R9 290 vs GTX 780 in Australia.

[blastingcap]

Keep in mind that the people claiming reference cooler is ok have BRAND NEW CARDS. When dust accumulates the cooling efficiency goes down and you may get throttling or have to go over 47% fanspeed. My reference 7970's cooler got dusty over a few months of not cleaning it, and temps increased 7 degrees C, for instance.

 

[Silverforce11]

Keep in mind that the people claiming reference cooler is ok have BRAND NEW CARDS. When dust accumulates the cooling efficiency goes down and you may get throttling or have to go over 47% fanspeed. My reference 7970's cooler got dusty over a few months of not cleaning it, and temps increased 7 degrees C, for instance.

I think people who buy top end stuff would know to maintain their rig once in awhile, removing dust build up is the first priority. I mean a lot of cases have 5-6 fans, that is a lot of airflow and a lot of dust.

Re: the image quality, the only difference i noticed between the 7950 and 670 was that the 7950 had more vibrant colours and the 670 looks dull, but i don't mind, you get use to it quickly.

 

[SolMiester]

If you can get an XFX, Powercolor or VTX3D R9 290 from early stock they can unlock to R9 290X cards.

In all honesty if noise is not a factor then the fact you are saving $120 is a no brainer. Get the R9 290.

I helped a friend unlock an R9 290 to R9 290X and it is around 10%-15% faster OC vs OC compared to my MSI Gaming GTX780. Minimums are around 30% higher in most games tested. This is on a PC with a CPU slower than mine.

R9 290X 1170/5800
GTX780 1241/6728

If sound was a factor I would be telling you to get a GTX780.

Meh, even if the sound isnt a factor, I wouldnt want to run a product that runs at 94c...by design..LMAO...
I would just go for the quality product period.

 

[Skurge]

Meh, even if the sound isnt a factor, I wouldnt want to run a product that runs at 94c...by design..LMAO...
I would just go for the quality product period.

I suppose you consider AMD's CPU higher quality than Intel's too then.

 

[SolMiester]

I suppose you consider AMD's CPU higher quality than Intel's too then.

Where did you get that, or are you going to try convince me the 290 is a quality product?...

 

[selni]

Why does this incorrect information keep getting repeated? 290 and 290x do not throttle if you force a manual fan profile or increase fan speeds. They only throttle if the fan speed is at a certain level / depending on the GPU temp, you can just raise the fan speed and remove all throttle. The OP already said that noise is not a factor since the PC will be in another room. Do you think the GPU will be exposed to 45*C ambient temperatures?

OP, if customs resolutions are important, I would go with the 780, otherwise R9 290 all the day given the price difference and lack of game bundles for you. As far as media IQ, Radeons have been exceeding NV for a while in that regard. 3D video IQ is class leading actually. The differences are minor though. Generally AMD cards tend to have brighter colours and better contrast out of the box and it is NV cards that require adjustment. Full RGB via HDMI is also completely broken on NV cards.

If you want to use your GPU for media center services via HDMI, NV is not even an option if you want accurate colours.

That thread doesn't say what you think it says. It's about nvidia (and intel for that matter) correctly implementing the HDMI spec - which means that when a broken display asks for 16-235 but expects 0-255, it gets what it asks for and surprise, colours look wrong. Up to here, you'll have the same problem with AMD cards too.

The difference is AMD expose a setting to override the broken display request, but nvidia don't on windows (on linux they do, making this fairly bizarre). That's annoying, but it's the display that's broken here - it's requesting the wrong colour space.

For a media centre PC though it seems irrelevant - if you're connecting to a TV there's no issue (since they're expecting and asking for 16-235 anyway), and if you're using linux there's also no issue.

As for the 290 vs 780 if noise isn't an issue it seems a pretty clear choice given that's the primary drawback of the 290 (+ as you said Aus is still on the splinter cell bundle, not the recent one).

 

[Silverforce11]

Where did you get that, or are you going to try convince me the 290 is a quality product?...

I dont think anything could convince you to buy AMD.. so lets not pretend otherwise.

 

[Keysplayr]

I dont think anything could convince you to buy AMD.. so lets not pretend otherwise.

Who Cares ?? /shrugs

 

[Ararat]

Ok guys, I've picked up an xfx 290, it has Ver P.0 written on it, so I don't know if that counts as 'old stock'.

Seems to be going well so far. I got a BSOD in Max Payne 3 (in the menu, not even in game...) but otherwise all is well, been playing BSI for a while, and pleased with the frame rate.

Btw, I wasn't interested in custom resolutions per se, I just wanted to force 1080p in certain games. Including newer ones such as grid 2, which lists 1080p as an option, but runs at 1440x900 instead for whatever reason...


