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Is 290 better than GTX 780?

Considering price the 290 is the better option. The 780 is slightly faster, runs cooler, more energy efficient, and isn't as loud but costs substantially more.
 
Isn't the 290 better on paper and actual performance? It looks impressive to me especially if it has a non-reference cooler. Not enough for me to switch though.
 
I got my MSI GTX 780 for $380 brand new from newegg when there was price gouging on the amd cards (and I really wanted a 290).
All I can ask is where were you when the sale was going on?

By the way the 780 is really nice, for $380. :D
 
This is killing me too. 290x for cheap or a 780.

AMD is hell for me on a non-standard displays. forcing 120hz is like pulling teeth.
 
This is killing me too. 290x for cheap or a 780.

AMD is hell for me on a non-standard displays. forcing 120hz is like pulling teeth.
NVIDIA is basically one click and done when setting the refresh rate. The game profiling also has an option to force games to use the fastest available refresh rate, so games like Crysis that don't allow you to change the refresh rate will run at 120Hz/144Hz. Best part is this can be set globally. No need to create a profile for each game you have ;).
 
My Ford Expedition is sooo much faster than my buddies Chevy Suburban... LOL.

These days its splitting hairs in regard to outright performance when comparing similar priced cards. Pick the brand with the features you like, and play as many games as you can, as often as possible!
 
Just some food for thought...after kinda rabble-rousing a bit and being an Nvidia fanboy on this thread, I was convinced by several that AMD R9 290 was legitimately the way to go. Better cost, better performance. No brainer. I went ahead and bought a Sapphire Tri-X OC, which based on my research was a great card, but kinda blew up the significant cost saving...I found it for $430 on the egg, so a good $70 cost savings vs a similar 780.

Long story short, I could never get the 14.4 drivers working well and I couldn't even get a modest overclock on the Tri-X without blackscreens. I went through everything short of a re-image to get it working semi-stably, but would still get occasional blackscreens when coming out of sleep or when loading games. The performance was nice, but these intermittent problems were driving me nuts.

Here are my stock 3dMark scores with this setup:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3094212

I talked to NewEgg and they let me RMA the card and exchange it for a 780 FTW (clocked 20Ghz slower than the Tri-X OC). I got rid of the old AMD drivers, installed Nvidia stuff and have not had any problems at all. Also, it seems to perform somewhat better, even at stock:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3176320

Anyhow, I couldn't be happier. I legitimately tried to like the AMD and give it a chance. It MAY have been fine/stable if I went ahead and reinstalled Windows...but this install is only a few months old. I did use DriverFusion to get rid of driver artifacts, etc...So I think I gave it a pretty decent effort to get the AMD card stable.

Anyhow, I know that's just one guy's experience, but it is as objective as I can be.
 
Sounds like the card was faulty maybe....

I've went back and forth between NV and AMD without even having to remove driver sets. I just recently moved to a 290X from the 780, Windows auto recognized everything on boot and I installed the latest Catalyst betas without a problem.
 
Just some food for thought...after kinda rabble-rousing a bit and being an Nvidia fanboy on this thread, I was convinced by several that AMD R9 290 was legitimately the way to go. Better cost, better performance. No brainer. I went ahead and bought a Sapphire Tri-X OC, which based on my research was a great card, but kinda blew up the significant cost saving...I found it for $430 on the egg, so a good $70 cost savings vs a similar 780.

Long story short, I could never get the 14.4 drivers working well and I couldn't even get a modest overclock on the Tri-X without blackscreens. I went through everything short of a re-image to get it working semi-stably, but would still get occasional blackscreens when coming out of sleep or when loading games. The performance was nice, but these intermittent problems were driving me nuts.

Here are my stock 3dMark scores with this setup:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3094212

I talked to NewEgg and they let me RMA the card and exchange it for a 780 FTW (clocked 20Ghz slower than the Tri-X OC). I got rid of the old AMD drivers, installed Nvidia stuff and have not had any problems at all. Also, it seems to perform somewhat better, even at stock:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3176320

Anyhow, I couldn't be happier. I legitimately tried to like the AMD and give it a chance. It MAY have been fine/stable if I went ahead and reinstalled Windows...but this install is only a few months old. I did use DriverFusion to get rid of driver artifacts, etc...So I think I gave it a pretty decent effort to get the AMD card stable.

