R9 280x upgrade

ronduth

Honorable
Dec 30, 2013
84
0
10,660
CPU specs:
i7 4820k Oc'd to 4.4
16gig pc2133
R9-280x
950w ps
Gigabyte UP4 x79 motherboard
windows 7

I am looking for advice on whether I should purchase another 280x or wait 6 months for a single stronger card?

If you go crossfire do i have to have the same brand as I currently do or will any 280x work?

Any advice is appreciated as I been contemplating this for a month now and I can't find anything to sell me either way on other forums so I decided to post here.

 
Solution
I normally suggest one card, but seeing as you already have one 280x I would pick up another (or 7970 Ghz Edition). If you can pick one up on eBay or on sale it makes sense. That being said, if you're happy with the performance you have now there is no reason not to wait a year or two. There is always something better around the corner.

Any brand is fine, all 280xs have the same amount of RAM (3GB) so that's not an issue. If you crossfire two cards with different clock speeds the faster one will down-clock to match the slower one.




Always go for a Bigger single card than two weaker cards. A gtx 980 for example. If you really want to crossfire you can use an R9 280x from any brand you want, you can also crossfire it with an HD 7970 since its the same Proccesing unit.
 
I have crossfire x 7870's and honestly have to recommend otherwise.

wait for the 300 series to release and get a single R9 390x

scaling and driver issues have plagued my last 2 years of crossfire and I would have been better off if I had simply gotten a 7970 from the start even though its theoretical performance is lower than the 7870's

having said that the R9 280x is a beast of a card... you should be able to play everything on ultra anyway in 1080p at least.

 
I normally suggest one card, but seeing as you already have one 280x I would pick up another (or 7970 Ghz Edition). If you can pick one up on eBay or on sale it makes sense. That being said, if you're happy with the performance you have now there is no reason not to wait a year or two. There is always something better around the corner.

Any brand is fine, all 280xs have the same amount of RAM (3GB) so that's not an issue. If you crossfire two cards with different clock speeds the faster one will down-clock to match the slower one.
 
Solution
The issue I have here is during operation of Arma 3 multiplayer my CPU runs at 30-30% full ultra ... my GPU runs only at 60% load. I realize arma is optimized bad but some people who have crossfire have at least 10-15fps better then myself.

That is where all this debate has came from