Shooutout: Crossfire 290's vs 980Ti

[Elfear]

After using a pair of watercooled 290's for close to two years I'm ready to play with something new and shiny. While XDMA Crossfire worked very well, it had it's downsides too just like any multi-GPU system. I decided I wanted to try a single card that came close to the performance of my 290's so I eagerly waited for the Fury-X to release. Post launch I was somewhat disappointed with the mediocre showing against the 980Ti, not only in stock performance but also it's overclocking ability. After going back and forth I finally found a brand new EVGA 980Ti ACX for <$600 and decided to jump on it.

I had fun pitting a 780 and a 290 against one another when the 290 first launched and thought it would be interesting to do the same with the 980Ti.

Benchmark Rig

OS: Win 10 Preview (Build 10240)
Drivers: AMD - Catalyst 15.7, Nvidia - 353.62
CPU: 4770k@4.6Ghz 1.27V HT on
Game Drive: Samsung EVO SSD

Testing Methodology

Each game was run 2-3 times at each listed setting and the best run was used in the charts below.

Average watts were taken with my calibrated eyeball and a Kill-O-Watt during the last run to make sure both cards were warmed up. Power consumption fluctuated around but generally it was within 15-20W of the average.

The 290's were watercooled with EK full cover blocks and the 980Ti used the stock ACX 2.0+ cooler.

In general the clocks for both cards were the following:

980Ti

Stock Boost- 1202/1750 (Power and Temp targets were untouched)
Overclocked Boost- 1497/2000 (+31mV or 1.218V; fan was at 65%, Power and Temp targets were 110% and 91C respectively)
*The boost clocks varied a bit and I listed the average on each benchmark

Crossfire 290's

Stock - 1000/1250
Overclocked - 1150/1350-1450 (+100mV)



980Ti General Observations

I am impressed with the ACX 2.0+ cooler. With the fan profile on auto the temps crept up to 75-78C and stayed there. Overclocked with the fan at 65%, it was audible but not annoying. More of a whooshing sound than a whine like I've heard on other coolers.

My only gripe with the card is actually with Nvidia's Power Target. 110% is too low to really allow the card to stretch it's legs. Even at 1.218V, it would throttle down after a while due to the power limit. Really annoying even though I understand why Nvidia designed it that way. I'll probably try a custom bios to see if I can hit 1500-1525Mhz sustained boost.

 

[Elfear]

Crysis

Custom cvar (sorry can't remember all the settings but it is basically maxed). 4xAA@1440p and 2xAA@4k

The results looked a little funny to me and the only conclusion I can come to is I was CPU limited at 1440p. At 4k, the results align very well with this review of Crysis Warhead where the 980Ti is only 25% faster than a single 290X. A second 290X adds 81% more performance which would make a 980Ti ~31% slower than a pair of 290Xs. My 980Ti is 31% slower at stock. Crysis must be a game where GCN excels.

Crysis 3

Settings: Everything on &#8220;Very High&#8221; with 2x SMAA

Benchmark: 3-4 minute run through in Post-Human 1-3 mission

Metro 2033

Canned benchmark

 

[Elfear]

Bioshock Infinite

Canned benchmark

Borderlands Pre-Sequel

5-6min run through starting at “Cluster 99002 0V3RL00K”.

Tomb Raider

Canned Benchmark

 

[Elfear]

Skyrim

3-4min run through outside in the main Skyrim world
Settings: RealVision ENB and mods (list is here)
*Note – Unfortunately, Crossfire doesn’t work with ENB in Skyrim so benchmarks are with a single 290

It looks like the 290 runs out of vram at 4k.




Power Consumption

 

[Elfear]

290 - Power Limit Testing

Just out of curiosity I benchmarked a couple games with the 290’s at 0% Power Limit and -50%. Average clock speeds of each card are listed in parentheses. The results are interesting.

 

[boozzer]

gcn always excels in fair benchmarks but they are super rare and hard to find

 

[thilanliyan]

Cool thanks for all your work. The 980Ti really is a great card, especially when OCed, and the power consumption doesn't even go up that much.

 

[Shmee]

Cool results, thanks for the great mini-review. Though I would have waited for Pascal till upgrading from your 290s.

 

[Silverforce11]

Cool thanks for all your work. The 980Ti really is a great card, especially when OCed, and the power consumption doesn't even go up that much.

That's the major advantage of NV's implementation of boost, they lock the vcore so you can't up it much to increase power usage and it throttles if you exceed it. But definitely their uarch clocks much better than GCN. Having a 250mhz advantage at the same node/process is great.

 

[guskline]

Great review Elfear. You did a "ton" of work and I really appreciate it since I own the EVGA GTX980TI SC in rig 1 below and 2 Sapphire Tri-X R9 290s in my newer rig 2 below.

My 980TI is under water with an EK block as are my 290s.

The 290s are sitting on a 4790k at 4.6Ghz (45x102) so I'll run some of your benchmarks when I get time to compare the results.

I had the 290s in my 5960x rig but decided to go with a single 980TI.

 

[AntonioHG]

Thanks for this. I was considering Crossfire R9 290, but I don't think mATX and Crossfire will be a good idea, lol.

 

[Elfear]

Cool thanks for all your work. The 980Ti really is a great card, especially when OCed, and the power consumption doesn't even go up that much.

