Broken Video Cards. Buy now or wait for Polaris/Pascal?

[Slacker]

Hi there!

Recently both of my R9 280x just gave out. I bought them used and XFX only gave me a 2-year warranty and it just so happens to crap out after the warranty. As of right now, I am running my lil bro's 750ti to drive my 4k monitor. The 750ti is great for browsing the web, video playback, and office work but cannot run any of my games with 4k even at the lowest settings. People would say run at a lower res so that the games can run. If that is the case, then might as well return my 4k monitor and just use my old 1080p monitor which I won't go back after having this awesome monitor.

On the horizon, both Amd and Nvidia will reveal their new GPUs that are based on the newer 14nm/16nm nodes that are not only power efficient but will run cooler. Thing is, I am desperate on playing again. I am ready to splurge on a Fury X to support my 4k and Freesync.

Question is: should i buy now or wait for new tech?

 

[jboydgolfer]

this is a question that ONLY you can answer properly.
Are you capable/able to go without gaming for the next "x" number of months?
Are You financially prepared to make the purchase now IF you decided to do so?

the answer to Either ofthose questions could answer your main queston.
if you arent able to wait. buy now. if you ARE able to wait buy then
IF you DO have the $$ for a gpu now, buy now, if You dont, the answer becomes not a choice, but a matter of saving up $$.

I personally am of the opinion of never waiting for the "next". its a cycle that never halts. unless the "next" is in a day or two, or some reasonably short amount of time. otherwise, just do it.

 

[Slacker]

this is a question that ONLY you can answer properly.
Are you capable/able to go without gaming for the next "x" number of months?
Are You financially prepared to make the purchase now IF you decided to do so?

the answer to Either ofthose questions could answer your main queston.
if you arent able to wait. buy now. if you ARE able to wait buy then
IF you DO have the $$ for a gpu now, buy now, if You dont, the answer becomes not a choice, but a matter of saving up $$.

I personally am of the opinion of never waiting for the "next". its a cycle that never halts. unless the "next" is in a day or two, or some reasonably short amount of time. otherwise, just do it.

Thanks for the reply jboydgolfer.

I am in a big dilemma. I'm not myself now for about two weeks of no gaming on my PC. MCOC on my phone can only do so much before wanting to play with a keyboard and mouse. I can afford the Fury X right now but the new GPUs promises alot of things. It is hard to decide and that is why I ask the TPU community for their input.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I get the impression that if you're going to wait for Pascal/Polaris, you're going to have to wait several more months at least. If you can't wait that long, might as well buy something now. If you can wait, Pascal/Polaris will be a big step up from what is on the market now.

 

[jboydgolfer]

^^^ that. i get the impression that your antsy already, and that being the case just buy the current iteration that best suits your needs.

Also, if You Truly feel liek You will want to opt out when the new line-up releases, there Are option to cater to that .which are as follows....

#1 buy now, and sell the fairly new card here on TPU when the new gpu's release.
#2 buy now and see AMD for what they tend to do , promise a LOT and deliver not so much (your considering the Fury which is theyre Top tier card, I HIGHLY doubt the next iteration of theyre gpus is gonna trump that by very much @ all, 10%? maybe)
#3 You can lease a current Gen card from a site like cuttingedge gamer. they rent/lease gpu's to own. I personally wouldnt do it because you pay more, but they DO have amazing support, a roommate of mine back a bunch of years used them, and his card was making SERIOUS coil whine, and he called them, and they shipped him out a new GPU, with a shipping biox, BEFORE he had to send the one he had back.

#4 just wait, or just buy

 

[Norton]

I bought them used and XFX only gave me a 2-year warranty and it just so happens to crap out after the warranty.

Did you try to talk with XFX about them? Some companies will still honor their warranty if you're a little bit over.

We have a rep on the forums frequently... Maybe @XFXSupport can try to assist you?

 

[jboydgolfer]

And then the option i forgot....

#@Norton- a member who isnt getting three kids resdy for school offers some even bestlierest advice

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I voted .....wait.



then i changed my mind.



Buy the FuryX and enjoy your 4 k now.

 

[basco]

can i ask how both gpu´s crapped out ?

