Gigabyte Gtx 970 G1 or AMD R9 390?

[Silverforce11]

290 are 10c cooler than 290x, just don't OC.

As someone who owns multiple R290s and R290X, I don't know where you come up with this stuff.

Here's my R290X in a Valley run (everything stock/auto), look at the VRM temps:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37596583&postcount=136

 

[GEOrifle]

Yes sure, if you got water-cooled.
PEOPLE 290-290X ARE LIKE NUCKLEAR DEVICE WITH HEATHING AT HOME.
At least just check YouTube videos for it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Forget it, just returned my 2-nd XFX 290x , idle 52c and load 90-95c, VRM overheats 110c even i added extra heat-sink and fan.

Either something was seriously wrong with your card or your default CCC fan profile was set too low/incorrectly. Maybe you ran your card at 25-30% fan speed at load? Or are you testing the card in Furmark or something?

XFX R9 290X review #1
38C idle
77C load
82C load max overclocked
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_r9_290x_dd/16.htm

XFX R9 290X review #2
"Given how cool the XFX R9 290X DD Black Edition is for an R9 290X, you’d be forgiven for thinking it must have incredibly loud fans, yet this really isn’t the case. With a temperature of approximately 75.00C the fans on auto will ramp up to 70% which knocks out 32dB within our Test Rig."
http://www.pcgameware.co.uk/reviews/graphics-cards/xfx-radeon-r9-290x-dd-black-edition-review/

XFX R9 290X Review #3
"We should also mention that the VRM temperatures –a longtime issue for XFX heatsinks- remained at 76°C throughout the test which is well below safe operating temperatures for these devices."

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...deon-r9-290x-double-dissipation-review-7.html

XFX R9 290X review #4

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...issipation_overclocking_review/7#.Vdi4Yvkb8sg

Since you claim both of your cards were hitting 90-95C at load with crazy VRM temperatures, it sounds like your fan profile (perhaps a custom fan profile in MSI AB from a previous card?) was not set up correctly.

At least just check YouTube videos for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si_eX9FlBQQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvBSKEpro5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwRWi3Bz0qc

Yes sure, if you got water-cooled.
PEOPLE 290-290X ARE LIKE NUCKLEAR DEVICE WITH HEATHING AT HOME.
At least just check YouTube videos for it.

With statements like these it sounds like you made this thread to troll with full intention on buying a 970 in the first place. Are you suggesting that a modern i5/i7 rig with a 290-290X will heat up your room but an i5/i7 + 970 rig will not? You realize how hot a card runs has little to do with heating up your room. If you set a fan profile to 10-20%, you can get any high-end card to hit 95C but what heats up the room is power usage.

Enjoy your 970 but stop spreading misinformation about R9 290/290X series as by the sound of it you didn't even attempt to figure out what the issues were. I never saw any post by you about even a 1st XFX R9 290X card that ran hot and asking for anyone to help you diagnose what the issue could have been (improper fan profile for example).

 

[Ma_Deuce]

Could he have gotten a XFX branded 290x with the reference cooler on it?

 

[lyssword]

I have 970, quite happy with it, but I got it for $230. For same price I'd go 390 for sure

 

[Silverforce11]

Yes sure, if you got water-cooled.
PEOPLE 290-290X ARE LIKE NUCKLEAR DEVICE WITH HEATHING AT HOME.
At least just check YouTube videos for it.

My R290X is air cooled, the Asus model, very similar to XFX model. So now you're just hyperboling and making up crap. Nice troll thread.

 

[Headfoot]

Yes sure, if you got water-cooled.
PEOPLE 290-290X ARE LIKE NUCKLEAR DEVICE WITH HEATHING AT HOME.
At least just check YouTube videos for it.

Pretty obvious by this point you're just trolling

 

[Ma_Deuce]

Pretty obvious by this point you're just trolling

I think that maybe he ended up with something like the "XFX" model in this link. It has to be it for those temps. I would really like to think that no one would waste time trolling an older card like that. Judging by the things they have posted, I don't think that they are exactly computer savvy anyway.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150675

Off topic but where are you getting your LED bulbs for $5 like you mention in your sig? All of the decent LED bulbs that i have been able to find locally have been expensive, especially if you want 100 watt bulbs.

