I have recently upgraded my gaming PC. This build marks the most powerful for the time PC I have ever built. A lot of time was spent discussing with friends and people in the know, about which parts that gave the best value for money. Something I heard a lot of is that I should be buying a part that was in the 'sweet spot' for performance vs price. If we were to look at the current graphics card landscape in Australia, taking into account our horrible dollar value, the parts with the best value for their performance would be either the GTX 960 for the green team, or the Radeon R9 380X if you swing for the red team. I bought neither of those parts. In fact, I am the proud owner of a Gigabyte R9 390X (yes I bat for the red team). This decision was made not with the idea of the best value for its performance, but rather it was made with the idea that I should buy the most powerful graphics card that I could afford. The rest of the build also reflects this. An intel i5 6500, A mid range Gigabyte Z170 board. The entire build was made with the knowledge that I would not be getting the best value for money. Instead, I have a more powerful PC, that I am sure that I am much more happy with, then had I instead gone for the best value for money.
Nvidia and AMD, The two current Graphics processor heavyweights. Never a more fierce war was waged. Until we get to AMD vs Intel. I am A man squarely in the red corner, aside from two, all the PC's I have built in my life have had A red heart. And again, all but two have had red eyes as well. But in this current climate it seems that these eyes may stop working, I of course refer to AMD's abysmal graphics processor market share, around 18%. This is not unprecedented, as since the ATI takeover, AMD have lost money, and Nvidia has gained money. This would allow them to sink more money into R&D, with which they could make far superior graphics processors, destroying all competitors in their wake, except their cards are not superior. Lets break it down. Firstly, I will only be looking at the mid range forward for both companies, anything lower does not interest me and as such will not be discussed. Secondly, I will go in descending order from the top of their respective product lines for comparison, R9 Fury X vs 980 ti, Fury vs 980, 390X&390 vs 970, 380X & 380 vs 960. Lastly, This is not designed to persuade you either way, it is simply just a quick look at some graphics cards.
R9 Fury X vs 980Ti.
This one is the only comparison in which i would recommend the Nvidia card. The 980Ti is just such a superior card to the R9 Fury X, and this is not exclusively due to HBM 1.0's current limitations. The 980Ti gets higher framerates in tests that do not max out the R9 Fury X's limited Vram. But if this was a comparison of technical achievement, the R9 Fury X does win. It is only the second graphics processor ever that features a reference water cooler (The other one being the R9 Radeon 295X2) and the fact that it incorporates the next defacto standard in Vram technology a full generation before its common adoption in the majority of flagship cards and a full two generations be fore its inclusion in any consumer grade products is simply an amazing achievment. My condolences to AMD, as this would have been the best graphics card of the year, and probably the decade, had it not been for the 980Ti
R9 Fury vs 980
See the above except substitute the water for Air.
R9 390X vs GTX 970
This is the first comaprison in which i favor the AMD product, shipping for around the same price, with twice the Vram, and with higher framrates, this is why i chose a 390X over a 970
R9 380X vs GTX 960
Again a win for the red team. Available with both the same or double the amount of Vram as the Nvidia offering and trumping the 960 with its inclusion in PC powerplay's budget build with the tagline 'AMD's new 960 killer'. This card was the spur that I needed to build a new system, although it wasn't actually used in the build, it pulls the win over the 960.
Welp thats all for today folks, tune in soon for a gundam related post, and then again for a mainstream gaming post. Later
- Dallywoop
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