Thanks. I was impressed with the 980Ti power consumption as well. I never worried about it with the 290's but it is nice to use 200-300W less for about the same performance.

Cool results, thanks for the great mini-review. Though I would have waited for Pascal till upgrading from your 290s.

Thought about it but I don't see big Pascal coming out until 2017 and I was itching to try something new even though it's more of a side grade.

Great review Elfear. You did a "ton" of work and I really appreciate it since I own the EVGA GTX980TI SC in rig 1 below and 2 Sapphire Tri-X R9 290s in my newer rig 2 below.

My 980TI is under water with an EK block as are my 290s.

The 290s are sitting on a 4790k at 4.6Ghz (45x102) so I'll run some of your benchmarks when I get time to compare the results.

I had the 290s in my 5960x rig but decided to go with a single 980TI.

Thanks. How do you feel your two rigs compare with one another?

Thanks for this. I was considering Crossfire R9 290, but I don't think mATX and Crossfire will be a good idea, lol.

If you have airflow problems and/or a small case, I would probably avoid a pair of 290's as well. They're great cards but they do need good airflow or watercooling.

 

[SystemVipers]

so if i am building a rig to run 4k, which is my best choice in video cards the 980 ti

i usually like 1 card solutions but am willing to get 2 if it makes the most sense...

I know this must be asked a lot but i figure this is a good spot to ask you.

thanks in advance.

best regards

 

[Elfear]

so if i am building a rig to run 4k, which is my best choice in video cards the 980 ti

i usually like 1 card solutions but am willing to get 2 if it makes the most sense...

I know this must be asked a lot but i figure this is a good spot to ask you.

thanks in advance.

best regards

Depends on what your priorities are. You can pick up a pair of used 290(X)'s for $400-450 that would probably be the fastest and least expensive solution. 4GB of vram is fine for 98% of the use cases IMO. There are a few games like Shadows of Mordor or heavily modded Skyrim that will need >4GB but most will be fine.

If you're going for single card performance the 980Ti is a great choice, especially if you like to overclock. If you don't plan on overclocking, a Fury would work well if you can get one for a good deal.

 

[SystemVipers]

Depends on what your priorities are. You can pick up a pair of used 290(X)'s for $400-450 that would probably be the fastest and least expensive solution. 4GB of vram is fine for 98% of the use cases IMO. There are a few games like Shadows of Mordor or heavily modded Skyrim that will need >4GB but most will be fine.

If you're going for single card performance the 980Ti is a great choice, especially if you like to overclock. If you don't plan on overclocking, a Fury would work well if you can get one for a good deal.

HI, thanks for the quick response, i am still in the air on the platform but i am going for the best gaming @4k res, i was looking at the monitors/tv out there and i want to build a system that will run it gracefully for a few years to come... That is kinda my goal. Plus not build a heat monster, i had 2 290x lightnings and they pulled the heat and power and i think i want to try to stay away from that situation, plus i am moving away from watercooling, did it for years but i want something that is mostly maintenance free...

Also i have a i7 4930k for work stuff, so this will be a strictly gaming system.

PS, sorry to the op if i am a little off topic but thanks for all the info, that is some great info.... Top Notch

 

[Silverforce11]

Nice shootout! Do you still have the 780 Lightning? Would be interesting to take it out of retirement and pit it against the R290 to see how it behaves nowadays!

I still remember this, it's epic power!

 

[Elfear]

Nice shootout! Do you still have the 780 Lightning? Would be interesting to take it out of retirement and pit it against the R290 to see how it behaves nowadays!

I still remember this, it's epic power!

I sold the 780 to Face2Face who I think still has it?? It would be a good comparison 1.5yrs later to see where they stand now.

That 780 did use a LOT of power with added voltage. It had an excellent power delivery system though and never skipped a beat at full tilt.

 

[tential]

HI, thanks for the quick response, i am still in the air on the platform but i am going for the best gaming @4k res, i was looking at the monitors/tv out there and i want to build a system that will run it gracefully for a few years to come... That is kinda my goal. Plus not build a heat monster, i had 2 290x lightnings and they pulled the heat and power and i think i want to try to stay away from that situation, plus i am moving away from watercooling, did it for years but i want something that is mostly maintenance free...

Also i have a i7 4930k for work stuff, so this will be a strictly gaming system.

PS, sorry to the op if i am a little off topic but thanks for all the info, that is some great info.... Top Notch

Really depends, but if you're looking at TVs then the GTX 980Ti is the only option as it's the one that supports HDMI 2.0.

To me, if you're looking at HDMI 2.0, GTX 980Ti + High end HDTV (Whatever you pick, I prefer 70 inch models but I won't bother listing models as it's really your choice. You also will have access to 120hz 1080p on a big screen which is nice.)

Then factor in games, I think you'll have the most flexibility with the GTX 980 Ti.

If you really want to do 4K, it seems the GTX 980Ti is the best option.

 

[railven]

Woof dat power consumption! It just keeps blowing me away every time I see it. To think I tinkered on the idea of keeping CFX 290X with AIC kits for the same price as a GTX 980 Ti.

I'm glad my personal experience (dat microstutter) snapped me out of it. I don't think I can go with mGPU ever again. Especially not with that power consumption! Woof.

Nice review Elfear. Kudos. :thumbsup: