r9 280x or GTX 770 (is AMD falling behind?)

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Jimmy Gibbs Jr

Jimmy Gibbs Jr

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Dec 30, 2013
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I would like to upgrade my GPU (I have a 2GB Sapphire 7850). My CPU is an i5 4570 and my PSU OCZ 600W, on an ASUS H87 MoBo with 8g RAM and a Samsung SSD, playing on a 1080 monitor. Here is my problem/thought:

I think the right card for me would be either the 280x or the 770, given my specs and gaming needs. I have had both AMD and Nvidia cards in the past. From what I have gathered (endless browsing and youtubeing plus personal experience), AMD cards tend to have good hardware, run cooler (at least the 280x compared to the 770 is considerably cooler, around 10 degrees) and on the whole are better bang for buck, since they always tend to be cheaper. On the other hand, GTX cards have solid drivers (AMD is kinda shifty with its software) and a bigger fanbase overall. I would go for the 280x (Sapphire or ASUS) with my eyes closed if not for the following:

There seem to exist a bunch of technologies that are either exclusive to Nvidia cards or just run better/smoother with Nvidia cards (Tessellation, Physx, HBAO). Many titles seem to perform better on Nvidia cards, partly because AMD takes a lot of time to optimize the games Nvidia has a contract with, whereas Nvidia does that immediately with games like Thief, BF4 etc (AMD titles). Mantle also seems to be very hazy and definitely not a ready product/feature. I am not such a crazy gamer, buying new titles the moment they are released, I don't mind waiting for 6 months+ for a cheaper game on Steam and for AMD to sort it out in the new drivers release. But are there things that Nvidia users see and that I don't? I saw some screenshots from AC Unity (definitely not yet fully optimized by Ubisoft itself, I know that) promoting the TXAA and it really looks good. I remember a friend of mine (with a 270x) couldn't get Borderlands 2 to enable Physx from the in-game menu and we found a way to tweak the ini file and it worked fine (for some reason I had no problem enabling that from the in-game menu with my 7850).

I also keep reading that Nvidia is preparing to launch a bunch of new game-breaking protocols/features in the future, I understand there is marketing bullsh*t involved as well, but I remember a few years ago when Nvidia made the leap and it took a couple of years for AMD to catch up.

I don't mind the dodgy drivers, I don't mind waiting for AMD to optimize new titles. I just don't want to miss out on visual stuff just because it is exclusive to GTX users. If that is the case, I will go for a 770, otherwise I will stick to AMD and go for a 280x (I've had nothing but good experiences with AMD and was perfectly happy with my 2 previous AMD cards, 1800XT and HD 6670 with a Gforce 8800 in between)

Thank for reading my huge post, would love to hear the community's thoughts. :)
 
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Jimmy Gibbs Jr

Jimmy Gibbs Jr

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Dec 30, 2013
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Wow, thank you so much for the prompt replies. I am indeed leaning towards the 280x but I got poisoned (by too much browsing I guess)
Will there be things in AC unity or Far Cry 4 (or in the future) that I can't see at all?
HBAO, PCSS, TXAA, God Rays, HairWorks, FaceWorks and all those things, are they exclusive to Nvidia cards?
That's what they were saying about Physx when it came out (that it would be exclusive) and it wasn't. Playing RAGE and not being able to turn on the GPU Transcode setting left a scar on me (never actually found out what it does and whether it's worth it)
I'm just getting beaten by the competition between Nvidia and AMD with all the proprietary crap.
Is there an ever-growing gap between AMD and Nvidia because of the contracts they make? Kinda like the Playstation destroyed Saturn even though the latter was superior in hardware, but Sony had made successful deals with game devs and Sega was left behind (Resident Evil 1 came out for Saturn when RE 3 came out for PS, same for Tekken and many others) I was a proud PS 1 owner and I want to be on the same side again.


 
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renz496

renz496

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why not 970 or 290X? budget reason? also 280X is based on the oldest GCN. we can already see that GCN 1.0 doesn't some of the new feature like variable refresh rate during gaming using adaptive sync capable monitor.

....promoting the TXAA and it really looks good.
Click to expand...

those guys at HardOCP really hate TXAA lol. me? it doesn't look bad to me enough wanting me to hate it. but performance hit was big with TXAA. in splinter cell i can max out the game easily with my 660SLI. enabling TXAA will drop my FPS to mid 40s. and that is with 660 SLI.

Borderlands 2 to enable Physx from the in-game menu and we found a way to tweak the ini file and it worked fine (for some reason I had no problem enabling that from the in-game menu with my 7850).
Click to expand...

so far borderlands 2 were the only game where you can enable high PhysX effect even without nvidia gpu. but performance might be lower than system with nvidia card due the game forcing PhysX to run on CPU.

I also keep reading that Nvidia is preparing to launch a bunch of new game-breaking protocols/features in the future, I understand there is marketing bullsh*t involved as well,
Click to expand...

what? Gameworks? :lol: personally i have no problem with both company product. i also understand nvidia like to keep things exclusive to their product. bad or not it is open for everyone to debate. it is just AMD that doesn't like that. maybe because they can't compete with nvidia on that front head to head (like their Stream initiative vs Nvidia CUDA). and they isn't shy to paint themselves as a good guy and their competitor as a bad guy.
 
