Free 290X vs my SLI NGTX580 3GB Lightning Extremes?

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Ultranifty

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2012
Messages
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I have a friend who's willing to give me a free 290X (he has perks and has free stuff laying around)......

I currently have SLI NGTX580 3GB Lightning Extreme's (3 years old) on a single 2560x1440 monitor and soon going to the 3440 x 1440 LG 21:9 monitor.
I know all about heat, power, SLI scaling varying per game, etc. But in the terms of pure FPS, wondering if that's just a sidegrade and won't see a noticable boost in performance.
There's another thread talking about the 290x being a little faster than stock 1.5GB SLI 580's, but I have these overclocked 3GB versions, so they're faster than a regular 580.

I may end up just taking his FREE card ;) due to less power and collective heat for the same or slightly higher performance. It's stock AMD cooling though, ick, card runs like 94C running futuremark for awhile, that's frickin hot
 
I actually upgraded from a 590 to a 7970. The 590 wouldn't be as fast as those cards, but a 290 x would surely be a better option.
 
Free card? I'd sell those 580s, buy an aftermarket cooler, and some ice cream and call it a day.
 
i don't understand why threads like these continually get posted when all you have to do is take five seconds to google benchmarks. the 290X is just as fast or faster than 580 SLI depending on the game. take the 290X, sell the 580s, and put that money towards another 290X. simple.
 
Odellus said:
i don't understand why threads like these continually get posted when all you have to do is take five seconds to google benchmarks. the 290X is just as fast or faster than 580 SLI depending on the game. take the 290X, sell the 580s, and put that money towards another 290X. simple.
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because it's always good to have input.

Anyway, free is free. like it was already set get it sell the 580s.

the 580s might be equal when scaling is good, that's something you don't have to worry about with a single 290x.
 
Having owned both a 290 and 580 SLI clocked to 1000mhz with Matrix Platinums, the 290X by far. It will be faster in just about everything. In synthetic benchmarks they score similarly but you never get 100% SLI scaling in games.
 
Odellus said:
i don't understand why threads like these continually get posted when all you have to do is take five seconds to google benchmarks. the 290X is just as fast or faster than 580 SLI depending on the game. take the 290X, sell the 580s, and put that money towards another 290X. simple.
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Because it's hard to find benchmarks with 580's, and if you do, even more impossible to find one with 580 lightning extreme's that would also have anything else resembling a 290X. That.....um.....just.......MIGHT.....be why.

Everyone else, appreciate your inputs
 
Don't forget the heat those 580s put off. a 290x is hot, but not that kinda hot.

Like everyone else said. Take the 290x and sell the 580s.
 
Ultranifty said:
Because it's hard to find benchmarks with 580's, and if you do, even more impossible to find one with 580 lightning extreme's that would also have anything else resembling a 290X. That.....um.....just.......MIGHT.....be why.

Everyone else, appreciate your inputs
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you search for 580 sli benchmarks, then you add 15% to account for driver updates and the overclock. then, you look for 290X benchmarks of the same games. in no way is it "hard to find benchmarks with 580s" and i have no idea why you think you need to have a 290X in the same review. use your brain, it's a valuable and powerful tool. ;)
 
Ultranifty said:
Because it's hard to find benchmarks with 580's, and if you do, even more impossible to find one with 580 lightning extreme's that would also have anything else resembling a 290X. That.....um.....just.......MIGHT.....be why.

Everyone else, appreciate your inputs
Click to expand...

Uh, even if you can't find benchmarks. You have to look at the facts:
1) 290X is a free card, why wouldn't you take it?
2) GTX580 is 4 year old tech
3) Single GPU setups are always almost smoother/problem free than dual GPU setups, especially if you take into account that not all games utilize SLI/CFX
 
Odellus said:
i don't understand why threads like these continually get posted when all you have to do is take five seconds to google benchmarks. the 290X is just as fast or faster than 580 SLI depending on the game. take the 290X, sell the 580s, and put that money towards another 290X. simple.
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Hearing user experience far outweighs anything you would read in a benchmark. This is a good thread.
 
