1280 or 2048 stream processors

[Texashiker]

I am looking at a Radeon R9 270X on newegg. Several of the cards are listing either 1280 or 2048 stream processors.

For gaming - tf2, l4d2, Skyrim, Metro: last light, Evolve,, etc which would be better? The 1280 or the 2048 cards?

Some of the cards I am looking at:

1280 stream processors - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-059-_-Product

2048 stream processors - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-049-_-Product

1280 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-761-_-Product

 

[n0x1ous]

Thats an error in the listing - 270x has 1280 stream processors. to get 2048 stream processors you would need a 280x or 7970.

270x is a terrible value for what you can get for just a little bit more money in the current market. double the performance with an r9 290 for as little as $45 more dollars....

 

[Texashiker]

270x is a terrible value for what you can get for just a little bit more money in the current market. double the performance with an r9 290 for as little as $45 more dollars....

I am not seeing the r9 290 until the $260 price range.

 

[n0x1ous]

wait a couple weeks for black Friday - either way, the 290 launched @ $400 a little over a year ago. 270 isnt down much from launch price. spending a little more is well worth it here....

you want to play metro? 290 will give you a proper experience that you wont get out of the 270x

Even 285 or 280 is a big step up for not a lot more moeny from the midrange 270x. 270x is worth $100 tops in todays market

 

[SlowSpyder]

As been said, that must be an error in the Newegg listing, and you can get better bang for the buck with other cards. Here is a R9 280 for less (after rebate) than the cards in your first post, OP. And it is faster:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202099

I'm not sure if the R9 290 deals have dried up, they seem pricier than they were just a few days ago. But at any rate, you can do better than what is listed in the OP.

What resolution to you game at?

 

[Jimzz]

As said if you can wait a little more the 290 has been dropping quite a but and offers a good value when there are deals on it.

 

[Texashiker]

What resolution to you game at?

I think it is 1980x1080, or somewhere around that.

Thanks for the help everyone. I will wait for black friday / cyber monday and see what deals are out there.

So forget the 270 and either go with the 280 or 290, with the 290 being preferred.

But to the original question, does the higher steam processor count help gaming?

 

[n0x1ous]

But to the original question, does the higher steam processor count help gaming

yes - it essentially means how many "cores" the chip has. the more it has the more graphics work it can handle. since graphics workloads are extremely parallel, performance scales fairly linearly with stream processors (cuda cores for nvidia)