R9 285 or gtx 960?

[MrTechGuy]

I will be building a $600 dollar gaming rig soon. Which card is better for cod, bf4, witcher 3, etc. I can get a r9 285 for $170 after mail in rebate and a gtx 960 for $185. A r9 280x is too much money right now. So which card will outperform the other?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Darkbreeze]

How is it too much money, when it's almost the same price?

This is the card I'd go with if you can squeeze the extra funds:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card ($192.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $192.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-12 00:58 EDT-0400


In reality, there's probably only about a 8-10% performance difference between any of these cards on average, some titles might have a bit more or less of a spread, so whichever you choose is probably fine.

 

[madmatt30]

960 vs 285 - definitely the 960
960 vs 280 - debatable because of the evtra vram on the 280 - if ultra hi-res textures or skyrim mods are important id edge to the 280.
960 vs 280x - definitely the 280x if your PSU is up to the job.

I still think you'll see a fairly big price drop on the r9 cards in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I think there will be some changes to pricing structures as well, but I don't know if it will be that soon. It's probable that there will be no mid range cards released at first. Both AMD and NVidia usually release the Kraken before they let the sharks out. Still, that means a wait. If you can, it might be worth it, but I think the price differences will be likely in the 10-15 dollar range so it might not be worth it. Or, it might. Trying to figure what the market will do based on releases is always speculative at best.

 

[MrTechGuy]

So if i do get the gtx 960 because it runs cooler and consumes less power and all the options of nvidia Shield devices will the 128 bit bus make the gtx 960 not "future proof"?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Nothing is future proof. If you want something that's likely to still be able to run current games in a few years, save your money and invest in a bigger card.

 

[CTurbo]

Two different R9 280s are $149 after rebate. The 280x is only $192


http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/compare/sapphire-video-card-100363vx3l%2Csapphire-video-card-100373l%2Cxfx-video-card-r9280atdbd/

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, that was my recommendation as well. The 280x for 192.00 is the sweet spot for a mid range budget card.

 

[MrTechGuy]

Since the r9 280 has an extra gb of vram and a 384bit bus will it be more futureproof. I'm looking to have good 1080p a graphics card for 2-3 Years. Will the gtx 960 be able last that long?

 

[CTurbo]

I would take the 280 over the 960 every time. I would pay the extra few $$$ to get the 280x over the 960 if the 280 wasn't available. It's tough to ask any video card to still be relevant for 2-3 years. I can't even confidently say the GTX970 would last that long.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'd think that in five years from now, the 970 will probably offer similar performance in titles, at that time, as the 960 or 280x does now. At least for demanding titles, with the way current titles are trending towards much higher resource requirements. So you'd still be able to most likely game titles at that time in medium or high settings, or some combination of the two. Guys are still using cards two generations back to play Witcher, which is about four times more demanding than any title that was available at that time.

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

960 with 2GB VRAM is a waste. I would say go with R9 280 3GB or maybe GTX 960 4GB if you can afford. But the best option would be R9 280x if you are willing to pay more and have a powerful PSU.

But still AMD cards don't have enough driver support and you will run into problems with certain titles. The future proof option (2-3 years) would be GTX 970.

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

I'd think that in five years from now, the 970 will probably offer similar performance in titles, at that time, as the 960 or 280x does now. At least for demanding titles, with the way current titles are trending towards much higher resource requirements. So you'd still be able to most likely game titles at that time in medium or high settings, or some combination of the two. Guys are still using cards two generations back to play Witcher, which is about four times more demanding than any title that was available at that time.

Five years is way too much. For example, GTX 960 perform significantly better than GTX 480 being five years newer.
You can't expect GTX 970 to be of the same level as that of GTX 960 after 5 years.
The maximum a GTX 970 would last is probably 3 years.
The main concern at this time should be to have three things:
1) Powerful PSU
2) A motherboard with atleast 2 PCIE slots
3) A fully directx12 supporting GPU (Nvidia's maxwell series, don't know about AMD).
With dx12 about to release, I doubt anyone after three years would be running a single graphics card. Most of the gamers will simply add a new graphics card with their maxwell series of GPU remaining in the case.

