Conclusion: Crossfire x2 R290X is overkill in my opinion

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tangoseal

[H]F Junkie
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Dec 18, 2010
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Just putting this out there... I think that crossfire 2x 290X cards is just overkill for even Eyefinity.

These cards are so fast that I feel as if I just wasted another $599.99 at Microcenter adding a second. I game as much of everything possible at 5760x1200.

Even Battlefield 4 in High settings absolutely flows. Ultra puts a little bit of pressure on the 290x but 2x cards is just glass smooth.

Anyone else feel this way? I am deeply considering returning my second card due to the overkillish nature of these beast in crossfire. Before this I would say someone was nuts for claiming this with even quad 7970s but these things are nuclear powered.

Anyways, thoughts on my opinion? hah
 
I dunno, I've run such setups in the HD5000 generation, then again with the refreshed Fermi lineup. I eventually figured just getting the single, absolutely fastest card every 2 gens should be good enough.
 
verylostindeed said:
I have 290x in CF gaming at 5760x1200. With one card, I find BF4 pretty much unplayable.
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Yeah at what settings though? Ultra / High ?

It is unplayable at Ultra sure but High is doable.

2x cards is rediculous.

I am trying to find justification to own two of these cards and besides BF4 im having a hard time as these things are beast mode.
 
Man if you can not play BF4 on ultra you need three cards.

If you have top of the line cards you want to always play best/highest settings in every game to try to achieve 60FPS min.

Hell 290/780 can not even play games with the best settings on 1080p.
So I say keep the two cards and get a third if you want to play games at the best settings.

Cost alot of cash to have the best and to play at the best settings. If you are content not to play at the best setting and the game still looks and plays great.

I suggest return one card and maybe get one of those fancy Samsung 1TB SSD .
GL to whatever you decide.
 
I'll take overkill every time. Better than just getting by or not having enough.
It only takes one game can make you wish you had CF. GTA V could be one of them.
 
I could use another myself - I'm in the mid 30s to 40s in Skyrim at 5760x1200 with my current mods. (And that's with tweaking to get it that high). I could definitely use some extra HP, now that VRAM isn't the limiting factor. (Although I WAS able to hit the ceiling with ultra detail- had to fine tune AA to keep it around 3.5 gb).

FC3 is the same story. Ultra is ok for walking around, but intense scenes need more gpu power .

Once I get a new non-PCI SSD and free up a slot, I'll be springing for #2. :D
 
WorldExclusive said:
I'll take overkill every time. Better than just getting by or not having enough.It only takes one game can make you wish you had CF. GTA V could be one of them.
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I run 2 290x's @ 5760x1080 and I agree. Particularly when it comes to MP games like BF4.
 
290x is fast but I wouldn't be happy with only one running at that res. Think of future games too, they will surely be more demanding.
 
Nothing is overkill [H]ere. If your rig have less than 4 gpus is weaksauce. Seriously though, coming from two 6970 and playing games on low-mid. Two 290x are good but not good enough for future games. I'll be grabbing another 290x because of the good scaling and x99 upgrade.
 
Sieg said:
Nothing is overkill [H]ere. If your rig have less than 4 gpus is weaksauce. Seriously though, coming from two 6970 and playing games on low-mid. Two 290x are good but not good enough for future games. I'll be grabbing another 290x because of the good scaling and x99 upgrade.
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Well damn Mc Cheesy you make me wanna get a third now.

I guess I will keep the second card. Time to go over to FrozenCPU and get a few EK blocks and toss em in my loop.
 
Personally I didn't find a single 290X enough at 2560x1440, let alone 5760x1200.

But I want to play every game at the maximum settings. I won't play BF4 on just High.
 
tangoseal said:
Yeah at what settings though? Ultra / High ?

It is unplayable at Ultra sure but High is doable.

2x cards is rediculous.

