4 different GPU choices.

[Aexl]

So it seems I've picked an awful time to do a few upgrades with ram prices being almost doubled and the litecoin craze effecting Amd gpu prices/availability but progress must be made! (ish)

My budget for a new Graphics card is a firm £350 which i'd rather spend a bit less of.

Basically I have 4 cards to choose from,

£260-290:The R9 280x which pops into stock occasionally with price hikes making the more basic versions being more expensive that the Toxic was 2-4 weeks ago.

£240-275+ 3 free games: The 770 2GB which seems reasonable as i'd probably get the MSI Lightning for around £270 or the EVGA version for around £250 if I want to save a bit more cash. But the 2GB of Vram worries me slightly as I do enjoy modding which several friends have mentioned that their modded Skyrim already passes 2gb easily and I plan on keeping the card for at least 2-3 years and possibly going sli so a bit of future proofing is in order.

£287-305 + the games:The 770 4GB There are two versions in that price range, Palit Jetstream 770 Or I just noticed this on Scan which I'm rather interested in for £287 Zotac GeForce GTX 770 Graphics Card - 4GB Which seems to almost be too good to be true to be honest, a 4gb 770 for the same price as a 280x? Surely there must be something wrong with it .


And my final option which I have no idea if they'll come under £350 any time soon is the after market 290s that I have no doubt will be super expensive until after the litecoin craze dies down a bit. And I know it would be a bit of a waste at 1080p currently but i'd be buying it more for the longevity than the crazy monitor set-ups.


I'll be using the card basically for gaming and I WILL be overclocking, the 770s appeal to me a bit because of the shadowplay feature as I do record a lot of gameplay and it looks like if I was running a 280x with fraps the frames would drop more than the 770 with shadowplay. The other Nvidia features don't really appeal to me. So honestly i'm a bit stuck and need help!

[Mother]

So it seems I've picked an awful time to do a few upgrades with ram prices being almost doubled and the litecoin craze effecting Amd gpu prices/availability but progress must be made! (ish)

My budget for a new Graphics card is a firm £350 which i'd rather spend a bit less of.

Basically I have 4 cards to choose from,

£260-290:The R9 280x which pops into stock occasionally with price hikes making the more basic versions being more expensive that the Toxic was 2-4 weeks ago.

£240-275+ 3 free games: The 770 2GB which seems reasonable as i'd probably get the MSI Lightning for around £270 or the EVGA version for around £250 if I want to save a bit more cash. But the 2GB of Vram worries me slightly as I do enjoy modding which several friends have mentioned that their modded Skyrim already passes 2gb easily and I plan on keeping the card for at least 2-3 years and possibly going sli so a bit of future proofing is in order.

£287-305 + the games:The 770 4GB There are two versions in that price range, Palit Jetstream 770 Or I just noticed this on Scan which I'm rather interested in for £287 Zotac GeForce GTX 770 Graphics Card - 4GB Which seems to almost be too good to be true to be honest, a 4gb 770 for the same price as a 280x? Surely there must be something wrong with it .


And my final option which I have no idea if they'll come under £350 any time soon is the after market 290s that I have no doubt will be super expensive until after the litecoin craze dies down a bit. And I know it would be a bit of a waste at 1080p currently but i'd be buying it more for the longevity than the crazy monitor set-ups.


I'll be using the card basically for gaming and I WILL be overclocking, the 770s appeal to me a bit because of the shadowplay feature as I do record a lot of gameplay and it looks like if I was running a 280x with fraps the frames would drop more than the 770 with shadowplay. The other Nvidia features don't really appeal to me. So honestly i'm a bit stuck and need help!

You considered the GTX770 Zotac Amp Edition at £289.99?.....Most powerful GTX770 on zee planet.....with a slight overclock it can outperform a GTX780..... i have just bought another one.....they are so quiet compared to other gpus i have had.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...ition/?page=11

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...70303-10p.html

[GoodZE]

Have you looked at scans today only page? grab some bargains on there, defo worth a look.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

To the OP,I would wait a bit longer on a custom cooled R9 290,or even a GTX780.

OcUK have them on pre-order for around £380 to £390 ATM,but hopefully retailers like Dabs will have them cheaper.

Alternatively,I would probably get a R9 280X,if it is no more than £250.


Edit!!

Dabs will probably have some decently priced R9 280X cards in stock in the next week or two:

http://www.dabs.com/search?q=r9%20280x

They tend not or price gouge like other retailers AFAIK.

You can still get cheaper R9 280X cards for around £230. I just saw a Powercolor one for that price.

Second Edit!!

I would also check this retailer:

http://www.morecomputers.com/product...y_info=r9+280x

They seem quite cheap for R9 280X cards. I have not used them,but have did win this award in 2012:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/3769...line-retailers

[GeorgeStorm]

If you do a lot of recording then Nvidia may be the better option due to Shadowplay as you said, when I quickly tried it out it had very little affect to my fps compared to when I tried fraps/other solutions.

Regardless I'd probably wait till after Christmas if possible, see if there are any good deals, and as you said maybe the prices will have settled on AMD cards a bit and the aftermarket 290 cards will have become available.

