Nice deal for a great GPU, also the prettiest GPU in my opinion (the logo lights up). Cheapest good (sapphire, Xfx, msi) R9 290X will set you around $480 while this was around $420 shipped for me with the current exchange rate. Also, XFX have probably the best customer service and easiest RMA processes, including global warranty.
CamelCamelCamel.
325 US Dollar equals
414.57 Australian Dollar
+ Conversion fees
Thanks.
Just keep in mind AMD have a new generation of cards coming soon(ish), if you can hold off.
I know im waiting and watching to see what amd got lined up for the new cards.
Or do they? looks like another round of rebranded cards http://www.techspot.com/news/60128-amd-radeon-rx-300-series-…
If they are im going to Nvidia too many problems with the last two amd cards i had.
Yup, saw that. I'm interested in the 390 which should be all new .. though expensive with our crappy dollar
I went to Nvidia too and hadn't looked back. Got sick of the AMD card HDMI overscan issue (where by default it doesn't display full screen but instead you have to force it to in the display driver through overscan) and the other bugs like the high CPU usage in web browsing due to issues with the AMD display drivers and Flash plugin (Flash would constantly crash too). Since going to Nvidia the HDMI output is displaying properly by default and web browsing is absolutely fine under the Nvidia card no more high CPU usage and no more Flash issue. The AMD display drivers were awful.
I have a 280x and even after being replaced once it still gives the occasional graphical glitch (at stock, with an 850w EVGA gold PSU, etc. its not a crap system)
You know overscan is about your TV and not your graphics card right? It's not a bug at all just the graphics drivers let you compensate for the overscanning but in reality it is your TV's problem. Most newer Tv's have a setting to compensate for this and it doesn't have to be done through the driver.
All Tv's scan differently and you can guarantee on another model of TV Nvidia won't pick it up automatically and AMD will.
Also the problems you are talking about don't sounds like a driver issue. Why would the graphics driver affect CPU usage? As the driver is what the system uses to talk to the graphics card not the CPU.
It's not about TV only. I don't even have my graphics card connected to a TV. You might not have known but a lot of computers monitors have HDMI inputs these days and HDMI offers HDCP on computer monitors. As far as i'm aware the monitor doesn't have a way to compensate for overscan. I had the same issue with two different AMD video cards. Chucked in the Nvidia Geforce GTX 750ti card and immediately no problems with overscan on the computer monitor immediately get full proper screen. So go figure.
Also high CPU usage in web browsing during the Flash plugin being used is a known issue. It's got to do with the hardware acceleration feature in web browsers. Basically the hardware acceleration is supposed to call CPU intensive tasks onto the video card through the video driver but it has bugs on some systems and causes the CPU to process the intensive tasks instead when the graphics card is supposed to be doing it which slows the computer to a crawl. It only happened with the AMD video card installed. Nvidia is fine. So there's a bug in the AMD video card driver to do with web browsing hardware acceleration not properly processing the web browsing hardware acceleration onto the graphics card.
https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=6738.0
As i said i went to Nvidia and it's been happy sailing since no more high CPU usage problems while web browsing sites that use Flash. It's been a joy. In my opinion the Nvidia video driver is way better and less buggy than the AMD video driver.
Well regardless Overscan is a problem of the displaying device and not the graphics adapter pushing it. Read up on it if you don't believe me.
As for the second issue flash is notorious for problems. Apple dumped it from their phones for exactly that reason. The issue is really between the web browser and or the flash player not the driver itself.
Also that link you pasted you know the guy having the problem was using a nvidia card right?
AMD and Nvidia drivers are just about as good as eachother. I don't know why the myth of AMD having crap drivers remains in this day and age? The one thing Nvidia does do is getting optimizations out quicker.
The real battle should be on performance to price. I thought nvidia was leading on that but maybe not with this deal.
@hollykryten: I wouldn't say one brand or the other are particularly more buggy than one another.
Example:
Bought an Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 to replace my AMD 6950 which is great… except I am forced to use HDMI now as there is a bug with the GTX760 in the Nvidia drivers that prevents Display port from outputting to a display under Windows. It will happily display video on Linux, or even the BIOS, but boot Windows with Nvidia drivers and POOF! No video signal detected. You can say it's not a problem, but I'm limited to 60hz via HDMI, whereas I can use 85hz on DisplayPort (my equipment is capable, but the drivers don't allow me). Even worse is the fact that this is been a known issue for over a year now, and they have not done anything to fix it.
So basically, each to their own. Just grab what gives you the best performance per dollar, as you're not going to have a bug free experience with either!
Radeon R9 370 appears to be a straight rebrand of the Radeon R7 270X, which itself was a rebrand of the Radeon HD 8870, a further re-brand of the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition. Yes, that would make the R9 370 a fourth-generation rebrand of a card first released in early 2012.
(Falls off chair reading this)
I guess I won't be upgrading my 7870 anytime soon!
The mere fact that AMD can re-release a card that is still 3 years old, and can STILL be competitive is more of a compliment than an insult IMO.
Good price for a 290X. Have two of these non reference designs in Crossfire. Have tested various games on a 4K and 1440P display with no issues. Good to have a full access to the 4GB of RAM when using AA vs the 3.5GB limit issue my friend experiences on his Nvidia 970.
If you can afford to wait, see what AMD comes up with. Hopefully the rebranded cards will at the least have a lower TDP and reduced temperature/noise, something that plagues AMD cards. I still got a 7950 which is good, but it runs hot and noisy. Waiting for that dream card (Which I thought 970 was until the ram stuff up).
It pays to wait in the tech game lol
Honestly I'm thinking that AMD cards are pretty much all gonna be performance driven hot cards, with rebranding on the lower ends for a while, at least until their manufacturing can handle the build quality to include it cheaply.
They also have most of the contracts on consoles which include a "new" market in china, so I expect that they probably will stay hot for a while
NVIDIA however are leading in the market share and have the lower temps with reasonable clock speed down pat. Im just waiting for the r9 300 series to either drive down a 970 or get a older r9 cheaper from pccasegear (better rma)
AMD video cards can run hot. Running an ASUS Geforce GTX 750ti card here and the temps are on the cooler side.
People are way too sensitive with power draw (seems to be almost a defensive number to throw out when Nvidia vs AMD wars start). I would take a better performing GPU at the same price point as a lower power, but ultimately lower performing, GPU. Example in point is the 750TI. It's $200, uses very little power, and is quiet, but it's completely outclassed by the other cards at the same price point (that all use more power). Since I am not running my computer on a battery, I'd take a higher wattage card that was going to give me an extra 20fps. The actual running costs are negligible at best.
I'm more worried about heat than actually power consumption. The more powerful the card (e.g the higher the clockspeed and number of cores), the more power it will consume and the more heat it will generate. Can't defy the laws of physics.
Now obviously with every new generation the clock speed increases and so does the core count, increasing performance and power draw. We also improve power efficiency by using new architecture based on new fabrication processes, but if we only increase the clock speed and core count without making improvements to architecture, sooner or later you'll hit a wall and you can't go any further because the card runs too hot.
That's what AMD should be trying to do.
Great price! Seems to be cheap in a few places (newegg etc), but Amazon P&H trumps them in the quick look I had.