TPU Performance Summaries with newer games

[Attic]

For high end gaming (not ultra high end) it's all about the $300 mark.

AMD 290 and 290x hold up quite well for folks already invested there, but I don't see a reason to go AMD over nVidia above the $300 mark when buying today. We had a lot of reviews that overstated the nVidia performance marks do to some selective benching and card choices, but nVidia regardless of that still has a stranglehold here IMO.


This is where nVidia really did a wonder with the surprise price drop on the 970 from what looked like $379 to the debut at $329. Pretty much decimated AMD's lineup above that mark and around it.

The 290x and 290 are interesting at around the $300 mark, but the 970 still stands alone IMO here. Sure the 290x performs on par with the 970 (beating or losing depending on titles), but with the power savings and HDMI 2.0 (in addition to DP that all these cards have) support for 4k gaming I don't see the 290x being a real competitor for new buyers.

A 290 at <$250 vs a 970 at $330 is interesting because in pure performance the 290 holds its own against the 970.


The 980 doesn't make a lot of sense, way overpriced for what it offers. 970 at $330 for what it brings to the table was a killer hand nVidia laid down.



I think AMD is late to the game with the 390/x, that needs to be here now at $300 and $400. I doubt they are selling more than a handful of 290/x. I expect the 390 lineup will make the 970 appear much more even tempered rather than the bucking bronco it is now in it's respective space.

 

[RussianSensation]

I would say a proper 970 is at $350+ videocard because Asus Strix, Gigabyte Windforce, MSI Gaming and Zotac Omega are all $350+:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&amp;PageSize=30

With 290 regularly selling for $250-260, that's a massive $90-100 price difference. Think about it a 240-256GB SSD OS upgrade + after-market 290 or save $90-100 towards a future GPU upgrade with FreeSync support and DP 1.3. The costs skyrocket to $180-200 if you are buying dual-GPU setups and with dual cards you can get up to 7 games (3+3 GE and CIVBE). You basically get a free 480-512GB SSD upgrade and 7 free games with similar performance to 970 SLI. That's an incredible value imo. For the savvy buyers who closely follow prices in the US, $210 PowerColor PCS+ 290 and Sandisk Extreme Pro 480GB for $185 on Newegg were impossible to beat on Black Friday week/end.

970 was a stellar value when 290 was $300 and 290X was $350. Even if you are playing 4 hours a day every day, that 100W of power works out to $15-20 a year at NA electricity prices.

What's really making 290 unfavourable with buyers are the beliefs that all 290s run hot and loud, not just the power usage. It's the same story that hampered 7970 series since launch. The average gamer doesn't read professional reviews so in their mind a reference 290/290X is how all 290s are. The interesting aspect about loyal NV buyers is that they barely/rarely consider the overall cost of ownership in their buying decision. Generation after generation they pay $100-300 more for each NV card and in the end those NV cards don't prove to be any more future proof. Considering how quickly GPUs depreciate in value and how often faster cards are released, I find upgrading more often is the superior strategy. The reason I am still on 7970s right now is because of work/travel, I can't really bring my desktop tower with me or otherwise I would have already been running dual 290s since the upgrade cost is so cheap.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Is it possible to make a thread without making it to an AMD love fest post?
I mean, there is no way OP could have made it any more fanboyish.

What about just presenting the findings from TechPowerUp, make a quick note about the development from earlier tests and then allow discussions regarding performance and differences commence instead of directing the thread toward the obvious goal of OP here?


We don't need these kind of callouts here - if you don't like what the OP wrote you can just leave your negative comments to yourself.

-Moderator Rvenger

 

[Wild Thing]

Given your post history that's an amusing statement...to say the least.:whiste:
Please stick to the pro NVidia threads if it distresses you so much.

That means you too, callouts and fan boy remarks will not be tolerated.

-Moderator Rvenger

 

[rgallant]

good idea when nv comes out with cards that beat the old cards in game play.

but hey running cards at 1200+ mhz vs sub 1000 always look good in the benches when they win by 5% don't they.

 

[Kenmitch]

Is it possible to make a thread without making it to an AMD love fest post?
I mean, there is no way OP could have made it any more fanboyish.

What about just presenting the findings from TechPowerUp, make a quick note about the development from earlier tests and then allow discussions regarding performance and differences commence instead of directing the thread toward the obvious goal of OP here?

Given your post history that's an amusing statement...to say the least.:whiste:
Please stick to the pro NVidia threads if it distresses you so much.

Lets play nice guys

Interesting thread it is.

 

[sxr7171]

I've enjoyed being on the nVidia train recently but I cannot help feeling like AMD would have been much better value with higher longevity. A high end AMD user would have been okay with one card over the period while a similar nVidia user would have been dragged through 3 cards.

