Need help picking new GPU.

[Caring1]

In Australia where I live, industry pays fairly high import tariffs, but on a personal level a consumer can import up to a certain dollar amount before taxes are levied, perhaps it is the same where you are.
I feel sorry for those that are responsible for paying duties on low valued items they import for personal use.

 

[Daemmon]

I can tolerate high import taxes/limitations for technology/goods that ARE or CAN be manufactured in the country. This is an option some governments take to try to protect the local industry (some call it protectionism, and is widely seen as something "bad", mainly from other countries that can't flood the rest with their excedents).

The current problem with my country is low USD reserves, which eventually leads us to import issues all over the board, no matter if there is a developed local industry (fact: there isn't). Most importers currently have high limitations, and the only way they can import is exporting something of similar values. Want a fun story? Car importers were buying some sea products (seafood?) to local producers and exporting themselves in order to get the balance to import the cars (high-end ones not produced locally) .

This extra pressure on the importers is what drives the prices upward. 8 years ago you could get prices similar to US, with an added $ because of well... importing it. Oh, and don't forget our local 21% VAT.

 

[GhostRyder]

Well the R9 280 is basically the same (Minus overclocks) as your HD 7950 so you would end up with the same performance roughly. As far as the other choices are the R9 270X would be a downgrade overall and the GTX 960 would be around the same of higher depending on clocks and such.

If you can get the Zotac for that price, might be worth looking into because it will be great for your needs. Otherwise the R9 280 would be the way to go though you would be getting the same card again.

 

[rruff]

In Australia where I live, industry pays fairly high import tariffs, but on a personal level a consumer can import up to a certain dollar amount before taxes are levied, perhaps it is the same where you are.

No, they don't pay either. Actually it wouldn't make sense for industry to pay and not consumers. Then consumers would just buy everything from overseas and no one would buy from local businesses.

 

[Daemmon]

Update!

New baby arrived, Gigabyte GTX 960 Windforce.

As I don't trust Furmark and all those extreme overloads I only ran Unigine Heaven. Can't compare to others on the UH4.0 thread since I'm running at 1360x768.

1360x768/Ultra/X16 AA/Extreme Tessellation > 54.6 average (8 min 112 max) . 1449 score.
100% load during the full benchmark, temp capped at 63ºC (And it's a hellish 32ºC today in my town). Fans are not audible at all, and my open case is pretty close to me.

On my current resolution, and so far testing with a few games mem doesn't pass the 850-900MB used, so I guess I won't see any issues with the mem/bandwith.

Only thing that makes me feel weird is all this clocking madness the card does, it never throttles but it changes the clocks several times. Further testing in this is needed, I just -hope- that in "mid load" scenarios the clocks don't go crazy like the first Boost cards used to do.

Thanks all for the discussion and help, much appreciated!

 

[rruff]

Only thing that makes me feel weird is all this clocking madness the card does, it never throttles but it changes the clocks several times.

Have fun!

I think the clocking changes are just energy conservation. My 750s do the same thing. If the overclock is too high though, it will drop down to factory settings.

 

[Daemmon]

Have fun!

I think the clocking changes are just energy conservation. My 750s do the same thing. If the overclock is too high though, it will drop down to factory settings.

I don't know how much I can trust the GPU-Z %TDP reading but it never exceeded 30%~ . Also, as I said, no throttling and no clocks dropping down, it's like the card have 5-6 different states, and sometimes it wanders around state 3 and 4 (for an example) until you push it hard and it goes full boost and stays there steadily.

 

[Dieinafire]

Also I prefer my PC to be as silent/cool as possible, this is always a feature I try to get, I don't live in a cold place, and I don't like my PC to put a lot of noise, so far this CPU is extremely silent, and don't want the GPU to start making the noise.

By saying this amd is now out of the question

 

[Daemmon]

2 things to note:

1) Mid-load game worked flawlessly (Deathtrap, maxed settings). That drop was a previous alt-tab.

2) I was a bit bummed when I read 64.4% ASIC quality on GPU-Z. But... I haven't OC'd this card -AT ALL- , all I did was >DDU to remove previous AMD drivers + uninstall MSI AB (so no weird changes from any previous software) . Oddly instead of the 1279mhz core on boost the GPU decided that 1341.6mhz was ok and boosted to that and kept at it flawlessly.

 

[rruff]

Actual boost is always quite a bit more than "target" boost. Mine boosts to 1375 while 1310 is listed.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Holy crap, the 390x will probably cost like $1000 there!

 

[Daemmon]

Holy crap, the 390x will probably cost like $1000 there!

On the high end side of prices.

Sapphire 290x Tri-X : 800$
Sapphire 290 Tri-X : 610$
Asus GTX 980 Strix : 1090$
Zotac GTX 980 Amp! Extreme : 1170$

YUP. Mind you ARS:USD is pretty volatile and has a parallel "black market", which means that the Zotac example is actually 10296 ARS, and by "black market" prices that would actually be around 780$. Still, 10296 ARS is around 3 minimum monthly wages.

 

[Schmuckley]

I would say for those kind of prices:
I would find the biggest used card in the forum marketplaces I could afford to have shipped to my country.
Shipping from US is $60

ex: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/us-amd-gigabyte-radeon-hd-7950-3gb.209029/ $100+60=$160

or here: $375 for gtx 970: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/2x-msi-gtx-970-4g-gaming.209239/

or here: $260 for r9 290 http://www.overclock.net/t/1542672/asus-r9-290-4gb/0_100

http://www.overclock.net/t/1533788/40x-amd-reference-r9-290s-xfx-sapphire-and-asus/0_100

 

[Daemmon]

I would say for those kind of prices:
I would find the biggest used card in the forum marketplaces I could afford to have shipped to my country.
Shipping from US is $60

ex: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/us-amd-gigabyte-radeon-hd-7950-3gb.209029/ $100+60=$160

or here: $375 for gtx 970: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/2x-msi-gtx-970-4g-gaming.209239/

or here: $260 for r9 290 http://www.overclock.net/t/1542672/asus-r9-290-4gb/0_100

http://www.overclock.net/t/1533788/40x-amd-reference-r9-290s-xfx-sapphire-and-asus/0_100

60$ is just the shipping. Do you know how much I would have to pay to not have the stuff stolen/delayed for MONTHS on customs?

There is no practical way to import as an individual here, that's why prices vary so hard, and that's also why nVidia has a slight better pricing here compared to AMD. It's all about who makes a better deal with importers. When I bought my 7950 it was AMD, right now it's nVidia.

Also, importing a USED -anything- and paying 20-30% of the price in shipping just to get some faulty / out-of-warranty card? No way mate.