R9 290 or GTX780 ??

[guskline]

Have @$550 to spend on a single gpu to be run in combo with a 3770k and 16 gigs of DDR3 1866. 750W Antec gamer PSU (rig 2 below)

Give me your pros and cons of the AMD R9 290 vs the Nvidia GTX780!:biggrin:

 

[IEC]

Reference 290 vs reference 780? Get the 780. Assuming this is primarily for gaming.

If you plan to do a red mod or can wait until non-reference 290s come out at reasonable prices then the 290.

If you plan on cryptocoin mining, obviously the 290.

 

[blastingcap]

with a 3770k and 16 megs of DDR3 1866.

Upgrade your RAM immediately to at least 4GB and preferably 8GB+.

If you can wait, wait. Maxwell is reportedly just around the corner in Feb or March 2014: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphi...8_Series_Graphics_Processors_in_February.html Even if you don't want one, its release will put downward pressure on prices of other cards.

If you can't:

If mining, then I would get neither, prices are inflated right now so try to get a deal on a used card if possible. If you can get a R9 290 at the price it was SUPPOSED to launch at, that's the obvious solution, but good luck with that.

If gaming, I'd get the 780 only if it comes with a game bundle or something. These inflated prices by AMD means NV isn't dropping prices either, so I would wait if you can.

 

[Silverforce11]

If you cannot get R290s at near MSRP I wouldn't recommend it, 780s are great cards when price evenly with R290.

 

[ICDP]

If they are the same price a GTX780 is a far better option than a reference R9 290. In general both GPUs will be very close in performance but the GTX780 has the benefit of a far superior cooler/fan.

 

[guskline]

Thanks, blastingcap! Fixed the ram amount.

Right now I have 2 GTX660s in SLI and I have @$550 in gift cards. Rig 1 has 2 water cooled GTX670s so I would have to go to a GTX780ti for a true upgrade whereas a GTX780 or R9 290 would most likely be an upgrade to the 660s in sli.

 

[Jacky60]

If you can go Vanilla 290xfire. It pisses all over anything else price wise and its really good vfm. Go big or go home.

 

[Mondozei]

Depends what you pay for both cards. If you pay MSRP then a custom-cooled R290 is a better value proposition. If you pay equal in money then an overclocked GTX 780 is better. Or you could wait until Maxwell comes in just a few months. It depends how much in of a hurry you are. Most of the major games that will require serious GPU power are coming out in the latter half of 2014, such as The Division among others.

 

[IEC]

PM sent OP. Hope you get it in time

 

[Lonyo]

Depends on monitor/resolution and what you want to do with it.
The 290 is a faster card in some games, slower in others, but really you want an aftermarket cooler to make it worthwhile.

Work out what games you play, which is faster in most of those games, and whether you can get an aftermarket 290.

 

[guskline]

Thanks for the input. I'm going to wait until mid January to see how many non-reference R9 290s show up. I'm going to be replacing the 660s in SLI in rig 2 below. I have an Acer 27" 1920 x 1080 monitor with it.

 

[guskline]

If you can go Vanilla 290xfire. It pisses all over anything else price wise and its really good vfm. Go big or go home.

Have an Antec Gamer 750W PSU so high end CF/SLI not in the cards. Budget for this is between $500 and $550. Sure like the reviews on the Sapphire Radeon 290 Tri-X!

 

[desprado]

I Would say if u can go for GTX 760 SLI than it will be great from my IMO because more powerful option than R9 290 or GTX 780.

 

[IEC]

I Would say if u can go for GTX 760 SLI than it will be great from my IMO because more powerful option than R9 290 or GTX 780.

Always go for the best single card you can.

 

[sushiwarrior]

I would always suggest the 290 if you're willing to go through the extra effort of finding one and making sure it runs properly (temp issues etc.)

If you're really lazy and have cash to spare, then get the 780. Costs more and is slower, but it isn't as much of a hassle.

 

[blackened23]

I would always suggest the 290 if you're willing to go through the extra effort of finding one and making sure it runs properly (temp issues etc.)

So you're suggesting a 500-530$ R9-290, and you're suggesting an aftermarket mod to it adding 70-80$ onto the price. To make sure it runs "properly". Hilarious.

Costs more and is slower, but it isn't as much of a hassle.