I'm going to seriously consider AMD next round, I think nVidia's marketing has gotten a little too good.

 

[raghu78]

Given your post history that's an amusing statement...to say the least.:whiste:
Please stick to the pro NVidia threads if it distresses you so much.

:thumbsup:

 

[Attic]

I've enjoyed being on the nVidia train recently but I cannot help feeling like AMD would have been much better value with higher longevity. A high end AMD user would have been okay with one card over the period while a similar nVidia user would have been dragged through 3 cards.

I'm going to seriously consider AMD next round, I think nVidia's marketing has gotten a little too good.

This is an interesting point and something i've noticed too. Though I think if buying now the 970 is most solid choice. When 770 2gb came out, not a good choice, 570 1.5gb not a good choice 780ti not a good choice (when looking back). There's a few more clever traps from nVidia along their path if we look back at how their cards held up (or didn't) vs competition.

Though presently the lineup of 290 and 290x vs the 970 it looks clear the 970 will have lots of staying power vs competition (though it's competing against year old cards).

Best choice cards in recent memory look like the 7970/280x and 290, can't say anything from nVidia comes close to how solid these cards will be throughout their lifespans.

 

[tential]

This is an interesting point and something i've noticed too. Though I think if buying now the 970 is most solid choice. When 770 2gb came out, not a good choice, 570 1.5gb not a good choice 780ti not a good choice (when looking back). There's a few more clever traps from nVidia along their path if we look back at how their cards held up (or didn't) vs competition.

Though presently the lineup of 290 and 290x vs the 970 it looks clear the 970 will have lots of staying power vs competition (though it's competing against year old cards).

Best choice cards in recent memory look like the 7970/280x and 290, can't say anything from nVidia comes close to how solid these cards will be throughout their lifespans.

I'm extremely happy with my HD7950. I'm hoping my next card pick does as well. The Omega drivers addressed a lot of issues I had that had me still wanting an Nvidia card. DSR, OpenGL/Linux Drivers, and some other things were reasons I still wanted to get Nvidia.

With these Omega drivers it looks like each issue I had is being addressed. If AMD could raise their perceived brand value they may actually give competition to Nvidia. But I'm happy they don't because I like being able to pick up their cards on this great price to performance ratio.

 

[Vicard]

Kudos to AMD driver team.

 

[Hauk]

I mean, there is no way OP could have made it any more fanboyish..
..instead of directing the thread toward the obvious goal of OP here?

OP is one of the most valued contributors here. Useful information? Yes. Take my situation, making a jump to 1440p next month. I was sold on 970 SLI, but cam take a good second look at 290 CF considering. It's easy to think along your lines; look harder..

 

[sxr7171]

This is an interesting point and something i've noticed too. Though I think if buying now the 970 is most solid choice. When 770 2gb came out, not a good choice, 570 1.5gb not a good choice 780ti not a good choice (when looking back). There's a few more clever traps from nVidia along their path if we look back at how their cards held up (or didn't) vs competition.

Though presently the lineup of 290 and 290x vs the 970 it looks clear the 970 will have lots of staying power vs competition (though it's competing against year old cards).

Best choice cards in recent memory look like the 7970/280x and 290, can't say anything from nVidia comes close to how solid these cards will be throughout their lifespans.

The 970 is good because of its price point but I feel like it too will be okay for 6 months only. It seems like a transitory product until big Maxwell or next gen AMD.

The 770 also was the smart value choice vis a vis the 780, now it's not really a competitive high end card anymore. But if I needed a card now I would get the 970.

 

[Silverforce11]

But if I needed a card now I would get the 970.

Buying a 970 now is silly when its due to be obsolete soon, compare the gtx670, 760, 770 situation, would you buy them at full price when the next-gen is due soon? Waste of $.

If I needed a card now, I would only consider a R290. Why?

For ~$220 you have great performance to tide you over, save the rest of the $ for the next upgrade when big Maxwell or R390X lands.

 

[96Firebird]

You seem to be assuming the next gen cards are going to put pressure on the 970's price...

 

[toyota]

Buying a 970 now is silly when its due to be obsolete soon, compare the gtx670, 760, 770 situation, would you buy them at full price when the next-gen is due soon? Waste of $.

If I needed a card now, I would only consider a R290. Why?

For ~$220 you have great performance to tide you over, save the rest of the $ for the next upgrade when big Maxwell or R390X lands.

you say that as if the 970 is some super overpriced card. a 970 at 330-350 bucks is still a very decent buy and is not going to tank in value like a 980 will. the kepler cards looking poor in recent games have no bearing on the 970 becoming obsolete. and some of you keep acting like all the 290 cards are dirt cheap when most of them are close to 300 bucks ore more. plus they are slower than the 970.

