2x USED R9 290x vs. new GTX 980

[The N]

Depending upon Resolution, if 1080p then single 980 would be more than enough. infact 970 fulfils all you need or requirments.

a single 290 well OCed beating 780Ti, so 2x290 will be crusher. but i doubt on optimization of Crossfire in Games and benchmarks. AMd always facing problem, drivers aren't fully optimized. in that way i would suggest to go NVIDIA way. a single 980 would be more than enough. its already beating 780Ti and after driver it will perform nevertheless much faster.

OR

2x780 would be great too. but i dont recommend Crossfire of especially 290 as there are alot of optimization issue in that. single will give 100 FPS, if double give perform around 150 FPS then they aren't worthy at all.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

970 is an obvious choice, if you're really desperate for bleeding edge frames, then get the 980 instead. Every other GPU at this point is entirely irrelevant, both performance and pricewise, until somebody brings something better to the table.

he does mentioned resolution . 5750 x 1080

 

[RCoon]

he does mentioned resolution . 5750 x 1080

Seen and amended

 

[Oterspiser]

Ah damn, the R9 290X setup i was gonna buy got sold a couple of days ago, the cheapest R9 290X-setup would cost me a litte more than a 970 SLI-rig would.
As far as power goes, it doesn't matter, I've got a 1200 W PSU and I pay a fixed amount monthly so...

And according to Techpowerup's review of GTX 970 SLI and R9 290X CF it looks like the 970 SLI generally outperforms the 290X CF.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/20.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290X_CrossFire/21.html

Noise is also irrelevant to me, I mean, compared to two HD 6990s most things are a gentle breeze.

 

[adulaamin]

2 x 970s... $100 more than the 290Xs but they're brand new with warranty and consume less power...


Edit:

Oops... didn't see your post while I was replying... 970s FTW!

 

[Oterspiser]

Yup, pretty much Michael Jackson-leaning towards a GTX970 SLI setup now.

 

[JethroBodine]

Yup, pretty much Michael Jackson-leaning towards a GTX970 SLI setup now.

Two 970s is definitely the "bang for buck" champion these days, and likely will be for some time.

 

[The N]

i think ou need to go for 2 gpus but the one that are most efficient in power. as more gpu more heat. 2x970 would b your best bet. also in future you will get good resale value. 290 too much heat and noise.

 

[Stardust342]

And according to Techpowerup's review of GTX 970 SLI and R9 290X CF it looks like the 970 SLI generally outperforms the 290X CF.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/20.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290X_CrossFire/21.html

If you are running at 5760x1080, the 290x CF outperformed the 970 SLI...

 

[newconroer]

Not speaking specifically of you, though I hear a lot of people talk about R9 heat and yet they've never had one or used one.

Noise does depend upon cooling setup, but you must admit a 970 will run cooler at load compared to a 290 or 290x. It is easier to cool and will more likely be significantly quieter.

I disagree about this. Average temperatures of a 290 vs 970 are within +/- 10 degrees. I'm actually disappointed in how hot the 970s run even with third party coolers.
Now if it can undervolt well, maybe there's something to be gained there.

I am a fan of undervolted as opposed to overclocking in many circumstances. Saying this, undervolting ability I don't think it is a valid reason to purchase. You can not undervolt a 290 or 290x to match a 970.

What I mean is that with a multi card setup you most often get your 60 frames capped in 90% of situations. Overclocking would just result in unnecessary gains that you won't see. Furthermore, the 290s can undervolt and still overclock their frequencies : )

970 is an obvious choice, if you're really desperate for bleeding edge frames, then get the 980 instead. Every other GPU at this point is entirely irrelevant, both performance and pricewise, until somebody brings something better to the table.

Speaking strictly brand new then maybe, but that's not what's being asked here.
All Nvidia have done is release a lower power draw 780 card with 4GB and a new AA technology.

If the question was previously 290 vs 780?, then it effectively it still is.

 

[Stardust342]

Not speaking specifically of you, though I hear a lot of people talk about R9 heat and yet they've never had one or used one.


I disagree about this. Average temperatures of a 290 vs 970 are within +/- 10 degrees. I'm actually disappointed in how hot the 970s run even with third party coolers.

Yes, I've heard complaints of extremely hot 970's, and there are 290/x's that have very good coolers and can remain almost silent.

