GTX 780 or R9 290 for 1080p gaming

[Jurge92]

Hi.

I've been searching for some time now, and can't seem to find the answer. I find some good prices on the GTX 780 Asus DCII here in Norway. Like $50 over stock R9 290. I play on a 1080p monitor 60hz. I could wait until the non-reference 290 coolers would be available, also able to wait for 780 Ghz edition.

FYI, I play almost every game, so that's no factor me.

Rest of the set-up would be something like:
i5 4670k
Asus Hero VI
8GB RAM
Samsung 840 Evo 250GB

Any thoughts?

 

[flynnsk]

Hi.

I've been searching for some time now, and can't seem to find the answer. I find some good prices on the GTX 780 Asus DCII here in Norway. Like $50 over stock R9 290. I play on a 1080p monitor 60hz. I could wait until the non-reference 290 coolers would be available, also able to wait for 780 Ghz edition.

FYI, I play almost every game, so that's no factor me.

Rest of the set-up would be something like:
i5 4670k
Asus Hero VI
8GB RAM
Samsung 840 Evo 250GB

Any thoughts?

best advice.. wait..

 

[Spidre]

At 1080p 60hz you can get away with much less. 760, 770, 280 or 280x would do. If you want to go higher, you won't notice any improvement until games start demanding much more.

 

[Nintendesert]

I'd wait to see what the 290s with better coolers can do.

 

[Iron Woode]

270x will do it no problem.

Since I am on a budget, I am deciding between a 7850 2gb or a 7870 2gb. Prices here are very close to each other.

 

[RaulF]

At 1080 the 780 hands down for most games. If your a BF player i wait till mantle shows up and see what we are talking about.

 

[Hitman928]

How long do you hope to game on the card?

 

[Jurge92]

Well, obviously for quite some time. I'm also studying computer science and will most likely specialise in visualisation, so a CUDA based GPU might be preferable.

 

[pauldun170]

Hi.

I've been searching for some time now, and can't seem to find the answer. I find some good prices on the GTX 780 Asus DCII here in Norway. Like $50 over stock R9 290. I play on a 1080p monitor 60hz. I could wait until the non-reference 290 coolers would be available, also able to wait for 780 Ghz edition.

FYI, I play almost every game, so that's no factor me.

Rest of the set-up would be something like:
i5 4670k
Asus Hero VI
8GB RAM
Samsung 840 Evo 250GB

Any thoughts?

Wait for the R290 to come out with a good cooling solution (hopefully around the end of the month).
As long as there are no horror stories about the R290 (as more hit the street) I think the a non reference R290 would be the best bet for a long term gpu investment.
The current GTX780 with the reference cooler is also a great choice. I personally think the the current card is a high quality product and with performance being comparable I would pay a premium for a GTX780 over a reference R290. That will likely change once non reference R290s hit the street. I'll be making the same decision once the non reference R290's hit the market. My GTX570 has served me well, but my "want to play" list of games has enough demanding titles now to justify upgrading.

 

[Subyman]

Wait for the custom coolers for the R9 290.

 

[_Rick_]

What case are you looking at?
The 780 comes with a usable blower, while the R290 doesn't have a cooling solution at all, currently. And it will probably require quite an elaborate open air solution, which will dump a lot of heat in the case. If you've got a case which can get rid of that heat, the 290 might be worth a go, otherwise, the 780 is the easier card to thermally integrate - it only requires a single fan giving cool intake air, and no additional side exhaust or intake, as I would prefer to have on a 290.

Of course, there are also open air 780s, which have a further advantage, at little additional cost.

 

[Jurge92]

The case would be Fractal Design Define R4.

 

[Bateluer]

What case are you looking at?
The 780 comes with a usable blower, while the R290 doesn't have a cooling solution at all, currently. And it will probably require quite an elaborate open air solution, which will dump a lot of heat in the case. If you've got a case which can get rid of that heat, .

That is BS.

The case would be Fractal Design Define R4.

I have the same case with a 290X, and the noise dampening in the R4 will easily let you run the fan speed on a 290/X at 50-60% before it really becomes even audible.

For 1080p though, both of these cards are overkill. I'd say go with the 290, because it holds the best price/performance ratio right now, but you could easily get a less expensive card for a low resolution of 1080p.

 

[Rvenger]

while the R290 doesn't have a cooling solution at all, currently.

Wait, what? 290 cooler is subpar but it definitely works. I play BF4 and at 50% fan speed its around 75c.