[Aexl]

You considered the GTX770 Zotac Amp Edition at £289.99?.....Most powerful GTX770 on zee planet.....with a slight overclock it can outperform a GTX780..... i have just bought another one.....they are so quiet compared to other gpus i have had.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...ition/?page=11

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...70303-10p.html

I had considered it but honestly looking at conmparison benchmarks the Lightning seems to overclock a little more and considering it'd be cheaper (£262 on scan just for today) i'd probably take that over it.

Have you looked at scans today only page? grab some bargains on there, defo worth a look.

Thanks for the reply, there's a pretty decent price drop on the msi lightning 770 for today.

To the OP,I would wait a bit longer on a custom cooled R9 290,or even a GTX780.

OcUK have them on pre-order for around £380 to £390 ATM,but hopefully retailers like Dabs will have them cheaper.

Alternatively,I would probably get a R9 280X,if it is no more than £250.


Edit!!

Dabs will probably have some decently priced R9 280X cards in stock in the next week or two:

http://www.dabs.com/search?q=r9%20280x

They tend not or price gouge like other retailers AFAIK.

You can still get cheaper R9 280X cards for around £230. I just saw a Powercolor one for that price.

Second Edit!!

I would also check this retailer:

http://www.morecomputers.com/product...y_info=r9+280x

They seem quite cheap for R9 280X cards. I have not used them,but have did win this award in 2012:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/3769...line-retailers

Thanks for the reply, powercolour are a brand that i've had quite a few issues with in the past so I tend to stear clear, and also the 780 is about £50 out of my price range but maybe the 290s will settle around the £350 mark eventually but who knows.
Also the prices on that site do look rather amazing, a toxic for only £240? Shame they're all out of stock but I'll keep my eyes open although I don't think I've ever come across them before but I can't find many negative reviews browsing the regular site review pages.

If you do a lot of recording then Nvidia may be the better option due to Shadowplay as you said, when I quickly tried it out it had very little affect to my fps compared to when I tried fraps/other solutions.

Regardless I'd probably wait till after Christmas if possible, see if there are any good deals, and as you said maybe the prices will have settled on AMD cards a bit and the aftermarket 290 cards will have become available.

I really am tempted to wait it out for the aftermarket 290s but there's no guarantee they'll settle in my price range especially if they out perform the 780s by a noticeable margin and honestly I'm kind of impatient .



Looking around today I also found this 280x on Novatech for £280 which actually isn't awful considering they throw in bf4 a game that I am still yet to buy so it's more like £255, the locked voltage does make me wonder how much overclocking potential is there as i cant find many reviews on this specific rev, what do you guys think?


http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...oc-3gd-ga.html

Edit: Never mind they hiked the price up £20 sigh. The greed is just... All of the 280x' are £300 now. My opinion of novatech was fairly high but that has harmed it. http://www.novatech.co.uk/search.html?s=280x

[CrispiusBaconus]

Do not get a 4gb 770, the memory bus cannot support the vram.

[Pantalaimon]

I just got a 280x from Dabs for £225 a few days ago. Came with BF4 too.

[Wreckzorz]

considering that monitors over 1080p are a bit pricey and 4k wont be the norm for years, i'd stick with 1080p and get the GTX 770 msi edition. you can pick it up for around £250-£260 atm.

[Willzzz]

I'd go for whichever is cheapest at the time, they all offer very strong performance
I wouldn't worry about the 2GB thing, it won't be an issue in any well designed game, it can be an issue in skyrim, but you can compress mod textures and the issue goes away.

[Enter-77]

Recently bought an asus 280x DCU2T. the most happiest i've been with a gpu!

[Aanubhav]

I would suggest a gtx 780, throw in another 20£ you can get the msi twin frozr from scan. It is wy better than both gtx 770 or r9 280x.

[TheodanUK]

I agree with the GTX 780 option. I am using mine which I bought from scan at 2560*1440 resolution and all games run lovely on max settings. Great GPU.I went for the 3GB EVGA GTX 780 FTW with ACX model.

[Blackfudge]

If your worried about frame rate drops you could use dxtory which has much less of an impact on fps than fraps if you configure it correctly.

[bluepumpkin]

I have just (in last 10days) bought a R9 280X MSI Twin Frozr 3G from scan.co.uk, it was £229 which is way under your budget but so far it runs everything I have tried at max for my 1080p monitor. The card seems to have gone up to £250 is the last week but if it comes back down i would class it as a great deal. The suggestions for the 780 are good however if you plan to go much above 1080p, my friend has a 780 and at 1080p the games look the same (he has slightly more fps but you can't see/feel it in the game) as my 280X card, but at 2560 the games do look fab. I just could not justify it personally, my next monitor will be a 4K one a few years down the road at which point I'll need something better than a 780 anyway, so it depends whether you will be betting a bigger monitor or not (IMHO) during this graphics card cycle

[paullongy326]

I would recommend the evga sc acx 780 I run 2 of them in sli but at first I had single and the cooling is awesome temps never got above 65 degrees on ultra on bf4 on 1080p even now with the 2
temps are around top card 65-68 bottom card 60-64 they run super cool and the profiles you can get them even cooler max profile I have is fans on 75 percent for summer running
really good quiet cards evga sc acx 780 bit dearer but well worth it for my opinion hope it helps