GTX960, R9 380, R9 280X, R9 285 with a questionable PSU and an old CPU.

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Jim Korasi

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Aug 10, 2015
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So from my shop in my country I can buy at best one of the following GPUs:

ASUS Strix GTX 960 2gb
MSI Radeon R9 380 2gb
AMD Radeon R9 280X 3gb
Asus Strix R9 285 2gb

I intend to play at 1080p and I want my gpu to last at least 2-3 years with reasonable settings(high-max).

In paper I think the 280x is the best one but my case is special due to my questionable Psu and my weak/old Cpu which I intend to slightly overclock it and thus give more pressure to my Psu.

My Cpu is Athlon II x4 620 @2.6 ghz (OC @ 3.0-3.2 ghz without touching the Vcore voltage)
My Psu is Cooler Master B600 ver.2 (Model RS-600-ACAB-B1) (600w)

I also have 4x2gb DDR3 memory at 1066 mhz(Which I may be able to overclock(??) to 1333mhz with the overclocked cpu). For some reason even if their stock times is at 1333mhz my system is stable only with an underclock at 1066 mhz. I don't think it affects that much my performance though so anyway..

So my questions are:

1) Is my PSU able to handle all of the above GPUs with/without the CPU overclocked?

2) Is any of the above GPUs too powerful for my current system? I mean will my CPU, even overclocked at 3.0 ghz, cause a bottle neck to most of the modern games?

3) Do the extra gigabyte of memory in 280x help more my weak CPU/memory in gaming perfomance even with resolution maxed at 1080p?

4) Which one of these GPUs will perform better after 2-3 years? Maybe the gap between 960 and 280x will become shorter as the time passes and Direct 12 games become available?

5) Which one is the best for my system considering that I don't intend to upgrade my Cpu/Mobo in the future..

PS: My motherboard is GA-MA790XT-UD4P and I only have one hard drive connected(I don't use any optical drives) so the extra power consumption that is needed is as low as possible.

Thank you!
 
Solution
clutchc
1) The specs for that CPU indicate it will be fine for the cards. The 380X is marginal, though. And I doubt your CPU would be able to keep up with it w/o major bottleneck, anyway.

2) Since you OC, I would avoid the 380X. The 280/285 would be OK (PSU-wise), but even those would be hindered from full performance by the CPU in many games (and online gaming where the CPU has much more work to do). Your aiming a bit too high for the AthIIX4.

3) From my experience, there are not that many games that can make use of more than 2GB VRAM. If you had a higher performance CPU, it might be possible. But not with the Athlon II X4. VRAM itself doesn't affect fps. VRAM size is needed for more textures, A-A, DoF, etc. increased settings...
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clutchc

clutchc

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1) The specs for that CPU indicate it will be fine for the cards. The 380X is marginal, though. And I doubt your CPU would be able to keep up with it w/o major bottleneck, anyway.

2) Since you OC, I would avoid the 380X. The 280/285 would be OK (PSU-wise), but even those would be hindered from full performance by the CPU in many games (and online gaming where the CPU has much more work to do). Your aiming a bit too high for the AthIIX4.

3) From my experience, there are not that many games that can make use of more than 2GB VRAM. If you had a higher performance CPU, it might be possible. But not with the Athlon II X4. VRAM itself doesn't affect fps. VRAM size is needed for more textures, A-A, DoF, etc. increased settings.

4) I have no way of knowing that.

5) Considering your premise, I would opt for the GTX 960 from the choices you offer. It is BY FAR the lowest wattage card of the group, and the most modern. My Evga 960 FTW outperformed my R9-280 Dual-X in most game benchmarks I ran.

Btw, good job on getting the old Athlon II X4 620 to over 3GHz.
 
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