Maybe it was a hyperbole to say "outweights anything", but just because a card is a little faster than a current setup in a benchmark, doesn't mean it's an ideal change every single time.
 
Cmustang87 said:
Maybe it was a hyperbole to say "outweights anything", but just because a card is a little faster than a current setup in a benchmark, doesn't mean it's an ideal change every single time.
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It's a faster single card, vs an aging dual card setup. It's pretty much a no brainer.
 
Not that I disagree with that SilverSliver, I was just defending OP because I didn't feel it was necessary to berate him for making a thread.
 
Cool Vibrations said:
Uh, even if you can't find benchmarks. You have to look at the facts:
1) 290X is a free card, why wouldn't you take it?
2) GTX580 is 4 year old tech
3) Single GPU setups are always almost smoother/problem free than dual GPU setups, especially if you take into account that not all games utilize SLI/CFX
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1) Free or not, if it's not as fast, then stupid to use it if it's slower. It'll be noisier, though collective heat and power should be less

2) Doesn't matter if it's old tech, fps is fps, however you're getting it. End result is what i'm talking about here, no matter how it was achieved. My 580's are DX11 cards

3) You have somewhat of a point here, sure, not all games will scale best, but again, it's end result here....if bad scaling, but double 580's still netted me higher fps at my rez than the 290x, then pointless to use 290x. I think it'll be faster though.
 
Odellus said:
you search for 580 sli benchmarks, then you add 15% to account for driver updates and the overclock. then, you look for 290X benchmarks of the same games. in no way is it "hard to find benchmarks with 580s" and i have no idea why you think you need to have a 290X in the same review. use your brain, it's a valuable and powerful tool. ;)
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Thanks for displaying to us all your astounding levels of doucheness in the span of 10 seconds. You could ignore the thread, but you went out of your way to complain about the thread. You clearly have anger issues then. Allow me to educate you again on the reasons for this thread. I already covered this....but your anger and retorts continue.

I'll only say this one more time. Might as well close thread after this. I won't bother coming back to continue to read your angry pointless banter.

I search for 580 benchmarks. Yes, did that. Hi, did that, I have 3GB models that are OC'd, The only benchmarks I can find on these are outdated, showing outdated games, and nothing in that review is comparable to the Games / Resolutions in 290x benchmarks now. But you are elite, and you can instantly grab figures out of the air. 15% for drivers and OC......riiiiight, and how much extra % for the 3GB vs the 1.5GB standard? You're magical, so you should know this.

None of the rest of your response makes any sense. Hi, hello, I'm Earth, have we met? Benchmarks for 3 year old cards aren't going to show the same games as a 290X, and if a couple games are, they aren't going to be the same rez. I don't have regular 580's, so that's the whole purpose of this whole thread. Would be much easier if I had regular 580's. If it was so easy to find this info on 580 3GB LightExtremes, then instead of wasting time complaining, you could have shown me these EASY benches and I'd shut up. I asked people to see if others upgraded from 3GB 580's to something else and if it was faster. That would give me the best idea.

In fact, I'm just gonna stop :) Replying to your crap is just as pointless as even reading your crap, which is even less pointless than you even feeling the need to reply with your douche-anger. Later

/thread
 
Sometimes they show the part of a certain game that is benchmarked. You can go through this part with your cards and then compare your fps with the benchmark for the 290x. You will have to consider the difference between your system and their system, but on GPU intensive games, this won't make a huge difference.
 
I'm just gonna run the FutureMark demo and use whatever is faster :)

After I put an aftermarket cooler on the stock 290x
 
Ultranifty said:
I'm just gonna run the FutureMark demo and use whatever is faster :)

After I put an aftermarket cooler on the stock 290x
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Futuremark demo =! games. Do yourself a favor and just try it out in a few games you play. It will either be faster, or it won't.
 
