Asus DCU II R9 290 or Asus DCU II GTX 780?

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Zero Cool

Limp Gawd
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A friend of mine can either the R9 290 or GTX 780 (Both versions are the Asus DirectCU II) for $499. Which would you go with?
 
I'd go with R9 290. Better drivers, faster password recovery/mining/compute performance and better resale value.
 
You're probably the only person on the planet that thinks AMD has better drivers. They still have the same problems they've had for 10 years for me(2d clocks in 3d mode, etc).

If all your friend is interested in is gaming OP, then go nVidia. If he is planning on using the compute power of a Radeon, go AMD.

With AMD prices so messed up right now, they really don't have the Price/Performance edge anymore which has been their main draw for years..
 
TomGreen321 said:
You're probably the only person on the planet that thinks AMD has better drivers.
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Coming from all Nvidia their driver is crap compared to AMD 13.12 WHQL and even AMD 14.2 beta works better than Nvidia WHQL. Just replaced another Nvidia with 290X so I have a pile of four Nvidia GPUs that's collecting dust and have to get rid of.
 
TomGreen321 said:
You're probably the only person on the planet that thinks AMD has better drivers. They still have the same problems they've had for 10 years for me(2d clocks in 3d mode, etc).

If all your friend is interested in is gaming OP, then go nVidia. If he is planning on using the compute power of a Radeon, go AMD.

With AMD prices so messed up right now, they really don't have the Price/Performance edge anymore which has been their main draw for years..
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He goes for shock value and attention in all of his posts, the crazy threshold has been passed. I wouldn't take anything posted by him seriously, just look at it as comedic value. Sorta like PRIME1. Just smile, nod, walk away, and say " WHAT THE FUCK EVER". Best way to view his posts, figuratively speaking. ;)

As far as the topic goes, both cards should perform great. That said, if you're into overclocking my personal opinion is that a custom factory OC'ed GTX 780 takes it by a sizable margin - aftermarket 290 cards don't seem to overclock appreciably more than reference 290 cards, but they are quieter. Whereas GPU Boost 2.0 really allows higher overclocks on custom GK110 boards, by a ton. Anyway, hardocp did a max overclock comparison between the 290X and 780ti - the same correlation applies to 290 and GTX 780. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/01/13/asus_r9_290x_directcu_ii_oc_overclocking_review/7


That's only if the OP intends to overclock. At stock and overclocked both cards will be a good experience, so i'd suggest taking the above into consideration if you plan to overclock - and if not, look at what features you want in the card and then go from there, OP. AMD and nvidia both have unique features so if they're the same price, weigh how much features and overclocking matter to you. You can't go wrong either way really. Both will be fine purchases whatever you decide.
 
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I have no problem saying my poop smells like poop unlike a fanboi who thinks his always smell like roses. And, to bring up OC'ing when discussing stability is so amateurish. You obviously have zero clue of five nines.
 
Id get the 780 personally. Better drivers, less crap to break games, faster overall overclocked and cooler.

13.12 isn't exactly the best and 14.2 gives me some issues in eyefinity. AMD drivers have been total shit since the r9/r7 dropped.
 
You guys r crazy. 780 dc2 will likely boost close to 200mhz over stock while the 290 only has a small overclock. Stock dc2 vs stock dc2 even without overclock 780 will be much faster. Only way I'd touch an overpriced 290 is if your interested in making some cash off mining. Not to mention uses a ton of power and will still go up to 90+ when overclocked. Tri x 290 is a better buy Imo.
 
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psyside said:
Yawn....

When will people realize that 290 has ~ 100mhz advantage over 780, so higher oc on 780 means shit?
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Not to labor this point because both cards are fantastic, but the GK110 is just better when overclocking is taken into account, period. Aftermarket 290 and 290x cards don't overclock appreciably more than reference, while GPU boost 2.0 + custom 780/780ti cards are overclocking and scaling up to 20% past stock, and up to 400mhz past stock. GTX 780 stock boost is 900mhz IIRC.. There's also a 290X DC II max overclock versus a reference 780ti max overclock comparison on this very website - the 780ti won by a landslide with max overclocks. A....reference...card. This same principle would apply to the 290 DC II versus the 780 GTX DC II. There's also a review of the GTX 780 DC II at TPU. Once overclocked they tested it to be 20% faster than baseline. That would easily put the GTX 780 DCII well past either the 290 or 290X.

