Witcher 3 and GTAV closing in, am I ready???

Hey guys,

Follow up on this thread, I got a 400$ check for one of my 280x's, 1 died last week and last one still going strong.

Lately I've only been interested in Witcher 3 and GTA V. I have way too many games and these 2 have been the only ones I've been looking forward to along with the majestic Hotline Miami 2; yet that's irrelevant to the topic.

I have a VG248QE I'm using on 120hz and would like consistent 90 fps on these two titles(probably on full settings unless SSAA/Ubersampling or they find another riddiculous performance hog, maybe use ENB too if it's the rage).

How much horsepower do I need for these 2 titles? I'm almost sure the 280x wont be enough even if it's a good overclocker. Not afraid of crossfire, had no problems with it(Yes I'm a newb)

Help me out pls. Your advice has got me my sexy pc, I'm counting on you guys. I can gift a cheapo game for appreciation purposes

Hard to say exactly before we see these games. Usually before premiere there are additional patches which are fixing bugs and performance issues ( sometimes after premiere - look at last Assassin's Creed fail ).
I saw that requirements will be high and in this case I'm not sure if buying 2nd 280X has any point or maybe better sell 2nd card and get something stronger. There is still some time till premiere so I would wait or just look for a stronger graphics.

I'd sell the second 280X and buy a 980.

Any chance red side moves in before witcher 3??(in 2 months I think)

I've never used nvidia products and amd hasnt dissapointed me at all. I know 970 or 980 is go-to for this situation but before amd moves in monopolistic nvidia wont drop prices like, at all. I dont want to drop so much money on an nvidia product when they invent and drop technologies like sinus graph on steroids. To me it seems amd products age a little better. Please correct me if I am wrong in this. Been away from hardware stuff for a little while so I may not be right in this.

Reds will release new cards in June. Count that in stores you will see them in the middle of June and prices will start to drop 1-2 months later.
In last years Nvidia releases more stable and cooler running cards. When I say more stable then I mean that generally every card is good quality while higher AMD series have often issues with black screens or vertical stripes under load. Some users have it, some not but I actually saw it in about 1/3 of all AMD cards which I could test in last 2-3 years.

Woomack said:

Reds will release new cards in June. Count that in stores you will see them in the middle of June and prices will start to drop 1-2 months later.
In last years Nvidia releases more stable and cooler running cards. When I say more stable then I mean that generally every card is good quality while higher AMD series have often issues with black screens or vertical stripes under load. Some users have it, some not but I actually saw it in about 1/3 of all AMD cards which I could test in last 2-3 years.

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Just curious about your findings with the AMD cards...were you seeing the glitches more with a particular AIB brand? I've always been with Sapphire for AMD and they have been great.

The 280x is still a beast of a card and is right behind the Nvidia 970 .. So I would look at getting the 980 cause to spend the money on the 970 for a mild upgrade seems a waste to me and plus your monitor is max out at 1080p...
I am currently working on my build a R9 280x with a 1080p 27" monitor and it's a gaming rig with no Games lol...

ATMINSIDE said:

I'd sell the second 280X and buy a 980.

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TorqueRanger said:

The 280x is still a beast of a card and is right behind the Nvidia 970 .. So I would look at getting the 980 cause to spend the money on the 970 for a mild upgrade seems a waste to me and plus your monitor is max out at 1080p...
I am currently working on my build a R9 280x with a 1080p 27" monitor and it's a gaming rig with no Games lol...

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Isnt 980 incredibly cost ineffective? I read that it's %20 more performance for %66.6 more price compared to 970. I'm not very keen on dropping huge amounts of extra money when I'm not getting much value out of it. I've been eyeing 970 G1 for a while now. How rare is coil whine on it? I may buy it from the US to avoid some taxes

ozan said:

Isnt 980 incredibly cost ineffective? I read that it's %20 more performance for %66.6 more price compared to 970. I'm not very keen on dropping huge amounts of extra money when I'm not getting much value out of it. I've been eyeing 970 G1 for a while now. How rare is coil whine on it? I may buy it from the US to avoid some taxes

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The coil whine is still very real, but can be dependent on the type of PSU being used. I wouldn't stress too much about that, but I would stress about the 3.5GB of the 970. The card is gimped. It will work just fine for today's games and 1080P but if you're planning on using it for several years and at a highe res, you may just end up hitting the wall a little earlier than you would with games that need that extra vram. I would definitely invest in the 980 if buying today or if you can wait till June, AMD will have their cards released by then.