Anyhow, I know that's just one guy's experience, but it is as objective as I can be.

what program were you using to overclock ? msi after burner? or trix?

but good luck with your new purchase
 
Just some food for thought...after kinda rabble-rousing a bit and being an Nvidia fanboy on this thread, I was convinced by several that AMD R9 290 was legitimately the way to go. Better cost, better performance. No brainer. I went ahead and bought a Sapphire Tri-X OC, which based on my research was a great card, but kinda blew up the significant cost saving...I found it for $430 on the egg, so a good $70 cost savings vs a similar 780.

Long story short, I could never get the 14.4 drivers working well and I couldn't even get a modest overclock on the Tri-X without blackscreens. I went through everything short of a re-image to get it working semi-stably, but would still get occasional blackscreens when coming out of sleep or when loading games. The performance was nice, but these intermittent problems were driving me nuts.

Here are my stock 3dMark scores with this setup:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3094212

I talked to NewEgg and they let me RMA the card and exchange it for a 780 FTW (clocked 20Ghz slower than the Tri-X OC). I got rid of the old AMD drivers, installed Nvidia stuff and have not had any problems at all. Also, it seems to perform somewhat better, even at stock:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3176320

Anyhow, I couldn't be happier. I legitimately tried to like the AMD and give it a chance. It MAY have been fine/stable if I went ahead and reinstalled Windows...but this install is only a few months old. I did use DriverFusion to get rid of driver artifacts, etc...So I think I gave it a pretty decent effort to get the AMD card stable.

Anyhow, I know that's just one guy's experience, but it is as objective as I can be.

Funny thing. I bought a 290X Tri-X OC and it was a nightmare to get it to perform. I did five (yes, five!) clean Windows installs using two different computers and two different drivers (13.12 WHQL and 14.4 WHQL). Nothing worked, I was getting 10-30% less performance than I should have. Then, as a last resort I gave the new 14.6 betas a go and bang: the performance was there. Not an isolated case either, have seen several similar stories already.

I also reran all of my earlier tests (that I quoted in this thread way back) comparing my 290X Tri-X @1150/1500 with my reference 780 @1176/1725 using the fresh beta drivers on both. The result? The 290X won by less than 1%. So it takes a rather high clocked 290X to beat an average clocked 780 across those 12 benchmarks that I used. The 290 would need an even higher OC.

That being said, I sold my 780 and am now in the AMD camp. My main focus right now is on games that like the Hawaii chip, besides I like to keep myself up to date on the daily experience on both brands. And the Tri-X seems like a nice design.
 
Between all of the 290's lacking performance... and the black screens issue...
I hope AMD fares better with Volcanic Islands "2.0".
 
Funny thing. I bought a 290X Tri-X OC and it was a nightmare to get it to perform. I did five (yes, five!) clean Windows installs using two different computers and two different drivers (13.12 WHQL and 14.4 WHQL). Nothing worked, I was getting 10-30% less performance than I should have. Then, as a last resort I gave the new 14.6 betas a go and bang: the performance was there. Not an isolated case either, have seen several similar stories already.

I also reran all of my earlier tests (that I quoted in this thread way back) comparing my 290X Tri-X @1150/1500 with my reference 780 @1176/1725 using the fresh beta drivers on both. The result? The 290X won by less than 1%. So it takes a rather high clocked 290X to beat an average clocked 780 across those 12 benchmarks that I used. The 290 would need an even higher OC.

That being said, I sold my 780 and am now in the AMD camp. My main focus right now is on games that like the Hawaii chip, besides I like to keep myself up to date on the daily experience on both brands. And the Tri-X seems like a nice design.

I will say if you're really wanting a 290, the Tri-X *looks* great, and is really really quiet for having 3 fans.
 
This is killing me too. 290x for cheap or a 780.

AMD is hell for me on a non-standard displays. forcing 120hz is like pulling teeth.

I don't get this post. Non standard displays? Forcing 120Hz is easy as pie on my Korean panel with dual 290's..
 
If pricing were equal I'd buy the 780, but at current prices the 290 is the clear winner. I just got the MSI 290 for $270 brand new, that's a better than average deal but the coin miners are dumping these things for rock bottom prices.
 
If pricing were equal I'd buy the 780, but at current prices the 290 is the clear winner. I just got the MSI 290 for $270 brand new, that's a better than average deal but the coin miners are dumping these things for rock bottom prices.

Wow, what a sick sick price.
 
New perspective on OP question, "Is 290 better than GTX 780?" mostly in reference to Korean OC monitors.

I've been using sig setup, 2x780 SC.
Got PowerColor PCS+ 290x in yesterday. Been testing with my Yamakasi Catleap.

