Need Graphics Card on a budget

You've probably picked the best time to buy in about 2 years, especially if you are looking for deals but do thread carefully. As you probably know the next gen cards are about to launch in the next few weeks or have just started to come out such as the R9 285 which itself isn't all that amazing but it destroys the 750ti and even the GTX760 from 1st reports.

Both AMD and Nvidia have failed to get down from 28nm to 22 or 20 in 2014 meaning gains for the new cards out this christmas will be smaller than anticipated but thats good news. It means there will be many deals going on with the last gen cards there will be bargains to be had as the last gen gets sold off.

As an example AMD just dropped their price on their top end card the 295x2 (which I have waiting to go into a new build) from $1500 to $1000 so we can expect similar percentage cuts from both AMD and Nvidia on the 280, 280x, 290, 290x and GTX 7 series.

When do you need it for and are you going to run triples (3gb to 4gb Vram preferable so the 285 wouldn't be great)

 

I wouldn't go for the R7 265 honestly. While the R7 is GCN like the R9 the R9 series architecture has a lot more to offer particularly with DX12 on the way as its likely to scale better to it and that will be huge in terms of performance boost. Its basically a Mantle clone with extremely low level API so we should see performance gains for no outlay for both AMD and Nvidia.

In a month or less you likely be able to pick up deals on the R9 280 for the same price as the 265 which will give you 3gb or 4gb vram. That'll help keep your card relevant longer as Devs will be making more use of Vram with the newer GPU's starting to go to 3gb and 4gb as a base. This will be important for PCars and AC but I must say PCars Devs have been making great strides with optimisation on the PC side since the earlier builds mirroring the need to get it to run on the PS4 & XBox One which have very limited shared memory for system and vram.

Also keep an eye on the 2nd hand market as the hard core nutters will be flogging their last gen (still fantastic) cards just to get their hands on the new range irrespective of performance improvements or not. Amazon.co.uk used 280's are already starting to drop.

Here is a new 280 4GB on Amazon.co.uk dropped from £205.85 to £166.93 and it'll get lower over the next month.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Radeon-...?ie=UTF8&qid=1410024844&sr=8-14&keywords=280x

And another 3gb 280 for £149.99 down from £209.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/VTX3D-280-X...2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410024844&sr=8-2&keywords=280x

Keep PCPartPicker on your bookmarks list http://pcpartpicker.com/ (select nation in top right) and watch a site called HotUKDeals (HUKD) http://www.hotukdeals.com/. Its on Android and IOS as well. Those guys hunt deals like its the last loaf of bread in the supermarket before a hurricane.

 

I'd say go for an R9 270. These are available new for the equivalent of 135 Euro here.
Not sure I agree with the other guy that now is the best time to buy a graphics card. Hopefully next year comes a big performance increase of 60% for stacked memory and about 50% in 22nm GPU performance for the same cost/wattage.
Right now a budget R9 270 is the best value card out there that will do 1080p/60hz well. The R7 265 is only the equivalent of 12 Euro cheaper here and it's an updated HD7850, the R9 270 is an updated 7870 and well worth the small difference in price.
R9 280 costs significantly more and draws a lot more power because it's an updated 7950. I don't think the 'X' versions aren't really worth the extra power/cost.

The GTX750/ti both underperform for their price in the UK, not sure about anywhere else. The GTX760 is an updated 660 but it's not as good as an R9 280 for the equivalent of 12 euro extra.

 

If you can afford it, definitely get the r9 280 as that card will carry you over until ps5 comes out. Dead serious. You can max out ac too(excluding reflections and smoke generation)

Me? I have a well overclocked gtx 750 ti which gives me these results with these settings in ac:

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/game-performance-hardware-specs.85461/page-9#post-1837204