780ti vs 970 vs 290x

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quiktake

Gawd
Joined
Feb 22, 2011
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Is there a consensus on the best buy right now?

Here are my options for $200-$250

used 780ti- $225
used 290x- $200-225
used 970 - $240

I currently have a 7950 crossfired with a 7870 le (cut down tahiti chip).

I would like to get rid of the crossfire setup and use the money for a single card that can run Oculus rift as well as a later 1440p monitor. At this point I favor freesync somewhat due to cost and the fact that I think it will be the eventual long term winner (even if it's not the best).

Thoughts?
 
A GTX 970 will be slightly faster than a 290x now that the drivers have matured. They were basically the same when the 970 first came out.

Id say if you can get a 290x in for $200 vs a 970 for $240, Id get the 290x. Mine is playing everything so far at max settings with framerates at least 50+ (Crysis 3 is the lowest at around 50'ish). The 970 runs the chance of getting one with bad coil whine though. That was a pretty big problem when they first came out and the reason I went with the 290x instead when I upgraded my GTX670.
 
The 290x is an absolute beast at the $200-225 price range, I had to bite a couple months ago and sold off my gtx970. It helped me put money into my freesync monitor and I'm loving it :D
 
MacLeod said:
A GTX 970 will be slightly faster than a 290x now that the drivers have matured. They were basically the same when the 970 first came out.

Id say if you can get a 290x in for $200 vs a 970 for $240, Id get the 290x. Mine is playing everything so far at max settings with framerates at least 50+ (Crysis 3 is the lowest at around 50'ish). The 970 runs the chance of getting one with bad coil whine though. That was a pretty big problem when they first came out and the reason I went with the 290x instead when I upgraded my GTX670.
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Wait what? Its the opposite...290X drivers have matured and outperforms 970.

290X has surpassed 780TI because of driver maturity and 970 has nothing on 780TI.

GTX-780-TI-R9-290-55.jpg
 
ImJJames said:
Wait what? Its the opposite...290X drivers have matured and outperforms 970.

290X has surpassed 780TI because of driver maturity and 970 has nothing on 780TI.
Click to expand...
970 leads at 1080p, they tie at 1440p. It's been that way from the beginning. The 780 Ti and 970 are pretty much the same performance today. The original gap was only about 5%.
Might as well get the 290X @ 1440p, the extra/faster VRAM couldn't hurt, right? But I don't think any of them are powerful enough for Oculus.
 
R9 series seems to have the early edge in DX12 performance. If you can get an R9 290X for $200 I wouldn't hesitate.
 
If you favor Freesync then get the 290x. Or weigh how much specific game performance is to you and other feature set differences.

The performance differences between these are really rather marginal from a practical stand point. While an interesting academic debate in reality you are not going to find one to be definitively and noticeably faster than the other across all cases. Really if we did a blind test between these cards I doubt anyone would reliably be able to tell the difference from a performance/ingame settings perspective.

For example if you are going to take advantage of Freesync that will be magnitudes more noticeable of a difference then the performance differences.
 
MacLeod said:
A GTX 970 will be slightly faster than a 290x now that the drivers have matured. They were basically the same when the 970 first came out.

Id say if you can get a 290x in for $200 vs a 970 for $240, Id get the 290x. Mine is playing everything so far at max settings with framerates at least 50+ (Crysis 3 is the lowest at around 50'ish). The 970 runs the chance of getting one with bad coil whine though. That was a pretty big problem when they first came out and the reason I went with the 290x instead when I upgraded my GTX670.
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R9 290x is still a better deal then a 970. 290x has more ram and better DX 12 performance and capabilities.
 
I"m guessing op doesn't run linux, but if he does, you want nvidia. I believe an R9/290x is around/slightly behind a GTX 960 in Linux.
 
lol linux

Get the 290x. Better DX12 performance (so far) and 4gb of fully usable ram. I loved my 290x until it died unexpectedly a few months ago.
 
