Gigabyte 770 OC 4GB vs. Asus r9 280x TOP

[Keot]

I am currently divided between two cards.
3072MB Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP
4096MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 Windforce 3X OC

I will get the game bundle and a discount on the specific 770 card so the will prices end up being about the same.

I haven't been able to find many benchmarks to compare these exact cards.

How do they compare in
Performance?
Overclocking?
Noise?
Temperature?

I have also considered 2048MB Asus GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC which costs about the same as the 280x, but I'm slightly iffy about the 2 GB VRAM. 4 GB is still more than I'll need during the card's lifetime so it won't make a difference to me when comparing the Gigabyte 770 and Asus 280x.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[jay2577]

What about the free games with the 280x?
I got Battlefield 4, Hitman Absolution, Saints Row 4, Far Cry 3 Blood dragon and the new Thief game when it's released in February with one of my 270x cards

 

[jay2577]

 

[jay2577]

Of course BF4 is optimized for the AMD cards and i think the newer Nvidia drivers should improve on these benchmarks

 

[Keot]

What about the free games with the 280x?
I got Battlefield 4, Hitman Absolution, Saints Row 4, Far Cry 3 Blood dragon and the new Thief game when it's released in February with one of my 270x cards

I live in Finland and I'm ordering my parts from Germany. The store has only few bundles (BF4) for the 280x. The Never Settle Forever ones are only on the 7000 series.

I haven't seen any stores in Finland selling bundled 280xs either.

 

[jay2577]

This might help as well. It compares the GTX760 with the AMD 7970 but the 280x is a rebranded 7970 with a few tweaks.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/854?vs=770

 

[geofelt]

Performance will be so close that you will need a synthetic benchmark to detect differences.

The R9 cards get their performance by being clocked higher in the first place.
Because of that, they tend to run hotter and noisier.

You will get fair value by paying a bit more for a factory overclocked card in the first place. Vendors are wise to overclocking so they put their best chips in factory overclocked models to sell at a premium.

2gb vs. 4gb vram is not much of an issue, do not pay more there.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

I prefer cards with stock direct exhaust double slot coolers.
They get the hot vga air directly out the back of the case.
Other aftermarket coolers do a good job of cooling the vga chip in an open testbed.
But in a case, but then they just dump ht air back into the case where case cooling has to deal with it.
That heats up both the graphics card AND the cpu.

 

[Keot]

Of course BF4 is optimized for the AMD cards and i think the newer Nvidia drivers should improve on these benchmarks

Yeah, the reference performance seems to be fairly identical when looking at the benchmarks . I guess I wouldn't expect big differences in practice. I'm perhaps more curious about the overclocking capabilities and the noise/temperature values with these specific cooling solutions.

Performance will be so close that you will need a synthetic benchmark to detect differences.

The R9 cards get their performance by being clocked higher in the first place.
Because of that, they tend to run hotter and noisier.

You will get fair value by paying a bit more for a factory overclocked card in the first place. Vendors are wise to overclocking so they put their best chips in factory overclocked models to sell at a premium.

Both of the cards in question are factory overclocked versions partially for this reason. Do you know if there are usually differences in the further overclock capabilities?

2gb vs. 4gb vram is not much of an issue, do not pay more there.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

I'm somewhat divided about this. I wouldn't expect to see a difference today. However, going with a 1440p monitor (possibly going 3 monitors with SLI/Crossfire) and heavily modding it wouldn't surprise me if 3 GB would pull ahead of 2 GB for me. I'm not too bothered paying slightly more to be on the safe side.

I prefer cards with stock direct exhaust double slot coolers.
They get the hot vga air directly out the back of the case.
Other aftermarket coolers do a good job of cooling the vga chip in an open testbed.
But in a case, but then they just dump ht air back into the case where case cooling has to deal with it.
That heats up both the graphics card AND the cpu.

My direct exhaust options seem fairly limited in this case, but you're right and I'll consider that as well.

As far as the Asus vs. Gigabyte cooling solutions seem to go, people seem quite divided.

 

[jay2577]

My experience with factory overclocked cards is that as they are already overclocked it is difficult to get a lot more out of them. I haven't tried on those cards though.

I am surprised you have gone for Asus vs Gigabyte for cooling. I would of thought it would be Msi vs Gigabyte. The Twin Frozr cooling i have had on graphics cards in the past has been exceptional and very quiet.

As for the memory I have included a graphics card memory graph for Battlefield 4 for you to look at

 

[Keot]

My experience with factory overclocked cards is that as they are already overclocked it is difficult to get a lot more out of them. I haven't tried on those cards though.

Sounds fair enough. There probably won't be a big difference in practice.

I am surprised you have gone for Asus vs Gigabyte for cooling. I would of thought it would be Msi vs Gigabyte. The Twin Frozr cooling i have had on graphics cards in the past has been exceptional and very quiet.

I have had very good experiences with Asus cards and have found them to be high quality. The Gigabyte card seems to be the highest quality 770 4 GB card on stock at the retailer. They don't have MSI.

As for the memory I have included a graphics card memory graph for Battlefield 4 for you to look at

This and the possibility of going multiple monitors is why I'm not sure if I'm completely comfortable with 2 GB.

 

[jay2577]

I can't see into the future(although i'm working on it) but for future games i think you will want over 2gb.
The new consoles are both out now and they have 8gb of memory to share between system and video ram. This means when they start developing games that make the most of the hardware in them that some games might use well over 2gb of video memory.
Now take into consideration that console games are better optimized this could easily translate into higher video ram usage for PC's.
This is of course just my opinion.
I can remember when my Nvidia geforce 2mx graphics card had only 64mb of memory😀

 

[Keot]

Thanks, I think I'll be able to make the decision based on this after some more research. The whole Mantle vs. PhysX thing is a whole another topic though an older Nvidia card could work if I go with 280x.

Thanks again both and if anyone has anything to add I'd still like to hear your opinions. It's hard to pick the best answer, but I appreciate the enthusiasm jay put into this.

 

[jay2577]

Thanks for the best answer
As for research on Mantle. I have done a LOT and am hopeful that it could have a great impact on pc gaming. I have left a few links that might help you researching it. We won't know for sure until we have it what improvements it will bring.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/johan-andersson-battlefield-4-interview,3688.html

http://www.techspot.com/news/54134-amd-unveils-revolutionary-mantle-api-to-optimize-gpu-performance.html

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/amd_mantle_could_get_you_20_more_performance.html

Whatever you choose i hope you enjoy gaming on your new card

 

[d1versify]

i hope you didnt get the r9 280x directcu ii top