I am trying to find justification to own two of these cards and besides BF4 im having a hard time as these things are beast mode.
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My experience with surround and 2560x1600 has been that a single card of any variant will force you to compromise on settings in very demanding AAA titles. And then some other games just won't play at a fluid 60 fps all the time without crossfire or SLI - that is a deal breaker for a lot of folks; 60 fps fluid is pretty much the gold standard for most PC gamers. BF4 also does really well on AMD hardware in general, there are some other games that may make you feel better about Xfire. Try Metro: LL or Crysis 3 ultra. You can make a definite case for Xfire with both of those games in surround.

If you're willing to compromise on image quality you could probably do a single card, sure, but some people just want to turn the dials to 11 in everything. And crossfire/SLI makes sense there.
 
I had crossfire 290x's for a bit, it was a blast playing ultra settings 120hz at 1440p :p the sound was just annoying so I sold them off
 
2x 290X in CF running at 1600P. Sometimes, I feel like I could use a little more to run max AA in games like Crysis 3, Farcry 3, etc...

But then I realize I don't, and just bump it down to 4x. =D
 
To be completely honest... I'm running a single 780 ti sc and only gaming at 1920 x 1080 (impatiently awaiting gsync) and i'm chomping (champing if you prefer) at the bit waiting for some information on Maxwell so I can decide if I'm going to wait or go ahead and pick up a second ti. Even at 1920 x 1080 Far Cry 3 with 8x msaa and Battlefield 4 with resolution scaling above 125 will bring a 780 ti or 290x to it's knees. I know not a lot of people are interested in having settings that high, but I figure I've invested this much into making my system what it is already... I'm willing to invest a bit more to ensure I can completely max out any game I play on it.
 
tangoseal said:
Well damn Mc Cheesy you make me wanna get a third now.

I guess I will keep the second card. Time to go over to FrozenCPU and get a few EK blocks and toss em in my loop.
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I'd Highly suggest you take a look at my thread here about my experience with EK Copper blocks from FrozenCPU before you get them..I ended up going with the Koolance Nickel blocks, and they are a much better fit and finish..There are also some other awesome blocks out now, from HeatKiller, AquaComputer, etc..Just some food for thought.
 
ccityinstaller said:
I'd Highly suggest you take a look at my thread here about my experience with EK Copper blocks from FrozenCPU before you get them..I ended up going with the Koolance Nickel blocks, and they are a much better fit and finish..There are also some other awesome blocks out now, from HeatKiller, AquaComputer, etc..Just some food for thought.
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This guy speaks truth... If it were me needing to cool those cards now, heat killers would be at the top of my list.
 
I have 290X in Crossfire.
I find it to best just north of SLi GTX 780, sometimes identical.
For example, Crysis 3 will challenge the 290s on Ultra settings.

The GPUs are good, but I'm far from saying they are the best thing since sliced bread. I don't think they're overkill at all for three 24" monitors in Eyefinity.

and if you plan on watercooling......Heatkiller......my two cards run about 48C at full blast, just shy of half the temp on the leaf-blowers that were on them.:D
 
Yeah who sells those heatkiller blocks? EDIT** Nevermind... appears that FrozenCPU sells them but can someone recommend another vendor to look at just in case.

I am going to give those a good look. EK, until now, was the only vendor I thought making them. However apparently that changed. if I had my way I would go with Swiftech but I dont think Gabe has developed the blocks yet.
 
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Can anyone post a picture of the Heatkiller blocks installed?

I cant seem to find one of a 290x with the block installed.
 
I don't think it's overkill OP. 1 GPU isn't enough for 144hz 1080p or 60/75hz 1440p imo.

Yeah I know 1080p is on the "low" side for MGPU these days, but to produce 144fps requires more muscle than 60fps at 1440p.
 
tangoseal said:
Can anyone post a picture of the Heatkiller blocks installed?

I cant seem to find one of a 290x with the block installed.
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Courtesy of BIG$pender and his awesome build in which I'll be following shortly with ni bi version.
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040555545&postcount=23

19.jpg
 
tangoseal said:
Yeah who sells those heatkiller blocks? EDIT** Nevermind... appears that FrozenCPU sells them but can someone recommend another vendor to look at just in case.

I am going to give those a good look. EK, until now, was the only vendor I thought making them. However apparently that changed. if I had my way I would go with Swiftech but I dont think Gabe has developed the blocks yet.
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I ordered my blocks straight from Watercool.de.
Despite the whole euro conversion and nearly 50 bucks shipping it was the same cost as Frozencpu. Took 7 days to get the package from Germany.

