Looking to update my PC

[DanceswithUnix]

I'd personally stay far far away from these ancient AMD cards with their ridiculously high power usage (R9 285 190W, R9 290 250W+)

The 280X/290(X) are so cheap because they're ancient power hogs. The 280X is nothing more than a rebadged HD7970 GHz-Edition from 2012 sipping 250W out of your PSU.. that's where the price comes from. I'm still wondering why anyone would still consider (much less actually buy) them.

The nvidia-style rebadging seems to work out just fine to get rid of ancient tech it seems.

Oh come on, the OP is coming from an Nvidia gtx 260 according to his profile so this is all an improvement, and his 750W PSU can drive a pair of 290's in crossfire.

The R9 285 only pulls about 35W more than a GTX 960 during gaming, which I really can't get excited about. I also can't get excited about the roughly 6% faster you get from a gtx 960 over a gtx760 for a similar power difference of around 30W. I can get excited about saving £50 off the retail price of a 960. I am absolutely the target market for the 960, and yet last month it was the first time in a string of Nvidia cards since the 4200ti that I didn't buy Nvidia for my own machine because their value for money didn't add up. I can see why people would buy the GTX 970, but I personally wonder why anyone would consider the 960 outside of very small ITX builds where every watt counts.

[dfour]

I love how nvidia have managed to make it more about power usage than performance over the last generation of cards. You dont build a gaming machine to save a few pennies over the year on leccy.

[kalniel]

Those are the official full-load figures for the respective GPUs.

You're not confusing official TDP with power draw are you?

[DanceswithUnix]

You're not confusing official TDP with power draw are you?

I suspect that is it.

I was getting my power figures from here: http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...ce-2x/?page=10



That is full system power, idle and when playing Grid Autosport.

The multi fan cards really don't cost much more than the reference cooler ones, and as someone who really likes a quiet PC I am more than happy with my 285.

So, if the 285 draws 190W, then the entire i7, 16GB of ram and motherboard are using 30W. That would be very impressive

[OutcasT]

960 is a crap card for the price, even the 200 series from AMD outperforms it.

[Edii]

I love how nvidia have managed to make it more about power usage than performance over the last generation of cards. You dont build a gaming machine to save a few pennies over the year on leccy.

You don't but if you wish to go into a Dual, (or even more) GPU setup then power is important.
Also I generally aint into any of this "future proofing" gibber jabber, out of my last three PC builds the only thing I've taken forward is my storage (SSD/HDD) so making sure you get the best PSU performance can be important, a lot of people buy 750w PSUs instead of a 500w that would have served them just the same, especially under full load with nVidia

[CK1]

this is all very helpful, thanks.

Can anyone comment on the sound card issue? Do i keep using the X-Fi Music or go with the on-board sound?

[Domestic_Ginger]

I suppose its down to how good your ears are. I use onboard but thats because I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I would recommend recycling the card; if that fails then try onboard and then think about a new sound card if I was not happy.

[dfour]

Another one who doesn't get it. It's about noise from the cooler, not money saved from lower wattage cards (mostly BS anyway ; you'll replace the card before that would make any difference)

It may be about noise from the cooler for you but not everyone suffers that problem or is more tolerant of it/wears headphones etc. I bought a 290X when it first came out and had the stock cooler on it which was load on full chat but I knew I was going to replace it with a water block asasp. Other people buy custom cooler cards because they are better and run cooler than stock. Im sure a few people are persuaded by the promise of saving 10p a year on there power bill but if they turned the pc off more often than leaving it on standby they would save 100* as much (and it would be silent).

You don't but if you wish to go into a Dual, (or even more) GPU setup then power is important.
Also I generally aint into any of this "future proofing" gibber jabber, out of my last three PC builds the only thing I've taken forward is my storage (SSD/HDD) so making sure you get the best PSU performance can be important, a lot of people buy 750w PSUs instead of a 500w that would have served them just the same, especially under full load with nVidia

I have ran duel and triple setups and I know how much power they can use. I still have a 1K psu as a legacy from those times when I know a 600 would be a better idea and would use less power.

@CK1

Just stick with the sound card they are very good cards.

[DanceswithUnix]

Gaming != full load. Plus benchmarks with wattage readings of the entire system instead of the card alone are pretty amateur-ish, especially when it's just playing games instead of doing a proper load/torture test.
That's like the BS amateur "reviews" of power supplies that seem to be everywhere.. "stick them in a PC, run prime95 and 3dmark, recommend PSU because it didn't blow up"

Power consumed while gaming is the only thing that matters. Some run furmark, which makes no sense as that isn't a load that my system fans will ever deal with.

[KeyboardDemon]

Can anyone comment on the sound card issue? Do i keep using the X-Fi Music or go with the on-board sound?

I use on-board card for my speakers as I don't see the point in having a high end sound card unless I have good high end speakers and for gaming I use my headset which has it's own dedicated USB sound processor.

[Edii]

I use on-board card for my speakers as I don't see the point in having a high end sound card unless I have good high end speakers and for gaming I use my headset which has it's own dedicated USB sound processor.

Yup, with 3.5 jacks a soundcard makes a world of difference, sound quality, maximum volume, customising (via drivers).

If you are using a USB driver you might not need it, but USB sound drivers always sounded a little less 'clean' to me

[KeyboardDemon]

Yup, with 3.5 jacks a soundcard makes a world of difference, sound quality, maximum volume, customising (via drivers).

If you are using a USB driver you might not need it, but USB sound drivers always sounded a little less 'clean' to me

I am using USB speakers so that might make an additional soundcard redundant for me anyway, I picked these up from the Scan store when I was in the area, they were the last set in the store but seemed a perfect fit to go in front of my monitor and at around £12 iirc they were worth a punt. I'm not disappointed as they are loud enough for when I'm sat in front of them and the sound is better then a £30 cheapo set of speakers that I got fed up with due to the stupid amounts of cable clutter.

[gupsterg]

That's just an inaccurate statement regarding the severity of power use.

The 290 draws roughly the same as an nVidia 780ti.
The 280X draws roughly the same as an nVidia 770
The 280 draws roughly the same an an nVidia 760.

None of this is a problem to anyone with a gaming PC.

Don't know why you're comparing them to the outdated 700-series though..

If your really going to compare apples to apples then the range of AMD cards above were released to compete with those series of nVidia cards. The new 9xx series where released after ...

Wiki links AMD 200 series nVidia 700 900

And I'd just like to say I'm not a AMD fanboy, I've owned plenty of nVidia GPUs over the years which I've liked but also had plenty of AMD and recently though been with AMD.

[CK1]

Thanks for the help guys. I like to idea of waiting for Skylake and perhaps even Windows 10. I will look into this after the summer.

[PowerPie5000]

Why do people continue to confuse TDP with actual power consumption?? They're two different things.