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's nice that everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Doesn't mean it's true, fact or has to be agreed with though. In 2010 the comparable card at that time was the GTX 460. I know people still using the 460 and 480 for a lot of titles. Not the most demanding titles, and not on Ultra settings, but it still games.

Some of your posts are based a lot more on opinion than fact, so just watch the opinionated posts and stick with facts. Blanket statements, that are entirely inaccurate will get you sanctioned quick here. For example,

AMD cards don't have enough driver support and you will run into problems with certain titles.

That has no basis in truth. While it's true that AMD does have some driver issues in certain areas, it's equally true that NVidia has them as well. My R9 290x plays any game without issue so long as I'm not trying to run with settings only intended for NVidia cards enabled. Some of that may or may not be patched up at some point, but regardless, the games still play fine. There are no games I can't play at a high level due to having an AMD card. Making statements to the effect that buying a certain card prohibits you from playing specific titles is simply nonsense.


And furthermore, IMO, any piece of hardware that costs two hundred bucks or more, better damn sure last five years at the least. Not everybody is foolish enough to believe they'll still be able to use the hardware at the same performance level in five years, but to still be able to use it at SOME level is an expectation I believe to be realistic. Even if you need to pair it with a second card at some point down the road, which is what most gamers end up doing anyhow, that's fine. I expect most the issues with SLI and Crossfire that do exist, to be non-existent by then anyhow.

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

It's nice that everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Doesn't mean it's true, fact or has to be agreed with though. In 2010 the comparable card at that time was the GTX 460. I know people still using the 460 and 480 for a lot of titles. Not the most demanding titles, and not on Ultra settings, but it still games.

Some of your posts are based a lot more on opinion than fact, so just watch the opinionated posts and stick with facts. Blanket statements, that are entirely inaccurate will get you sanctioned quick here. For example,

AMD cards don't have enough driver support and you will run into problems with certain titles.

That has no basis in truth. While it's true that AMD does have some driver issues in certain areas, it's equally true that NVidia has them as well. My R9 290x plays any game without issue so long as I'm not trying to run with settings only intended for NVidia cards enabled. Some of that may or may not be patched up at some point, but regardless, the games still play fine. There are no games I can't play at a high level due to having an AMD card. Making statements to the effect that buying a certain card prohibits you from playing specific titles is simply nonsense.


And furthermore, IMO, any piece of hardware that costs two hundred bucks or more, better damn sure last five years at the least. Not everybody is foolish enough to believe they'll still be able to use the hardware at the same performance level in five years, but to still be able to use it at SOME level is an expectation I believe to be realistic. Even if you need to pair it with a second card at some point down the road, which is what most gamers end up doing anyhow, that's fine. I expect most the issues with SLI and Crossfire that do exist, to be non-existent by then anyhow.

Lasting 3 years, I meant that running games released till then on ultra settings.I know GTX 970 will probably last 6-7 years but by that time it won't be able to max out most of the titles. I sold my GTX 460 which was also running fine and playing games well on medium to low settings. I mean who even wants to play PC games on low or medium settings. If this is so, then it is better to invest on consoles.

 

[Darkbreeze]

At five years down the road, at medium to medium/high settings, you'd still be at a higher level than any of the current consoles. Five years would be the maximum and in all honesty, by four years you'd be looking for a new card, or a second card, anyhow. And all of the R9 series cards are "supposed" to be fully DX12 compatible. I guess we'll see about that before too long.

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

At five years down the road, at medium to medium/high settings, you'd still be at a higher level than any of the current consoles. Five years would be the maximum and in all honesty, by four years you'd be looking for a new card, or a second card, anyhow. And all of the R9 series cards are "supposed" to be fully DX12 compatible. I guess we'll see about that before too long.

R9 series cards will definitely support dx12. Not sure about dx12.1.