What is the actual difference between these cards?

[simonda]

Hello,

I'm planning to upgrade my rig, but after searching the web I've found some problems.
I'm either planning to buy the
"Sapphire Radeon TRI-X R9 290 4GB "OC"
or the
"ASUS GeForce GTX 960 STRIX 4GB",
but as I'm not completely familiar with building computers so I have trouble with realising the real difference between the cards.

I'm buying my parts from this site: https://www.komplett.se/k/k.aspx , as it is the most trustwhorthy site in Sweden where I'm from.
The difference in price is not very large, about $25, but the more cheaper one's clock speed seem to be a bit higher. Which one of these graphic cards would you recommend and why?

Also, I'm at the same time thinking about upgrading my processor aswell while I'm at it, from a
"AMD FX-6300 Black Edition"
to a
"AMD FX-8350 Black Edition".
Is this investment worth it in terms of performance in gaming or is the upgrade just a waste of money as I won't get anything out of it.

I also currently rock a 500W power supply, and I'm a bit short on money and can't really purchase a new 600W or 750W PSU. I saw that the 960 only used about 150W when used, so upgrading the GPU and CPU wouldn't force me to purchase a new PSU. The 290 did though seem to need a bit more wattage, so I'm not sure if I'd need to buy a new PSU to be able to use the 290.


So, which are the differences between the GPU's and which one would you recommend if you are taking the factor of power into account.
What difference would the upgrade of processor do? It seems like I can overclock my current processor into a 4.1GHz one. Is it worth it?
And finally: Would I need to upgrade my PSU to be able to use these new components, or will it handle it just fine for the time (I will upgrade my PSU as soon as I get some spare money). I'm not very interested in spending all my money n something I will not probably notice in terms of performance and such.

Thank you for your support!

 

[smorizio]

on your cpu the upgrade will not be worth it. the 6300 and 8300 are the same chip inside you just getting two more cpu cores for the money. your better off saving up for the next amd fx cpu if there is one or the intel skylake cpu and mb. for the gpu the 960 lines up with the amd r280 line. the nvidia 960 is a low wattage card. the 290 cards were amd top cards for gaming. they drop in price as newer r300 have come out. if your into pc games look at your parts in your rig now and see if you can reuse them like the hard drives and ram and case. look to do a intel haswell/gpu/power supply upgrade when you have the cash.

 

[sizzling]

What exact PSU do you have? Quality is just as important as wattage, some cheap 500w are actually only able to deliver <400w