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Return GTX 970 for R9 290x?

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fleshconsumed said:
Another choice might be to keep your 970 until AMD releases 380X and ditch your 970 for 380X then.
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I like this idea and am thinking about this as well,depending on how games end up running on that 970.No telling on performance,price and or hell if the damn thing is gonna have a leaf blower like 290/290x while you still have to wait for a proper after market card.:thumbsup:
 
apart from a big price difference, I would always pick the 970 over the 290x, even if the 970 was officially a 3.5GB card since launch
 
fleshconsumed said:
IMO if you can return 970 for a full refund at no loss to you, then I'd say definitely go for 290/290x. If you have to take a loss on a card, then it's less clear, I'd probably still do it considering that you can probably sell your 970 for what you're going to pay for 290/290x give or take a little. But as I said, it will depend on how pissed off you are at nVidia and if you're willing to go through all the hassle of selling/buying/installing drivers and whatnot.

Another choice might be to keep your 970 until AMD releases 380X and ditch your 970 for 380X then.
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I'm not going to sell the card. No one is going to pay me the $340 I spent for an EVGA SC 970 when the SSC is out now.
 
6818_46_sapphire_radeon_r9_290x_8gb_vapor_x_oc_v.png

Power numbers are reasonable. Don't be afraid.
 
boozzer said:
HA, 50 watt difference and people were screaming it like it was the 2nd coming of christ.
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Ya, because HardOCP would take max OC vs. OC. In that case the faster 980 SLI beat 290Xs CF while using 300W less power. You should see the arguments now how a 960 uses 100W less of power vs. the 290 but what this group of gamers is missing is that a R9 290 total system is 45-50% faster than a 960 system, while using less than 50% additional power. Perspective matters.

SteveGrabowski said:
Should I, or should I not return my GTX 970 for an R9 290x? Let's assume I'll put aside my anger at being lied to by Nvidia and assume I want to use my card for three years for AAA games, with hopefully a smooth degradation in settings to still play games decently at 60FPS over its lifetime.

My priorities are strictly performance and longevity. I don't care a whole lot about how loud it is as long as it's not ridiculous like a reference 290x uber.
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Honestly none of the 290/290X/970 will last any longer than each other over 3 years in AAA games. All will become too slow. The only exception would be GE vs. GW titles where we would see a larger discrepancy. Do I think a $320 MSI Lighting R9 290X will have a better resale value than a $350 970? Probably not. So that's not a strong enough factor either. I would say if you want another alternative, it would be to sell a 970 and get a used after-market R9 290 non-X and try to net $80-100 savings in the process (say sell the 970 for $300 and buy a used R9 290 for $200-220). That way when you upgrade to the next GPU in 2-3 years, you'll have $80-100 extra towards the next upgrade. That to me would actually provide you with the most benefit long-term. Again though if you play a lot of GW titles, then a 970 is still a solid card.

If I had to choose today and didn't have a card, I would pick an MSI Lightning R9 290X over any 970. Honestly don't stress it too much as at 1080P, a single 970 is unlikely to run into a > 3.5GB VRAM bottleneck.
 
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it really is too bad that you guys missed the 200$ 290 in the nov 2014. and they were all top custom cooled models. but you know, the hype for maxwell blinded most of them. damn, I am away from home right now and miss my gaming pc dearly.
 
chimaxi83 said:
Which games?
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Right now the most prominent one is Dying Light. It's a bad coding job though. There are others that aren't ideal for the 290 cards but aren't as bad as Dying Light.

jackstar7 said:
Saying this without citing examples is not productive.
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It is when I don't know what games the OP is going to play. It's better advice than telling him flat out to go buy a 290 then let him come back saying "hey the AMD cards aren't that good in game X" I suggested doing some research on the titles he will be playing. That's as productive as it gets, giving advice in order to come to a decision himself.
 
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cmdrdredd said:
It is when I don't know what games the OP is going to play. It's better advice than telling him flat out to go buy a 290 then let him come back saying "hey the AMD cards aren't that good in game X" I suggested doing some research on the titles he will be playing. That's as productive as it gets, giving advice in order to come to a decision himself.
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The your advice should have been: "One caveat you should be told is that some games simply don't run well on either brand's cards right now. Better keep an eye on what games you are looking to play and keep that in mind."

Because neither delivers a flawless experience across all games.
 
jackstar7 said:
The your advice should have been: "One caveat you should be told is that some games simply don't run well on either brand's cards right now. Better keep an eye on what games you are looking to play and keep that in mind."

Because neither delivers a flawless experience across all games.
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I said what I said because in certain games AMD cards tank compared to Nvidia at the moment. I Haven't seen the same thing happening the other way. You can blame gameworks or you can blame the developer.
 
cmdrdredd said:
I said what I said because in certain games AMD cards tank compared to Nvidia at the moment. I Haven't seen the same thing happening the other way. You can blame gameworks or you can blame the developer.
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Fantastic.

Warning issued for fanboy callout.
-Rvenger
 
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cmdrdredd said:
I said what I said because in certain games AMD cards tank compared to Nvidia at the moment. I Haven't seen the same thing happening the other way. You can blame gameworks or you can blame the developer.
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Yes, i remember DX 10.1 and how it was removed unceremoniously from a Nvidia game with a patch, or the tesselation in batman, or Metro etc. The developers change, but the culprit behind the scenes is only one. In this case, it is working under the name of Gameworks.
 
lyssword said:
probably not worth the hassle, it would be a sidegrade anyways
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290x, a sidegrade? Well it has full 4gb at full speed. 😛

Jokes apart, it is considerably cheaper than the other alternatives from Nvidia and will run fairly predictably with future games. Can't say the same about 970.
 
if it was me I'd return it
for the sole reason I run sli and I really don't have any issues .

if I do I can turn the settings down to faster than a single card and not have any issues.
if I had a 970sli issues and the new game still had unfix able issues , it would drive me nuts wondering if it was this binning option to gimp the vram and most likely replace them .
btw if I can't give the cards away I just store them.
 
cmdrdredd said:
I said what I said because in certain games AMD cards tank compared to Nvidia at the moment. I Haven't seen the same thing happening the other way. You can blame gameworks or you can blame the developer.
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Seriously, Gameworks (NVIDIA's own) SUCK. That crap about forcing all GPU to render through GWs PROPRIETARY, locked down API is not good for all consumers.

If you're doing multi-gpu, you gotta return it. That extra .5gb is going to be huge in this year. Personally, I would return both and settle for single 1080p capable gpu until the bigger gpus come out.
 
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