was on this kind of situation 2 weeks ago. torn between 770 and r9 280x. i would suggest, just buy one of them and stop thinking about comparing them. the debate will be endless if you keep looking for reasons to buy the other over the other. their both great card and will perform well on your games.

if you can OC it to 4.0/4.2ghz you should be fine. i had the same cpu and a 7970 i OC myself to 4.0ghz without a bottleneck. only reason i upgraded was i got a great deal on my intel mobo but amd cpus for gaming are great too.

I had the same dilemma, but I`ll go for the R9 280x in about 10 days when I get back home.
I just can`t get over the green team and their overpricing. Cutting the prices so much recently revealed how much they were pushing the prices, and don`t worry, even with the price cut, their profit is still flowing in.

What the hell is "GeForce Experience"? Sounds like some BS nVidia marketing buzzword. You want this for BF4, Radeons kill GeForces in BF4 because the game is optimised for Radeons and uses AMD Mantle. I'm tired of reading this thread full of crap with nVidia fanboys telling you to get the GTX 770 and providing not one lick of evidence as to why. Here's [H]ardOCP's fps chart:

Quote from [H]ardOCP regarding this chart:
"The Radeon R9 280X was very playable at these settings and stayed ahead of all of the other mid-range cards that we evaluated. The other three cards were not playable at these settings. Although the GeForce GTX 760 turned in higher frame rate than the GeForce GTX 770, we believe this is due to the run through for the GTX 770 having significantly more explosions and tank action present during the data recording."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/17/battlefield_4_video_card_performance_iq_review/5#.Uot7c-KKp2M
So there you have it, the GTX 770 gets its butt completely kicked by the R9-280X despite what some "experts" (read - fanboy white knights) say to the contrary. If paying more for the GTX 770 which is outperformed by a card costing less would be their choice, then they're not very good at making choices, are they?

(And please don't use the term "GeForce Experience" because people will just laugh at you. I'm not trying to be condescending, I'm trying to protect your dignity going forward.)

For the video card, the toxic is the best of the R9-280X's but not by much. The Gigabyte OC would give you the most performance for the price because they tend to be priced the same or just slightly higher than "vanilla" R9-280X's. As for the CPU cooler, I've had great luck with the CoolerMaster Hyper 101 with a second 80mm fan attached to it. It's nice, cheap and does the job perfectly. I had one on my Phenom II X4 965 and was so impressed that I put it on my current FX-8350. I'm still extremely impressed with it. You won't need much of an OC on the CPU, so don't worry too much.

Good comment here ^.......... I could not agree more !

The 280x is a good card indeed, yet would not go so far as to call a 770 trash though.

lol at some peeps. everybody knows and has known that the 7970ghz is faster than the 680 in general gaming... that is inarguable period... it IS a fact. so all of a sudden people thinking a 770 is faster than a 280x... smh. other than that... its highly unlikely any user could actually tell the difference between the two in gaming as they are too close or within 2-5fps of each other in most modern games. the amd tahiti kicks out more heat and uses more power... but overclocks higher and is clock for clock faster in general gpgpu/opencl/3d gaming than the keplar. the nvidia has cuda and physix. their both great choices but if it were me i would only pay attention to 4gb nvidia cards or 3gb amd cards as 2gb is out of the question for my situation.