Best Nvidia Budget Card?

[LittleLagoo]

Hey guys it's me again! I've just been wondering out of curiousity, where does Nvidia stand with it's "budget" segment cards? From what I've heard AMD is leading it at the moment, and what are your opinions on the 950/960? Would you conscider them worth getting over an R9 270x, 280x, or the newer 380? I'm just really debating if it's worth it at all to even get a 950/960 compared to the performance the other R-Series cards deliver? (I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask... But it would still be good to know for people conscidering to build their PC with any of those following.) 

[Sauron]

The 950 is very good for the price. The 960 on the other hand isn't as good as amd's offerings - for the price.

[Guest Johnny5g]

The 950 is very good for the price. The 960 on the other hand isn't as good as amd's offerings - for the price.

which ones are AMD offering?

[Guest]

Nvidia doesn't really have budget GPU's...

Its typically 960 can run GTA at about medium 45ish FPS 

Nvidia doesn't really do budget GPU's at all...

its buy high, get high performance 

[FatalityDiablo]

it is always the 100+ card, which in this case is the overpriced 950.

[don_svetlio]

270x vs 950 - tied
380 vs 960 - 380 wins
390 vs 970 - 390 wins
280X vs 960 - 280X wins by a longshot
280X vs 950 - like expensive wine vs vodka - no competition

[BigDay]

what's your budget for a gpu?

[Sauron]

which ones are AMD offering?

 

r9 280 - 285 - 380 - 280x

[Guest Johnny5g]

r9 280 - 285 - 380 - 280x

ok thanks!

[LittleLagoo]

The budget would be from a 170-230€ and I'm mostly now for getting a 380. but If I would not be able to get one I have been thinking of getting a 950 over a 270x since I've NEVER used Nvidia cards in my life. (Yes that's true, well okay maybe except the 650ti. but that wasn't even my pc lol.) 

[don_svetlio]

ok thanks!

don't forget the 270X, 370 and soon-to-be-released 370X

[itachipirate]

Nvidia doesn't really have budget GPU's...

Its typically 960 can run GTA at about medium 45ish FPS 

Nvidia doesn't really do budget GPU's at all...

its buy high, get high performance 

Very wrong. I have a cousin with a 960 and FX-8320 that plays GTA with over 60fps constantly playing at medium-high settings (Textures on medium)

[Guest Johnny5g]

don't forget the 270X, 370 and soon-to-be-released 370X

hum. thanks!

[don_svetlio]

The budget would be from a 170-230€ and I'm mostly now for getting a 380. but If I would not be able to get one I have been thinking of getting a 950 over a 270x since I've NEVER used Nvidia cards in my life. (Yes that's true, well okay maybe except the 650ti. but that wasn't even my pc lol.) 

380 is GCN 1.2 and as such supports all the newer features and has improved tessellation pefromance - around 10% faster than a 960

270X and 950 are tied but with recent findings it appears that the 270X will probably benefit more from DX12 thanks to A-sync compute:

 "It allows jobs to be cycled into the GPU during dormant phases. In can vaguely be thought of as the GPU equivalent of hyper threading. Like hyper threading, it really depends on the workload and GPU architecture for as to how important this is. In this case, it is used for performance. I can’t divulge too many details, but GCN can cycle in work from an ACE incredibly efficiently. Maxwell’s schedular has no analog just as a non hyper-threaded CPU has no analog feature to a hyper threaded one."

[don_svetlio]

Very wrong. I have a cousin with a 960 and FX-8320 that plays GTA with over 60fps constantly playing at medium-high settings (Textures on medium)

all benches and statistics are run with everything on ultra with all games

[don_svetlio]

The budget would be from a 170-230€ and I'm mostly now for getting a 380. but If I would not be able to get one I have been thinking of getting a 950 over a 270x since I've NEVER used Nvidia cards in my life. (Yes that's true, well okay maybe except the 650ti. but that wasn't even my pc lol.) 

950 vs 270x is like an i5 vs i7 - when 4 cores are used = no difference. When 8 are used = i7 pulls ahead

[LittleLagoo]

380 is GCN 1.2 and as such supports all the newer features and has improved tessellation pefromance - around 10% faster than a 960

270X and 950 are tied but with recent findings it appears that the 270X will probably benefit more from DX12 thanks to A-sync compute:

 "It allows jobs to be cycled into the GPU during dormant phases. In can vaguely be thought of as the GPU equivalent of hyper threading. Like hyper threading, it really depends on the workload and GPU architecture for as to how important this is. In this case, it is used for performance. I can’t divulge too many details, but GCN can cycle in work from an ACE incredibly efficiently. Maxwell’s schedular has no analog just as a non hyper-threaded CPU has no analog feature to a hyper threaded one."

