Yeah, I'd definitely keep this 290 (it's a pretty nice Sapphire Tri-X version), but it's been giving me issues with my Asus PG278Q and it's apparently a common thing with AMD cards. Specifically that it flickers and loses display signal randomly every couple seconds or minutes. Shouldn't be the card, since the card works fine with every other monitor (3 specifically) that I've used it with. Also, the 290 is only capable of 120hz refresh rate and not the 144 that the monitor is capable of (which works with my old gtx 960).
Anyway, I had a GTX 960 that worked flawlessly with this monitor, but was painfully slow in comparison. Ended up selling that off a few days ago, so I'm back with the faulty setup.
A side-grade would be best case for me in this scenario (or even a small downgrade would be fine). Just not the 960, as it's a bit too slow for my liking. I definitely realize that the 290 is by far, the best price-performance at the moment. But all in all, it's just the display cutting out every so often that really gives incentive for an nvidia card. In fact, my monitor went black about 6 times in the time it took me to type this. Gsync and ULMB and even 3d vision are just icing on top of the cake.
Why do you care more about the image of one company instead of simply purchasing the product with the highest performance/value?
Sell the monitor. Get a Freesync panel and wait for Polaris/Pascal.
Why do you have a g-sync monitor though? You could consider selling that instead and getting a new GPU. I dont think those things are remotely worth it. They have people paying hundreds for a single dispay port monitor locked to a single vendor? That's a decade ago kind of situation (single port). Do yourself a favor and ditch that crap. Way too limiting. There are great IPS monitors available to replace it with. ultrawide this, curved that etc etc
its not the specs that's causing the issue, guessing g-sync doesn't like AMD GPUs (nvidia tech, go figure). I have a mg279q with similar specs except IPS and there's no issue. 144hz is easy, even extended range freesync is easy (have a 290x)
Also have you tried setting the 290 to stock speeds? Even stock reference if yours is factory OC. You can also try adding +25mv to see if that makes it stable. I've seen either of these work as solutions for other people with Hawaii GPUs for my monitor which is the same panel, but Freesync.
Also, while not ideal for your 144hz display, have you tried 60hz to mitigate the black screen? It may be a DP cable issue more than the card.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1572355/benq-xl2730z-owners-club/200_100#post_24754577
Considering that the real thing you'd be buying is a fix to the monitor issues, I'd try troubleshooting like crisium recommends first, because it's free. Then I'd consider what you'd gain and lose in terms of value and money by going with a new card or a new monitor. You may very well want to keep the monitor because it's a real good fit for CSGO, but there may be a freesync one that also fits well, and give the general relative pricing you may even make money on that exchange. Or you may want to go with a 970 or 980.
960SLI is slower than a 290.
I don't actually care about their image. I care about their products. Having used them almost exclusively ever since the fall of 3DFX, including SLI purchases since their inception with the Geforce 6 series (ya I know 3DFX did it first. Get off it), I don't want to see their product support go to hell.
Perhaps Nvidia thinks that just because they have large market share they can get away with giving the customer the short end of the stick to increase profitability and cut back on driver maintenance. Perhaps they think we will just deal with it and buy their stuff anyway.
Things like this can run away quickly on them with people developing a bad taste for their products. Hell, it doesn't even have to be true for people to abandon ship on their asses. People only have to think its true and for most people, that's enough. I've seen enough past vs present comparative benchmarks to know Nvidia no longer gives a damn about product longevity.
I don't actually care about their image. I care about their products. Having used them almost exclusively ever since the fall of 3DFX, including SLI purchases since their inception with the Geforce 6 series (ya I know 3DFX did it first. Get off it), I don't want to see their product support go to hell.
Perhaps Nvidia thinks that just because they have large market share they can get away with giving the customer the short end of the stick to increase profitability and cut back on driver maintenance. Perhaps they think we will just deal with it and buy their stuff anyway.
Things like this can run away quickly on them with people developing a bad taste for their products. Hell, it doesn't even have to be true for people to abandon ship on their asses. People only have to think its true and for most people, that's enough. I've seen enough past vs present comparative benchmarks to know Nvidia no longer gives a damn about product longevity.
I checked some of the 1440p benchmarks in this review:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_960_SLI/
But upon further inspection, the 960SLI performance appears to be very game dependent, faster than the 290 in some, slower in others.
Well said.
But let's imagine you are running the business. You dominate the market, so it's no longer about competing for gamers to switch over to your products.
It's about how to get the vast majority of the market to upgrade to your new products.
The conclusion from a business pov is what's happening.
If I buy an AMD product, I risk being stuck with a truly unsupported product because I imagine AMD could literally go out of business at any moment completely. Like vanish from the face of the planet. Gone. Poof! They are that weak IMO. Very fragile and unattractive as a company IMO. No confidence to buy anything from them, sad to say it.
The 970 is still the best mid range card on the market. Buy one and use it until the new gen is fully launched and polished.