 

[little cat]

Polaris is rumored to draw 2x less power than the current generation AMD graphics chips i.e. 110-130W . If You can put up with 250W consumption now , then "pull the trigger" , otherwise wait . I would wait till summer to see what is coming .

 

[ste2425]

I'm really out of the game with current gen hardware but if you buy current now won't it be rather more expensive then when the newest gear is released?

 

[AsRock]

Did you try to talk with XFX about them? Some companies will still honor their warranty if you're a little bit over.

We have a rep on the forums frequently... Maybe @XFXSupport can try to assist you?

THIS^^, although depending on maybe were you live but in the US the 280 i do believe have a lifetime warranty. Maybe you were late or did not realise that you could get it extended but anyways i would give them a call just in case as you never know right.

 

[EarthDog]

I said buy now... if you wait there is always something better around the corner. If you are ready, go get it.

 

[basco]

if the next gen is around corner and i need new stuff now then i buy something used that suits my needs.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Hunt high and low to find either a Fury X or 980Ti at a really good price, often they can be found with a couple of hours spent browsing all the usual retailers, then pull the trigger in the hope that your loss at the time of new tech being released will at least be minimised, I am not great at waiting for the unknown, you have a nice 4k monitor and a queue of games, use them!

If the costs are the only real factor, then that is different of course, my thinking above is based only on choice, not necessity.

 

[silentbogo]

I chose "wait", but what you should do is at least check if there are any PC repair places that do something more serious than modular repairs and ask how much will they charge for fixing your old cards.
If both of them crapped out almost at the same time(especially in the same system) - I can make an educated guess that it is not a GPU failure and is most likely related to GPU power circuitry (maybe a couple of failed mosfets/damaged passive components or something like that). Repairs of this kind are usually easy to diagnose, quick to fix and ultimately - cheaper than buying a new card.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Connect your 1080p monitor to the 750Ti and use that for a few months for gaming. You can still use the 4k for videos and so on.

Then once the new GPUs come out you're left with 2 choices:

1) You'll find a new Polaris/Pascal GPU that fits your needs
2) You'll see that the new GPUs aren't what you need and last gen (980Ti & Fury X) should have a price drop to sell remaining stock out OR you'll find people selling their used GPUs as they upgrade to the newly released cards.

 

[trog100]

Connect your 1080p monitor to the 750Ti and use that for a few months for gaming. You can still use the 4k for videos and so on.

Then once the new GPUs come out you're left with 2 choices:

1) You'll find a new Polaris/Pascal GPU that fits your needs
2) You'll see that the new GPUs aren't what you need and last gen (980Ti & Fury X) should have a price drop to sell remaining stock out OR you'll find people selling their used GPUs as they upgrade to the newly released cards.

yep..

trog

 

[rtwjunkie]

Connect your 1080p monitor to the 750Ti and use that for a few months for gaming. You can still use the 4k for videos and so on.

Then once the new GPUs come out you're left with 2 choices:

1) You'll find a new Polaris/Pascal GPU that fits your needs
2) You'll see that the new GPUs aren't what you need and last gen (980Ti & Fury X) should have a price drop to sell remaining stock out OR you'll find people selling their used GPUs as they upgrade to the newly released cards.

+1 to this. Use a 1080p monitor with the 750Ti and wait.

If you're the type who is absolutely unable to wait, then this thread is unnecessary.

 

[Moofachuka]

Wait til April 5's keynote then decide. Last I heard was Pascal's coming out in May/June

 

[GhostRyder]

Hi there!

Recently both of my R9 280x just gave out. I bought them used and XFX only gave me a 2-year warranty and it just so happens to crap out after the warranty. As of right now, I am running my lil bro's 750ti to drive my 4k monitor. The 750ti is great for browsing the web, video playback, and office work but cannot run any of my games with 4k even at the lowest settings. People would say run at a lower res so that the games can run. If that is the case, then might as well return my 4k monitor and just use my old 1080p monitor which I won't go back after having this awesome monitor.

