ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum vs. AMD R9 295X2 @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum vs. AMD R9 295X2 - In this follow-up evaluation we take the ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum video card, overclock it while using its liquid cooling system and compare it to the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 video card stock and overclocked. Can this elite single GPU keep up with the stock dual GPU video that is very close in price?
 
Reality said:
AMD needs to get their shit together, this is ridiculous
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I would have to agree.

They have no choice but to hit a homerun with the 300 series.

My GOD that Asus clocks so fucking nice on water!
 
DASHlT said:
I would have to agree.

They have no choice but to hit a homerun with the 300 series.
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Yeah - only thing is we have been making these same statements as every series matures and a new series is about to release. I really thought this was the card series (2xx) that was going to do it...the Mantle hype really got me..and yet, here we are. I bought in for 6xxx, 7xxx, and 2xx and mostly got burned - 99% sure I'm done with AMD.
 
sk3tch said:
Yeah - only thing is we have been making these same statements as every series matures and a new series is about to release. I really thought this was the card series (2xx) that was going to do it...the Mantle hype really got me..and yet, here we are. I bought in for 6xxx, 7xxx, and 2xx and mostly got burned - 99% sure I'm done with AMD.
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Are you talking about crossfire?
 
Interesting review in an academic context, not the best time to be buying GPUs right now at any rate.
 
DASHlT said:
I would have to agree.

They have no choice but to hit a homerun with the 300 series.

My GOD that Asus clocks so fucking nice on water!
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Not really, most GTX980 will do 1,500mhz in game (like the ROG already does on air) and many OC card can reach 1530 or better. That extra 50~80 mhz really don't do that much.

But its not ASUS fault. I'm sure it would go even higher if it was not power limited.
 
How come I feel like this is a preview for how the 390x and Titan X are going to compare.
 
Mine can do about 1520-1530 and it's a freakin revference card. If i change the cooler i wouldn't doubt it could do 1580-1600
 
Didn't bother reading review,your game lineup with majority GameWorks meant the conclusion was set.

AMD GPUs suck in NV games, but NV GPUs work just fine in AMD GE games (FC3, BF4 etc), case close. No point to even bring up the same old tired bashing of poor CF (name a recent AAA NON-NV game recently that didn't have CF working), or bad performance..

I look forward to not reading your reviews in the future when GTA and Witcher 3 (both GameWorks titles) are added to your small list of games. /gg
 
It has been a tough 6 months for AMD now. AMD are very late this gen but looks like their reply in Q2 will be strong if the R9 390X and R9 380X with HBM rumours/leaks are true. AMD needs to up the game on CF and driver updates. 3 months without a driver update or updated CF profiles for the latest games is pathetic. :mad:
 
Bahanime said:
Didn't bother reading review,your game lineup with majority GameWorks meant the conclusion was set.
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While i agree, this review is 50% gameworks games, you should subtract those from the total & conclusion.
 
Bahanime said:
Didn't bother reading review,your game lineup with majority GameWorks meant the conclusion was set.

AMD GPUs suck in NV games, but NV GPUs work just fine in AMD GE games (FC3, BF4 etc), case close. No point to even bring up the same old tired bashing of poor CF (name a recent AAA NON-NV game recently that didn't have CF working), or bad performance..

I look forward to not reading your reviews in the future when GTA and Witcher 3 (both GameWorks titles) are added to your small list of games. /gg
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So BF4 and Crysis 3 are gameworks titles? If you don't want to read the article, you could at least check the graphs for which games were used.
 
Crysis 3...let see on the single card shoot out non oc 2 extra fps for over 300$ more, then lets oc the NV card 500mhz more than AMD...lower fps but one higher IQ setting for 300$ more...albeit power draw =p

Now if every game ran like that I would never consider a NV card other than power draw restraints, but unfortunately TWIMTBP/GW is having a huge impact on AMD...enough where I may consider a NV card when I'm ready to upgrade.

edit: err this was meant for the single card review of the ASUS ROG Poseidon 980
 
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The sad thing is AMDs total lack of support.
I didnt think it could get worse.
I was wrong.
The omega concept is a fail.
 
