GTX960 2GB or R9 280X 3GB (258€)?

[Manos Liakos]

Gigabyte GeForce GTX960 2GB WindForce 2X OC (213€) or MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB Gaming (258€)? Does the R9 worth the extra 45€? I've read about the R9 series of AMD supporting dx12, but I'm concerned about AMD in general.

I'm going to pair it with a g3258 4.7Ghz and a 1080p monitor. Thanks.

 

[Elemential]

There would be a slight bottleneck if you go with the r9 280x. The g3258 heavily oc'd is the equivalent of an i3-4150/4160.
I say a 960 would fit in there better and good for only 1080p.

 

[area61]

The R9 is a better card with more vram, ideal for 1080p

 

[Nextg_Rival]

The R9 280X is slightly better and has more VRAM and a bigger memory bus, which is good, but normally it should be the same price as a GTX 960 or even cheaper, while this one is significantly more expensive. I would go with the GTX 960 if I were you.

 

[Manos Liakos]

There would be a slight bottleneck if you go with the r9 280x. The g3258 heavily oc'd is the equivalent of an i3-4150/4160.
I say a 960 would fit in there better and good for only 1080p.

Those 2gb of vram are what concern me a lot.. Skyrim with high textures is a very memory-hungry game, such as many other titles. I would like to see at least 3gigs. And I would never want to be in a position that my GPU has enough horsepower to play 60fps ultra, but the lack of vram dissuades it...

 

[Nextg_Rival]

If you are concerned about the VRAM, then feel free to get a higher VRAM card. There's also a GTX 960 4 GB version, you might want to check the price on that as well.

 

[Manos Liakos]

If you are concerned about the VRAM, then feel free to get a higher VRAM card. There's also a GTX 960 4 GB version, you might want to check the price on that as well.

that's the same price as the r9 280x... and it doesn't fully utilize those 4gb. But again, what's the point of getting the 4gb version while with the same amount of money I can get the better 280x?

 

[Nextg_Rival]

Here's a comparison of specs, they are pretty close: http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=2436&gid2=1860&compare=geforce-gtx-960-2gb-vs-radeon-r9-280x

Generally, the reason to go for the GTX 960 would be less power consumption and more driver support. The 280X isn't that much better, it's about 10% more powerful tops, while the newer 960 will gain an edge because more games will be optimised for the Maxwell architecture with time. As to the 4 GB version, are you sure it doesn't utilise all 4 GBs of VRAM? I know the 970 only has 3.5 GB, but the way I know it the GTX 960 4 GB version can use all of its VRAM.

 

[Manos Liakos]

Here's a comparison of specs, they are pretty close: http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=2436&gid2=1860&compare=geforce-gtx-960-2gb-vs-radeon-r9-280x

Generally, the reason to go for the GTX 960 would be less power consumption and more driver support. The 280X isn't that much better, it's about 10% more powerful tops, while the newer 960 will gain an edge because more games will be optimized for the Maxwell architecture with time. As to the 4 GB version, are you sure it doesn't utilise all 4 GBs of VRAM? I know the 970 only has 3.5 GB, but the way I know it the GTX 960 4 GB version can use all of its VRAM.

you can't just compare numbers and specs between nvidia and amd. check some benchmarks the 280x gets 60fps on crysis with ultra settings and the 960 around 43fps with the same settings. yeah, I know about power consumption, I don't think it concerns me though... Yes, I'm pretty sure, there are maybe 1 or 2 games with extra high details and on higher resolution than 1080p that would utilize the whole memory. check those out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_mW36BDKs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m69iYstfXTw

I was actually thinking that 960 is newer, as you said, and that it's a Maxwell GPU, as well as that it will natively support dx12. But these are early assessments and they have to do with how "futureproof" is the 960, because games optimized for dx12 will come out in maybe 2 or 3 years from its release. I dont know really..

 

[Nextg_Rival]

There's plenty of benchmarks on Tom's hardware as well, I've seen some and I know that the R9 280X gets 5-10 more FPS on average. Still, if the VRAM is an issue for you I thought you'd be more happy with the 4GB 960. There was a small misunderstanding by the way, I thought you meant that there's a hardware issue with the GTX 960 not allowing it to use all of its VRAM, but apparently you meant that there are simply no games that exhaust the entirety of the VRAM. At any case, you seem to be able to draw your own conclusions from your knowledge on the subject, so I think that you should decide what to do yourself.

 

[Manos Liakos]

That is a two-day-searching-on the internet knowledge 😛 I am not that experienced to be 100% sure for my purchase. That's why I am asking here, but I want detailed reasons to go with gpu 1 or gpu 2. I've also seen many many different opinions about that comparison.

 

[Nextg_Rival]

Well there's not much to talk about really, the GTX 960 has less (or more, depending on the version) VRAM, smaller memory bus, higher clockspeed, more energy efficient architecture, near-equal shader performance to the R9 280X and that's about it, while the R9 280X has more raw power, less driver support and consumes more power. If you are interested in specific games just check the benchmarks for those and make your pick.

 

[Manos Liakos]

280x has double the shading units of 960... I don't care about the power consumption it's negligible.. Anyway, I'll go with 960 the 2gb version, f** that 😛

 

[Nextg_Rival]

You can see that the actual shader performance is pretty even and that even though the R9 280X beats the GTX 960 in terms of texture rate, the GTX 960 beats the R9 280X in terms of pixel rate. So I'd say they are pretty even. Regardless, I wish you all the best with your graphics card.

 

[Manos Liakos]

thanks for helping mate!

 

[Jimyhf2]

I had to return my GTX 960 as performance was kind of disappointing. This card is not worth more than $150 with 128bit memory and 4GB should come standard in $200 price range. Save some money and get R9 Fury Nano.

 

[Nextg_Rival]

What's the price on the Nano in euro? It's released this autumn but I don't know anything about the price. Isn't it supposed to be in the range of 400-500 or something?