GTX 770 vs Radeon HD 7970 vs R9 280x

[GamerMT]

Hey. I have a GTX 650 and i can't really choose between this 3 cards. Games that i play are:
Battlefield 4
Neverwinter
and Warface.
But i'm getting a new card because of Battlefield 4. This are my PC specs:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965
GPU (currently) Nvidia GTX 650
RAM: 8GB RAM DDR3
HDD: 1TB
OS: Windows 7 32 bit (getting 64 bit of course)
so.. which one should i get? 7970 will be MSI Lightning Boost edition or CLUB 3D , R9 280x will be Toxic or CLUB 3D, and GTX 770 will be MSI Twin Frozr OC or Gigabyte OC. Thanks guys!

 

[Mciahel]

I'd grab a EVGA 770 FTW real soild card. But the other 770s will do you just fine. Imo Nvidia has much more consistent cards then AMD does. Which is why I say 770 over 280x.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

the 3gb vram on the amd cards will be worth more in the future than the negligible difference in performance between 280x and the 770, they trade blows depending on game anyway. that and if you play any games that will use mantle, well you get a free performance advantage there.

 

[Mciahel]

the 3gb vram on the amd cards will be worth more in the future than the negligible difference in performance between 280x and the 770, they trade blows depending on game anyway. that and if you play any games that will use mantle, well you get a free performance advantage there.

Good point. Though you could pop 40 bucks (I think it its?) more for the 4GB version of the 770

 

[Avro Arrow]

the 3gb vram on the amd cards will be worth more in the future than the negligible difference in performance between 280x and the 770, they trade blows depending on game anyway. that and if you play any games that will use mantle, well you get a free performance advantage there.

Hell, even better than free. The R9-280X costs less than the GTX 770. If you grab a card with the old name of HD 7970, it gets even better! Sapphire dropped the price of their HD 7970 OC through the floor! Instead of paying $330 for the GTX 770, you could pay only $260 (-$20 rebate) for the HD 7970 OC:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

 

[iam2thecrowe]

the 3gb vram on the amd cards will be worth more in the future than the negligible difference in performance between 280x and the 770, they trade blows depending on game anyway. that and if you play any games that will use mantle, well you get a free performance advantage there.

Hell, even better than free. The R9-280X costs less than the GTX 770. If you grab a card with the old name of HD 7970, it gets even better! Sapphire dropped the price of their HD 7970 OC through the floor! Instead of paying $330 for the GTX 770, you could pay only $260 (-$20 rebate) for the HD 7970 OC:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

yeah i got my 7970 recently, just flashed it with ghz bios and all good. in australia 2gb 770's are stll nearly $50 more than a 280x and $100 more than a 7970. ripoff. oh and you get 3 free games with 7970's, one of which is thief 3 which i really wanted. with the 280x you get bf4 now, but i dont want that game, BF series is tired and old.

 

[ZolaIII]

Hey. I have a GTX 650 and i can't really choose between this 3 cards. Games that i play are:
Battlefield 4
Neverwinter
and Warface.
But i'm getting a new card because of Battlefield 4. This are my PC specs:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965
GPU (currently) Nvidia GTX 650
RAM: 8GB RAM DDR3
HDD: 1TB
OS: Windows 7 32 bit (getting 64 bit of course)
so.. which one should i get? 7970 will be MSI Lightning Boost edition or CLUB 3D , R9 280x will be Toxic or CLUB 3D, and GTX 770 will be MSI Twin Frozr OC or Gigabyte OC. Thanks guys!

I think that you should actually go for 7950 boost edition, & hurry up til there are still some on the market!

 

[woltej1]

Alright, R9 280x toxic for me i think. But 2 questions
How much FPS drop will i get with the Toxic if i don't overclock my CPU?
and if i need to, which CPU cooler will be good enough? I live in europe, and the cooler must be at a 25-60 euros price range.
It doesn't really matter to me if you are linking me a US or EU site, whether or not i can look for it.