What's the price of the 980 with the water cooling setup used, is it just an extra $100 for an AIO?
 
shad0w4life said:
What's the price of the 980 with the water cooling setup used, is it just an extra $100 for an AIO?
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Nope, it will be more. You can't use AIO for this, it has to be a custom loop so its going to increase the price by quite a bit. You need fans, radiators and pump as well as tubing.
 
Stoly said:
Not really, most GTX980 will do 1,500mhz in game (like the ROG already does on air) and many OC card can reach 1530 or better. That extra 50~80 mhz really don't do that much.

But its not ASUS fault. I'm sure it would go even higher if it was not power limited.
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Yes, it may go higher. But its going to affect reliability. There is a limit of how much power you can pump into that piece of silicon. Having high clocks and voltage is going cause the silicon to degrade very quickly.

I am sure that many GTX980 can overclock well and many do post their oc results. But most do not post when the card will develop artifact due to overclocking. I am so most of us who overclock excessively have already experience that.
 
shad0w4life said:
What's the price of the 980 with the water cooling setup used, is it just an extra $100 for an AIO?
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I've seen similar overclocks on custom air cooled as well. On a 980 1450 is basically guaranteed, 1500 is somewhat normal.
 
sk3tch said:
Drivers from AMD, in general - CFX specifically.
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Whats wrong with the drivers? I have been using AMD cards since 9800 Pro days, never have issues. Most of the games I play run just fine. In face, I face more issues with buggy games than drivers......Having to download those gigs of patches just to get a game run properly is ridiculous.

I am running 2 x R9 290 now, some games support CF, some games don't (eg. Diablo, WOT, STO). But I still dont have a problem with it since the frame rate is fine. I play BF4 and Crysis 3 and CF works fine.

The only issue I have is 4 x R9 290 don't work well except for benchmarks. So, I sold off 2 cards in the end.
 
Bahanime said:
Didn't bother reading review,your game lineup with majority GameWorks meant the conclusion was set.

AMD GPUs suck in NV games, but NV GPUs work just fine in AMD GE games (FC3, BF4 etc), case close. No point to even bring up the same old tired bashing of poor CF (name a recent AAA NON-NV game recently that didn't have CF working), or bad performance..

I look forward to not reading your reviews in the future when GTA and Witcher 3 (both GameWorks titles) are added to your small list of games. /gg
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Whats the big deal about CF not working? Not all games support CF or SLI. Some games have bugs with it. Eg. Daylight does not work with CF and SLI.

Don't work? Just wait for patches...... How long have we waited for BF4 to run decently? When BF4 was first released, it was so buggy and EA had to patch it numerous times. Btw, BF4 still does not work well on quad CF.
 
AMD has totally dropped the ball recently in terms of Radeon driver and CrossFire profile support and that is inexcusable. The benefit of the ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 is that its performance is delivered 100% of the time.

Kind of funny.. As I don't have an issues with my 3 way 290x crossfire 4k rig ..There's a tool called radeon pro you can use if you want to force crossfire support (on none supported games).. You know? kind of what you do with your NVidia card when it doesn't support sli (changing profile names).. You can't depend on the drivers to do everything for you if you are a true pc gamer.. If I wanted that, I would own a fucking console. I for one don't have any driver issues with my AMD but I don't with my Nvidia's either but Nvidia SLI has nothing on some XDMA Micro stutter free gameplay.

Maybe you should start with reviews that push the cards to the limit.. 1440p is a little low for 2015 but 1440p.. is al gtx 980 is good for.. That's why I don't own one.. My 780tis still kick ass.
 
idmanotic said:
Whats wrong with the drivers? I have been using AMD cards since 9800 Pro days, never have issues. Most of the games I play run just fine. In face, I face more issues with buggy games than drivers......Having to download those gigs of patches just to get a game run properly is ridiculous.

I am running 2 x R9 290 now, some games support CF, some games don't (eg. Diablo, WOT, STO). But I still dont have a problem with it since the frame rate is fine. I play BF4 and Crysis 3 and CF works fine.