Ultranifty said:
Thanks for displaying to us all your astounding levels of doucheness in the span of 10 seconds. You could ignore the thread, but you went out of your way to complain about the thread. You clearly have anger issues then. Allow me to educate you again on the reasons for this thread. I already covered this....but your anger and retorts continue.
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lol

Ultranifty said:
The only benchmarks I can find on these are outdated, showing outdated games, and nothing in that review is comparable to the Games / Resolutions in 290x benchmarks now. But you are elite, and you can instantly grab figures out of the air. 15% for drivers and OC......riiiiight, and how much extra % for the 3GB vs the 1.5GB standard? You're magical, so you should know this.
Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4012/nvidias-geforce-gtx-580-the-sli-update/2
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review/13

580 lightning is ~8% faster than a standard 580. driver updates since 2010 have increased performance by around 8% average, depending on the game. they haven't done anything for crysis warhead, so that will be ignored in this instance. 2560x1600 is 10% more pixels than 2560x1440 (the performance hit is slightly less than 10% but for simplicity's sake i'll leave it at 10.) enthusiast settings in crysis warhead are around 37% more demanding than gamer settings. adjust the 580 SLI benchmark for the overclock and you get 74.5 fps average at 1600p, subtract 37% for enthusiast settings and you get 47.5 fps. adjust the framerate in the 290X review for the resolution difference and you get 47.3 fps. vram has nothing to do with framerate, by the way, it just gives you the ability to play a game with vram eating settings at 5-10 fps instead of 0-1 fps, and more recently, the ability to play watch dogs without stuttering because of its lackadaisical use of vram. none of this math was really that necessary as you could just look at the benchmarks i linked and get an idea of where they fall performance-wise. like i said, use your brain. :)

Ultranifty said:
None of the rest of your response makes any sense. Hi, hello, I'm Earth, have we met? Benchmarks for 3 year old cards aren't going to show the same games as a 290X, and if a couple games are, they aren't going to be the same rez. I don't have regular 580's, so that's the whole purpose of this whole thread. Would be much easier if I had regular 580's. If it was so easy to find this info on 580 3GB LightExtremes, then instead of wasting time complaining, you could have shown me these EASY benches and I'd shut up. I asked people to see if others upgraded from 3GB 580's to something else and if it was faster. That would give me the best idea.
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see above.

Ultranifty said:
In fact, I'm just gonna stop :) Replying to your crap is just as pointless as even reading your crap, which is even less pointless than you even feeling the need to reply with your douche-anger. Later

/thread
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i'm used to lazy, ignorant people wanting to continue being lazy and ignorant, this is nothing new for me. enjoy your 290X.
 
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I'm sorry Odellus, but c'mon, man...How can you expect anyone to feel at home and welcome on a forum when you treat others as such? Just because he doesn't know all the information and can do the numbers like you can, doesn't mean he shouldn't be able to make a thread and have a discussion about it. Maybe he's not as well versed in video cards as others, who cares? That's what this board is for.
 
Cmustang87 said:
I'm sorry Odellus, but c'mon, man...How can you expect anyone to feel at home and welcome on a forum when you treat others as such? Just because he doesn't know all the information and can do the numbers like you can, doesn't mean he shouldn't be able to make a thread and have a discussion about it. Maybe he's not as well versed in video cards as others, who cares? That's what this board is for.
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I agree. If you think it's a stupid question, don't answer.
 
Well honestly , he should know better. This place used to be a harder forum years ago when people were actually forced into searching before considering making a thread. If these were 680s, it would be different because you would have a hard time suggesting a 290x. Everyone knows 580s not only run hot, but eat a lot of power. The 290x in this case is a smarter buy based on it being free foremost, secondly equal in heat output and lastly power consumption savings.

If you were buying a card I would tell you to save until the next Nv and AMD card to drop and see for yourself. Take the 290x and enjoy it ... Hell you may never go back to nv... Ha us I kid.

Anyhow, goodluck on your decision.
 
Venomous said:
Well honestly , he should know better. This place used to be a harder forum years ago when people were actually forced into searching before considering making a thread. If these were 680s, it would be different because you would have a hard time suggesting a 290x. Everyone knows 580s not only run hot, but eat a lot of power. The 290x in this case is a smarter buy based on it being free foremost, secondly equal in heat output and lastly power consumption savings.