 

[raghu78]

Wait, what? 290 cooler is subpar but it definitely works. I play BF4 and at 50% fan speed its around 75c.

exactly. at 50 - 55% fan speed the noise is not loud. techreport and hardocp have already said the ref R9 290 cooler is not loud at 50% fan speed.

http://techreport.com/review/25602/amd-radeon-r9-290-graphics-card-reviewed/9

"Much has been made of the R9 290X's relatively high power draw, operating temperatures, and noise levels. Obviously, the R9 290 shares these same characteristics, with a somewhat louder default fan profile. In my view, the only one of these properties that's really worth fussing over is the noise, since it's the thing you'll notice in day-to-day use.

We're apparently going to have to face this price/performance-versus-acoustics tradeoff for a while, so I spent some quality time with the R9 290 trying to get a handle on what I think of the noise, beyond the readings on the decibel meter. I've gotta say, there are some mitigating factors. For one, I like AMD's choice to stick with a blower that exhausts hot air out of the case rather than going for a triple-fan cooler that doesn't. I've seen those fan-based aftermarket coolers perform poorly in multi-GPU configs, and they often occupy quite a bit more space—maybe even a third expansion slot—in order to work their magic. I'm also not convinced AMD's cooler is a poor performer and therefore noisy, as some folks seem to think. Remember, it has more heat to remove than any of the coolers on the other cards we tested. Finally, I don't think this blower's ~49 dBA reading is the worst of its type. The quality of the sound isn't grating. Subjectively speaking, there are much more annoying coolers in this territory on the decibel meter. The impressively smooth, gradual ramp of fan speeds up and down in the new PowerTune algorithm helps make the noise less noticeable, too. This ain't an FX-5800 Ultra, folks."

its at 70% that noise gets loud. too many people who have not used a R9 290 are going about bad mouthing R9 290. there are users on ocn who have run the R9 290 at 1100 - 1150 mhz on stock cooler without clocks throttling at 75% fan speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQhqOKKAq7o

55% fan speed 0:19 - 0:27. thats open test bench. in a closed case and 2 ft away from the user i don't think you can hear it. people can draw their own conclusions

 

[Enigmoid]

exactly. at 50 - 55% fan speed the noise is not loud. techreport and hardocp have already said the ref R9 290 cooler is not loud at 50% fan speed.

http://techreport.com/review/25602/amd-radeon-r9-290-graphics-card-reviewed/9

"Much has been made of the R9 290X's relatively high power draw, operating temperatures, and noise levels. Obviously, the R9 290 shares these same characteristics, with a somewhat louder default fan profile. In my view, the only one of these properties that's really worth fussing over is the noise, since it's the thing you'll notice in day-to-day use.

We're apparently going to have to face this price/performance-versus-acoustics tradeoff for a while, so I spent some quality time with the R9 290 trying to get a handle on what I think of the noise, beyond the readings on the decibel meter. I've gotta say, there are some mitigating factors. For one, I like AMD's choice to stick with a blower that exhausts hot air out of the case rather than going for a triple-fan cooler that doesn't. I've seen those fan-based aftermarket coolers perform poorly in multi-GPU configs, and they often occupy quite a bit more space—maybe even a third expansion slot—in order to work their magic. I'm also not convinced AMD's cooler is a poor performer and therefore noisy, as some folks seem to think. Remember, it has more heat to remove than any of the coolers on the other cards we tested. Finally, I don't think this blower's ~49 dBA reading is the worst of its type. The quality of the sound isn't grating. Subjectively speaking, there are much more annoying coolers in this territory on the decibel meter. The impressively smooth, gradual ramp of fan speeds up and down in the new PowerTune algorithm helps make the noise less noticeable, too. This ain't an FX-5800 Ultra, folks."

its at 70% that noise gets loud. too many people who have not used a R9 290 are going about bad mouthing R9 290. there are users on ocn who have run the R9 290 at 1100 - 1150 mhz on stock cooler without clocks throttling at 75% fan speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQhqOKKAq7o

55% fan speed 0:19 - 0:27. thats open test bench. in a closed case and 2 ft away from the user i don't think you can hear it. people can draw their own conclusions

So we go from slightly audible (idle) to quite loud (quiet mode) to obnoxiously loud (uber) to close to vacuum cleaner loud (100%).

Its loud. There is no getting around it.

 

[tg2708]

I truly don't get why the nvidia loyalists are getting so up tight about noise level when the cards performance is pretty much neck and neck when compared to another card that is almost twice its price (290). Everyone is talking about performance but since amd has the lead the story is changed from what they desire most to noise level. The conclusion i'm coming to is that since this particular card is destroying there beloved card on the performance level they find a slight trade off and beat it to death. All im hearing is just constant whining about noise and nothing else. Even if 4k is irrelevant now on a grand scale the 290x utterly destroys the ti so much as to double its sli performance in cfx.