The only issue I have is 4 x R9 290 don't work well except for benchmarks. So, I sold off 2 cards in the end.
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Just not as compatible, feature-rich, and capable as what I have experienced on the NV side. I don't have metrics or specifics to get into - just not a good experience for me (and I've run Crossfire in the past 3 generations of AMD). I've always tried pretty much every high end card and I almost always run things using multi-GPU. I just have been disappointed by AMD.

Single card - I can't complain much...although I wish they'd get drivers out more quickly. This 3+ mo. drought is pretty significant. Granted, that last release (Catalyst Omega) was awesome...

The problem is - I'm not ever really going to be a single card guy. I always want more power. In that sense, NV has been much better to me.
 
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This is an interesting comparison I didn't expect to see.

The real shocker is that there's only one newer title in this review: Dying Light. Based on some of the replies here, you'd think they had Far Cry 4 and Evolve in the suite. I don't understand all the GW griping -- there's only one new title. Watch Dogs is ten months old, and both Crysis 3 and BF4's mantle patch are over a year old. AMD has had plenty of time for those titles.

In general, I still don't understand taking a side. Gaming hardware is for playing games -- whatever does it best gets the cash. The brand on the card doesn't matter.

The state of AMD's drivers is sad, and I'd be pretty upset if I had multi-GPU AMD setup. I'll still be in for a single 390X depending on the performance though.
 
Nice review, especially since the prices of each config are fairly close.

The extra heat I have to pass on, but I am glad the price has come down on the amd setup.

I actually do care a small bit about the power difference, not just because of the heat, which will age the rest of my components. I did this estimation as a pc gamer, I assumed 2 hours per day, for 4 out of 5 days, M-F, and 5 hours a day for saturday and sunday. Depending on what I am playing thes emight be conservative numbers. So 18 hours per week, guesstimate. Thats 936 hours per year, * .4 for the .4 kw power consumption difference, * .11 dollars per kwh*, comes out to $41 per year in extra power costs. Assuming a 2 year lifespan for the video card (my most frequently updated component), that's another $82 to factor in, plus the extra heat.

Not that I don't have a nice case atm with good airflow (ft02).

But still, I am glad there are options. I keep thinking that AMD is going to go bankrupt or something, since Intel has been beating them pretty bad for so long. When that happens, nvidia will have less pressure to keep releasing good products, and keeping the prices down.
 
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Why are the comments so negative towards AMD? It looks like the AMD product won 4 out of 5 performance tests and the drivers worked fine including crossfire support.

I'm happy to see a review comparing products on price parity. I don't know about everyone else but I've never had the opportunity to buy a "money is no limit" gaming PC so performance/$ has always been an important factor for me.
 
idmanotic said:
Whats the big deal about CF not working? Not all games support CF or SLI. Some games have bugs with it. Eg. Daylight does not work with CF and SLI.

Don't work? Just wait for patches...... How long have we waited for BF4 to run decently? When BF4 was first released, it was so buggy and EA had to patch it numerous times. Btw, BF4 still does not work well on quad CF.
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Whats the big deal?
You apparently own 4 AMD products.
I would venture you dont game at 1080p.
So you spend all your money and cant use the hardware?
That doesnt bother you.
It bothers the shit out of me. Especially when it works on nvidia gpus.
 
Yakk said:
Interesting review in an academic context, not the best time to be buying GPUs right now at any rate.
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this is the truth.

i mean, what are people upgrading for? next gen games at 1080p? even dying light was initially a multi-gen title, and that had to negatively affect development of (i.e., limit) the final product. where are the bonafide next gen PC games/ports? without those, there's no way to tell if the newest GPUs are powerful enough, and that's just considering 1080p (ew).

i can understand buying a used 780ti or something if you find a great deal and youre running something like a gtx 470 to "refresh" your gaming PC, but that's about it. i mean, a gtx 980 cant even do current games around 4k, so good luck with future games + mods.

nvidia's current architecture is about efficiency, and that's nice, but i want a beast GPU. hopefully that's the volta architecture. stacked dram/3d ram should provide awesome vram bandwidth, but it also needs a stellar pixel rate. maybe the titan version.

bonafide next gen games, at 4k minimum, with enough leftover power to support mods (e.g., high res texture packs, injectors, etc.) - that'll get me to buy a new GPU. and ill spend big to do it, if need be.
 
