Global Conflict

On the other hand, whenever you buy a card, shortly after something better comes out. It has been this ways this the first vodoo cards. Buy a card, then dont read any new about GPUs for 2month

To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about Mantle. It's not even out yet, and it's being hyped to crap, it could very well turn out to be a dried turd.

"We've been told at the GPU14 Tech Day event that the Mantle API is open, so theoretically Nvidia could purpose the technology in their GPUs."

So if the crazy hype about Mantle turns out to be true, and it becomes industry standard, I bet nvidia will start to use it aswell.

Also, Shadowplay. <3

I've been working on my upgrades for bf4 and I've invested in the 290x and I have to say I absolutely love this card, it pretty much handles everything I throw at it and easily runs bf4 on high and ultra settings with solid fps. It does get pretty hot though so its good to make sure your tower has proper cooling and ventilation. Otherwise in terms of price to performance this card does not dissapoint. I can't wait for a price drop on this bad boy so I can crossfire(it handles crossfire sans bridge connectors now!) and as cool as mantle is hyped up to be don't forget that the 290x will also support true audio which pretty much brings sound physics to your games and takes some of the load off your cpu. I think for the price the 290x is worth considering especially since the relationship between bf4 and the gpu seem to suggest that no other gpu will run bf4 true to form like the 290x, im assuming of course once mantle drops which amd sound would "embarass" the titan. bold claims but heres hoping.

corvec wrote:im assuming of course once mantle drops which amd sound would "embarass" the titan. bold claims but heres hoping.

well technically you're already getting a 10-15% boost over a titan with a 290x. If (and a big if at that) mantle is all it's cracked up to be then it will be awesome, but until then it's still generally the best card on the market at the moment.

I'll think about getting one once they release with aftermarket cooling systems on them (vapor-x or something), the stock one is only single fan and probably the reason the thing gets so hot. I also don't feel like making any upgrades until dice fixes this farce of a software release.

Still no R9 290 with 3rd party coolers but on the other hand I guess this is a good thing. The 280x is starting to look mighty attractive...

In case anyone cares or is in the market for a video card, I just happened upon quite a good deal for a 7970 GHz edition which is virtually identical to the R9 280x. I got the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 GHz for $220 AR from Newegg. I don't know how long the price will last as it's usually $380 and up. I've read really good things about the Sapphire Vapor-X cooler and it comes with the Gold tier Never Settle bundle which now includes Thief in 2014 which looks promising. Since I already own BF4, this bundle is actually worthwhile and I might decide to keep it.

Thanks everyone for your input!

I bought the MSI R9 270 for $190. (the 7950 in a new skin from what I read) Runs BF4 64 on high settings great. I am satisfied with it. But...

Be warned it is a big card. My case (corsair carbide 400 (a big mid tower)) has a bottom mounted power supply. I had to unplug and re-route some cables to get the card in. No big deal I guess but I don't think my old case, also mid-tower, could have handled it. Also it is a little noisy if that is a concern.

There is a driver issue, sort of. I am not able to upgrade to the latest (13.9) AMD driver. Not sure where the conflict is, my card is MSI and it shipped with MSI/AMD drivers(13.6). The driver woks, but I get a warning when starting BF4 that it may be unstable and I should upgrade to 13.9. I tried to install 13.9 and it crashed on install and I had to do a windows repair/recover. I have had no crashes or any other problems with the 13.6 driver. Other than that I am very happy with it. Hope to be able to join you guys on a battleday sometime soon.

So I am confused, you can play BF4 yet I have yet to see you on TS. Thur you disappoint me .

I have been on a few times. It's tough to find the time. Especially on Saturdays, and evenings and sundays actually everyday..

R9 280X = AMD Radeon HD 7970 but with faster memory and core clock, same components and chip though
R9 270X = AMD Radeon HD 7870 (not 7950 as mentioned above) but with faster memory and core clock, same components and chip though

R9 280X is slower than Nvidia's GTX 770
R9 270X is slower than Nvidia's GTX 760

Just in case you didn't know.

Green = Average value
Red = Lowest value

Thur wrote:I bought the MSI R9 270 for $190. (the 7950 in a new skin from what I read) Runs BF4 64 on high settings great. I am satisfied with it. But...

Be warned it is a big card. My case (corsair carbide 400 (a big mid tower)) has a bottom mounted power supply. I had to unplug and re-route some cables to get the card in. No big deal I guess but I don't think my old case, also mid-tower, could have handled it. Also it is a little noisy if that is a concern.

There is a driver issue, sort of. I am not able to upgrade to the latest (13.9) AMD driver. Not sure where the conflict is, my card is MSI and it shipped with MSI/AMD drivers(13.6). The driver woks, but I get a warning when starting BF4 that it may be unstable and I should upgrade to 13.9. I tried to install 13.9 and it crashed on install and I had to do a windows repair/recover. I have had no crashes or any other problems with the 13.6 driver. Other than that I am very happy with it. Hope to be able to join you guys on a battleday sometime soon.

OMG THE THUR!!!! (SiL3nT_BoB here)

Btw, same problems with me. I got a second 7950...was a little tricky to insert it. Also, when I first played I got an average of 120 fps...now it gets from 140 to 50...even worse. I got an error that the display driver had stopped working twice. Maybe its the AMD beta drivers that suck.

Hey bob, good to see you and everyone again. Sorry I have been AFK for a few years. Having kids takes a bite out of my gaming schedule.

Thanks for the chart knorren, where was that before I bought?? JK. For the money I am happy with the 270. It is a huge improvement over the 4000 series I had before. I need a SSD to complete my mean machine. (I hear the snickering of you big rig gamers out there! Give me a break I am hiding pennies from the wife and kids to scrape my rig together. )

I saw an article concerning the 13.11 beta being for or only improving windows 8 users. Sounded like the issue was not yet settled so I am waiting for AMD (or more likely MSI) to put out something official. Like I said I have had no problems with 13.6, zero crashes.

Razy encountered same problem with his new 280.
He said that the only thing that helped was increasing the card's minimum memroy speed by 50 (from 150Mhz to 200).
Thats the speed the card's memory is set to when idle, and apperantly theres some problem with the OS interface that causes the driver to crash under certain circumstances (when it was too low).