In addition, some games (Crysis 2) seem to run at 1080p24, and don't offer the option to change refresh rate... that's the reason I wanted control over the resolution through the driver.

 

[ICDP]

Meh, even if the sound isnt a factor, I wouldnt want to run a product that runs at 94c...by design..LMAO...
I would just go for the quality product period.

You are aware you can adjust the temperature target in the AMD Overdrive settings? If you want a lower temperature just set it. Of course the sound from the horrible standard R9 290/X cooler will get loud. The option is there and is a simple slider adjust option.

Having tested an R9 290 unlocked to 290X and seen how great the card actually is I can say it is a very impressive GPU from an engineering standpoint. Noticeably faster than my GTX780 by ~10%-15% on average and ~30% on minimums and cheaper as well. The only downside is the cooler but if noise is not a problem IMHO an R9 290 is a better card overall than a GTX780.

 

[ICDP]

Ok guys, I've picked up an xfx 290, it has Ver P.0 written on it, so I don't know if that counts as 'old stock'.

Seems to be going well so far. I got a BSOD in Max Payne 3 (in the menu, not even in game...) but otherwise all is well, been playing BSI for a while, and pleased with the frame rate.

Btw, I wasn't interested in custom resolutions per se, I just wanted to force 1080p in certain games. Including newer ones such as grid 2, which lists 1080p as an option, but runs at 1440x900 instead for whatever reason...


In addition, some games (Crysis 2) seem to run at 1080p24, and don't offer the option to change refresh rate... that's the reason I wanted control over the resolution through the driver.

There are two BIOS switches on the R9 290 and doing a BIOS update is very easy. If you run the attached zip file at the link I provided it will tell you if it is unlockable. It's essentially a free upgrade to a full featured R9 290X.

Though an R9 290 is only ~7% slower overall.

 

[Ararat]

There are two BIOS switches on the R9 290 and doing a BIOS update is very easy. If you run the attached zip file at the link I provided it will tell you if it is unlockable. It's essentially a free upgrade to a full featured R9 290X.

Though an R9 290 is only ~7% slower overall.

By two BIOS switches, do you mean it has dual BIOS, with a physical switch between the two, so if I cock it up, I can just switch to the secondary BIOS?

 

[ICDP]

By two BIOS switches, do you mean it has dual BIOS, with a physical switch between the two, so if I cock it up, I can just switch to the secondary BIOS?

yes, two switches with a totally separate BIOS on each setting.

On R9 290 both switches (1 and 2) are identical.
On R9 290X switch 1 (closest to video connectors) is quiet mode and switch 2 (closest to the power connectors) is uber mode.

Runs the memory info test (zip is on the link in my post above) and check if it can be unlocked.

If it can and you want to try it, set your R9 290 to switch 2 and flash the Asus default R9 290X BIOS to it. Make sure to use GPU-Z to backup your original BIOS first.

A far more concise and full guide with all files and downloads is available on the link I provided earlier. Even if you leave it as default your R9 290 is an excellent GPU.

 

[Skurge]

Where did you get that, or are you going to try convince me the 290 is a quality product?...

Apparently you equate quality with lower temps. So AMD>Intel right?

 

[el etro]

Ok guys, I've picked up an xfx 290, it has Ver P.0 written on it, so I don't know if that counts as 'old stock'.

Seems to be going well so far. I got a BSOD in Max Payne 3 (in the menu, not even in game...) but otherwise all is well, been playing BSI for a while, and pleased with the frame rate.

Btw, I wasn't interested in custom resolutions per se, I just wanted to force 1080p in certain games. Including newer ones such as grid 2, which lists 1080p as an option, but runs at 1440x900 instead for whatever reason...


In addition, some games (Crysis 2) seem to run at 1080p24, and don't offer the option to change refresh rate... that's the reason I wanted control over the resolution through the driver.

You will need to find the lastest BIOS to your graphics card(your BIOS is probably outdated, most of retail cards come with out-of-date bioses) and install the lastest driver(cat 13.11 beta version 9.4 or superior) from AMD site.

 

[Ararat]

Catalyst says that my firmware is up to date. It's ok, I'll give it a go over the weekend. If it works out, then great, if not, then it's only 7%, I still got a good card for the money I spent.

 

[Johnny4]

well the 290 has more raw horsepower but does use more power but theres mantle which no one really knows if it will improve or not and then with 770 u have less power not as powerfull still decent and u can record with it without buying a capture card or using fraps and u get support for g-sync and gamestream so its really up to u what features u want.