Is the GTX 980 The Best Sub $500 1080p Card?

[tential]

I also don't agree that the 980 is a bad card. While I agree that its price to performance case is not as strong as a 970 or 980 Ti, it is still a very powerful card and I think it gets more flak than it deserves. They cut down the 970 so much I don't think I'd have bothered with it, I would have been happy with a 980 though.

That said, I really do like the Hawaii chips at the $400-300 price point, they have aged better than anyone has expected and are great if you don't need HDMI 2.0.

With the Display Port to HDMI 2.0 cables out now, it's not as big of a deal as it used to be.

Still annoying though.

 

[thesmokingman]

Not sure I agree with the defense that 1100mhz is a mild overclock for Hawaii.

I got my 290Xs up to 1100mhz but I don't think I was able to get them higher without crazy voltages and heat. I'm sure someone will get more out of them but Hawaii simply doesn't OC like Maxwell does.

You just can't just say 10% is a mild OC and 25% is a high OC when the chips are different. In these tests the reviews got what they could out of them, if the % is low on Hawaii vs Maxwell that is an issue with the chip and not with the review.

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5358468/fs/7122930/fs/3470060


12 290x's here with decent overclocks, 2 pros vs 1 regular joe. They can overclock some for normal folk too.

 

[Bacon1]

Not sure I agree with the defense that 1100mhz is a mild overclock for Hawaii.

I got my 290Xs up to 1100mhz but I don't think I was able to get them higher without crazy voltages and heat. I'm sure someone will get more out of them but Hawaii simply doesn't OC like Maxwell does.

You just can't just say 10% is a mild OC and 25% is a high OC when the chips are different. In these tests the reviews got what they could out of them, if the % is low on Hawaii vs Maxwell that is an issue with the chip and not with the review.

Quoting from SilverStone from the other thread:

This is the average clocks for the 390 on air:

http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/radeon_r9_390/

1174mhz.

This is the average clocks for the 970 on air:

http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/geforce_gtx_970/

1420mhz.

So avg for 390 is 17%

Avg for 970 is 14%

Again, its dumb to use max'd OC results as the "standard". Even worse was that golden 1569mhz 970.

 

[thesmokingman]

Again, its dumb to use max'd OC results as the "standard". Even worse was that golden 1569mhz 970.

Back when I had my 970 watercooled, it ran over 1500mhz but in benching it really didn't seem that fast.

 

[Actaeon]

Technically we're talking Grenada aren't we which is slightly improved Hawaii...

Well I saw Hawaii mentioned a bunch, so I went with that. But the idea is that you can't just look at % or +mhz to determine whether the OC is 'mild' or 'high' when you're dealing with different chips.

+100mhz would be a great on Grenada but +200mhz would suck on Maxwell. From the discussion here, this would mean the OC on Grenada is 'mild' while Maxwell would be 'High' which is not the case at all.

 

[Actaeon]

With the Display Port to HDMI 2.0 cables out now, it's not as big of a deal as it used to be.

Still annoying though.

Oh yeah, I forgot those came out. I was really looking forward to them with my 290Xs but they didn't arrive in time. It is an additional expense to consider, but this is even more reason to pick up a 290/390 instead of 980, but they're all pretty great cards IMO.

 

[Termie]

Since it seems some folks in this thread are interested in the DP to HDMI 2.0 converters, I thought I'd mention that I put together a review of Accell's Converter, which as far as I know is the only full-fledged review so far on the 'net.

In short, great 4K video performance, but couldn't do surround sound.

 

[Actaeon]

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5358468/fs/7122930/fs/3470060


12 290x's here with decent overclocks, 2 pros vs 1 regular joe. They can overclock some for normal folk too.

Very impressive performance but my guess is these are the exception and these guys went through some effort with extreme cooling to keep it going.

I also doubt those clocks are 24/7 stable. It is one thing to jack up the clock speeds and pray it finishes the benchmark before it crashes and it is another thing to have something that runs and plays games all day.

