Upgrading video card

[viper37]

Same! & from ontario. WTF did they do for a whole week.

they needed it to finish their Dragon Age playthrough

[Josquius]

I'm all settled in my new place. Time to have a pop at something.
I think  I will go for the R9. Once I've sorted through the million different models.
Current leader: https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/gigabyte-r9-290-windforce-3x-oc-4gb-pci-e-30-4gb-graphics-cards-2455835

Or are there other better makers?

What does the 280/285/290 stand for? Just a model number? Follows a standard bigger is better?

[Norgy]

Bigger number, better card.

I'd try and find Sapphire's Vapor-X model. They've been good.

Of course, if you went for a nVidia card, cooling would be much less of an issue. 

[Josquius]

Bigger number, better card.

I'd try and find Sapphire's Vapor-X model. They've been good.

Of course, if you went for a nVidia card, cooling would be much less of an issue. 

Aren't they worse at everything else though?

[viper37]

I'm all settled in my new place. Time to have a pop at something.
I think  I will go for the R9. Once I've sorted through the million different models.
Current leader: https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/gigabyte-r9-290-windforce-3x-oc-4gb-pci-e-30-4gb-graphics-cards-2455835

Or are there other better makers?

What does the 280/285/290 stand for? Just a model number? Follows a standard bigger is better?

either this one or a 290x:
link, if you find one for a tad lower price elsewhere.  There's not much differences between brands in terms of performance, the only thing to watch for are the fans used.  In this case, the Windforce is good.  MSI Twin FRZR too, and so is Sapphire, the one with 3 fans.

[Josquius]

I searched for Sapphire versions.
3 gig is more expensive than that 4 gig one though 2 gig is half the price
Whats so good about Sapphire?

[viper37]

I searched for Sapphire versions.
3 gig is more expensive than that 4 gig one though 2 gig is half the price
Whats so good about Sapphire?

I like this one here:
Sapphire Tri-x R9 290x

Sometimes, you can get it on Ebay for the price of a normal card, otherwise, I wouldn't advise paying a lot more for this one.
What's so special?  Well, it comes highly overclocked by default and it has better cooling capacities than other boards, so you still have room for more overclocking.

If you don't plan on overclocking it yourself, than I guess it's a little overkill.  But it all comes down to the price you can get it.  If it happens to be less expensive than another card, get it, otherwise, take MSI or Gigabyte.

[Caliga]

I'm drafting out a new PC build for Princesca and I'm probably going to put a GTX 960 in it for her.

[Norgy]

Bigger number, better card.

I'd try and find Sapphire's Vapor-X model. They've been good.

Of course, if you went for a nVidia card, cooling would be much less of an issue. 

Aren't they worse at everything else though?

Sites like Tom's hardware point to the GTX 970 as the best value-for-money card. The GTX 980 is still fairly pricey. I've been happy with my three last nVidias.

[Josquius]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2875740/nvidia-explains-geforce-gtx-970s-memory-performance-issues-admits-error-in-specs.html



I really should pull the trigger on something but...yeah.
Unsure on making myself spend the extra 100, especially with it not being clearly better...it isn't too much considering its my main hobby but still...

The GTX stays cool better (thus is quieter) you say?

[Norgy]

The makers I have tried have been Asus. Very cool, easily managed and quiet. eVGA (twice). One with the standard cooler from nVidia, which was cool but made some noise, one with their ACX cooler, which is really quiet and cool. The Twin Frozr versions from MSI do well in tests. I've had only one, but that was a GTX 580. It stayed cool, but used a lot of power.

[Josquius]

Any idea on gigabyte?
There's one slightly cheaper than the Asus with slightly better specs...though quiet is good

Currently its

https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/asus-gtx-970-strix-4gb-graphics-cards-2759452

vs

https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/gigabyte-gtx-970-g1-gaming-gm204-4gb-graphics-cards-2759793

Leaning nvidiawards since they seem to be slightly better and most importantly stay cooler.
Going to order on the weekend.
Might get a new monitor too since my 4 year old dealie which doesn't support hdmi is beginning to flicker.

[viper37]

Any idea on gigabyte?
There's one slightly cheaper than the Asus with slightly better specs...though quiet is good

The Gigabyte Windforce is a good card.  I prefer AMD's card, but it's up to you if you want a lying cheating company to be in your computer's backbone

Seriously, it's a good card, either Nvidia or AMD.  Just compare the specs, maybe the Asus one is already overclocked, but you should easily be able to do that with Nvidia's or AMD's software.

[Grey Fox]

Tyr, I said this back in November, applies to you too.

MSI or the cheapest you can find.

[Josquius]

Why MSI? They do have that.
Two models in fact :s

https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/msi-gtx-970-gaming-4g-gm204-4gb-graphics-cards-2763014
https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/msi-gtx-970-oc-gm204-4gb-graphics-cards-3482028