 

[tential]

The point of an LED bulb is that it doesn't use 100 watts....

The reason that's in his sig is because people on here complain about power usage CONSTANTLY, then have bulbs that are 100 watts.

They say "The 290x will heat up my room!" when it consumes 50-100 watts more power, but have 4 100+ watt bulbs on in their room. My room gets hot not because of my gaming rig, but because I have lights on. LED lights in my room further prevent it from heating up. So you use a 10 watt LED bulb instead of a 100 watt normal bulb which saves 90 watts. WHICH IS FAR MORE EFFICIENT ENERGY SAVINGS than worrying about a 50-100 watt difference in a gaming rig when you can save a lot more money buying a cheaper card, and a couple of LED bulbs for 5 bucks.

 

[shady28]

The point of an LED bulb is that it doesn't use 100 watts....

The reason that's in his sig is because people on here complain about power usage CONSTANTLY, then have bulbs that are 100 watts.

They say "The 290x will heat up my room!" when it consumes 50-100 watts more power, but have 4 100+ watt bulbs on in their room. My room gets hot not because of my gaming rig, but because I have lights on. LED lights in my room further prevent it from heating up.

What is odd is that someone would think that people have a lot of incandescent bulbs.

I own my own house and the only incandescent I know of here is in the attic. I think it's been turned on 3 times. The only place I ever see them now is in decorative light fixtures with the little 15w jobs, in an attic, or rarely used closet. This is just based on family / friends and house-hunting I was doing about this time last year. I personally don't think I've bought an incandescent in 5+ years.

The incandescent bulb isn't quite dead yet, but it's very very close and it's been declining for over a decade.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs

Governments around the world have passed measures to phase out incandescent light bulbs for general lighting in favor of more energy-efficient lighting alternatives. Phase-out regulations effectively ban the manufacture, importation or sale of incandescent light bulbs for general lighting. The regulations would allow sale of future versions of incandescent bulbs if they are sufficiently energy efficient.
Brazil and Venezuela started the controversial phase-out in 2005,[citation needed] and the European Union, Switzerland,[1] and Australia[2] started to phase them out in 2009.[3] Likewise, other nations are implementing new energy standards or have scheduled phase-outs: Argentina,[4] and Russia in 2012, and the United States, Canada,[5] Mexico, Malaysia[6] and South Korea in 2014.[7]

 

[tential]

That's you my friend.
As you can see, America is far behind the curve of the rest of the country, and when I mentioned the LIFX smartbulb led lights I'm getting, not a single person in my workplace had LED lights in their house. Using shipments in Europe, doesn't account for the massive amount of Americans on this forum. But ok, thanks for nitpicking.

My point is already proven by the person who I was responding to looking for 100W LED bulbs to replace their 100W incandescent bulbs. Not sure how you weren't able to piece that together but whatever.

 

[shady28]

That's you my friend.
As you can see, America is far behind the curve of the rest of the country, and when I mentioned the LIFX smartbulb led lights I'm getting, not a single person in my workplace had LED lights in their house. Using shipments in Europe, doesn't account for the massive amount of Americans on this forum. But ok, thanks for nitpicking.

My point is already proven by the person who I was responding to looking for 100W LED bulbs to replace their 100W incandescent bulbs. Not sure how you weren't able to piece that together but whatever.

My point that you couldn't piece together was that this statement you made :

The reason that's in his sig is because people on here complain about power usage CONSTANTLY, then have bulbs that are 100 watts.

That's patently ridiculous because people generally don't use incandescent bulbs anymore, and haven't for years - and im speaking of the USA. I included europe in one chart for completeness. I don't know anyone buying incandescent unless it's for a decorative use.

As far as LEDs go, CFL is far more common. LEDs really only became a thing in the last year and are far more expensive than CFL with minimal relative benefit (going from 100W -> 23W CFL vs 23W CFL -> 16W LED). LEDs main advantage is they last longer and don't contain mercury.

 

[Ma_Deuce]

The point of an LED bulb is that it doesn't use 100 watts....

The reason that's in his sig is because people on here complain about power usage CONSTANTLY, then have bulbs that are 100 watts.

