Yet another "What card should I buy" thread

[GunnerGuy]

Hello all,

I just recently finished a new build, well, everything is new except for the video card which I pulled from my old system. I'm not sure what to do now, video card wise.

The new system:
Intel Skylake core i5 6600k running on an Asus Maximus VIII Hero
16 GB (2 x 8 GB sticks) Patriot 3200 DDR4 Memory
Corsair AX860i Power Supply
Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe 512 GB SSD Primary
HGST Deskstart NAS 4 TB HDD Secondary
XFX Radeon R9 280x 3 GB
3 x Dell U2415H Monitors in triple wide display running 5860x1200

No specific budget, I'm just looking for the best bang for my buck. I can get a second XFX Radeon R9 280x for about $200 and run Crossfire, pick up a Radeon 390x for about $400, or splurge and spend $600+ on a GeForce 980 Ti. I'm not married to any particular brand of card, but I don't want to spend $400 more for a 980Ti if I can get 75% of the performance running a second R9 280x. Or would it be better to wait for the next generation of cards?

I've been playing Call of Duty Black Ops 3, I have Fallout4 and Tomb Raider: Rise of the Tomb Raider waiting for me to install, really enjoyed XCom so I imagine I'll be playing that before too long. I also enjoy StarWars BattleFront and Battlefield 3/4. The biggest uncertainty comes from the triple screen setup. I've read that AMD cards tend to do better at higher resolutions, but there are so few reviews of how cards do at pushing triple displays. I'm really familiar with and happy with Eyefinity setup, but less familiar with how well nVidia surround does.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,

Bill

 

[Witchdoctor]

I would grab another 280x if you need it and upgrade to a Pascal in the fall

 

[wingman99]

+1 I would get a seconded XFX Radeon R9 280x so it looks good and plays good till the new games come out and you need more power then upgrade. How are you doing now with XFX Radeon R9 280x?

 

[GunnerGuy]

My apologies, for some reason I didn't get any notifications when responses were posted.

The 280X I had was working great, though I didn't know what I didn't know lol. Apparently Call of Duty was only rendering at 50% (so game play was 2980x600 instead of 5960x1200). The game seemed to run just fine, and looked fine, I just didn't realize that it wasn't rendering at full resolution.

I picked up the second 280X from Microcenter - they had an open box card for $160 so it was too good of a deal to pass up. Put the second card in the system and loaded up into my first crossfire experience. . .

WOW! What a difference! I thought that the games I was playing looked fine, now they look incredible! So much more detail, moving shadows, textures. . . MUCH improved!

Thanks WitchDoctor and Wingman for the advice, very solid!

~Bill

 

[wingman99]

Glad your happy, sounds like a lot of fun with CrossFire. Did you have to change your in game settings for more detail?

 

[GunnerGuy]

First I went in through the AMD Gaming Evolved control center and optimized the games for quality. Then I went into the games and checked out the new settings, checked dialogue boxes to check for higher settings. Nearly everything was maxed out, and I was cranking a steady 60 FPS (which was limited in game to go no higher) in Black Ops 3.

Total game changer.