Performance-pcs also has them in now too, whether or not they have stock, I haven't looked......http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...t_info&cPath=59_971_240_578&products_id=39871

Get the backplates,too.;)
http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...info&cPath=59_971_1018_1083&products_id=39875
 
I have two 290's in crossfire, and it certainly is not overkill, nor anywhere near it, if you want to play modern games on ultra with high aa and af, while getting real good fps. One won't cut it for such scenarios.
 
20nm is the jump I wait for as one single card will be beastly for eyefunity set ups.
I am happy with my 290 as its a step up from the 7970.
Mantle might also add favour to the sauce.
 
Fixall said:
To be completely honest... I'm running a single 780 ti sc and only gaming at 1920 x 1080 (impatiently awaiting gsync) and i'm chomping (champing if you prefer) at the bit waiting for some information on Maxwell so I can decide if I'm going to wait or go ahead and pick up a second ti. Even at 1920 x 1080 Far Cry 3 with 8x msaa and Battlefield 4 with resolution scaling above 125 will bring a 780 ti or 290x to it's knees. I know not a lot of people are interested in having settings that high, but I figure I've invested this much into making my system what it is already... I'm willing to invest a bit more to ensure I can completely max out any game I play on it.
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I'm going to have to agree with this. Running a single 290 in BF4 64-man servers, when things get intense there are pretty huge dips in framerate at ultra settings. Also, at least in my system with everything cranked it's not like fps is above 60 constantly. And with new consoles slowly gaining traction it only means good things for PC cross-platform titles as well, so I wouldn't say multiple 290x's are overkill. But it's always been my experience with everyone I've known that's built their rigs that their constraints are on budget, not on a "desired setting level," that pretty much everyone wants to run games at their highest settings but not everyone has that extra disposable income to invest in to doing so.
 
I just built my latest computer this past Christmas. Finally had the money to build the dream computer I wanted. I opted for a 290x crossfire build with 1440p eyefinity (7680x1440).

I've been running everything on Ultra and I can tell you only some games are flawless. GRID 2 I've benched on Ultra with 64fps average. I've never seen it drop to the point where you can notice. As for some other games I've played, BF4/FFXIV, I can see the need for the 2nd card. Haven't benched BF4 yet, but it's a little sluggish sometimes, same with FFXIV. I average around 40-50fps in FFXIV. If I didn't have the second card I'd definitely be hurting in some games on Ultra. Don't have experience with 1080p eyefinity, but the higher resolutions crossfire is a must.
 
With two cards and VF4 in ULTRA @ eyefinity resolutions im getting around 75-90fps.

Im also running a 3930K with 12 threads so that is probably a massive leap over say someone running an I5 processor with the same cards.
 
tangoseal said:
With two cards and VF4 in ULTRA @ eyefinity resolutions im getting around 75-90fps.

Im also running a 3930K with 12 threads so that is probably a massive leap over say someone running an I5 processor with the same cards.
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Start cranking up the resolution scaling!
 
Nevermind I see now what you mean. It uses super sampling... UGGH that is a HUGE performance hit.

To be honest it looks like BF3 in Ultra which I RAPE in the FPS world with these 2 cards.

Im not so fond of this new engine err the cartoonish look of BF3.

If I need a 3rd card now to run 200% super sampling in BF4 I guess I better start saving. Good thing I have a socket 2011.
 
tangoseal said:
Nevermind I see now what you mean. It uses super sampling... UGGH that is a HUGE performance hit.

To be honest it looks like BF3 in Ultra which I RAPE in the FPS world with these 2 cards.

Im not so fond of this new engine err the cartoonish look of BF3.

If I need a 3rd card now to run 200% super sampling in BF4 I guess I better start saving. Good thing I have a socket 2011.
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Cartoonish isn't the words I'd use to describe BF4 haha.

I can run 4K resolution using the downscaling feature of BF4 and it runs pretty well on my setup. But, I don't think it looks any better than native res with MSAA.
 
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