7950 or R9 280X or R9 290 for FX-6300 4.3GHz

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justusername

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Hello guys.

I have FX-6300 at 4.3GHz. My GPU is 7850 (1050MHz core) and it does the job in most games but it's showing it's age and in some games the performance is not very good. So I want to replace it with something better. I play at 1680x1050 and I'm planning the upgrade mainly because GTA V (which I believe will exceed the 2GB of memory of the 7850). Now, I'm looking at some second hand Radeons because their attractive prices. I can get brand new 7950 Vapor-X for 110 euros (with 1 year warranty) or brand new R9 280X Vapor-X for 140 euros (also with 1 year warranty) or R9 290 with price range of 180-210 euros. There's few offers for 7950, some of them are below 100 euros but they usually don't have warranty or there's only few months left of it (below 6 months). For the R9 290 - there's many models but I've heard that most of them have problems with overheating VRMs and only the Sapphire Tri-X and Powercolor PCS+ don't have this problem. I can find the Tri-x for 200 euros and right now a local shop is selling brand new R9 290 PCS+ for 205 euros with 2 year warranty.

The question is - which of these GPUs can be handled by overclocked FX-6300? I don't want to spend money on GPU which can't be used at least on 80%. I'm interested in R9 290 because the price but I'm not sure if FX-6300 will be enough to run it well. The PSU is Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 620W so it will be enough.
 
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bootcher
The cpu is not as important as many people think when it comes to games. Games utilize mostly the gpu. At your resolution a single R9 280 will max out pretty much any game at 60 fps. A R9 280x or R9 290 or GTX 970 or 980 will be faster when you run synthetic benchmarks, but in the games you play there will be no noticeable difference. Only at higher resolutions will those better gpu's be fully utilized.
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J

justusername

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But will I get more frames with R9 290 over R9 280X?
 
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justusername

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But will I get more frames with R9 290 over R9 280X?
 
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Rahim Mushfiq

Rahim Mushfiq

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You do get frame increase with R9 290 and you do see the difference on some games but since your CPU is 6300 I would get an 280X instead of 290 because there will be some bottleneck.
I recommend getting a AMD 8350.
 
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justusername

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Alright. Now I came down to two options - R9 280X Vapor-X for 130 euros or VTX Radeon R9 290 for 165 euros. Now, I would get the Vapor-X over the VTX since the VTX may have problem with the VRM cooling and 280X is 35 euros cheaper, but - R9 290 has 4GB of memory while R9 280X has 3GB. I played Assassin's Creed Unity and it consumed all 2GB of my GPU memory + 1GB from my RAM and I wasn't even playing at the highest settings. I know that my resolution is not that high but will 3GB be enough to run the upcoming games?

And, if I get R9 280X, should I go for Vapor-X or I can just buy the Dual-X version (the price difference is small)? For R9 290 - I heard that some models have issues with VRM cooling and only Powercolor PCS+ and Sapphire TRI-X don't have this problem. I'm looking at VTX R9 290 (non reference) and I read that the VRM overheat issue is present. Also, there's 7970 Dual - X for 110 euros with 1 year warranty and 7970 GHz edition Vapor-X for 100 euros, also with 1 year warranty. What is the best choice? I'm also looking at Powercolor 7970 at the same prices but I'm not hearing good things about their HD7000 GPUs.
 
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bootcher

bootcher

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It's all down to your personal preference. R9 290 will set you up for the years to come without worrying to upgrade your graphics, maxing everything out. The cheaper 280x will be about the same for now, in the future you might see a difference between the two if you upgrade to a higher resolution or if games just get a bit more demanding.

Also the R 280x is the same chip as the HD 7970 (rebranded), so no real difference there except the build quality of the manufacturer.

Once you decide which chip you want look up some reviews, some run more quiet, can get better overclocks, have more hdmi/dvi ports, etc.
 
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J

justusername

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Sep 10, 2014
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I see the difference between R9 280X and R9 290 but I'm not sure if the CPU will be enough. I get different opinions wherever I ask, even here. Some people with FX-6300 told me that the performance increased when they switched to R9 290 from R9 280X, but there are the other guys that tell me it doesn't worth getting R9 290 because the CPU can't fully handle the GPU. I can see it in reviews where they test R9 290X with different CPUs and even i3 beats FX-6300 in new games that are supposed to utilize multiple cores. Right now I'm not planning CPU upgrade (I was thinking about i5 2500K but his price is still a bit high) and when I do it the GPU may be already outdated in terms of performance. I know I may sound like an idiot who doesn't know what he wants but I'm really confused.
 
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bootcher

bootcher

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Feb 22, 2013
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The cpu is not as important as many people think when it comes to games. Games utilize mostly the gpu. At your resolution a single R9 280 will max out pretty much any game at 60 fps. A R9 280x or R9 290 or GTX 970 or 980 will be faster when you run synthetic benchmarks, but in the games you play there will be no noticeable difference. Only at higher resolutions will those better gpu's be fully utilized.
 
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