Thoughts on Sapphire R9 280 and Questions About HDMI

[Nietzsche-san]

Hey guys,

I've been a long-time forum member and thanks to you guys built my first-ever rig back in 2010 (big thanks to Mfenn and Davidh373; these guys rock).

For a while I was considering an upgrade, but my gtx 470 just kept kicking ass...until the artifacts of Atlantis starting popping up in Far Cry 3 the past week and blue screens of Malaria swept across my screen a few too many times.

Looked like it was time to retire the 'ol soldier.

So I ordered a Sapphire r9 280 for the following reasons

1. I'll be building a brand spankin' new gaming rig at the end of the year, so I just needed something to hold me over for now and possibly run Last Light, MGSV, and Witcher 3 at pretty good settings

2. My budget is pretty low since i'm about to graduate college and move to a new city

3. Wanted to try out AMD


So far, I'm loving it. I've never seen Far Cry 3 with every setting pumped up to max. It's fucking gorgeous. Also, pretty good framerate (though I think my CPU is bottlenecking me; gonna try and overclock it soon).


Only two questions:

1. Should I have gone with a 7970? Looks like the benchmarks are higher and the price is relatively the same (think I have the PSU for it, too; my signature has all my current system specs).

2. I'm noticing a slight...softness and faded-ness in icons, tabs, and letters on screen; it's my first time using HDMI (been using DVI with my gtx 470 for nearly 5 years), so it could just be that I haven't yet adjusted but here's some screenshots






Anyone noticed how scrunched everything looks? I tried magnifying the focus of the page, but that still left the icons and browser looking scrunched.


Other than that, I'm loving the new card (and really, any upgrade after 5 years is going to be pretty dramatic).

Thanks,

Nietzsche-San

 

[tential]

Your PSU can handle any single GPU out there just want to clear that one.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Your PSU can handle any single GPU out there just want to clear that one.

Haha, good to know. I remember back in 2010 posting a 1000-watt PSU for the gtx470 and everyone was like "woah, dude, are you trying to power a spaceship or something?" Funny how little you actually need for most things in life.


Also, just switched over to DVI and it looks MUCH better. I don't think it's a driver issue, since it's all mechanical. I noticed also that when I start up my computer, the BIOS readings are all wonky resolution-wise with HDMI but fit perfectly on the screen with DVI.