Is the R9 280 Still a Good Card for Gaming?

[beeleved]

Hey there, I have a friend who's looking to upgrade his graphics card and I'm looking to build a cheap gaming rig. He's willing to sell me his old r9 280 for $75. So, my question is will the r9 280 still be able to play modern games at 1080p, and if so is $75 a good price?

Here's a link to the brand and specs of the card in question: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150706

 

[chemmajorp53]

The R9 280 is still a decent card and can play games at 1080p as long as you're ok with sacrificing some graphical quality settings. What kind of CPU are you going to have in the rig out of curiosity? $75 isn't a total steal, but it's pretty fair IMO.

 

[beeleved]

The R9 280 is still a decent card and can play games at 1080p as long as you're ok with sacrificing some graphical quality settings. What kind of CPU are you going to have in the rig out of curiosity? $75 isn't a total steal, but it's pretty fair IMO.

I'm hoping that since I'm able to save money on the graphics card I could get an i3-6100, which will hopefully go down a little in price now that the kaby lake cpus are released.

 

[chemmajorp53]

There's no use buying a 6100, the price won't go down unless you buy used. I'd either buy a 7100 or a Pentium G4560 if you're extra cash-strapped

 

[beeleved]

There's no use buying a 6100, the price won't go down unless you buy used. I'd either buy a 7100 or a Pentium G4560 if you're extra cash-strapped

I looked at the G4560, but when I paired it with motherboards on PCPartPicker it kept on saying I had to flash the motherboard BIOS to get it to run. I'd rather not mess with BIOS settings unless I absolutely have to, because screwing up could ruin everything in your build. It was the same story for the 7100, so I figured since the i3-6100 was hyperthreaded and offered performance comparable to an i5 that was only a few years old and didn't require me to mess around with the BIOS I'd go with that instead.

 

[chemmajorp53]

Have you considered looking around locally for a used 2500k/2600k and z67/z77 mobo? You'll probably be able to get it for cheaper than a 6100 and mobo. Do you already have a motherboard? Because if you buy a b250 or H270 chipset board then you won't have to flash anything

 

[beeleved]

Have you considered looking around locally for a used 2500k/2600k and z67/z77 mobo? You'll probably be able to get it for cheaper than a 6100 and mobo. Do you already have a motherboard? Because if you buy a b250 or H270 chipset board then you won't have to flash anything

I don't have a motherboard, and I was looking at some old prebuilts that had an i5-2400 on ebay that were going for around $100ish, but my one main concern is that those are all on dead sockets and if I ever need to upgrade it would be difficult to do so.

 

[yaezpk]

I've had my R9 280 for a couple years, still going strong. Can play GTA 5 Online with everything on Very High/Ultra, the only thing I have turned off is anti-aliasing and the render distance or someshit and I get 70-90 FPS. $75 is well worth it mate