I'd go ahead and OC your cpu if you know how, but get the cooler first. I just got the coolermaster Hyper212, it's regarded as one of the better air coolers out there, and probably the best if you include price. $30 bucks over here in america. You should also look at corsairs low end liquid coolers, not sure how much they would cost you in euros.

Just an FYI, I oc'd my i5-750 the night before my cooler got here just to see how much it would help. I ran realtemp and played a round of BF4 and apparently I hit around 95C, yikes. I installed the hyper212, didn't break 60C after hours of BF4.

 

[James Layne]

You can see that the 770 is losing, and the R9 280x is almost performing the same as the 780. I don't know how, better or same card for just half the price. Seems like a good deal.

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.

The 280x is not 359 dollars on newegg. Look it up before making dumb assumptions. http://m.newegg.com/ProductList?Keyword=280x
Also the 770 is only 256 bit. To get the 4gb version would be absolutely worthless.

 

[Djentleman]

I would suggest the gtx 770 if you're recording.
Shadowplay is revolutionary in the recording software business, and is free.
Worth thinking about.

 

[nikoli707]

the full 'tahiti' chip is no doubt faster than a full 'kepler' chip in regular 3d gaming.. no doubt. this has been known since 12.11beta drivers about a year ago.

 

[Djentleman]

the full 'tahiti' chip is no doubt faster than a full 'kepler' chip in regular 3d gaming.. no doubt. this has been known since 12.11beta drivers about a year ago.

What does that even mean? lol
Nvidia is known to be better performers clock for clock. The 'tahiti' cards are just better overclockers.

 

[jellybellyjoe]

my personal preferance = AMD 280x. AMD mantle set to com out soon you will be seeing 20 - 50% performance increase on those cards in the next 12 - 36 months so its a good future proof option.

 

[GamerMT]

Thanks all! I heard enough and my choice is the R9 280x!
All new card, supporting Mantle and DirectX 11.1 + Is better optimized for BF4! Also, i like the price and design!

 

[Djentleman]

my personal preferance = AMD 280x. AMD mantle set to com out soon you will be seeing 20 - 50% performance increase on those cards in the next 12 - 36 months so its a good future proof option.

Thanks all! I heard enough and my choice is the R9 280x!
All new card, supporting Mantle and DirectX 11.1 + Is better optimized for BF4! Also, i like the price and design!

Mantle is only confirmed for a select few titles.
But if you like those, then go for AMD.

 

[fatandfluffy]

But Nvidia has GeForce experience. I'm using 1920x 1080 as my resolution. Help me out guys!

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.)

but what about people who have absolutely no clue on what settings to use to make their games run smoothly? nvidia runs each class of card with some kind of algorithm to simulate settings for games that most people play and come up with "optimizations" for the laymen. now i'm not saying they should go out and buy the card simply because of that... but what i am saying is for people that don't really know much about how to optimize a certain game its a very attractive option. does it justify the extra 30-50$(for roughly the same performance)? in my opinion...no. pick your budget and get the best card you can with it. the 280x really is the better option here. but for people with limited experience in analyzing a specific setting that bottlenecks fps this is what they want... simplicity. for the dollar amd will offer you a better experience(if you know what your doing) and nvidia will hold your hand into a master race experience. its really just preference man.

 

[Mciahel]

But Nvidia has GeForce experience. I'm using 1920x 1080 as my resolution. Help me out guys!

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.)

but what about people who have absolutely no clue on what settings to use to make their games run smoothly? nvidia runs each class of card with some kind of algorithm to simulate settings for games that most people play and come up with "optimizations" for the laymen. now i'm not saying they should go out and buy the card simply because of that... but what i am saying is for people that don't really know much about how to optimize a certain game its a very attractive option. does it justify the extra 30-50$(for roughly the same performance)? in my opinion...no. pick your budget and get the best card you can with it. the 280x really is the better option here. but for people with limited experience in analyzing a specific setting that bottlenecks fps this is what they want... simplicity. for the dollar amd will offer you a better experience(if you know what your doing) and nvidia will hold your hand into a master race experience. its really just preference man.

Good points you have there. Nvidia's GeForce Experience really just tells you the "optimal" settings. It does have Shadow Play which even though its still in beta is pretty nice. Anyways to the point...

