R9 270X vs R9 280

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Dec 2, 2014
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First of all, what does the 'x' at the end of Radeon cards mean?
I was going to buy a R9 280 (3gb ram) for $260. Then I looked at the older R9 270x (4gb ram) and it is faster and has more ram for the exact same price.
what is better? what should I get?

Edit: The 270x seems better than the 280x for $100 cheaper. What is up with that?

Here are the links.

R9 280
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr928wf3oc3gd

R9 270
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr927xoc4gd

Cheers
 
Solution
M
The R9 280 is better due to its more stream processors. Other factors also matter.
The R9 270X is the same price because it is the 4GB version.
So the R9 280 is faster, but the R9 270X has 1GB more of Vram, which no game actually uses yet.
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how is the 7870 faster than the 7950?

7950= R9 280 non X the R9 280X is the 7970

R9 270X is 7870

i have a 7950 Vapor-x @ 1300/1900mhz and i can max out every game out there 60fps @ ultra without AA or 2xAA except for unity

imo if u can wait for a month or 2 the GTX960 will be out for 249 USD it will have 4GB of ram or u can also wait for AMD R9 300
 
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The R9 280 is better due to its more stream processors. Other factors also matter.
The R9 270X is the same price because it is the 4GB version.
So the R9 280 is faster, but the R9 270X has 1GB more of Vram, which no game actually uses yet.
 
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Solution


If op is running games like Fallout or Skyrim heavily modded with custom textures, then the 4 gigabytes would most likely be used. I run fallout nv/3 and skyrim heavily modded with multiple texture packs and lots of memory hungry mods on an r9 290 and I usually am nearing my limit of 4 gigabytes. Unless he's doing this however, he most likely will not need it.

Op, the r9 280 is better than the r9 270x. Plain and simple. Gl with your choice.
 
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This ^^
 
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ohh, thanks for the clarification.
This specific PC isn't going to be a gaming machine. It will mainly be used for browsing the net and photoshop or other photo programs. It's not for me it's for my old man. What graphics card would you guys recommend for a non-gaming machine. I don't want it to lag though.
On another note, my mate is making a gaming machine or at least planning to, if he is on a low budget would the R9 280 suffice? and would a FX 8320 bottle-neck the GPU? I've read alot of people saying "go intel, amd bottlenecks" sometimes it's as vague as just referring to the brand amd and not a specific processor. Does the 8320 really bottle-neck?

look at the spec
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/desktop/r9#

Stream Processing Units
Memory Bandwidth
Click to expand...

Thanks, I looked at the specs, the R9 285 seems inferior to the R9 280x, it has less stream processing units, less memory bandwidth and less GPU clock speed. On that note, what is more important out of stream processing units, memory bandwidth and gpu click speed. I think you guys already talked about how the size of the ram wasn't that important in most cases when gaming.

imo if u can wait for a month or 2 the GTX960 will be out for 249 USD it will have 4GB of ram or u can also wait for AMD R9 300
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I can't wait that long, I need to build this pc asap. I looked up the gtx 960 and apparently they changed the 4gb ram to 2gb.

Thanks, now I know what is better between the two :)

Cheers
 
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This is the build so far, any critique would be appreciated. I'm trying to keep costs kind of low.

[PCPartPicker part list](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/DdBtHx) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/DdBtHx/by_merchant/)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd8320frhkbox) | $182.00 @ CPL Online
**Motherboard** | [ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-980de3u3s3) | $69.00 @ CPL Online
**Memory** | [G.Skill Value 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31600c11s8gnt) | $92.00 @ CPL Online
**Storage** | [A-Data Premier Pro SP600 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/a-data-internal-hard-drive-asp600s3128gmc) | $79.00 @ CPL Online
**Storage** | [Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd10ezex) | $61.00 @ Centre Com
**Video Card** | [Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr928wf3oc3gd) | $259.00 @ CPL Online
**Case** | [Thermaltake Versa H25 ATX Mid Tower Case](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/thermaltake-case-ca1c200m1nn00) | $49.00 @ CPL Online
**Power Supply** | [Thermaltake SMART 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply](http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/thermaltake-power-supply-sp550pcbus) | $79.00 @ CPL Online
| | **Total**
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available | $870.00
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-31 14:48 EST+1100 |


Cheers
 
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I would change the motherboard. I would have at least a 970 chipset for an 8 core. The motherboard I use is perfect for running it at stock, even with a mild overclock: ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0, or the Extreme 3 which is slightly better for overclocking.
Also, go with 2-4 RAM sticks rather than 1, you will benefit from running in dual channel.
 
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Thanks, I have never heard of dual channel, I will look into it. If I don't intend to overclock the motherboard or add an extra graphics card after, then won't the cheapest motherboard suffice? Or is a mother board like a PSU where a cheap one can destroy the system if it gets cranky?

 
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I meant overclocking the CPU, not motherboard. ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard is not good at all with 8 core CPU's. Even most the 970 chipset boards need BIOS update in order to use an 8 core CPU. The one I have works perfectly fine at stock right out of the box with no updates required. Also has crossfire compatibility but it's not very good because the lanes have different connections. You will benefit from this because you have extra expansion slots to install stuff like a PCI SSD, Sound card, Wifi card, etc.
 
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ohh, I also meant overclocking the CPU, I just meant that I thought some motherboards were better for overclocking CPU's than others and that if I wasn't going to overclock a cheap motherboard would suffice.
According to the specs the motherboard supports am3+ (I don't see any mention anywhere about a firmware upgrade). Is it bad if I need to upgrade the drivers right out of the box?
 
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I have the same motherboard with the 8320 :)
You can't do overclocking in that though, only up to 3.8 Ghz. I disabled 2 cores and got it up to 4.2 Ghz. Basically means it can OC a six core just fine, so an FX-6300 wouldn't be a bad choice. Good luck buying your parts and building the rig 😛
 
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ohh, at stock the 8320 is 3.5Ghz, so if I don't oc it should be fine right?

How do you know how much Ghz a motherboard can take? It doesn't say it anywhere. Was this just trial and error? I'm going to need the extra cores for applications like photoshop.

Cheers
 
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It's fine at stock. I compared 3.5 Ghz to 4.2 Ghz on six cores in a single threaded game and I saw no difference.
Nothing can tell you how much Ghz a motherboard can take. It all depends on the chip, and the environment (airflow, cooling, power, etc.). You can tell the motherboard doesn't overclock well because of the power phase and power delivery, and also the cooling on the VRMs which this motherboard has none.
 
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ah I see, The computer has just been assembled. I would have liked to get a better motherboard but I was on a really tight budget, I owe my brother money now -,-
The computer was for my father, I had no intention of overclocking it as of yet (but still would have liked to get a motherboard that could have). The shops had no 280 so I bought a 290.

Will the 8320 bottleneck a 290? Also I didn't buy any after market cooling, would the stock cooler keep the 8320 cool enough? The computer won't be gaming at all, the most load it will have would be from photoshop.

Thanks again for the help 😀
 
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