I would pick the Asus Poseidon 10/10 times.

Not because I have anything against AMD products, but because I have been burned by multi-GPU setups in the past.

Based on this I will ALWAYS try the most powerful single GPU before deciding to do dual or more GPU's.

If you don't absolutely NEED Crossfire or SLI, it's just not worth the headaches, IMHO.
 
idmanotic said:
Whats the big deal about CF not working? Not all games support CF or SLI. Some games have bugs with it. Eg. Daylight does not work with CF and SLI.

Don't work? Just wait for patches...... How long have we waited for BF4 to run decently? When BF4 was first released, it was so buggy and EA had to patch it numerous times. Btw, BF4 still does not work well on quad CF.
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Took more than 6 months before Red Orchestrra 2 ran decently on my dual 6970's.

And even then, it would average well, but have poor minimum framerates.

I replaced it with a single 7970 (and later GTX 680, and even later TITAN), and have never looked back.

Unless DX12 miraculously makes multi-GPU gaming better (as there were some rumors suggesting) the chances of me going multi-GPU again are slim at best.
 
magoo said:
Whats the big deal?
You apparently own 4 AMD products.
I would venture you dont game at 1080p.
So you spend all your money and cant use the hardware?
That doesnt bother you.
It bothers the shit out of me. Especially when it works on nvidia gpus.
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Just going to concur with this guy about bad drivers.

I was put off of nVidia by their terrible drivers back in like 2000, they had a really really bad bug that would hard reset your PC when playing Dark Age of Camelot, I blamed my PC cursing and swearing at it, thinking it was my then Athlon processor causing heat.

Then all of a sudden my HDD was dead after a reset in the middle of the game. Bought a new HDD, blaming the old one I had as the cause of my issues, unfortunately I was wrong, resets kept happening.

Finally the bug was found, bad drivers! I was livid, went out and bought the 8500. Took me a few years to heal, then eventually tried the 8800 GTS since I was on a budget at the time and it seemed like a good choice.
 
Can the Poseidon GTX 980 be run without the factory fans? Is the water cooling plate a full cover block or do the fans still need to cool some of the components?
 
Bahanime said:
Didn't bother reading review,your game lineup with majority GameWorks meant the conclusion was set.
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This is incorrect.

You are once again exaggerating the affect GameWork features influence performance. Note Dying Light only uses two GameWorks features, HBAO+ and Depth of Field, which perform about the same on AMD and NV GPUs.

Stick with the facts.
 
Well I would like to congratulate [H]ard ocp for giving its readers what they wanted. This is the right kind of hardware comparisons. Pushing things to their limits and seeing what you can do with them is what the [H] was all about. Unfortunately that 75 degree limit is really quite low on the 295x2. No idea why it is set that low. 90 seems to be the standard on the single cards before throttling.

Thanks again to Kyle and Brent for giving the peeps what they wanted.
Cheers... [H]blackheart
 
idmanotic said:
Nope, it will be more. You can't use AIO for this, it has to be a custom loop so its going to increase the price by quite a bit. You need fans, radiators and pump as well as tubing.
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Actually you could with a Fractal Design Kelvin, i'd actually be super interested to see a test using that configuration.
 
Bahanime said:
Didn't bother reading review,your game lineup with majority
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Mmmm yes those infamous Gameworks titles Crysis 3 and BF4. Sure they're totally plastered with AMD logo's and one supports Mantle, but yes... Gameworks.
 
Thanks guys for putting this together, hopefully AMD can address the performance/watt deficit in the upcoming iterations. Nvidia is beating them there for sure, im sure that 295X costs a lot more to manufacture as well. AMD needs to build those margins back up. Will probably pick up a third 290X once the new gen parts come out.
 
Did I read a different review or something? Because what I read showed the 295X2 being not only a better deal (since it already comes with the AIO) but faster in every game except Watch Dogs which no one plays.

I mean, I agree that the 300 series needs to come out soon ... but I don't understand half of what I just read in replies.
 
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