On the horizon, both Amd and Nvidia will reveal their new GPUs that are based on the newer 14nm/16nm nodes that are not only power efficient but will run cooler. Thing is, I am desperate on playing again. I am ready to splurge on a Fury X to support my 4k and Freesync.

Question is: should i buy now or wait for new tech?

Well honestly its a hard decision based on your dilemma. But I have a couple of questions:

1: The cards that failed, how did they fail and both at the same time?
2: Have you tried the oven method for the R9 280X's? Might be able to repair them and keep them running for another couple of months.

If you can't fix them and just want to buy something/wait, here is my advice. The next architecture of cards is on the horizon but the actual release (Especially of high end parts from both sides) is a bit hazy especially on what were actually getting. If you would rather get the next generation, buy a better place holder card for now and just go with that. You can get an R9 390 (Or heck a used 290/290X) for less than $300 which should tide you over for awhile and give you Freesync support then just wait a couple of months or till the end of this year and make a big purchase. You will be able to sell the card at some point for at least $150-$200 depending on the card bought and still have some extra money towards a higher purchase. That is at least what I would do at this point in your shoes.

 

[Slacker]

Thanks so much guys for your replies!

I have taken my issue to XFX Support team. They told me that the R9 200 series does not have transferable Lifetime Warranty. So I only had 2 year warranty from the time I registered the cards on XFX. I will attach what I told them and what they responded me with.
The issue I have with finding the right price of a Fury X or 980ti is that where I live. I cannot make a purchase through Newegg as they don't ship to Guam. I don't really want to buy another used video cards like what i did 2 years ago. The only good place where I can buy brand new cards is from Mwave.com and they have very limited selection.

I have not fully opened the video cards to see if there are any burn capacitors or vrm. Even so, there is someone that can but finding the parts is hard.

 

[little cat]

Asus R9 390X (from the site) is about $500 but GTX 980 ti is 24% faster (4K gaming), so a lot of money needed

 

[GhostRyder]

Thanks so much guys for your replies!

I have taken my issue to XFX Support team. They told me that the R9 200 series does not have transferable Lifetime Warranty. So I only had 2 year warranty from the time I registered the cards on XFX. I will attach what I told them and what they responded me with.
The issue I have with finding the right price of a Fury X or 980ti is that where I live. I cannot make a purchase through Newegg as they don't ship to Guam. I don't really want to buy another used video cards like what i did 2 years ago. The only good place where I can buy brand new cards is from Mwave.com and they have very limited selection.

I have not fully opened the video cards to see if there are any burn capacitors or vrm. Even so, there is someone that can but finding the parts is hard.

Its not so much about replacing parts on cards (Because that's not normally worthwhile) its about quick fixes/band aids to see if we can keep them alive. Like before what issues were you having (No output from either card, lines, or other issues) because we could just have you remove the heat sink and see if you can cook the cards for a bit to bring them back to life just for a couple of months.

On a side note, on that site they have R9 390's for as low as $333 so I would check into that as a place holder for the time being as that would be a cheap upgrade that could tide you over until the new cards start coming out.

 

[overclocking101]

buy the fury now. seriously. the whole "wait" theory is moot plain and simple. new architectures always promise huge things. me personally if you think a fury possibly wont be enough then don't bother but the fury should be able to compete on some level with the new releases and typically the mid range cards are released first with the higher performance coming a month or so later, sometimes more then that. this isn't always the case but typically it is. so you would be waiting for possibly up to 4+ months. and you don't want to lower your resolution to play so the answer to me seems clear. buy the fury-x and if for some reason in 4~6 months you are not happy with it sell it on the forums and buy a new series. but with my experience when the new releases come out driver support is not exactly desirable for at least a couple releases. just my 2 cents but that's how I have lived by for 6+ years. I used to buy the newest stuff but being the guinea pig never left a good taste in my mouth if you know what I mean.
EDIT: seems as though you dont have the money for a fury-x so if possible I would think about the 390 or 390x I game at 1080p and my r9380x runs beautifully. I also can game at 2560x1440 perfectly no lower the 50fps so far, also I played just cause 3 at 3840x2160 for a little while with around 40fps but I prefer 180p so I always switch back. just as a reference, I dont own a 4k monitor so I wouldn't know the difference.