 

[Silverforce11]

You seem to be assuming the next gen cards are going to put pressure on the 970's price...

It's not about price pressure. I think in terms of performance longevity for the $ spent.

If one needed a card right now and can't wait, then spend as little as possible for as best performance as you can get, then put the rest of the $ saved for the coming big GPU, because that big GPU is something I'm more interested in.

 

[toyota]

It's not about price pressure. I think in terms of performance longevity for the $ spent.

If one needed a card right now and can't wait, then spend as little as possible for as best performance as you can get, then put the rest of the $ saved for the coming big GPU, because that big GPU is something I'm more interested in.

again silly to make that call based on Kepler just now looking really bad. and the next big gpu from Nvidia will still be Maxwell and it will be in a whole other price league compared to 970. some people want performance now and dont want to sit around always wondering whats next.

 

[Fox5]

Nvidia's great driver support was always a selling point though. How they've essentially ignored Kepler is new titles? I was thinking of buying the GTX 970 but now I'll wait and see what AMD brings to the table. Especially now seeing how long it's taken for Nvidia to improve that Kepler performance. If they'll abandon old architectures then I won't upgrade to them. I can't be purchasing new GPUs every architecture they put out. Hopefully it's resolved soon because if it's not improved by the end of htis month I certainly won't purchase maxwell.

AMD has generally had better performance relatively long term than nvidia. You can view that as AMD optimizing better/longer, or as nvidia having better drivers out of the gate and it takes time for AMD to catch up. The geforce 7800 series versus the AMD X1900 series was a really good example of this.

AMD's architectures have seems like they've been more driver dependent than nvidia since at least the HD2900. However, long term AMD has always fared better against nvidia than they did at the start, in both features and performance. It generally doesn't matter since nvidia has a next gen out by the time AMD's cards are beating nvidia's last gen.

 

[Cerb]

Buying a 970 now is silly when its due to be obsolete soon, compare the gtx670, 760, 770 situation, would you buy them at full price when the next-gen is due soon? Waste of $.

Because that's always the case. It has slowed with CPUs and GPUs alike, but less so with GPUs. Any video card that you didn't get free was a waste of $.

Oh, and where's that 290 or 290X that runs with the fans off? That is, to me, the killer feature, carried by some of the GTX 9xx cards. That removes my need to put in time and risk to fix others not being able to reach inaudibility.

When you must upgrade, or the new cards are finally good enough, do so. Unless the 20nm GPUs have already been shipping, those that already bought are having perfectly good experiences now, rather than waiting around with old video cards they are unhappy with. By the time you're up for a new one, the extra 10% you might have gotten by making a good choice with a brand-name crystal ball wont matter, because you'll be needing 50-100%.

If wanting 4K, though, none of the current single cards appear to be worthy performers. R9 CF seems to be better right now than GTX SLI, but SLI has also been known to get improved by drivers quite a bit. By the time you know, both will be gen-1, if not gen-2. Get what works for you, and move on.

 

[Worlocked]

I have to agree with people badmouthing kepler. I have a GTX 670 2gb and I don't think I've ever had a GPU get this obsolete this fast. It's more or less worthless with these new console ports. Really wish I would have gotten the 7970 instead.

 

[Final8ty]

Buying a 970 now is silly when its due to be obsolete soon, compare the gtx670, 760, 770 situation, would you buy them at full price when the next-gen is due soon? Waste of $.

If I needed a card now, I would only consider a R290. Why?

For ~$220 you have great performance to tide you over, save the rest of the $ for the next upgrade when big Maxwell or R390X lands.

Indeed .

The 290- was selling so fast that OCUK ran out of codes.

They were in stock Friday, they ran out over weekend due to us selling far more than expected and AMD supply the codes based on our previous weeks run rate.

Many people got the 290X with 4 games for £210

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27294244&postcount=111

And the 295 is doing OK.

I will be honest I have no idea why they are doing it as to my knowledge the stocks are quite low worldwide and there is from what I can see nothing newer coming from AMD which would challenge this card.

So seems an odd one, but this offer has quadrupled our sales, it is why Asus, Gigabyte, Sapphire and XFX have all now sold out.

MSI is now the last of our 295 X2's and we've less than 50 units left and MSI at present stating they have no more in their European hubs left.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27302390&postcount=4

 

[RussianSensation]

Because that's always the case. It has slowed with CPUs and GPUs alike, but less so with GPUs. Any video card that you didn't get free was a waste of $.