They say "The 290x will heat up my room!" when it consumes 50-100 watts more power, but have 4 100+ watt bulbs on in their room. My room gets hot not because of my gaming rig, but because I have lights on. LED lights in my room further prevent it from heating up. So you use a 10 watt LED bulb instead of a 100 watt normal bulb which saves 90 watts. WHICH IS FAR MORE EFFICIENT ENERGY SAVINGS than worrying about a 50-100 watt difference in a gaming rig when you can save a lot more money buying a cheaper card, and a couple of LED bulbs for 5 bucks.

I should have state 100 watt equivalent lol. I'm not looking for 100 watt LED bulbs...

I understand his reasoning as well, but the bulbs have been much more expensive where I live. I don't remember exact pricing but they are around 5x more expensive than CFL and the wattage improvement over CFL is minimal. I also refuse to purchase GE branded/rebranded products so that limits my options as well.

 

[RussianSensation]

Pretty obvious by this point you're just trolling

100% he is. I just realized he posted a hot deal on the $309 970 in the Hot Deals section where I not only provided him with 3 alternatives from AMD and NV, which were better value to start with. If he thought $309 970 was a hot deal on August 18th, why did he need to start a thread on 970 vs. 290 decision considering at $309 he found the 970 to be a Hot Deal, the very same day when I linked him a $290 970, $220 290 and $260 290X?

The point of an LED bulb is that it doesn't use 100 watts....

The reason that's in his sig is because people on here complain about power usage CONSTANTLY, then have bulbs that are 100 watts.

It's very easy to see that perf/watt and power usage were never factors that truly mattered because if they did, HD4000/5000/6000 and a lot of HD7000 series (it took NV 6-9 months to do a full Kepler roll-out from 650-660Ti), would already have had 60-70% market share since NV was not competitive in perf/watt for 3.5 generations. And yet, not only did NV users wait for 6 months to buy worse perf/watt Fermi cards, but they also skipped HD4000-6000 series.

Perf/watt is just a random metric that's used to justify their brand preference, like why a $200 960 is somehow worth buying over a 50% faster $250 R9 290. Similarly to how they taught how 290/290X cards all run hot and loud, always ignoring the existence of after-market solutions. I thought you'd see right through all of that by now.

Did you ever wonder why almost none of them to this day go out of their way to recommend a $250 PowerColor PCS+ 290?

1. It's cool

It's 43% faster than an after-market 960, just 4% behind an after-market 970.
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/...#abschnitt_tests_in_1920__1080_und_2560__1440

It costs $250 and NV has no competition against it unless we consider a b-stock GTX970; and yet this forum will NOT recommend an after-market 290, instead using NV marketing gimmicks like 4K decoding, HDMI 2.0, DX12 feature set, number of DisplayPorts and all kinds of NV marketing bullet-points to downplay a gigantic 40-50% performance deficit cards like 960 have against similar AMD cards. It's almost as if some posters on here are working for a certain company or are so devoted to the brand, that they downplay traditional metrics like performance and perf/watt in lieu of features that either have no benefit to the majority of PC gamers or may only prove to be beneficial years from now when it's time to upgrade to a new card anyway.

In Trine 3, a reference R9 290 is 42% faster than a 960 and 91% faster than a $170-180 GTX950. North American review sites get marketing $, free review samples, media perks and so on so a company with more resources is able to provide more of these perks. Similarly, if the GPU market share is nearly 80% in favour of some major player that sends you free review samples, which cards are you more likely to recommend?

That's why today, the PC gamer has to go out of his way to read European, Australian, New Zeland, etc. objective reviews and do proper research as most North American sites (esp. the ones who don't buy their own cards) can hardly be trusted to provide truly objective/BEST advice for a PC gamer. That's why we are starting to see websites create artificial budget ceilings of $170 or something ridiculous to obfuscate themselves of any bias but anyone with experience of following this industry can see through most of this marketing PR. Forums such as ours are supposed to help PC builders/gamers weave through all of the marketing BS/PR because the very existence of these publications rests on the support by the companies that send them samples and marketing $$$. Because of this conflict of interest, it's more or less impossible to expect objectivity in today's hardware reviews in North America. Some sites are so obvious now they hardly even try to hide who supports them.