Nvidia tends to be on the side of well made and tested cards with little to no problems.
While on the flipside AMD has fast cards, but they are usually held back by cooling and driver issues. R9 290x for a good example.

Now this is not to say Nvidia doesn't have their fair share of driver issues (current official one is broken. had to go to the beta one)
And that AMD can't make a soild card. Like the 280x.

My Opinion

 

[Djentleman]

But Nvidia has GeForce experience. I'm using 1920x 1080 as my resolution. Help me out guys!

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.)

but what about people who have absolutely no clue on what settings to use to make their games run smoothly? nvidia runs each class of card with some kind of algorithm to simulate settings for games that most people play and come up with "optimizations" for the laymen. now i'm not saying they should go out and buy the card simply because of that... but what i am saying is for people that don't really know much about how to optimize a certain game its a very attractive option. does it justify the extra 30-50$(for roughly the same performance)? in my opinion...no. pick your budget and get the best card you can with it. the 280x really is the better option here. but for people with limited experience in analyzing a specific setting that bottlenecks fps this is what they want... simplicity. for the dollar amd will offer you a better experience(if you know what your doing) and nvidia will hold your hand into a master race experience. its really just preference man.

Good points you have there. Nvidia's GeForce Experience really just tells you the "optimal" settings. It does have Shadow Play which even though its still in beta is pretty nice. Anyways to the point...

Nvidia tends to be on the side of well made and tested cards with little to no problems.
While on the flipside AMD has fast cards, but they are usually held back by cooling and driver issues. R9 290x for a good example.

Now this is not to say Nvidia doesn't have their fair share of driver issues (current official one is broken. had to go to the beta one)
And that AMD can't make a soild card. Like the 280x.

My Opinion

+1
You pay for reliability.

 

[slimething]

For the 280x, just set the everything to Ultra, HBAO, 4x msaa @1080p and enjoy 60+ FPS. When Mantle is hopefully released later this month, expect even more video bliss for BF4. The cpu will need to be upgraded however.

I have the Gigabyte OC 280x; consistent 70 FPS with i7 4770k. And no, it doesn't get hot.

Shadow Play? When it works; just more fluff. Ezvid is better and free.

Can't help but laugh at the loyalists on either side, but in this case, the 280x is quite simply better than the 770 for BF4. Period.

 

[Djentleman]

For the 280x, just set the everything to Ultra, HBAO, 4x msaa @1080p and enjoy 60+ FPS. When Mantle is hopefully released later this month, expect even more video bliss for BF4. The cpu will need to be upgraded however.

I have the Gigabyte OC 280x; consistent 70 FPS with i7 4770k. And no, it doesn't get hot.

Shadow Play? When it works; just more fluff. Ezvid is better and free.

Can't help but laugh at the loyalists on either side, but in this case, the 280x is quite simply better than the 770 for BF4. Period.

You're such a liar.
You can not get those frames with that card.
Stop spreading misinformation. pls
Also, with how biased you sound, i guarantee you have not used shadowplay. So stop giving advice on that too.

 

[slimething]

For the 280x, just set the everything to Ultra, HBAO, 4x msaa @1080p and enjoy 60+ FPS. When Mantle is hopefully released later this month, expect even more video bliss for BF4. The cpu will need to be upgraded however.

I have the Gigabyte OC 280x; consistent 70 FPS with i7 4770k. And no, it doesn't get hot.

Shadow Play? When it works; just more fluff. Ezvid is better and free.

Can't help but laugh at the loyalists on either side, but in this case, the 280x is quite simply better than the 770 for BF4. Period.

You're such a liar.
You can not get those frames with that card.
Stop spreading misinformation. pls
Also, with how biased you sound, i guarantee you have not used shadowplay. So stop giving advice on that too.

Lying? That's what I get consistently. Don't believe it, too bad.

I doubt you've used shadowplay either 😀

 

[Djentleman]

For the 280x, just set the everything to Ultra, HBAO, 4x msaa @1080p and enjoy 60+ FPS. When Mantle is hopefully released later this month, expect even more video bliss for BF4. The cpu will need to be upgraded however.