Like I said though, this is pretty meaningless. Both cards are great with different features, so the OP can't go wrong either way at stock settings. He should buy based on features, software, value, etc. If he's considering overclocking - At overclocked settings, the GK110 is favored and that has been well established by max overclock reviews even at this website.
 
Basing a purchasing decision on OC'ing is silly since there's no guarantee and more than often it'll result in a dead card and RMA hassle or, worse, a monetary loss. Even if your card doesn't burn out you don't want to be one of the many clowns on support forums like battlefield.com blaming the game for crashing when it's the system that is unstable plus who has the time for trial and error? Go for the fastest stable card with AMD or Nvidia stock clocks.
 
I would get the GTX 780 in this case since the DC2 cooler seems to work better for 780.
 
I can set my 780 boost clock to 1100Mhz and memory to 6800Mhz without a hitch. Not tried to push any harder. Just look at all the 780 reviews, just about everyone enjoys a sizeable manual overclock versus the reference frequencies. Memory overclocks can be hit or miss though.
 
psyside said:
Yawn....

When will people realize that 290 has ~ 100mhz advantage over 780, so higher oc on 780 means shit?
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LOL you realize that 290 is 947mhz stock while a 780 is somewhere around 993mhz right and they are almost identical at stock speeds. About 1% difference judging by tpu review. Asus probably checked 100 cards before that review sample was given out. How many members have an r9 290 that can do 1200+. Total bs. Almost every aftermarket 780 can do 1200+. Not to mention 290 memory doesnt clock for shit. They aren't horrible cards I'd like to play around with one, but I know I'd end up by with my 780. I love borderlands way too much. Plus if I did play around with one it wouldn't be asus it'd be a tri-x.
 
HOODedDutchman said:
LOL you realize that 290 is 947mhz stock while a 780 is somewhere around 993mhz right and they are almost identical at stock speeds. About 1% difference judging by tpu review. Asus probably checked 100 cards before that review sample was given out. How many members have an r9 290 that can do 1200+. Total bs. Almost every aftermarket 780 can do 1200+. Not to mention 290 memory doesnt clock for shit. They aren't horrible cards I'd like to play around with one, but I know I'd end up by with my 780. I love borderlands way too much. Plus if I did play around with one it wouldn't be asus it'd be a tri-x.
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You do realize that Hawaii has a huge head start on memory bandwidth and doesn't need to clock as high? Hawaii running @ 6GHz = GK110 @ 8GHz It would make sense that AMD helped maintain the $400 msrp budget by using lower spec (cheaper) RAM.
 
Apparently my friend already had both cards and was asking me which one he should keep. I went over to his place after work today and spent almost 5 hours trying out both cards. We oc'd them both as far as they would go and it wasn't even close. The 780 stomped all over the 290.

Max Clocks

290: 1110/1375MHz
780: 1135/1750MHz (Ran at 1254MHz with boost)

Max Temp

290: Stock 74. OC 93c (81c in 'uber' mode) (The VRM on the 290 got to 117c while oc'd!)
780: Stock 72, OC 74c

The fan on the 290 while it was overclocked, even being in 'quiet' mode, was still louder than the 780.

The 780 scored 4% higher in 3DMark 11, 9% higher in the Bioshock Infinite benchmark and 7% higher in Valley 1.0.

At stock clocks, the cards seemed to be pretty evenly matched, but once you start overclocking them, the 780 is hands down the better choice. It was cooler, quieter, performed better and apparently has better power consumption as well. Kind of made me wish I saved the $220 and just got the 780 instead of the Ti. If the 290 was still only $430 it would probably be a different story.
 
is it possible for the rest of us to purchase asus 290 for that cheap? i wonder if it unlocks to 290x:) fuck that would be sweet
 
Zero Cool said:
Apparently my friend already had both cards and was asking me which one he should keep. I went over to his place after work today and spent almost 5 hours trying out both cards. We oc'd them both as far as they would go and it wasn't even close. The 780 stomped all over the 290.

