r9 290 CF vs SINGLE NVIDIA 980

finrep said:
This is why forums matter. There is so much ignorance out there, it's hilarious. First, a 980 is only about 28% faster than a 780 at stock speeds according to Sweclocker's performance index(combining many different games into a composite).
And a 290 is at parity with a 780.

So forget the 40% increase.




Second, I got two 290s in Crossfire and I have essentially no frame-pacing issues. I play a wide range of games, some as old as 10 years and some very new, like Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Some games like Sleeping Dogs have poor Crossfire/SLI support, World of Tanks seems like a similar game. OP, I think the fact that you play a single game so much, a game that doesn't have good Crossfire support, has colored your views a lot. But if you are indeed gaming a single title that much, going for the fastest single GPU makes more sense, so you made the right choice. But let's just clear up the general misinformation about so-called "frame pacing issues" which were fixed a long time ago(AMD's Crossfire drivers are now better than SLI for Nvidia, especially at 4K) or the fact that two R9-290s are far ahead(30+ percent) of a single 980 in most popular games, such as BF4.

I base this on this chart:

http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/19332-nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-och-gtx-970/19#pagehead

I'm taking Dayaks' 70% scaling as a given, even though many of the games I'm playing are seeing at least 80% scaling.

All of this being said, I still think OP made the right choice. Some people play a lot of different games, like me, other people focus on just a few or even just one. And if that game has poor multi-GPU support, that's a done deal.
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I factor in overclock vs. overclock. The 980 OCs by a higher %. Does Sweclocker's factor that in? Edit: Nevermind, you said at "stock speeds". So that could be the 12% difference, never mind I would personally chalk 12% up to statistical noise given this is a forum... and differences model to model, ect.

I should of used the politically correct term of "compatibility issues" for cross fire, but there definitely are frame time issues in some games still. It's gotten a hell of a lot better, but not perfect. When I had crossfire after the frame pacing fix I had to increase FPS by 30% to make it feel as smooth as a single card (specifically BF4). So if I was happy with 50 fps with a single card I'd need 65 with cross fire. Even if the average increase in FPS was 80% scaling, factor in frame times, it's not perfectly 80%. So picking on 70% scaling, which in my experience was more like 56% (assuming the average is 80% and factoring in "smoothness"), is a bit nit picky to me.

OP is lucky in that he can always sell the 980 and get brand new 290s again if crap he was wading through was so deep.
 
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I am more happy with NVIDIA for now (at least).

Better OC, less heat, better support (single card) for game(s) i play, didn't spend much $ :) in the end, why not.

My r9 290 were not good overlockers at all, especially not with crossfire setup.

Most i could do was: 1100\1300 , and temps in benchs could easily hit (top card) 82-85C , (bottom card) 85-89C (and i was afraid there man).
 
Sprayingmango said:
Absolutely. Anything to dump the AMD cards, plus no more frame pacing issues or crossfire mess.
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I thought Crossfire is actually better than SLI now when it comes to frame pacing at least on the 290 and 290X cards, based on the reviews here.
 
NEK4TE said:
Most i could do was: 1100\1300 , and temps in benchs could easily hit (top card) 82-85C , (bottom card) 85-89C (and i was afraid there man).
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A lot of misconceptions about the heat. The R9 290 could stay all day long at 94 degrees. It would never go above that and never damage your card. There was never anything to be afraid of.
 
Interesting results - while I generally agree that a single card is less headaches than a multi card solution, I was under the impression that crossfire 290s were significantly faster than a single 980.

I was doing some benching recently on my 290 (1150/6400) and it came within striking distance of a stock 980, so I'm kind of surprised to see people say a 980 is 40% faster (I would say its roughly 25%).

At the end of the day though, as long as the OP is happy, that's all that matters. At a certain point you don't want to worry about crossfire profiles and compatibility issues, and just want something that works out of the box. I'm sure a 980 will more than suit his needs (plus, it's always fun to have a new toy)
 
Brampton_Boy said:
Interesting results - while I generally agree that a single card is less headaches than a multi card solution, I was under the impression that crossfire 290s were significantly faster than a single 980.

I was doing some benching recently on my 290 (1150/6400) and it came within striking distance of a stock 980, so I'm kind of surprised to see people say a 980 is 40% faster (I would say its roughly 25%).

At the end of the day though, as long as the OP is happy, that's all that matters. At a certain point you don't want to worry about crossfire profiles and compatibility issues, and just want something that works out of the box. I'm sure a 980 will more than suit his needs (plus, it's always fun to have a new toy)
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Factor in overclock. OP has core clocks ~25% over reference.