 

[shady28]

It's very easy to see that perf/watt and power usage were never factors that truly mattered because if they did, HD4000/5000/6000 and a lot of HD7000 series (it took NV 6-9 months to do a full Kepler roll-out from 650-660Ti), would already have had 60-70% market share since NV was not competitive in perf/watt for 3.5 generations. And yet, not only did NV users wait for 6 months to buy worse perf/watt Fermi cards, but they also skipped HD4000-6000 series.

AMD had marketshare lead over Nvidia for all of 2011 and 2012, the time frame you're talking about.

Nvidia dominance in market share started about the same time the R9 xxx series rolled out.


Q3 2011

Q4 2012

Q1 2013

 

[GEOrifle]

I didn't started it because of i HATE AMD but because i have owned already 290 and 290x cards and they ARE REALLY HOT compared what 970 are.
WTF ???
I don't need you EXPLANATIONS how good you're with help at forum, just leave it and let other people say their opinions.

In 2 weeks i have changed 2 AMD cards and have nothing but headaches and you're posting how COOL AMD's are, common...
That's why post is about:AMD vs NVIDIA.

Don't like it WALK AWAY, THAT"S IT....

 

[Ma_Deuce]

I didn't started it because of i HATE AMD but because i have owned already 290 and 290x cards and they ARE REALLY HOT compared what 970 are.
WTF ???
I don't need you EXPLANATIONS how good you're with help at forum, just leave it and let other people say their opinions.

In 2 weeks i have changed 2 AMD cards and have nothing but headaches and you're posting how COOL AMD's are, common...
That's why post is about:AMD vs NVIDIA.

Don't like it WALK AWAY, THAT"S IT....

You are making ignorant blanket statements about good cards. Don't expect everyone to agree with you or not to refute your claims.

 

[positivedoppler]

I've ponder the 290(390 now) vs 970 question for some time. First I lean towards the 290 because of the price with the aim of eventually getting 2. Then as the 970 price dropped (due to the 3.5 gig fiasco) I kind of started leaning towards the 970s. When Fury came out, I was willing to pay a premium for it due to the small form factor and it being supposedly the ideal VR machine.

Now with the current DirectX12 fiasco, I'm not sure anymore. Fury doesn't seem to perform that much better than 390 so it no longer seem to justify the premium. The 970 I'm not sure if it's a driver thing getting worked on or hardware limitation. I hope a few more DirectX 12 games gets release to paint a better picture. The goal now is something that will run the double 1080 display OR like device as smoothly as possible and hopefully won't have to upgrade until they move to double 4k.

Also kind of disappointed there are no Video Cards VR review out there...

 

[96Firebird]

I didn't started it because of i HATE AMD but because i have owned already 290 and 290x cards and they ARE REALLY HOT compared what 970 are.
WTF ???
I don't need you EXPLANATIONS how good you're with help at forum, just leave it and let other people say their opinions.

In 2 weeks i have changed 2 AMD cards and have nothing but headaches and you're posting how COOL AMD's are, common...
That's why post is about:AMD vs NVIDIA.

Don't like it WALK AWAY, THAT"S IT....

Welcome to VC&G forum, where if you don't follow someone's advice they get angry and start throwing the troll word around.

Sadly, it continues... :\

 

[iiiankiii]

I didn't started it because of i HATE AMD but because i have owned already 290 and 290x cards and they ARE REALLY HOT compared what 970 are.
WTF ???
I don't need you EXPLANATIONS how good you're with help at forum, just leave it and let other people say their opinions.

In 2 weeks i have changed 2 AMD cards and have nothing but headaches and you're posting how COOL AMD's are, common...
That's why post is about:AMD vs NVIDIA.

Don't like it WALK AWAY, THAT"S IT....

I have the powercolor pcs 290x and the evga gtx 970 acx. Both have AIB coolers on them. They are both cool and quiet.

 

[shady28]

You are making ignorant blanket statements about good cards. Don't expect everyone to agree with you or not to refute your claims.

Actually he bought a couple and was rec'ing them, along with many many others in many threads :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37578811&highlight=#post37578811

Then he found out that yes, despite what a lot of folks here say, R9 290s and R9290X cards can and do generate a lot of heat and require significant case ventilation (esp in x-fire).