Max Clocks

290: 1110/1375MHz
780: 1135/1750MHz (Ran at 1254MHz with boost)

Max Temp

290: Stock 74. OC 93c (81c in 'uber' mode) (The VRM on the 290 got to 117c while oc'd!)
780: Stock 72, OC 74c

The fan on the 290 while it was overclocked, even being in 'quiet' mode, was still louder than the 780.

The 780 scored 4% higher in 3DMark 11, 9% higher in the Bioshock Infinite benchmark and 7% higher in Valley 1.0.

At stock clocks, the cards seemed to be pretty evenly matched, but once you start overclocking them, the 780 is hands down the better choice. It was cooler, quieter, performed better and apparently has better power consumption as well. Kind of made me wish I saved the $220 and just got the 780 instead of the Ti. If the 290 was still only $430 it would probably be a different story.
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Оh yea, 1 game and one benchmark can tell you all you want, nice logic. Also look at the memory oc.....there is 150 mhz difference on core as well.
 
psyside said:
Оh yea, 1 game and one benchmark can tell you all you want, nice logic. Also look at the memory oc.....there is 150 mhz difference on core as well.
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U must have missed the part about the 117°C vrm and significantly louder fan speed and stillover 90°C core temps. Even if they were dead on even that's a deal breaker right there. Memory overclock is not that big of deal. As long as you pick the right gpu n get some Sammy memory that's nothing. Mine does well over 7000mhz. But no need for all the time.
 
psyside said:
Оh yea, 1 game and one benchmark can tell you all you want, nice logic. Also look at the memory oc.....there is 150 mhz difference on core as well.
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Sorry, we didn't have time to run 15+ different benchmarks. Like the guy above me said, between the VRM temps, the core temps, the fan noise and the better performance... The GTX 780 was definitely the superior choice. As for overclocks, that was as far as we could push both cards before running into stability issues. To be honest, even if the 290 could have gone further, I would have even tried because the temps would be close to, if not exceeding, 100c. I see from your sig that you have a R9 290... Don't get upset, I'm sure your cooling solution works much better than that of the Asus.
 
Zero Cool said:
Apparently my friend already had both cards and was asking me which one he should keep. I went over to his place after work today and spent almost 5 hours trying out both cards. We oc'd them both as far as they would go and it wasn't even close. The 780 stomped all over the 290.

Max Clocks

290: 1110/1375MHz
780: 1135/1750MHz (Ran at 1254MHz with boost)

Max Temp

290: Stock 74. OC 93c (81c in 'uber' mode) (The VRM on the 290 got to 117c while oc'd!)
780: Stock 72, OC 74c

The fan on the 290 while it was overclocked, even being in 'quiet' mode, was still louder than the 780.

The 780 scored 4% higher in 3DMark 11, 9% higher in the Bioshock Infinite benchmark and 7% higher in Valley 1.0.

At stock clocks, the cards seemed to be pretty evenly matched, but once you start overclocking them, the 780 is hands down the better choice. It was cooler, quieter, performed better and apparently has better power consumption as well. Kind of made me wish I saved the $220 and just got the 780 instead of the Ti. If the 290 was still only $430 it would probably be a different story.
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The 290 non-x doesn't have a quiet and uber mode... the 290x does, but that is vastly more expensive...I have one, there is no switch on the card to swap from quiet to uber
 
ChaosShadow said:
The 290 non-x doesn't have a quiet and uber mode... the 290x does, but that is vastly more expensive...I have one, there is no switch on the card to swap from quiet to uber
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Nope there isn't. We just capped the fan speed at 50% for the 'quiet' tests and 75% for the 'uber' tests.
 
primetime said:
is it possible for the rest of us to purchase asus 290 for that cheap? i wonder if it unlocks to 290x:) fuck that would be sweet
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If you're talking about $499, they were $499 all weekend on Newegg.
The HIS 290 and XFX 290 are still in-stock.

The 780 stomped all over the 290.
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Also I thought it was common knowledge that:
1. 780's run cooler and quieter.
2. 780's overclock more.

I haven't kept up with this thread -- did we actually spend 2 pages debating which card was better? Because... lol. Seriously, just... lol.
This should have been a 1-reply thread: If you have the choice between two identical cards GTX 780 or R9 290, the GTX 780 will win across the board.
 
tell him to do himself a favor and buy both...I have had both brands at the same time for years...each has advantages and disadvantages,,,just work a few more hours and buy both
 
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