Here, a recent [H] review where a heavily OC'd 290 trades blows with a reference clocked 970. A 980 is 18% faster than a 970 and the OP has ~25% OC. One could assume ~ 47% gains (1.18*1.25).

http://m.hardocp.com/article/2014/1...ble_dissipation_edition_review/2#.VLpPttm9Kc0


This is one of my favorite reviews because it was OC vs OC, albeit vs a 290x. A little gamed towards the 290x since the 290x has a custom cooler and the 980 was reference. In this review the 980 was on average 24.4% faster than the 290x. Since the 290 has 10% of the 290x's core disabled, you could assume OC vs OC the 980 would be 36.8% (1.1*1.244) faster than a 290.

http://m.hardocp.com/article/2014/1...verclocking_video_card_review/12#.VLpUNdm9Kc0
 
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I do have a question about overclock, if somebody please could explain to me.

As you can see:

2015-01-17_11-29-47.png


GPU Clock is set to: 1400 MHz (Left Window of GPUz)

While doing Benchs, i see 1552MHz for GPU Core Clock (Right Window of GPUz)

Afterburner\Riva Tuner statistics:

IMG20150117112032.jpg


Why is this? How is this explained?

Big thanks
 
It boosts higher than the base clock. If you look to the right a little GPU-Z has the boost at 1501. I think the only program I've seen with whacky clocks being reported is the Heaven/Valley benchmark.
 
Oh, okay, i don't remember if AMD was reporting clocks like this, but, it looked weird to me.

Thanks sir
 
AMD doesn't boost like Nvidia. You set a clock and that is where it runs as long as you are under /up-to TDP.
 
Yup, no receipt required. I just RMA-ed a video card, they only required the card with the serial number sticker still on it, my only problem was it took OVER A MONTH to, sent it the beginning of December and I didn't get it till this past Thursday...
 
Yea, i understand.

I once had the similar situation with Gigabyte.

I know that MSI for example has local RMA office in Toronto (Close to me), where, Gigabyte, i had to pay shipping over 30 bucks.
 
As we did talk about comparison between cards, friend of mine got a new pc last night with MSI 970 Gaming.

He doesn't want to overclock it, so, he is running at stock speeds.

Comparison between his Heaven and mine (980, overclocked a bit)

HIS:
2015-01-21_10-45-29.png


MINE:
2015-01-20_18-31-01.png


Test was running with same settings and same resolution.
 
I ditched my 290x CF setup in favor of 970 SLI mostly because of issues with heat (even though they were water cooled, they really stressed my rads at load) and CF compatibility. There were just too many new releases that didn't support CF properly which made the 2nd card fairly pointless for me.
 
To be honest with you, after this experience, i think i am done with AMD (at least for now)
 
convexion said:
I ditched my 290x CF setup in favor of 970 SLI mostly because of issues with heat (even though they were water cooled, they really stressed my rads at load) and CF compatibility. There were just too many new releases that didn't support CF properly which made the 2nd card fairly pointless for me.
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I've considered switching to 980s because of heat issues. And I have the best 290X's out there, but goddamn they still run super hot when I have 2 of them and not a lot of extra room in the case. I have been holding out hard to hear ANYTHING about the 390x or or new Titan cards...
 
I will be ditching crossfire too shortly.. currently I have 280X cards in crossfire. Sadly they are reference cards so no fancy cooling fans on them.

My biggest issue with them is game support... take BF4 for example. Yes it supports cross fire, but there is still texture flickering on parts of the maps which goes away when not using cross fire. (A recognised issue with Cross fire apparently, but nobody can be bothered to fix it after all this time!)... and turning off ULPS or the low power setting doesnt cure it fully either. I may get fantastic frame rates on ultra at 2560x1440p but those textures that flicker every now and again are really annoying. My cards run cool too ... I let the fans crank right up (headphones on, so no issue)

Also, Mantle ... in the 14.12.Beta 2 drivers, BF4 ignores my 2nd graphics card. Apparently if I had a 290 or 290x it would work ? But they never fixed it for crossfire 280X. So Direct X it is...

And lastly ... drivers... The Omega driver caused me severe grief in COD Advanced Warfare, including game crashes, freezing and stuttering menus. Bizarre. Reverted to 14.12.Beta 2 and it was fine again.

so next time (soon hopefully) Im leaning back to a) a single card, and b) perhaps Nvidia even if they do have a premium in terms of price.
 
290X is gonna put out more FPS but run a bit hotter. So depends on if extra heat is an issue for you.
 
I had a reference R9 290X, when it would hit the 95C temp, it would downclock the card and run my games poorly. I could fix that with the catalyst control center by changing the target temperature to 70C and fan at 58%... but it was loud' even with over the ear headphones.

I really enjoy playing COD:AW and really wanted to push the performance up. So I bought a pair of EVGA GTX 970 SSC's (the newest model.) I had them going for a little while, all seemed good for the first 45 minutes. Then I noticed they both had coil whine and I was getting this annoying microstuddering issue... EVGA precision was saying I had a solid 90FPS @ 1080p and the graphics cards sitting at 76C.

I returned them, bought a used Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X for $230 and have not been happier. It stays cool and quiet. I plan on adding 2 more since I just got my 4K TV. I love dealing with crossfire wayyyy more than SLI.
 
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