Features - QOTW: Which graphics card(s) would you buy on a £300 budget?

[Myss_tree]

Well, I have cheap screwdrivers I bought 40 or so years ago, and they're still driving screws.

Do you still have the tools you used to build the Gisa Pyramids and were they stones really cut using copper chisels?

[Nobull]

That okay with you?

Totally, please don't take it personally, it was just a silly jibe. I suppose I was just poking fun because it's supposed to be a hypothetical situation like "would you rather go to the bottom of the ocean or the centre of the earth" and then coming back and saying "Neither, I don't see the point, plus the logistics would be incredibly difficult"...

But you are of course entitled to your opinion on the matter

[ET3D]

I think I would go for an NVIDIA card, simply because I've been using AMD for years and I've heard that the cards are greener on the other side. Well, that's really just a silly pun, but still I think I've stuck to the red side for long enough.

[Ginettor]

the sapphire toxic R9 280x for me

[Saracen]

Totally, please don't take it personally, it was just a silly jibe. I suppose I was just poking fun because it's supposed to be a hypothetical situation like "would you rather go to the bottom of the ocean or the centre of the earth" and then coming back and saying "Neither, I don't see the point, plus the logistics would be incredibly difficult"...

But you are of course entitled to your opinion on the matter

Bottom of the ocean. My guess is the view is better. Though the pedant in me would ask .... which ocean, and with or without deep-sea submersible? And, of course, centre of the earth is, as far as we know, molten lava and a tad unsurvivable.

My point on the card though, was that I wouldn't pay that for a card because it adds NOTHING that I want over far cheaper cards. So, for me, it's not so much which one would I buy, as per thequestion, but that I wouldn't buy. If someone offered to give me such a card, my answer would be "thank you very much for the generous offer, but no thanks."

Why?

Well, given that it means, literally, nothing to me to have such a card, I'd far rather that that generous offer was made to someone that would actually appreciate it .... and if that unlikely scenario were to iccur, I'm sure I could come up with a candidate or two to suggest, and I'm sure there'd be a healthy-sized queue of volunteers. But for me, taking it would be a bit like thanking my elderly granny for the horrendous knitted jumper she gave me for Christmas, and that I wouldn't be seen dead in other than when visiting her.

Not everybody is a gamer, for a start. My brother plays the odd game of solitaire or minesweeper, but as far as I know, has never bought a PC game in his life, and I doubt heever will. Is there any point in him having such a card? Well, beyond any benefit he might get in photo editing, none at all.

I am a gamer .... or rather, I was until overly-intrusive DRM screwed it all up for me. I have a pile of computer game boxes going back to Apple II games in the late 70s, and that stacked on top of each other, would stretch floor to ceiling .... several times. But other than carefully-selected bargain-bucket games, or the like of GOF DRM-free games, I haven't bought a PC game for years. Not since, oh, Halflife/Quake 3 sort of era, because of things I'm not prepared to accept when paying money for a product, like Steam's restrictions.

So, be it me, refusing to go along with that, or my brother (and probably the vast majority of PC users that either don't play games, or don't play them anything like enough to be bothered about such a card at such a price, there wre a LOT of people that don't give a hoot for such a card, free or not .... and for whom the answer to "which card ..." would be "none of them".

In fact, being honest about it, I can go further than I did earlier.

I don't want such a card in my PC, period. Even if free, and even if someone installed it for me, I would take it out. Why? Heat, noise implications from cooling to cope with that heat, and utterly unnecessary ( for me) power draw, with the associated costs, and PSU loading, to name three.

I understand why many people do want such a card. And if I were still an avid gamer, so would I. But I'm not. So if you, any of you, want one, fair enough. I'm sure I spend money on things many others here wouldn't .... like, a few weeks back, nearly £500 on a kitchen blender (which would cost me £600-ish if I did it today, due to an offer ending). That, it won't surprise people, is a very high-end blender, and I'd bet many/most would't dream of spending that, when you can get what would do what THEY want from a blender for maybe 10%-ish of that.

It's about what value I put on what I get from a £300 card .... or a fancy blender. In other words, opinion. Hence my first post.

[theanalyzer]

Probably go for nvidia because of the game bundle. Two high tier games. In AMD's bundle its only SR4. Others are relatively old. But then again the 7970 have higher memory bandwidth and memory than the 770.

[mojothejester]

either 2 r9 270x's at £150 each

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-sapphire-r9-270x-dual-x-boost-oc-28nm-gddr5-gpu-1020mhz-1280-streams-dp-dvi-hdmi

an r9 280x toxic at £270

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-sapphire-radeon-r9-280x-toxic-28nm-6400mhz-gddr5-gpu-1100mhz-boost-1150mhz-2048-streams-dvi-hdmi

or a 4gb jetstream 770

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-palit-gtx-770-jetstream-28nm-pcie-30-7010mhz-gddr5-gpu-1046mhz-boost-1085mhz-cores-1536-dport-dv

[Snaga]

I guess I would buy a 280X and Xfire it with my 7970.

me too.

[crossy]

At the moment I'd buy this http://www.ebuyer.com/419457-asus-hd...-hd7970-p-3gd5 and spend the remaining £30 on beer!

Then again, I've already got an OC'd 7970 so I could Crossfire these! (Seriously tempted).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

At the moment I'd buy this http://www.ebuyer.com/419457-asus-hd...-hd7970-p-3gd5 and spend the remaining £30 on beer!

Then again, I've already got an OC'd 7970 so I could Crossfire these! (Seriously tempted).

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-a...roductId=66271

[aidanjt]

A GTX 770. Easy.

[cheesemp]

I've never spent more than £130 on a card. Real budget gamer myself. In fact the 285GTX i'm using currently is a freebie from a friend. That's what a mortgage straight out of uni does to you...

[jonah]

There's a whole load of things I'd buy with £300 before I started thinking about a graphics card.

[GoodZE]

http://www.ebuyer.com/510172-gigabyt...-gv-n770oc-2gd

good value for money, and comes with splintercell and Assassins creed

[Pinstruck]

I commented on the thread because it asked That is, it seeks a personal response, which is what I posted ....

1) I wouldn't spend that on a card, and
2) Why I wouldn't.

To put it another way, not everybody wants a £300 card, at all. And believe me, I'm far from alone in that.

Or to put it yet another way, this is a discussion forum, the aim being for people to discuss things. A question was asked, and I answered it as I see it. And why wouldn't I?

You made a valid point but you made it quite aggressively which I assume is why you received the 'jibes'. Or perhaps it was your intention to stir the pot?

Personally, I don't believe your comment is relevant here since "I wouldn't" is unhelpful and it actually fails to answer the question. If I'm not mistaken, the intention of the question is to offer buying advice in the form of your opinion to anyone with £300 to spend on graphics hardware. If your opinion is that you would never spend £300 on one or more graphics cards or advise anyone else to do so, you don't really have a part to play in the discussion.

That said your're admin and you can do what you want (within forum rules?) so.... back on topic:

If I were in a position to spend that on a Graphics card I'd go for an R280X or hold off to see where the R290 falls on price. I wouldn't choose to crossfire because it limits future expansion - with that money to spend now, I'd buy the best card I could afford now and have the option to add another later on.

[SlasherZ]

r9 280x for sure