What GPU to use

JWMutant · September 27, 2015

This is not so much me asking a question more as me offering a little help to those out there that really cant make up there mind as to what card to get.

I am by no means a fanboy of Nvidea or AMD, I simple buy based on price v performance.

So if your reading this and are a fan boy of one or another this may or may not interest you.

The first question's a person needs to ask himself is, " Do I want the best performing card no matter the cost?" or "Do I want the best performing card for the price I pay"

Here is the formula I use when I am deciding what card I want to get (Like I am doing now).

Understand that this is always going to depend on your location, for example here in Australia we get ripped off blind by prices, so the need to choose wisely is a better course of action.

So here is the formula I use.

First thing I do is look at some bench testing of the card I want. This gives me an idea of what card they consider to be its "Counterpart".

I will focus on the bench testing results of the 980Ti and the Fury X.

Bench testing results show that the 980Ti performs 9.56% better than the Fury x (Both non-oc) as an average across multiple games.

For those that want a little math lesson you find the % by finding the the difference between the two results i.e if the 980Ti scored 120fps on a game and the Fury X scored 108fps the difference between the two results is 12fps. Putting that into a % you simple divide 12 by the higher number being 120 then times by 100 which would give you 10%

Now after you have done a little shopping around (all cards are not created equal, some brands I wouldn't use as a paper weight. the following prices are examples only) I find that I can pick up a NON-oc Sapphire Fury X for about $560 and an ASUS 980TI for about $660.

Now using the same % Calculations as we did for working out the % difference in performance we find that the 980TI in this example is 15.15% more expensive that the Fury X.

Now here is the question you need to ask yourself. and only you can answer this question because at the end of the day its your money.

Are you willing to spend 15% more to get only a 10% increase in performance.

Some people will say yes some will say no, but ultimately its your money!

Its one thing to ask question of those who have more experience and something completely different to live with the choose you make.

This case shows one thing but each case will be different based on what your requirements and spending range is.

For me this time round (as im looking to upgrade my gaming rig) im going to go with raw power as I have deep pockets and dont mind paying 15% more for 10% increase in performance.

If you found this interesting and a little helpful then Im glad I was able to help you out, if not then no problems.

App4that · September 28, 2015

I agree that bang for the buck comes before brand, if that's what you said. Is it?

JWMutant · September 28, 2015

I agree that bang for the buck comes before brand, if that's what you said. Is it?

Pretty much.

Here in Australia it wasnt to bad. The difference is the 980Ti is 14% more expensive than the Fury X for 10% better performance.

Ideally if I was going to make a choose based on best bang for buck this time round the Fury X would be a clear winner purely because the performance increase with the 980Ti doesn't justify the price. I could handle paying 11% more maybe even stretching it out to 12% but not 14%.

App4that · September 28, 2015

Not to dive off your topic, I admit to being less than confident I understand it. But since you bring up brand loyalty I never understood why anyone suggests a GPU without naming a specific model. I found that the difference between GPU could fluctuate as much as 20fps in some cases. That's the difference between different manufacturers models(970,980,etc) GPU shopping is difficult because of this. Also which benchmark is used and what game is played can greatly affect the ratings of different GPUs.