 

[newconroer]

I was impressed with AMD's caution to the wind approach with the r9 290's power requirements. A) They said fu** the green movement and B) Despite a few hiccups and poor reference coolers, the end result has been quite fantastic.
Meanwhile, already with third party coolers Maxwell isn't showing a reduced heat foot print to scale evenly with it's energy footprint - as expected. I wonder what they've sacrificed to get this interim product out the door. We can't even say it's a market test bed for the upcoming Pascal because it doesn't offer anything that we hope Pascal will.

Meanwhile the performance isn't much better than 780 Keplers.
Personally I don't get it.

 

[Nordic]

2 x 290X's, easy. That is the most raw power for your use. Forget the small power savings of a single card. Oooh, extra few dollars a month. (Plus you mention you want to run "eyefinity". that is only AMD. Nvidia has "surround".)

Forgeting peak and maximum power usage and focusing on only average power usage the 970 uses 161w and the 290x used 246w from w1zzards reviews. 246-161= 85w. 85*2= 170w.

Not speaking specifically of you, though I hear a lot of people talk about R9 heat and yet they've never had one or used one.


I disagree about this. Average temperatures of a 290 vs 970 are within +/- 10 degrees. I'm actually disappointed in how hot the 970s run even with third party coolers.
Now if it can undervolt well, maybe there's something to be gained there.



What I mean is that with a multi card setup you most often get your 60 frames capped in 90% of situations. Overclocking would just result in unnecessary gains that you won't see. Furthermore, the 290s can undervolt and still overclock their frequencies : )




Speaking strictly brand new then maybe, but that's not what's being asked here.
All Nvidia have done is release a lower power draw 780 card with 4GB and a new AA technology.

If the question was previously 290 vs 780?, then it effectively it still is.

The heat the gpu shows and the amount put into air are another thing, but I see your point on this matter.

Also, the majority of people who buy gpu's don't overclock or undervolt.

 

[Stardust342]

Also, the majority of people who buy gpu's don't overclock or undervolt.

People always say this, but is it true? Has there really ever been so much as a survey on this? If someone buys a pre-built computer, I don't think they are likely to overclock it, but if they buy a a graphics card and install it themselves, I think it makes them a lot more likely to overclock it.

 

[The N]

well guys, AMD is still can't be ignorable ............check these score. the graphics score. a single 290 close to single 980 with good Ocing

290

980

 

[arbiter]

well guys, AMD is still can't be ignorable ............check these score. the graphics score. a single 290 close to single 980 with good Ocing

290

980

few questions on those results,
1. How many those 290 cards get that overclock? What i seen in most reviews that one is one the picks of the litter of hawaii gpu's. Doubt most hawaii gpu's can get 1300mhz OC stable.

2. on the 980 is that 1360 mhz what it topped out as? A lot of people get closer to 1500 and up on maxwell chips, Seems like 1400+ is what mostly all them can do.

 

[RCoon]

Meanwhile the performance isn't much better than 780 Keplers.
Personally I don't get it.

The performance is better than the Keplers though. I went from 780 to 970 and there is a clear performance improvement. Look at W1zzard charts and the evidence is there. Not to mention they overclocked quite admirably. Granted the performance per hz isn't that great in terms of over clocking performance potential, but to a neutral party looking in, maxwell is an obvious choice over hawaii, particularly at stock clocks, which most of the population of users has. Not everyone over clocks, it's a very small number.

Also, do note that most 970's actually have much smaller cards, therefore coolers than most flagships cards. The cards are shorter, the coolers are shorter, on most of the brands, in comparison to almost every 290/X which has triple fan coolers attached to big blocks of aluminium. My current 970 is about 3/4's of the size of my old Windforce 780. The smaller real estate alone of the cooler should explain why the cards run at average temperatures.

There is also the simple fact that if you OC one card to kingdom come, you will not be able to do so with crossfire/sli without watercooling, as the general temperature of the entire case will rise with the extra card, so either temps will be crazy, or you're going to have to scale back. Claiming a well OC'd 290 beats out a 780ti (does it really though, if you include the potential OC of a 780ti as well?), is irrelevant. Try OCing two 290's to that level in a generic standard midi tower case.

 

[Naito]

I was impressed with AMD's caution to the wind approach with the r9 290's power requirements. A) They said fu** the green movement and B) Despite a few hiccups and poor reference coolers, the end result has been quite fantastic.