I'm really really torn on this. I've been prepared for the drop in framerate going from SLI to single 290x.

Decided to try 290x for temporal dithering/better onboard display LUT (Look Up Table).
Colors are better. No doubt about it, it's subtle in general but in any situation where you have a solid shade that is transitioning to another color a calibrated 8-bit display with no FRC (essentially what the R9 LUT is) like the Asus Gsync 24" will have an effect called banding on a 780 GTX:
Capture_zpsde669c70.png~original

that image is exaggerated to get the point across.

It is very noticeable on the Korean OC monitors like both my Qnix QX2710 and my Yamakasi Catleap 2B.

This effect is essentially erased simply by switching to the r9... Or buying a display with an 8-bit+frc matrix like the FG2421. The Rog Swift will look best on r9 290x Crossfire... no Gsync. Not a big deal. we want to use ULBM right?

Kinda pisses me off. Is there a better LUT on the TITAN?

I don't like a lot else about the r9, other than it makes the picture look fantastic... :rolleyes: kinda important.

As for performance: you'll laugh my only test to compare so far is Valley and the 290x doesn't have much on the 780. A bit. This is eyeballing it. It's not enough of a difference in performance to redo my system over. But the colors are.
 
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The 14.6's apparently have 10bit color support.

Are you saying they will make the r9 series 10-bit native GPU's? Like they fix the color problems that 30" Korean wide-gamut monitors have? o_O

Sounds too good to be true. I probably misunderstood. Those are the only 10-bit panels gamers would be interested in even if they didn't suck, and they still aren't great even if you have a 10-bit card.

I think more importantly here, for the vast majority of people on the green side, their 780s & 6 or 8 bit monitors with no FRC/dithering (all the TNs, the VG248QE, the Benqs, almost all the IPS monitors), pretty much ANY gaming oriented monitor other than the FG2421, will have banding, and the people with r9s 290s won't.

See for yourself? http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php If you are using a calibrated 8-bit panel that has no dithering or FRC matrix, like me, with an Nvidia GTX 780, that banding test will show uneven transitions from white to black, with the r9 290, it's a smooth transition... surprising night/day difference on a calibrated display. If the display isn't calibrated, this problem won't exist to begin with if the monitor is any good.

Edit: Also... 1 290x appears to be enough GPU power to run FFXIV at 1440p 120fps, no problem.
 
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If pricing were equal I'd buy the 780, but at current prices the 290 is the clear winner. I just got the MSI 290 for $270 brand new, that's a better than average deal but the coin miners are dumping these things for rock bottom prices.

No doubt that miners are dropping these for big losses. The boat had already sailed so far into outer space on mining last year (heck, the boat had already sailed by late 2012) I have no idea how people thought they would make (or even recoup) hardware costs.... but I digress. You don't need to be an expert in trading models and trends to have known that, not even mentioning the risks inherent in crypto exchanges. There is no better time to buy a used 290/290x.

I just picked up a reference 290x for $265 (guy was selling a lot of them with a "make offer" deal and can't believe he accepted; he'd stated the lot was bought for "compatibility testing for software"... hah, yeah right). When miners were driving the price of these cards through the roof, gamers were pretty angry -- but I guess there's a silver lining to everything.
 
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No doubt that miners are dropping these for big losses. The boat had already sailed so far into outer space on mining last year (heck, the boat had already sailed by late 2012) I have no idea how people thought they would make (or even recoup) hardware costs.... but I digress. You don't need to be an expert in trading models and trends to have known that, not even mentioning the risks inherent in crypto exchanges. There is no better time to buy a used 290/290x.

I just picked up a reference 290x for $265 (guy was selling a lot of them with a "make offer" deal and can't believe he accepted; he'd stated the lot was bought for "compatibility testing for software"... hah, yeah right). When miners were driving the price of these cards through the roof, gamers were pretty angry -- but I guess there's a silver lining to everything.

looks like you really don't know much about mining, mining on GPUs hit an all time high in nov/dec/January(2014). Enough so that one could get ROI on a 290/290x/280x within a months time :)
so miners didn't really drop these for big loses, they are selling them for less than they purchased them, however, if they did it right, they are still made more than they spent.
 
looks like you really don't know much about mining, mining on GPUs hit an all time high in nov/dec/January(2014). Enough so that one could get ROI on a 290/290x/280x within a months time :)

Many folks don't know much about anything on the forums. Sorry, but it's the truth.
 
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