Oh, and where's that 290 or 290X that runs with the fans off? That is, to me, the killer feature, carried by some of the GTX 9xx cards. That removes my need to put in time and risk to fix others not being able to reach inaudibility.

When you must upgrade, or the new cards are finally good enough, do so. Unless the 20nm GPUs have already been shipping, those that already bought are having perfectly good experiences now, rather than waiting around with old video cards they are unhappy with. By the time you're up for a new one, the extra 10% you might have gotten by making a good choice with a brand-name crystal ball wont matter, because you'll be needing 50-100%.

If wanting 4K, though, none of the current single cards appear to be worthy performers. R9 CF seems to be better right now than GTX SLI, but SLI has also been known to get improved by drivers quite a bit. By the time you know, both will be gen-1, if not gen-2. Get what works for you, and move on.

With that logic that your old videocard is not good enough, would have purchase an after-market 290 6 months ago for $375-399. Since after-market 290=290X, waiting 6 more months for 970 would have netted 5% more performance? That argument doesn't work which is why Silverforce has a point. 970/980 launched in a terrible time for a savvy gamer:

1) They aren't next gen enough to be powerful for next gen games beyond 290/290X, so why wait 11 months for them? More so, why wait 6 months to save $25-50 over a $350 970?

2) Extending off point #2, anyone who waited 2 years to upgrade with a 680/7970 style card, gained little waiting 6-11 months to get a 970. In other words, if I am waiting 2 years, then if I am waiting yet another 1 year almost, for that extra time I would want 35% more performance from 290/X since that's the annualized % of GPU increases in the last 5 years. 970/980 fail to reach that critical mark.

3) Unfortunately, imo none of 2014 PC games besides possibly Ryse Son of Rome (an OK game) provided us with true next generation graphics. Since 970/980 did little to move performance up at multi-monitor or 4K gaming, we are left with 1080-1600p. In these latest titles, if you need more performance, grabbing a used 680/7970 would give you a major boost in performance for a fraction of the upgrade cost. In fact, ARES II 7990 crushes 980 in almost all these demanding titles besides Unity.

Again, 970/980 are only amazing in terms of perf/watt and HDMI 2.0 for large screen HDTV. Their performance for the price given that 1 year ago an after-market 290 was just $400 is seriously lacking.

For that reason it's somewhat expected that in 2015 we should get a big leap in price/performance, like 980 performance at $399.

 

[SirPauly]

There has been a leap in price/performance from AMD and nVidia with the introduction of Maxwell 2.

 

[Cerb]

With that logic that your old videocard is not good enough, would have purchase an after-market 290 6 months ago for $375-399. Since after-market 290=290X, waiting 6 more months for 970 would have netted 5% more performance? That argument doesn't work which is why Silverforce has a point.

No, by that logic, you'd either upgrade, or hang on to what you have for longer, based on the gains for the cost, at any given time. You could have been using it, instead of waiting for months. OTOH, no point in doing so without it being better than what you have by some margin. That it's bad because there will be better out there soon is a silly argument: there always will be, usually in 6 months or less (though the slow process shrinks by TSMC have extended that, lately).

Buying video cards for their value over time is bad as trying the same with cars, just with a few less zeros. It's money down the drain, every time (at least cars are necessary, for most non-urbanites). At least throw it away on something you'll like using.

11 months ago, to approximately match a semi-passive GTX 970 model, for under $400, would have been impossible (it would have gotten, at best, a R9 280X, on sale, which I did consider more than once, along with non-sale GTX 760 4GBs, albeit slower). Today, it would cost nearly $400. There are no video cards, out of the box, comparable to the MSI Gaming, Asus Strix, and EVGA SC ACX series, as total packages (for those with wide U.S. availability), especially the 970 ones. $400 or so for a ~75% improvement, plus VRAM, after over 3 years of GPU developments: not cool. ~$350 for >=150% more, keeping the stock HSF, and not needing to BIOS mod (I might anyway, though ): I can dig that.

Once newer and better come out, from both companies, I will have been using mine for months, as will many others. It would be more wasteful in terms of my leisure time to keep on waiting, when something good enough was already there to be had, or to spend much more money and time try to make a square peg fit a round hole (an R9 280X or better).

An ARES II alone uses more power than my whole PC, and cost new what my entire PC has so far, including PSU and fan changes, and a monitor replacement. It very well aught to perform.

Again, 970/980 are only amazing in terms of perf/watt and HDMI 2.0 for large screen HDTV. Their performance for the price given that 1 year ago an after-market 290 was just $400 is seriously lacking.

So, it's only amazing in part due to what has allowed some models to be compelling to buy, over the competition. Yet, it should be passed on, for more months, because new cards will be coming out? That cycle can go on forever.