I have the Gigabyte OC 280x; consistent 70 FPS with i7 4770k. And no, it doesn't get hot.

Shadow Play? When it works; just more fluff. Ezvid is better and free.

Can't help but laugh at the loyalists on either side, but in this case, the 280x is quite simply better than the 770 for BF4. Period.

You're such a liar.
You can not get those frames with that card.
Stop spreading misinformation. pls
Also, with how biased you sound, i guarantee you have not used shadowplay. So stop giving advice on that too.

Lying? That's what I get consistently. Don't believe it, too bad.

I doubt you've used shadowplay either 😀

Seen too many benchmarks for me to believe you.
I already know you don't use it, you said you have a 280x.
My sig says i have a 770. So i use shadowplay everyday.
Go to battlelog where people like you thrive, we look for unbiased opinions on this forum. Spreading misinformation makes people disappointed.

 

[GamerMT]

Okay, let's choose the solution, before people are going to start a war. And no, not in Battlefield..

 

[slimething]

For the 280x, just set the everything to Ultra, HBAO, 4x msaa @1080p and enjoy 60+ FPS. When Mantle is hopefully released later this month, expect even more video bliss for BF4. The cpu will need to be upgraded however.

I have the Gigabyte OC 280x; consistent 70 FPS with i7 4770k. And no, it doesn't get hot.

Shadow Play? When it works; just more fluff. Ezvid is better and free.

Can't help but laugh at the loyalists on either side, but in this case, the 280x is quite simply better than the 770 for BF4. Period.

You're such a liar.
You can not get those frames with that card.
Stop spreading misinformation. pls
Also, with how biased you sound, i guarantee you have not used shadowplay. So stop giving advice on that too.

Lying? That's what I get consistently. Don't believe it, too bad.

I doubt you've used shadowplay either 😀

Seen too many benchmarks for me to believe you.
I already know you don't use it, you said you have a 280x.
My sig says i have a 770. So i use shadowplay everyday.
Go to battlelog where people like you thrive, we look for unbiased opinions on this forum. Spreading misinformation makes people disappointed.

Didn't you see the above graph?

Do you think HardOCP's results are invalid? They very well could be, but we're talking 14 FPS difference between a 280x and 770 average FPS, a huge chasm. I normally use Operation Locker and consistently attain well above 70 FPS avg using their same settings on full 64 player servers. They tested using Shanghai, which is in fact more GPU intensive than OL. So I ran a few full rounds of that and only once averaged under 70 FPS. As the newer drivers have been rolling out, the video quality has been improving. If Mantle turns out to be anything as claimed, AMD is clearly the better option for BF4. No ifs, ands or buts.

What makes you think I didn't test the 770? The original plan was for a 780 for a change, but I didn't like the price tag, so opted for a 770, was not impressed with the Ultra settings results and returned it for a 280x from Newgg for $300. Now they are $360. If you wish, I'll post a video with FPS on the screen and also verify all video settings, then benchmark an entire round. You will then see a whole lot of FPS >100. I use Dxtory for recording, so far the best tried, but requires some tinkering to get the settings correct.

Still think I'm lying? Look at the graph again.

Admin. I don't appreciate being called a liar.

 

[Aleksanderibsoe]

I would say the gtx 770 (prefer the Evga version). Nvidia has in my opinion deliverered so many good products and don't start hating on me, but i think that Amd is a compagny that both tries to make the Best Cpu's and Gpu's and just fails in the attempt of masterying everything. I personally have the Evga gtx 770 installed on my Motherboard and it runs like a dream. Very strong Gpu to say atleast.

 

[Aleksanderibsoe]

I would say the gtx 770 (prefer the Evga version). Nvidia has in my opinion deliverered so many good products and don't start hating on me, but i think that Amd is a compagny that both tries to make the Best Cpu's and Gpu's and just fails in the attempt of masterying everything. I personally have the Evga gtx 770 installed on my Motherboard and it runs like a dream. Very strong Gpu to say atleast.