 

[Bateluer]

So we go from slightly audible (idle) to quite loud (quiet mode) to obnoxiously loud (uber) to close to vacuum cleaner loud (100%).

Its loud. There is no getting around it.

At 55%, its not audible over an episode of Netflix. At 65%, I was able to hear it over game sound. In a quieter game, that would be a problem. Depending on the game, I could see going higher, but there's not much point. At 55%, the 290X can run at its boosted clock speed as long as is required.

I truly don't get why the nvidia loyalists are getting so up tight about noise level when the cards performance is pretty much neck and neck when compared to another card that is almost twice its price (290). Everyone is talking about performance but since amd has the lead the story is changed from what they desire most to noise level. The conclusion i'm coming to is that since this particular card is destroying there beloved card on the performance level they find a slight trade off and beat it to death. All im hearing is just constant whining about noise and nothing else. Even if 4k is irrelevant now on a grand scale the 290x utterly destroys the ti so much as to double its sli performance in cfx.

I think you hit the nail on the head. The R9 290 is the bang card right now, period dot. For 400 dollars, you get a card to that goes to head to head with 700/900 dollar cards. It doesn't get much better than that. But instead, we have die hards complaining about a noisy cooler.

This isn't like the old Geforce FX 5800 Ultra that was noisy as hell. The 290 delivers in the performance department, the FX5800U did not.



Edit - I should add that I intend to buy an aftermarket cooler for my 290X. Summers in Phoenix get hot, and I don't like insanely high electric bills. As such, I keep my AC set to 82-84F. 88F when I'm not home.

 

[Dave3000]

At 1080p 60hz you can get away with much less. 760, 770, 280 or 280x would do. If you want to go higher, you won't notice any improvement until games start demanding much more.

Suppose I wanted better performance in Crysis 3, BF4, and Borderlands 2 (with Physx maxed) at 1920x1080 60Hz. I'm never hitting 60 fps in Crysis 3 and not all the time with the other games with my GTX 680 at 1920x1080 with most settings maxed out. Is it because my GTX 680 is not fast enough or is it because of my CPU? I think that it's my GPU that's holding back performance at that resolution in the latest games unless it's a CPU bound game like Flight Simulator X. My CPU is an i7-4820k not overclocked. I want better performance in current games at 1920x1080, 4X MSAA, and 16xAF, with high to max settings. There is not a much faster CPU than the one I have for gaming right now but I can get a much faster video card like a GTX 780Ti or go for a 2nd GTX 680 for SLI if I wanted to.

 

[Genx87]

Well, obviously for quite some time. I'm also studying computer science and will most likely specialise in visualisation, so a CUDA based GPU might be preferable.

Look at the 770. With the price reduction it is a decent price\performance card that offers you the ability to utilize CUDA.

 

[SolMiester]

I truly don't get why the nvidia loyalists are getting so up tight about noise level when the cards performance is pretty much neck and neck when compared to another card that is almost twice its price (290). Everyone is talking about performance but since amd has the lead the story is changed from what they desire most to noise level. The conclusion i'm coming to is that since this particular card is destroying there beloved card on the performance level they find a slight trade off and beat it to death. All im hearing is just constant whining about noise and nothing else. Even if 4k is irrelevant now on a grand scale the 290x utterly destroys the ti so much as to double its sli performance in cfx.

The cards are all very much neck and neck, except one runs cooler and quieter than the other while also have a huge thermal delta to overclock while the other doesnt.
There is only one destroyer, however NV seems to have 4k SLI issue for now, but hey if 7xxx series guys can go 18mths without complete solution, im sure the NV 4K SLI guys can hold out for awhile.

 

[tg2708]

Suppose I wanted better performance in Crysis 3, BF4, and Borderlands 2 (with Physx maxed) at 1920x1080 60Hz. I'm never hitting 60 fps in Crysis 3 and not all the time with the other games with my GTX 680 at 1920x1080 with most settings maxed out. Is it because my GTX 680 is not fast enough or is it because of my CPU? I think that it's my GPU that's holding back performance at that resolution in the latest games unless it's a CPU bound game like Flight Simulator X. My CPU is an i7-4820k not overclocked. I want better performance in current games at 1920x1080, 4X MSAA, and 16xAF, with high to max settings. There is not a much faster CPU than the one I have for gaming right now but I can get a much faster video card like a GTX 780Ti or go for a 2nd GTX 680 for SLI if I wanted to.

Crysis 3 is a pretty demanding game (not sure what it taxes more, the cpu or gpu) so if you want to max everything and get a decent amount fps (60+) I think you need to go sli. Also 3gb of vram is your best bet so it comes down to the vanilla 780 or ti in imo.

