r9 280x or GTX 770 (is AMD falling behind?)

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

I would like to upgrade my GPU (I have a 2GB Sapphire 7850). My CPU is an i5 4570 and my PSU OCZ 600W, on an ASUS H87 MoBo with 8g RAM and a Samsung SSD, playing on a 1080 monitor. Here is my problem/thought:

I think the right card for me would be either the 280x or the 770, given my specs and gaming needs. I have had both AMD and Nvidia cards in the past. From what I have gathered (endless browsing and youtubeing plus personal experience), AMD cards tend to have good hardware, run cooler (at least the 280x compared to the 770 is considerably cooler, around 10 degrees) and on the whole are better bang for buck, since they always tend to be cheaper. On the other hand, GTX cards have solid drivers (AMD is kinda shifty with its software) and a bigger fanbase overall. I would go for the 280x (Sapphire or ASUS) with my eyes closed if not for the following:

There seem to exist a bunch of technologies that are either exclusive to Nvidia cards or just run better/smoother with Nvidia cards (Tessellation, Physx, HBAO). Many titles seem to perform better on Nvidia cards, partly because AMD takes a lot of time to optimize the games Nvidia has a contract with, whereas Nvidia does that immediately with games like Thief, BF4 etc (AMD titles). Mantle also seems to be very hazy and definitely not a ready product/feature. I am not such a crazy gamer, buying new titles the moment they are released, I don't mind waiting for 6 months+ for a cheaper game on Steam and for AMD to sort it out in the new drivers release. But are there things that Nvidia users see and that I don't? I saw some screenshots from AC Unity (definitely not yet fully optimized by Ubisoft itself, I know that) promoting the TXAA and it really looks good. I remember a friend of mine (with a 270x) couldn't get Borderlands 2 to enable Physx from the in-game menu and we found a way to tweak the ini file and it worked fine (for some reason I had no problem enabling that from the in-game menu with my 7850).

I also keep reading that Nvidia is preparing to launch a bunch of new game-breaking protocols/features in the future, I understand there is marketing bullsh*t involved as well, but I remember a few years ago when Nvidia made the leap and it took a couple of years for AMD to catch up.

I don't mind the dodgy drivers, I don't mind waiting for AMD to optimize new titles. I just don't want to miss out on visual stuff just because it is exclusive to GTX users. If that is the case, I will go for a 770, otherwise I will stick to AMD and go for a 280x (I've had nothing but good experiences with AMD and was perfectly happy with my 2 previous AMD cards, 1800XT and HD 6670 with a Gforce 8800 in between)

Thank for reading my huge post, would love to hear the community's thoughts.

 

[smeezekitty]

If that is the case, why would anybody buy an AMD card (other than for budget reasons)??

I don't know. Maybe because a few gimmicky features are useless to most people.

Physx will run on the CPU with a performance hit. It also isn't used in that many games.
TXAA is just a blur filter. Trust me. You don't want it.
Tessellation is a DirectX11 feature and fully supported by AMD, NVidia and even Intel graphics
HDAO is a replacement for HBAO that works on both AMD and NVidia and it is faster too.

Anything else?

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

Thank you, that's what I was hoping for, some talk about those damn features. I have seen Physx on AMD, it runs smoothly in Borderlands but it really screwed up my FPS in Metro 2033. I agree that not many games use it at the moment but it's getting more and more popular.

What about Gameworks, PCSS, God Rays, Hair, Fur etc? I am genuinely asking, if you read my posts you'll see that I have always been on AMD's side.

Since the 9xx series came out, it seems that if you can afford it, buying a high-end AMD card (the available ones, 280x, 290x) is not really recommended since there are cooler and more power-efficient GTX alternatives. If all the hype and screenshots I can find online about the Nvidia exclusive stuff (now and in the future) is mostly marketing baloney than I would settle for the 280x, it's cheap and delivers good performance. And I always admired AMD for making all their features available, unlike Nvidia which constantly relies on proprietary technologies.

Do you think it's worth waiting for AMD's r9 3xx series instead of scoring a 970 now?

