MSI R9 280 Gaming v PNY GTX760 XLR8 – £185 shootout

1. Introduction2. MSI R9 280 Gaming3. MSI R9 280 Gaming (High Res Gallery)4. PNY GTX760 XLR85. PNY GTX760 XLR8 (High Res Gallery)6. Testing Methodology7. 3DMark Vantage8. 3DMark 119. 3DMark10. Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. Unigine Valley Benchmark12. Thief13. Total War: ROME 214. Tomb Raider15. Metro Last Light16. GRID 217. Watchdogs18. Thermal Dynamics19. Acoustics Performance20. Power Consumption21. Overclocking22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

‘Which card should I get to game at 1080p with my limited budget? The GTX760 or the R9 280?‘. We get asked this question a lot, especially on our busy Facebook page. The good news is that thanks to recent price drops the choices available this month are extremely compelling. We took a trip to SCAN in the UK and picked up two cards around the £185 mark – the MSI R9 280 Gaming and the PNY GTX760 XLR8. We haven't analysed either of these cards this year, so it makes it all the more interesting.

If you have already read the review from the start then you will already know, yes, there is a clear winner.

The PNY GTX760 XLR8 is available for around £180 and performance for the price is pretty good. While the PNY card has been clearly outperformed by the MSI R9 280 Gaming Edition, at 1080p it is actually a very capable board, holding playable frame rates with high image quality settings – even in some of the more demanding Direct X 11 titles.

While there are other, slightly higher clocked GTX760 solutions available for less than £200 it was clear that even when we overclocked the PNY GTX760 XLR8 to 1,116mhz, it was still unable to keep up with the MSI R9 280 Gaming at the ‘out of the box' speeds.

Frame rates would only increase by 2-4 frames per second in many of the Direct X 11 games we tested. Even the flagship KFA2 GTX760 HOF clocked at 1,110mhz and priced at £215.99 inc vat wouldn't keep up with the MSI R9 280 Gaming. This is even before we follow the same procedure with the MSI R9 280, and enhance the clock speeds via software.

Nvidia's reference cooler on the GTX760 performs very well, aided by the fact that the GTX760 is quite a cool running card anyway, demanding minimal power under load. It may be a single fan solution, but Nvidia could teach AMD plenty about designing a good reference cooler.

At around £180 inc vat, the PNY GTX760 XLR8 delivers reasonable value for money and will satisfy many gamers who want to play the latest titles at 1080p with high image quality settings. There is no doubt these cards are lagging behind the AMD R9 280 after recent price drops, but Nvidia fans have been very satisfied with the performance since they were released.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• Nvidia reference cooler is good.
• solid performance at 1080p.
• low power drain under load.
• A quiet card.

Cons:

• It is facing a very tough time against the R9 280 at the same price.
• Even at 1,100+ it won't compete against the R9 280 at 970mhz.

Kitguru says: It is a good performer at 1080p, but it won't compete against the R9 280 at the same price.

The MSI R9 280 Gaming is without question the clear winner in our £185 shootout. It manages to produce some marvelous frame rates at 1080p and it can even cope with some Direct X 11 games at 1600p with high image quality settings enabled. A few years ago, you would have had to spend close to £300 to get similar performance, so there is no doubt is a good time to invest in a new graphics card.

The MSI R9 280 Gaming isn't the fastest R9 280 we have seen under £200, but we selected two cards today that we feel represent both Nvidia and AMD hardware at this very competitive price point.

Even when we left the MSI R9 280 Gaming at the ‘out of the box speeds' and overclocked the PNY GTX760 XLR8 to 1,100mhz+, the Nvidia solution just couldn't keep up. If we applied the same methodology and overclocked the R9 280 to over 1,100mhz it was in a completely different playing field.

The MSI Twin Frozr IV cooler is exceptionally good, and it is very quiet at all times even under extended synthetic load via Furmark. When gaming you would be hard pressed to hear it running, especially if you have a couple of performance case fans operating at the same time.

The MSI R9 280 Gaming isn't supplied in the highest state of overclock, but we managed to increase the core clock speeds from 970mhz to 1,151mhz. An 18.5% additional overclock is quite impressive and it did push performance to the next level, generating another 4-5 frames per second with some of the games we tested today.

You can pick up the MSI R9 280 Gaming from Scan in the UK for around £185 inc vat. At this modest price it is certainly one of the best value for money purchases you could make, especially if you value extremely low noise when gaming … such as late night gaming in a bedroom environment.

The recent price drops on the R9 280 are impressive, but they will surely hurt sales of the R9 270X, which is still priced around the £170 inc mark (and even up to £180!) via many etailers today.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• Looks great.
• runs cool and quiet.
• plenty of additional overclocking headroom.
• decent bundle including a Crossfire cable.

Cons:

• After recent price drops it is difficult to fault.

KitGuru says: With recent price drops, for around £185 this looks like the card to beat. It is hurting the GTX760, but it also will hurt sales of the R9 270X.

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