 

[tg2708]

The cards are all very much neck and neck, except one runs cooler and quieter than the other while also have a huge thermal delta to overclock while the other doesnt.
There is only one destroyer, however NV seems to have 4k SLI issue for now, but hey if 7xxx series guys can go 18mths without complete solution, im sure the NV 4K SLI guys can hold out for awhile.

The noise it produces is not up for debate because it seems annoyingly loud to me. But when you can get such impeccable performance out of a $400 dollar card with an issue than can be easily rectified it gets to me when people are constantly bringing up noise even though the card is matching it's competitors strongest offering for a whopping $300 less.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I truly don't get why the nvidia loyalists are getting so up tight about noise level when the cards performance is pretty much neck and neck when compared to another card that is almost twice its price (290). Everyone is talking about performance but since amd has the lead the story is changed from what they desire most to noise level. The conclusion i'm coming to is that since this particular card is destroying there beloved card on the performance level they find a slight trade off and beat it to death. All im hearing is just constant whining about noise and nothing else. Even if 4k is irrelevant now on a grand scale the 290x utterly destroys the ti so much as to double its sli performance in cfx.

GPU vs. GPU the 780/780Ti are no worse than the 290/290X, and will actually come out on top in most benches. Yet you are saying 780s are getting "destroyed"

Sure, maybe in terms of value (the 290X wasn't enough to fully dethrone Titan, what was so impressive is that it was $550 vs. $1000), but please clarify that, lets not pretend that Hawaii is some sort of undisputed GK110 killer regardless of price, because right now its only in the extremely niche case of trying to push 8+M pixels where nVidia is being humbled (and its an issue that seems likely to be due to SLI/drivers and 4K being so niche)

the noise is an issue, because if AMD had stayed with standard noise levels, the 290 would actually be a relatively unanimous loser to the 780, and it was better for AMD's image that they put up a strong showing rather than look weak but have good value - ie slower card is $400 vs. faster $500 card, instead its just as fast (but so much faster in CFX vs. SLI in 4K zZOMGgGG!!1!) $400 card vs. $500 card, but the caveat is noise...basically, if Hawaii was such a killer product without its flaws, it wouldn't be priced so low.

the real question will be just how much will aftermarket coolers help. Right now it seems crystal clear that AMD skimped on the cooler in order to keep costs down, whereas nVidia did not. And while I do not feel nVidia's reference cooler is anywhere near the $100-150 premium that the 780-780Ti are commanding over the 290-290X, its a pretty big reason why people aren't unanimously singing praises about the 290s as some sort of unbeatable value.

at any rate, I think either the aftermarket 290s will be more expensive, or that the 780s will see another price cut in rather short order (and perhaps a bit of both)

 

[raghu78]

the noise is an issue, because if AMD had stayed with standard noise levels, the 290 would actually be a relatively unanimous loser to the 780, and it was better for AMD's image that they put up a strong showing rather than look weak but have good value - ie slower card is $400 vs. faster $500 card, instead its just as fast (but so much faster in CFX vs. SLI in 4K zZOMGgGG!!1!) $400 card vs. $500 card, but the caveat is noise...basically, if Hawaii was such a killer product without its flaws, it wouldn't be priced so low.

the real question will be just how much will aftermarket coolers help. Right now it seems crystal clear that AMD skimped on the cooler in order to keep costs down, whereas nVidia did not. And while I do not feel nVidia's reference cooler is anywhere near the $100-150 premium that the 780-780Ti are commanding over the 290-290X, its a pretty big reason why people aren't unanimously singing praises about the 290s as some sort of unbeatable value.

at any rate, I think either the aftermarket 290s will be more expensive, or that the 780s will see another price cut in rather short order (and perhaps a bit of both)

http://www.techspot.com/review/736-amd-radeon-r9-290/page8.html

"Update: Based on your feedback, I took the IceQ X2 cooler off the HIS Radeon R9 280X and stuck it on our R9 290 sample. Cooling was dramatically improved. The FurMark stress test maxed out at 76 degrees while the card never exceeded 63 degrees in Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4. So it seems as expected the board partners will be able to solve the heat issues of the reference card."

roughly 30c lower temps :thumbsup: the custom cooler R9 290s at 430 - 450 are going to be the best cards for anybody who values his or her money. asus dcii top , his iceq x2 are going to allow 1200 mhz overclocks on R9 290 and still be reasonably low noise. these cards are going to be nipping at the heels of cards which are 150 - 300 dollars more. here is a shootout of the top cards all overclocked . the R9 290 cards are with custom coolers

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25264082