You mean it costs the same and is the same speed as the 290 in the US. Actually, most GTX 780s are cheaper than 290s in the states. While being the same speed - until you overclock, in which most aftermarket 780s are easily much faster. Aftermarket 780s are hitting performance levels 15-20% faster than both stock Titan and stock 290X, FYI. And yeah, you can overclock the 290, and yes, it will be more competitive with an OC 780 at that point. But we're back to your proposition of paying more for the 290 over a GTX 780 which would be pretty absurd. Especially in reference 290 format. You'd have to be nuts.

I could see getting an aftermarket 290 such as the Tri-X, it's a great card. But the pricing situation isn't what you suggested, not even close - 290s are generally more expensive than 780s. Even reference 290s are more expensive than many GTX 780s, and only a madman would opt for a reference 290 over a 780 at the same price. Now if aftermarket 290s hit the 420$ price mark in the states - That would be a darn good purchase. A tri-X 290 at 400-420$? A great buy.

Unfortunately, due to crypto coin mining you probably will not find cards anywhere near that price. Most of these cards are well in excess of 500$+. Thus negating any benefit to buying one over a 780.

 

[Kenmitch]

Thanks for the input. I'm going to wait until mid January to see how many non-reference R9 290s show up. I'm going to be replacing the 660s in SLI in rig 2 below. I have an Acer 27" 1920 x 1080 monitor with it.

I'd think more will be available by then. Guess it depends on the going rate at that time. Maybe the supply will be greater than the demand.

My ref XFX is mining litecoin 24/7 currently. Only paid $406 shipped for it. I was holding out for the non-ref design also. Wound up getting mine from bestbuy marketplace with 18month interest free financing so it was too good of a deal to pass up at the time. Sold old gpu for $120 and have sold $120 LTC so far. Card is getting cheaper by the day.

 

[Teizo]

Always go for the best single card you can.

I don't know. SLI is fine. Allot of the issues of the past are just that...in the past. The only problem is the top card getting hot and more heat in the case, but most enthusiast have good enough air flow in their cases. Nvidia driver support for SLI is great, imho. Then again, I only play AAA games.

 

[IEC]

So you're suggesting a 500-530$ R9-290, and you're suggesting an aftermarket mod to it adding 70-80$ onto the price. To make sure it runs "properly". Hilarious.

You mean it costs the same and is the same speed as the 290 in the US. Actually, most GTX 780s are cheaper than 290s in the states. While being the same speed - until you overclock, in which most aftermarket 780s are easily much faster. Aftermarket 780s are hitting performance levels 15-20% faster than both stock Titan and stock 290X, FYI. And yeah, you can overclock the 290. But we're back to your proposition of paying more for the 290 over a GTX 780 which would be pretty absurd.

I could see getting an aftermarket 290 such as the Tri-X, it's a great card. But the pricing situation isn't what you suggested, not even close - 290s are generally more expensive than 780s. Even reference 290s are more expensive than many GTX 780s, and only a madman would opt for a reference 290 over a 780 at the same price. Now if aftermarket 290s hit the 420$ price mark in the states - That would be a darn good purchase. A tri-X 290 at 400-420$? A great buy.

Unfortunately, due to crypto coin mining you probably will not find cards anywhere near that price. Most of these cards are well in excess of 500$+. Thus negating any benefit to buying one over a 780.

Sapphire Tri-X 290 MSRP is $449. I picked up two yesterday for ~$490 ea with 2 day shipping. I'm eager to see if I can replicate AnandTech's OC of 1125/1500 (6GHz effective).

http://anandtech.com/show/7601/sapphire-radeon-r9-290-review-our-first-custom-cooled-290/5

 

[Mondozei]

Sapphire Tri-X 290 MSRP is $449. I picked up two yesterday for ~$490 ea with 2 day shipping. I'm eager to see if I can replicate AnandTech's OC of 1125/1500 (6GHz effective).

http://anandtech.com/show/7601/sapphire-radeon-r9-290-review-our-first-custom-cooled-290/5

I'd be interested to see your results. Do post them here, in another existing thread or in a new thread.

 

[Mondozei]

For threadstarter:

There's a rather long'ish debate on the merits of GTX 780, how well it overclocks at this thread:
link

The short gist of if is: there's no real concensus. Nvidia fanboys like blackened and Balla are adamantly in favor. Most neutrals are skeptical and the AMD fanboys are.. well, AMD fanboys. But if you look at people who are unbiased, they are skeptical that most GTX 780 cards can OC over a R290, which I define as "getting more FPS in most games at similar high-end settings". We're not talking about Classified/Lightning cards, but average GTX 780 cards with custom coolers which you'd probably be interested in.