The 'green movement' is important, generally the more energy efficient architecture, the easier it is to scale. This is particular important if the chips in question are being built larger on an existing node. Who knows, a change of node and a large scale up of Maxwell, we may see some pretty darn impressive chips next year (i.e. GM200/GM210). I mean look at Intel, they have Xeon chips using the 2011-3 Haswell platform with 18 cores and a TDP envelope of 145W. Sure the core clocks are a good 1GHz or so below consumer chips, but it does go to show Intel's pursuit of energy efficiency works wonders for scaling architectures.

Meanwhile the performance isn't much better than 780 Keplers.
Personally I don't get it.

1. You're seeing a mid-tier GM204 going against what was considered the flagship, the GK110. So pretty impressive there.
2. The price/performance ratio is excellent.
3. For a chip that is being built on a mature node (28nm) with less transistors and smaller die overall (I know you can't really compare core config across generations), it is very impressive to see such performance

I'm sure I could think of more reasons.

All Nvidia have done is release a lower power draw 780 card with 4GB and a new AA technology.

I guess you missed the memo on the redesigned SMM units?

 

[Oterspiser]

Yes, I've heard complaints of extremely hot 970's, and there are 290/x's that have very good coolers and can remain almost silent.

The particular GTX 970's I'm considering are the EVGA ones with the ACX 2.0 coolers, so they should do a bit better than reference

If you are running at 5760x1080, the 290x CF outperformed the 970 SLI...

Yes, but that is almost exclusive to 5760x1080, considering the fact that many games don't run properly or at all at this resolution, I also have to factor in lower resolutions.

Also, there is:
The bonus of brand new cards, warranty, wear and tear
DirectX 12 compatability
PhysX and such goodness
Hopefully better drivers than what AMD has been giving out lately

 

[Stardust342]

Yes, but that is almost exclusive to 5760x1080, considering the fact that many games don't run properly or at all at this resolution, I also have to factor in lower resolutions.

Also, there is:
The bonus of brand new cards, warranty, wear and tear
DirectX 12 compatability
PhysX and such goodness
Hopefully better drivers than what AMD has been giving out lately

Almost all modern games support it, and most old games can be easily modded to support it.
AMD 7000 cards and up support DX12...
Not very many games support PhysX....
There is nothing wrong with AMD drivers... they just released some new ones which increased performance and added new features...

 

[Oterspiser]

Almost all modern games support it, and most old games can be easily modded to support it.
AMD 7000 cards and up support DX12...
Not very many games support PhysX....
There is nothing wrong with AMD drivers... they just released some new ones which increased performance and added new features...

Like 14.4 that only enabled 2 of my three screens at the same time, a problem that support had been notified of by several users.....
or 14.7 RC1 and RC3 that both caused artefacts in BF4 eyefinity and constantly crashes Watch_Dogs shortly after launch
and which one of the 13 drivers was it that made brown, black and blue the only colors displayed?
and it goes on...

 

[Stardust342]

Like 14.4 that only enabled 2 of my three screens at the same time, a problem that support had been notified of by several users.....
or 14.7 RC1 and RC3 that both caused artefacts in BF4 eyefinity and constantly crashes Watch_Dogs shortly after launch
and which one of the 13 drivers was it that made brown, black and blue the only colors displayed?
and it goes on...

And do you have any of these problems with the new patch?

 

[Mindweaver]

Cheapest GTX 970 I could find would cost me about 400$ a piece

If you are already spending $700 then I wouldn't cheap out now because of $100. Right now 2x 970's overclocked are the best bang for the buck.

 

[Oterspiser]

And do you have any of these problems with the new patch?

Still getting artefacts in BF4 eyefinity and Watch_Dogs won't go further than main menu....

 

[newconroer]

I'll rephrase what I said before... I don't get the point of the big lean towards forking out cash for a brand new Maxwell card, when the other options in your budget will achieve the same at less cost.

I do appreciate that the 970s - as per this example - provide you an edge in performance over the Kepler and with a smaller physical footprint.
However I do not support this assumption that they have a more energy efficient architecture, to the point that it will set the ground works for Pascal.

Whatever is happening with Pascal I believe will be an actual real leap forward in every way.

I also stand by my comment that in accordance with the so called energy angle of these products, that they are not as 'green' impressive as I would have expected.
Furthermore what's glaring is the heat they output, despite these 'energy' improvements.

As far as I'm concerned it's Kepler 2.0 and that's fine, but lets not treat it like the coming of Christ, when in fact there's other options out there.