I see. So you'd still recommend getting a 270x over a 950? I mean... This is one of the reasons why I'm not even thinking about Nvidia cards when building a budget PC. Since apparently AMD seems to make those "budget" GTX cards crash and burn.

[don_svetlio]

I see. So you'd still recommend getting a 270x over a 950? I mean... This is one of the reasons why I'm not even thinking about Nvidia cards when building a budget PC. Since apparently AMD seems to make those "budget" GTX cards crash and burn.

Basically - AMD cards have better longevity - they age better since the drivers are usually worse and don't take full advantage of the hardware - DX12 removes the need for polished drivers by allowing the developer to use the core better - that ends up with AMD's cards skyrocketing.

[astranger200]

which ones are AMD offering?

 

well the 380 I guess, but the 960 overclocks (turbos even) to perform 5% better than the 380. Ive been looking at both and when the are not reference coolers and are factory overclocked, the 960 wins and costs less (maybe just here in australia).

[Guest Johnny5g]

 

well the 380 I guess, but the 960 overclocks (turbos even) to perform 5% better than the 380. Ive been looking at both and when the are not reference coolers and are factory overclocked, the 960 wins and costs less (maybe just here in australia).

 

hum thanks!

[LittleLagoo]

Basically - AMD cards have better longevity - they age better since the drivers are usually worse and don't take full advantage of the hardware - DX12 removes the need for polished drivers by allowing the developer to use the core better - that ends up with AMD's cards skyrocketing.

From what I've heard the R9 270x even tough it is 3 years old it still competes pretty crazily well as some people have been claiming, but also quite a lot of them say that the past few driver updates for AMD cards did quite increase the GPU's performance? I mean unless I want to have a "proper" GTX series card I should better leave out the 950 and 960 and in that case get a 970 which I find pretty stupid from Nvidia's side on because as it seems there are no real "solid" entry card choices? Like... Why do I have to spend 350 bucks for a card if there's a 225€ card that performs tightly close to a 350€ card? (380 vs GTX 970) and what if there was a 4GB 950? wouldn't it technically beat the R9 270x then? 

[don_svetlio]

 

well the 380 I guess, but the 960 overclocks (turbos even) to perform 5% better than the 380. Ive been looking at both and when the are not reference coolers and are factory overclocked, the 960 wins and costs less (maybe just here in australia).

 

Aaaand when you OC the 380 it peforms 5% faster again. It's not fair comparing an OCed 960 vs a stock 380

[BigDay]

The budget would be from a 170-230€ and I'm mostly now for getting a 380. but If I would not be able to get one I have been thinking of getting a 950 over a 270x since I've NEVER used Nvidia cards in my life. (Yes that's true, well okay maybe except the 650ti. but that wasn't even my pc lol.) 

 

the 280x outperforms the 380

 

XFX R9-280X-TDBD

 

less than 230 euros

[astranger200]

Aaaand when you OC the 380 it peforms 5% faster again. It's not fair comparing an OCed 960 vs a stock 380

 

i was comparing an oc 960 to an oc 380

[don_svetlio]

From what I've heard the R9 270x even tough it is 3 years old it still competes pretty crazily well as some people have been claiming, but also quite a lot of them say that the past few driver updates for AMD cards did quite increase the GPU's performance? I mean unless I want to have a "proper" GTX series card I should better leave out the 950 and 960 and in that case get a 970 which I find pretty stupid from Nvidia's side on because as it seems there are no real "solid" entry card choices? Like... Why do I have to spend 350 bucks for a card if there's a 225€ card that performs tightly close to a 350€ card? (380 vs GTX 970) and what if there was a 4GB 950? wouldn't it technically beat the R9 270x then? 

a 4GB 950 would be like a 4GB 960 - pointless as hell. The 128-bit buss limits these cards to 2GB of usable VRAM, adding more does nothing but make it look fancy. 970 technically has 3.5 GB of usable VRAM thanks to a design flaw confirmed by Nvidia which makes the last 0.5 GB of VRAM very much slower than system RAM - they have since locked it via drivers I believe - or maybe unlocked it. Not sure.

last 3 months - it's been a change really - Nvidia's drivers have been unstable whereas I gained around 5% more performance back with 15.5 and another 5% with 15.7. (3D mark Firestrike score went up by 300 points each time)

Also - 390 beast the 970 for cheaper and has 8 GB of usable VRAM

 

the 280x outperforms the 380

 

XFX R9-280X-TDBD

 

less than 230 euros

280X is older tho - it falls behind in tessellation and doesn't support things like Free-sync, texture compression similar to Maxwell's and true audio. + XFX model overheats the VRMs

 

i was comparing an oc 960 to an oc 380

Check reviewers - the 380 beats or equals an OCed 960 after an overclock. And it's still silicon lottery - you never know if your 960 will reach 1570 or be like a friend's 650 which crashed the whole PC after a 30MHz OC.