Just found this. Cracked me up big time Guess I'll be waiting on amd to make their move.

I don't see the big deal of the 3.5 GB aside from the shady marketing. I would still opt for my dual 970's for $130 more than 1 980. 512 MB of RAM isn't worth that price premium to me and I've only touched 3.5 GB in one game and that's at 1440p and yes there was a hiccup in gameplay but nothing earth shattering to make me wish I'd spent all that extra money on 980's.

jaymz9350 said:

I don't see the big deal of the 3.5 GB aside from the shady marketing. I would still opt for my dual 970's for $130 more than 1 980. 512 MB of RAM isn't worth that price premium to me and I've only touched 3.5 GB in one game and that's at 1440p and yes there was a hiccup in gameplay but nothing earth shattering to make me wish I'd spent all that extra money on 980's.

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Like I said it's fine for today, but tomorrow...

Bishoff said:

Like I said it's fine for today, but tomorrow...

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And and extra .5 GB isn't going to go much farther then either really.

jaymz9350 said:

And and extra .5 GB isn't going to go much farther then either really.

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I disagree, and you already stated you had stutters.

ozan said:

Just found this. Cracked me up big time Guess I'll be waiting on amd to make their move.

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LOL

Bishoff said:

Just curious about your findings with the AMD cards...were you seeing the glitches more with a particular AIB brand? I've always been with Sapphire for AMD and they have been great.

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Every AIB has the same issues, more or less as it's not their fault. Point is that most users who paid $300+ for their cards don't want to even think there is something wrong. Some ask questions, some make RMA. It's not like every card
I was testing various cards from MSI, HIS, Sapphire and some other brands - R5/R7 240/250/250X/260/265/270/270X, HD7850/7870/7950/7970. Most of them had weird issues with black screen or vertical stripes after some OC or even at stock clocks under longer load. 2 of my 7970 Lightnings were faulty from the beginning and were showing mentioned issues even without any OC and even while using web browser. R9 290/X users were making long threads about it too and sometimes raising voltage was helping ... really raising voltage on stock settings ? I had no chance to test R9 280/285 but I don't believe they're any different especially that these cards are generally rebranded 7950/7970.
As I said it doesn't mean all cards have these issues and many AMD users are really happy from their graphics cards but I just haven't seen something like that in Nvidia cards. Some series are not so good, have little issues like annoying coil whine but in general it's not the GPU fault but power section design on some non-reference cards ( like my MSI GTX670 which was so loud I could hear it in the next room ).

TorqueRanger said:

The 280x is still a beast of a card and is right behind the Nvidia 970 .. So I would look at getting the 980 cause to spend the money on the 970 for a mild upgrade seems a waste to me and plus your monitor is max out at 1080p...
I am currently working on my build a R9 280x with a 1080p 27" monitor and it's a gaming rig with no Games lol...

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280X is actually much slower than the GTX970. GTX970 is near 290X performance in most games.

ozan said:

Isnt 980 incredibly cost ineffective? I read that it's %20 more performance for %66.6 more price compared to 970. I'm not very keen on dropping huge amounts of extra money when I'm not getting much value out of it. I've been eyeing 970 G1 for a while now. How rare is coil whine on it? I may buy it from the US to avoid some taxes

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GTX980 cost ~40% more than the GTX970 and is about 10-20% faster depends from game or test. In this case It's generally better to buy 2xGTX970 than 1xGTX980.
Probably all GTX970 have some coil whine. GTX970 G1 Gaming / WF3 are somewhere in the middle looking at various comments around the web. Not so noisy but you can hear it. In a closed case you won't hear it but I was testing 3 of them on open rig and let's say they weren't silent