Maybe I'm wrong but I take one off benchmark results as just a benchmark result and not representative of 24/7 real world performance. I'm sure my 290Xs could have run higher than 1100mhz if I pushed them, but the voltage, heat, fan noise, and power consumption to get that extra 50mhz or whatever was not worth it.

 

[thesmokingman]

Since it seems some folks in this thread are interested in the DP to HDMI 2.0 converters, I thought I'd mention that I put together a review of Accell's Converter, which as far as I know is the only full-fledged review so far on the 'net.

In short, great 4K video performance, but couldn't do surround sound.

Surround sound? Do you mean the audio bitstream was broken?

 

[Bacon1]

Very impressive performance but my guess is these are the exception and these guys went through some effort with extreme cooling to keep it going.

I also doubt those clocks are 24/7 stable. It is one thing to jack up the clock speeds and pray it finishes the benchmark before it crashes and it is another thing to have something that runs and plays games all day.

Maybe I'm wrong but I take one off benchmark results as just a benchmark result and not representative of 24/7 real world performance. I'm sure my 290Xs could have run higher than 1100mhz if I pushed them, but the voltage, heat, fan noise, and power consumption to get that extra 50mhz was not worth it.

See my last post with lots of #s.

Also you are talking 290x, not 290. 290x has more shaders which limits how much you can clock/power.

 

[tential]

Surround sound? Do you mean the audio bitstream was broken?

Probably. Not sure how much that matters to PC gamers but to me, that matters a lot. Hence why I'm avoiding this as it would take a lot of work to get my system running. But my AVR is dead, so I got a double upgrade to make there.

 

[thesmokingman]

Very impressive performance but my guess is these are the exception and these guys went through some effort with extreme cooling to keep it going.

I also doubt those clocks are 24/7 stable. It is one thing to jack up the clock speeds and pray it finishes the benchmark before it crashes and it is another thing to have something that runs and plays games all day.

Maybe I'm wrong but I take one off benchmark results as just a benchmark result and not representative of 24/7 real world performance. I'm sure my 290Xs could have run higher than 1100mhz if I pushed them, but the voltage, heat, fan noise, and power consumption to get that extra 50mhz was not worth it.

To get to 1300 you don't need extreme cooling on the gpu. That can be achieved with just watercooling. Benchmarking just shows what the hardware is capable of right? Running triple or quad gpu, you don't need to OC for gaming. Running one to two, ocing is more typical. If the max oc is 1300, you could easily run 1200mhz gaming oc.

One time I sent my prized 7970 to a friend in Norway. He said he was gaming on it at 1350mhz. It's max oc was 1400mhz on water. If you have the cooling, you can run whatever oc your gpu can manage. But back to the 290x, it doesn't need much of an oc to get going imo.

 

[tential]

To get to 1300 you don't need extreme cooling on the gpu. That can be achieved with just watercooling. Benchmarking just shows what the hardware is capable of right? Running triple or quad gpu, you don't need to OC for gaming. Running one to two, ocing is more typical. If the max oc is 1300, you could easily run 1200mhz gaming oc.

One time I sent my prized 7970 to a friend in Norway. He said he was gaming on it at 1350mhz. It's max oc was 1400mhz on water. If you have the cooling, you can run whatever oc your gpu can manage. But back to the 290x, it doesn't need much of an oc to get going imo.

My 7950 would just run. All it needed was cooling. So if your ambient temps are cool like in the EU... you can definitely get away with it. I'm in Texas now so meh.

 

[Termie]

Surround sound? Do you mean the audio bitstream was broken?

Audio works, but only outputs stereo.

Probably. Not sure how much that matters to PC gamers but to me, that matters a lot. Hence why I'm avoiding this as it would take a lot of work to get my system running. But my AVR is dead, so I got a double upgrade to make there.

Right, this is an issue for HTPC enthusiasts with surround sound receivers. For gamers the converter works fine.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

Shouldn't you also be considering DX12, and async compute?

Buying a maxwell card right now seems like a really bad move....