If you were buying a card I would tell you to save until the next Nv and AMD card to drop and see for yourself. Take the 290x and enjoy it ... Hell you may never go back to nv... Ha us I kid.

Anyhow, goodluck on your decision.
Click to expand...

I'm not the oldest member around but I don't remember that. Some people search, some people don't. People asking questions and posting answers, regardless whether or not the subject has been answered previously, is one the the ways the community keeps going.
 
I don't even really see why there had to be any decision making in this, honestly. At least nothing that would require this topic.

Here's my thought process in said scenario:
- It's a free card.
- If it's free and valuable, you should take it even if you don't need it.
- Worst case scenario, you can just give it back. >_>

Hence, you should just:
- Take the free card.
- Try it out.
- Compare the results/likes/dislikes to your old card
- Give it back if you don't like it, or keep it if you do

It's kind of silly to ask for advice when there's no opportunity cost except a bit of time lost. Your topic might as well read:
"Is it worth using my X amount of my time in order to test this 290X out, or should I just keep my 580's and ignore the proposition?"

The amount of time googling and typing by other people will outweigh any possible benefits to said googling over a simple trial! It's absurd. Forget the ease or difficulty of finding answers to 580 SLI vs 290X using Google, the premise of this as a question is silly.
 
I would imagine that 2x gtx 580s would hold up pretty well these days. But I would still try out the 290x anyway. What most benchmarks don't show are frame times which can lead to stutter with multi gpu setups.

Even if the fps results were nearly identical I would still take the single card.
 
SilverSliver said:
I'm not the oldest member around but I don't remember that. Some people search, some people don't. People asking questions and posting answers, regardless whether or not the subject has been answered previously, is one the the ways the community keeps going.
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This.

While I also consider the content of this topic to be fairly common knowledge, I think every now and then we should have a thread to repeat that, just to reaffirm or clarify in case things have changed between now and the last time it was answered. It also helps build consensus and makes searching for the authoritative answer that much easier.

I, for one, sure wouldn't have know now what's supposedly common knowledge if it wasn't regurgitated to me a few times over.
 
I had at one point 2xGTX480's that are about 5-15% slower than the 580, I went from those 2x480's to 1x680 and it was a noticeable quality of gaming difference better. Overall max frames went down about 5% but games could utilize the 1 card better than 2 cards, now I'm on 1 780 which is easily faster than 2x580's and the 290x is supposed to be faster still. I don't see any negative to going from 2x580's to 1x290x unless you just really hate AMD drivers.
 
Kaos_Drem said:
I had at one point 2xGTX480's that are about 5-15% slower than the 580, I went from those 2x480's to 1x680 and it was a noticeable quality of gaming difference better. Overall max frames went down about 5% but games could utilize the 1 card better than 2 cards, now I'm on 1 780 which is easily faster than 2x580's and the 290x is supposed to be faster still. I don't see any negative to going from 2x580's to 1x290x unless you just really hate AMD drivers.
Click to expand...

This was the 'personal experience' comparison I was looking for, or close to. Thanks ;)
And yes, I vowed long ago to go Team Green due to AMD's drivers, but that was Crossfire at the time. I won't give AMD a shot with Crossfire anymore, but single card, their drivers are fine.

Yea, I'll use the 290x once I get the GELID aftermarket cooler on it. Drops it's temps by 40c
 
Ultranifty said:
This was the 'personal experience' comparison I was looking for, or close to. Thanks ;)
And yes, I vowed long ago to go Team Green due to AMD's drivers, but that was Crossfire at the time. I won't give AMD a shot with Crossfire anymore, but single card, their drivers are fine.

Yea, I'll use the 290x once I get the GELID aftermarket cooler on it. Drops it's temps by 40c
Click to expand...

I so very much want moar video card poowwwaahh with multiple GPU-setups, but I just have a hard time finding games that use the horsepower effectively. I used to buy 'bang for the buck' cards and just throw in two of them. I think from now on, I will splurge on the best, or near best, single GPU setups that I can.
 
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