GTX770 (2GBs) vs. R9 280X

[Slepnir]

Hey folks,

I'm in the market for a new graphics card to replace my HD7950. Since I don't play on a terribly high resolution (1920x1080), I figured that either of those two cards ought to suit me just fine. The 7950 has been an amazing performer in most single-player games, but not so much in MMORPGs for some odd reason, which I play quite often. So after four years of gaming on the red side, I thought I'd give the green team a go. They seem to be much more committed to driver optimisations, and ShadowPlay seems rather tempting.

However, seeing as more and more developers are getting on board with Mantle, and considering AMD's edge over Nvidia in OpenCL performance, I wonder if I should stick with them. What do you think? Thanks for you help!

 

[Damn_Rookie]

Both of those cards are only a relatively small amount better than your current 7950. The 770 is just a higher clocked 680, and the R9 280X is just a 7970, if that helps put them in context with your current card. An upgrade of that small amount seems a bit of a waste of money.

A lot of MMORPGs are surprisingly CPU dependent; what's your current CPU? Maybe that's causing your MMORPG woes?

 

[trogdor796]

Both of those cards are only a relatively small amount better than your current 7950. The 770 is just a higher clocked 680, and the R9 280X is just a 7970, if that helps put them in context with your current card. An upgrade of that small amount seems a bit of a waste of money.

A lot of MMORPGs are surprisingly CPU dependent; what's your current CPU? Maybe that's causing your MMORPG woes?

I agree, no point in an upgrade that small. Like mentioned a lot of MMO's are cpu bound, it's the nature of them. I know WoW, Guild Wars 2, etc are.

 

[Slepnir]

Both of those cards are only a relatively small amount better than your current 7950. The 770 is just a higher clocked 680, and the R9 280X is just a 7970, if that helps put them in context with your current card. An upgrade of that small amount seems a bit of a waste of money.

A lot of MMORPGs are surprisingly CPU dependent; what's your current CPU? Maybe that's causing your MMORPG woes?

Indeed, that's what I've always believed, but my 4770K surely isn't holding them back. The game was even installed on an SSD to cut back on loading overhead.

EDIT: Oh, I accidentally updated this thread instead of editing a post. So I'll just repost the screenshot.

As you can see, at 92% load, the card only manages a less-than-ideal 37FPS. Nvidia rigs seem to fare better from what I've seen, so I blamed a driver issue on AMD's part. I'm using the latest 14.4 WHQL drivers by the way.

 

[trogdor796]

Can't see the screenshot...

EDIT - NVM can see it now

 

[Damn_Rookie]

Hmm... Do your FPS increase when you lower the graphical setting on that game? (What game is that, by the way?)

 

[Slepnir]

Hmm... Do your FPS increase when you lower the graphical setting on that game? (What game is that, by the way?)

It's Aion, and yes, the game runs better on lower settings, but it should hardly be giving an 4770K/HD7950 system a hard time, right? This 3770K/GTX760 system seems to fare much better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q6bi6NJlaI. That's why I wanted to try Nvidia. Maybe I should see if I can swap my card with any local gamers.

 

[trogdor796]

Do you play any other games? I would make sure it's not a game specific issue, seems like a waste to switch cards for one game.

 

[Slepnir]

Do you play any other games? I would make sure it's not a game specific issue, seems like a waste to switch cards for one game.

I have no complaints about the card in single player games, it works like a charm. WoW's the only other MMO I've got at the moment, so I'll see how that goes.

 

[Damn_Rookie]

I agree, it probably shouldn't be giving you as much trouble as it is. Have you tried rolling back the drivers to an older set? Maybe one of the 13.X ones? Let us know how WOW goes; it could be an issue purely with Aion.

I haven't found any descent benchmarks for Aion game sadly. If you do have any friends nearby who wouldn't mind lending you their nVidia card (or even AMD card - it could be an issue with the card), your idea of trying that sounds like a good one.

 

[Slepnir]

I agree, it probably shouldn't be giving you as much trouble as it is. Have you tried rolling back the drivers to an older set? Maybe one of the 13.X ones? Let us know how WOW goes; it could be an issue purely with Aion.

I haven't found any descent benchmarks for Aion game sadly. If you do have any friends nearby who wouldn't mind lending you their nVidia card (or even AMD card - it could be an issue with the card), your idea of trying that sounds like a good one.

Cheers. The results are in. The game runs buttery smooth out in the open, as was expected from such modest game as far as eye candy goes. It did, however drop to about 50FPS at high loads every now and then.

In a rather sparsely populated Stormwind, the framerate fluctuated between 50-60, which isn't encouraging considering that 25-man raids are far more intensive than this.

I wasn't running any addons, which tend to eat away at CPU cycles.

 

[Damn_Rookie]

If you're running everything at Ultra, with 8xAA, that sounds about right; at least as far as I know (I don't play WOW so am basing this off of benchmarks and the like. I could be very wrong). I don't know, I mean it sounds at least, what with your single player game results, and your WOW results, that the issue may be largely confined to Aion. I'd say it's worth trying some older drivers for your 7950, and if possible, testing a friends nVidia card on the game.

 

[Slepnir]

If you're running everything at Ultra, with 8xAA, that sounds about right; at least as far as I know (I don't play WOW so am basing this off of benchmarks and the like. I could be very wrong). I don't know, I mean it sounds at least, what with your single player game results, and your WOW results, that the issue may be largely confined to Aion. I'd say it's worth trying some older drivers for your 7950, and if possible, testing a friends nVidia card on the game.

It was running on Ultra with 4xAA however - at 1080p, 8xAA offers no immediately visible benefit over 4x in my opinion. The latter cleans up almost all of the jaggies.

I'll see if I can borrow any other cards I guess. Thanks for all your help everyone

Speaking of AA, I think it might be good to note that Aion's 'High Quality' engine does not support AA. The in-game 'Outline Correction' option is completely broken, and the FXAA I'm injecting through RadeonPro has no real impact on performance. It really shouldn't be taxing at all.

 

[Damn_Rookie]

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Best of luck to you.

 

[trogdor796]

When I played WoW, I would get some fps drops in storwind, just because the engine isn't very efficient since it's so old. dropping to 50fps there is probably normal. Also, WoW's shadows are extremely demanding, they should never be set at ultra, no matter how good of a card you have. They are programmed poorly, and can cause fps drops.