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Jimmy Gibbs Jr

Jimmy Gibbs Jr

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290X or 970 are too power-hungry for my PSU and I think given my monitor and my gaming needs these cards would be an overkill for me, at least at the moment. I don't mind playing 4-5 games on High instead of Ultra (I think a 280x or 770 is at that level, when talking about a 1080 res.) and I think for the next 2 years maybe another 4-5 games will be added to the "No, you can't max this out with your GPU, stick to High settings". That's fine.

I am talking about features that are not there, the Borderlands example was good. The r9270x can run Borderlands 2 maxed without ever dropping below 60 fps but we spent an entire afternoon to find out how the Physx turns on. And Borderlands without Physx is quite different, it's something you wanna be able to see. And it's not that the card was too weak, it just that we couldn't find a way. We were almost ready to give up. But luckily we found a way. I think I could run Physx on Metro 2033 too.

If there are features that will remain exclusive to Nvidia in many games in the future then buying a high-end AMD card will be pointless. Please address that :)
 
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Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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I think it's safe to say that any currently Nvidia exclusive features will remain exclusive to Nvidia in the future and the same would go for any features yet to be announced.
 
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Jimmy Gibbs Jr

Jimmy Gibbs Jr

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Dec 30, 2013
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Thank you for your comments. I guess Nvidia has a clear advantage then, it seems that the vast majority of game devs side with GTX and that many games will feature exclusive nvidia stuff. Can anybody think of a counter-argument to this, how would someone defend AMD in this case?

Also, I started combing the web for 770 prices and it seems that it's kinda discontinued and replaced by the 970 which requires so little power! 145W at those performances. How is that possible. Can any 970 users comment on the stability and reliability of this card? Is the 770 a more solid buy?
 
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gytisxp

gytisxp

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Every good game is amd optimized and gets more fps on an amd cpu/gpu.
Battlefield 4 / hardline
Crysis 2/3
Civ :BE
Bioshock

and all the singleplayer games.
Thief
Lichdom : Battlemage
Tomb raider... and the list goes on. In the future id count that most of these developers will continue to support amd.
Go with amd, they will soon release the r9 3** series of gpu that may be better then the gtx 9** series.
 
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Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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Wow! The AMD fan has spoken. :lol:
 
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Jimmy Gibbs Jr

Jimmy Gibbs Jr

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Well, I'd call myself an AMD fanboy too. But I have to say, nvidia is kinda winning in my eyes right now. To be honest, i don't care if the AMD card scores 5 or even more fps. If a game runs smoothly enough I really don't see why it should affect my choice if one card plays at 78 and the other 85 fps. It makes no difference. I think the nvidia user gets a better deal if they get to see stuff like Physx and Tessellation and we AMD folks don't.

I'm still open and still searching to make the right choice.

What about this gtx 970 card? Is this for real? So little power consumption and so low temperatures? Is this maxwell GPU so superior? Can anybody think of a good reason to prefer the 770 over the 970 except for budget? (cuz it is 15-20% costlier, depending on brand)
 
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Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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Really? This is the kind of thing that singles one out as a fanboy, pure speculation with no kind of proof as there isn't any.


The GTX970 does seem to do what it says on the side of the tin which is why it's the card of the moment.
 
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renz496

renz496

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developer go back and forth between AMD and nvidia. ubisoft used to be partnered with AMD and now they go with nvidia. the batman series has always been nvidia game. CDPR also go with nvidia for the witcher 2 and 3. and their latest game engine already replace Havok with nvidia PhysX. as for the gpu the leap each other performance from time to time. nothing unusual either.
 
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Jimmy Gibbs Jr

Jimmy Gibbs Jr

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Dec 30, 2013
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Well, I understand that devs go back and forth but what I am talking about is very specific. Let's take a few AMD games, I know the list is long. BF4, Thief, Tomb Raider, DragonAge etc... Those games might be slightly better optimized for AMD cards, which means that if you have a high-end system with an AMD card you probably get some more FPS than with an Nvidia card. That's it. That's not a very big deal! And Mantle doesn't seem to offer anything extraordinary, it's just supposed to increase performance and give you a better FPS, which on a high-end system doesn't matter, I don't care if I get 70 or 80 FPS, after 60 it all looks the same.

On the other hand, there is a bunch of Nvidia features that are exclusive to Nvidia cards. Those features really make a huge difference. Have you seen Borderlands 2 with and without Physx? It's quite something! Luckily you can run the Physx on Borderlands even with an AMD card but what about all the other stuff. Have you seen the rooftops on AC Unity? Have you seen the textures on Far Cry 4? Like I said, AMD has nothing similar to offer. A GTX card will play all the games smoothly PLUS will have access to all the extra good stuff that is exclusive to Nvidia (I know it sucks with all the proprietary stuff, but I'd rather pay and have that instead of just being the underdog).

If that is the case, why would anybody buy an AMD card (other than for budget reasons)?? If you spend 300-400 euro on a card why on earth would you buy a 290x?
 
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Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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I bought an AMD card simply to see what the drivers were like these days, hence why I bought a 7790. :D
 
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