I suppose if someone lives in a cold climate the heat output of these cards is not a big deal, but in x-fire you still need to ventilate the case bigtime.

Or for a little more you could just get a 970 and not have to deal with those kinds of issues.

 

[SolMiester]

deleted...waste of breath!

 

[iiiankiii]

Actually he bought a couple and was rec'ing them, along with many many others in many threads :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37578811&highlight=#post37578811

Then he found out that yes, despite what a lot of folks here say, R9 290s and R9290X cards can and do generate a lot of heat and require significant case ventilation (esp in x-fire).

I suppose if someone lives in a cold climate the heat output of these cards is not a big deal, but in x-fire you still need to ventilate the case bigtime.

Or for a little more you could just get a 970 and not have to deal with those kinds of issues.

Are we talking about single card or multi-cards? Of course, at that point, things change heavily. I wouldn't even recommend 2x of any cards except the highest tier card (980ti, titanx, fury, fury x). If you can get the same or similiar with 1 card, you do that instead. Plus, 2x 970 will be held back by 3.5gb more than 2x 290/x.

For a single card, unless you run some janky case with very, very little air flow, it wouldn't matter much. On the other hand, if you try to shove a GTX 970 in a case with janky air flow, it will suck, too! I have both of those cards. The heat issue is exaggerated. We're talking about ~50watts delta. Are you seriously thinking that's going to blow up your room? C'mon. That's a light bulb in terms of wattage.....

edit: I'm talking about AIB GPUs, not reference designs. We all know the 290/x reference cooler was jank. A proper cooled 290/x consumes less power, runs cooler and doesn't throttle.

 

[tweakboy]

Grab the 970 and OC it baby!

 

[RussianSensation]

In 2 weeks i have changed 2 AMD cards and have nothing but headaches and you're posting how COOL AMD's are, common...
That's why post is about:AMD vs NVIDIA.

Don't like it WALK AWAY, THAT"S IT....

No, I am not going to walk away. I will call out information that appears questionable. You claimed your XFX R9 290 was hitting max load of 40C earlier and suddenly it hits 90-95C?

Secondly, thus far you provided 0 proof of anything you claim. No MSI After-burner screenshots of fan profiles, no temperature screenshots, no video, nothing.

Thirdly, per your July 23, 2015 post, you already apparently had XFX R9 290 in your possession, but on August 18, 2015, you asked in this thread if XFX R9 290X is worth buying?

A gamer who already owned an XFX R9 290 for 1 month isn't going to ask such questions on a gaming forum since R9 290X isn't even an upgrade from XFX R9 290. Furthermore, if both of your R9 290 cards ran hot and loud, what about the mythical XFX R9 290 Black Edition that hit 40C at load -- according to you?

In this post you said that you are returning your 2nd R9 290X XFX but you never owned a 1st R9 290X by XFX.

Your story doesn't add up and you asked for no help on this forum regarding your supposedly hot and loud R9 290X cards, so that perhaps people could have helped you with fan profiles, seen pictures of your case to assist in case airflow, etc.

Then he found out that yes, despite what a lot of folks here say, R9 290s and R9290X cards can and do generate a lot of heat and require significant case ventilation (esp in x-fire).

That's not what his posts says at all. He claimed in this very thread that his R9 290/290X cards hit 90-95C. Yet, July 23rd, he claimed:

GEOrifle
"P.S. By the way my R9 290 Black Edition is quiet as a mouse 35c idle under 40c under heavy load all spect max. First time I saw FarCry4 got actual Fog in game ��, I got 7 fans in case with adjustable speed, CM Sniper baby ��." ~ Your own source

Sorry, unless he moved to Africa and has his PC outside, he is either lying or trolling. And no one said anything about Cross-fire or SLI so no point in even bringing that up.

Or for a little more you could just get a 970 and not have to deal with those kinds of issues.

He already did but the main point is he never had any after-market R9 290 cards that hit 95C at load; not to mention the original thread discussed R9 390 vs. 970 but his very first post started claiming how NV cards run way cooler and so on, basically starting his original thread making false claims to ultimately justify his purchase anyway without doing objective research on the topic:

MSI Gaming R9 390 vs. EVGA GTX970
Sapphire R9 390 Nitro vs. MSi Gaming GTX970