But as I wrote earlier, if you pay MSRP, which will most likely happen once the customcooled cards are out(as we saw previously in this thread, some Americans in this thread are already getting these cards at MSRP), then R290 is better value compared to stock/average GTX 780.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

Thanks for the input. I'm going to wait until mid January to see how many non-reference R9 290s show up. I'm going to be replacing the 660s in SLI in rig 2 below. I have an Acer 27" 1920 x 1080 monitor with it.

for a full hd monitor, you might consider doing downsampling
it´s a overall AA mode, you set the pc to the wanted resolution and every game is effected
it looks really nice and it is much easier to do with nvidia
(dont´t really know how to do it on amd card, will try soon, ordered a r9 290 yesterday , gigabyte windforce, for my amd/amd rig, word is one needs an additional program, catalyst control centre doesn´t offer it)

depending on your monitor, you could go with 1.5X1.5 resolution = 2880x1620
which would be a very reasonable resolution for a gtx 780
(depending on the game)

the game is calculated in the "big" resolution, then downsampled to the monitor´s resolution, keeping part of the information
it´s very costly but it looks great, in movement flickering is reduced, edges are smoothed

i go 3200x1300 on a 2560x1080monitor with sli 770s and that is very good,
so a 780 should also handle about the same pixel count

you simply have to "create" a custom resolution in the nvidia driver tool, or what it´s called in english, the one you open with right click on desktop
there are tons of posts and you tube videos out there, if you want to try it on your sli 660s or 670s
if you like it, get the 780

if you tried downsampling before, this may appeal to others who read

 

[IEC]

I'd be interested to see your results. Do post them here, in another existing thread or in a new thread.

My CPU may be a bottleneck (stock i5-3570k) but I'll for sure be posting the results in this forum. Probably going to try to come close to Elfear's test setup by buying a 4770k and overclocking the heck out of it so we can get some close numbers

 

[sushiwarrior]

So you're suggesting a 500-530$ R9-290, and you're suggesting an aftermarket mod to it adding 70-80$ onto the price. To make sure it runs "properly". Hilarious.



You mean it costs the same and is the same speed as the 290 in the US. Actually, most GTX 780s are cheaper than 290s in the states. While being the same speed - until you overclock, in which most aftermarket 780s are easily much faster. Aftermarket 780s are hitting performance levels 15-20% faster than both stock Titan and stock 290X, FYI. And yeah, you can overclock the 290. But we're back to your proposition of paying more for the 290 over a GTX 780 which would be pretty absurd.

I could see getting an aftermarket 290 such as the Tri-X, it's a great card. But the pricing situation isn't what you suggested, not even close - 290s are generally more expensive than 780s. Even reference 290s are more expensive than many GTX 780s, and only a madman would opt for a reference 290 over a 780 at the same price. Now if aftermarket 290s hit the 420$ price mark in the states - That would be a darn good purchase. A tri-X 290 at 400-420$? A great buy.

Unfortunately, due to crypto coin mining you probably will not find cards anywhere near that price. Most of these cards are well in excess of 500$+. Thus negating any benefit to buying one over a 780.

As a matter of fact, a GTX780 is on sale for $530 right now on Newegg. That's $20 more than the cheapest R9 290, and it has an aftermarket cooler (EVGA AC-X). According to the reviews I've seen, it's a marginally slower card. It's more or less locked down by Nvidia, unless you start flashing to different BIOS's. It has PhysX, which is good. It doesn't have Mantle. There are the pros and cons.

Frankly, I think an R9 290 at $550 is a good deal, considering the performance difference between a 290 and a 780, but you obviously think they should sell for free since you would never touch an AMD card. Try and give companies credit where it is due :whiste:

But for OP, at the moment 290 and 780 are both very good choices and you can't go wrong with either. The problem is 290's aren't really in stock anywhere...

 

[IEC]

290s and 290X are continuously in stock at or slightly above MSRP, but they go OOS very quickly. The ones in stock at absurd prices are there to catch the truly desperate.

Amazon has had Radeon 290s @ $43x.xx in and out multiple times over the past few days alone. Newegg had at least a dozen Sapphire Tri-X 290s @ $499.99 base price yesterday.