I just went through the same dilemma between the exact same 3 cards..

after reading a pile of reviews, the 290x was actually the faster card (only slightly) at the res I wanted to run at

I am currently also using the Oculus DK2

I get my 290x in today to upgrade from my 7950, can't wait
 
I upgraded to a 290 from a 7950. At 1440, it's been doing just fine, and the 290X should be a little faster. If you care about freesync, I'd definitely do the 290X. If you don't care, I'd get whatever is cheaper out of the 290X/970.
 
They're all about equal. I'd give it to the 290x though. An extra gig of ram and still driver optimizations and better preliminary dx12 support.
 
Last edited:
rc3ilynt said:
They're all about equal. I'd give it to the 290x though. An extra gig of ram and still driver optimizations and better preliminary dx13 support.
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I don't know that it's THAT future-proof, lol.

It has pretty good DX12 performance, though.
 
Forget about the 780ti. They are expensive and power hungry. They preform very well but the more efficient GPUs will fair you better. The R9 290x is a very powerful card. The only problem is it is extremely inefficient, which translates to high power consumption and high heat output. It runs very hot, and Crossfire will take a solid 1000w unit. The 970 is a very good performer at 1440p. Mine maintains 60 fps on most games at ultra with an exception to crysis, FC4, and GTA V, which are a mix of high/ultra settings to get 60 fps or close enough. I'm sure the 290x might beat a 970, but my 970 almost never reaches 65°C and my components are quiet and easily cooled because of it.
 
got my 290x in last night and replaced my 7950 - I don't know how it will compare to your 7870xfire but the 290x definitely gave me a nice increase.. - its a little louder than my 7950 (the sapphire vapor-x) but its not bad at all

my shadows of mordor went from 60fps average to 95fps average .. i'll test it out with the DK2 this weekend :)
 
nope, 290X is dx12_0 for the feature level, Maxwell is dx12_1 feature level but both can claim dx12 compatibility.
 
Thanks for all the info here, been considering one of these cards myself. $200 for a 290x seems like an awesome deal. I should have jumped on one during the mining dump.
 
I have a newer designed 290x that was released by Sapphire in March 2015 and it states DX 12 support on the box.
 
I read they had a driver issue that was not reporting the correct dx level but have since fixed it. I was trying to buy a lightening 290x when I got the 970, was out of stock everywhere and I had to scratch the upgrade itch lol. I love my 970 but still wish I could at least play with the 290x for awhile to compare.
 
Ryankirsch13 said:
Forget about the 780ti. They are expensive and power hungry. They preform very well but the more efficient GPUs will fair you better. The R9 290x is a very powerful card. The only problem is it is extremely inefficient, which translates to high power consumption and high heat output. It runs very hot, and Crossfire will take a solid 1000w unit. The 970 is a very good performer at 1440p. Mine maintains 60 fps on most games at ultra with an exception to crysis, FC4, and GTA V, which are a mix of high/ultra settings to get 60 fps or close enough. I'm sure the 290x might beat a 970, but my 970 almost never reaches 65°C and my components are quiet and easily cooled because of it.
Click to expand...

Well your facts are 2 to 3 year old on the 290x .. sure a ref card from then would match what your saying but the 290x has had some changes since then as I have the Sapphire Tri X R9 290X New Edition with 6 phase power design clocked at 1020/1350 and it also has faster Samsung memory and why the speed change to 1350mhz.

The card runs at 65c and VRM 1 and 2 also run around 64c at full load and the card outputs very little heat at all as it sit's right beside me in an open case and I feel noting as I have owned a ref 290 and yes 94c was very hot and it throttled like mad .

Power usage has not been checked but I would think TMSC makes better 28nm die's then 3 years ago and the card runs way cooler with a better power design so not much is wasted as the cards don't throttle anymore and I am 100% pleased with the card and I thought I would never say that about Hawaii after the 290 .
 
would 2x 290x really require 1kw psu?
 
power-consumption2-645x525.png


You could get away with a quality 860W PSU if you run them bone stock, but to do any kind of overclocking yes you would need 1kW PSU, and preferably 1.2kW if you're on the HEDT platform and use power hungry CPUs.
 
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