 

[gytisxp]

wait for it if you can i think its coming q1 2015

 

[smeezekitty]

Unfortunately it appears that "God Rays", hairworks and other things are NVidia locked in. That is actually one of the reasons I do not buy NVidia is I don't like the BS games they place with proprietary features.

Also it sounds like NVidia hairworks is copying AMDs TressFX which was open and worked with both brands.

I do agree that the 9xx series is amazing. Very good price, power and performance ratio. Still out of budget. I am certainly not going to try to stop you from
buying a NVidia card. I am just saying the features don't mean anything to everybody

 

[renz496]

Nvidia have simulation for hair long before AMD. they just rename them to hair works recently. There are demo for physx hair even from Fermi generation. If anything nvidia have complete physic engine with physx. TressFX is just something developer use on top other physic engine. (Nvidia can do the same with their APEX module). So why AMD push in a for TressFX? it is because no developer interested to use GPU physics if not pushed by graphic card maker. That's why no developer use bullet's GPU accelerarion in games. The only good thing with TressFX is it is not hardware specific because they use MS direct compute to do the calculation. But even the adoption is slow despite it was pushed by AMD. As it is you won't see TressFX outside Gaming Evolve title despite the advantage it has compared to PhysX. It is PC extra feature that game developer not interrested to use unless there is initiative from GPU maker to push them to use it.

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

Ok here comes a very stupid question (even though somebody once told me that the stupid questions are the best ones):

Is the fact that the 9xx series only needs so little power, a sign for instability of the card in the future, for more demanding games in 1 or 2 years or is it just that this maxwell GPU is so amazing and groundbreaking. I want to somehow reassure myself that if I buy a 970 I will have for the next three years a card that is more than just decent. I bought the 7850 a little after its release for a little over 200 euro. The card is almost 3 years old and without any OC can run Bioshock Infinite (invariably included in benchmarking even today) at a steady 60 FPS on Ultra with the exception of some places where for some reason the FPS drops to 40 (not graphic intensive moments, just some location and spots that for some reason seem demanding). And mind you, the 7850 was not the company's flagship at the time. Metro 2033 ran smooth as butter on Very High DirectX 11 (without advanced Physx) AC Black Flag almost never below 50 FPS, The witcher 2 solid 60 FPS (without ubersampling) and so on. GTX 970 is the current Nvidia second best card (co-flagship to the 980) and will cost about 150 euro more than the 7850 3 years ago.

It seems to kick ass performance-wise, but do you think it'll last long. I know it's new and people can only say what has gone down in the last 4 months or so, but overall does it seem to be durable?

 

[smeezekitty]

Is the fact that the 9xx series only needs so little power, a sign for instability of the card in the future, for more demanding games in 1 or 2 years or is it just that this maxwell GPU is so amazing and groundbreaking. I want to somehow reassure myself that if I buy a 970 I will have for the next three years a card that is more than just decent. I bought the 7850 a little after its release for a little over 200 euro. The card is almost 3 years old and without any OC can run Bioshock Infinite (invariably included in benchmarking even today) at a steady 60 FPS on Ultra with the exception of some places where for some reason the FPS drops to 40 (not graphic intensive moments, just some location and spots that for some reason seem demanding). And mind you, the 7850 was not the company's flagship at the time. Metro 2033 ran smooth as butter on Very High DirectX 11 (without advanced Physx) AC Black Flag almost never below 50 FPS, The witcher 2 solid 60 FPS (without ubersampling) and so on. GTX 970 is the current Nvidia second best card (co-flagship to the 980) and will cost about 150 euro more than the 7850 3 years ago.

Maxwell is just efficient. But there is no way to say how hardware of software will change in 3 years.

It seems to kick ass performance-wise, but do you think it'll last long. I know it's new and people can only say what has gone down in the last 4 months or so, but overall does it seem to be durable?

There doesn't seem to be anything that points to any reliability problems with current cards
but of course there is no way to predict the future. Don't use forum threads describing problems
to worry you because think about it this way: are you more likely to post if something goes
wrong or if everything works correctly?