Should I return the two 390x’s that I purchased and get two 980 ti’s instead? Please help me decide!

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

390X = OCed 290X + driver optimization. 

 

Uh uh uh http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Catalyst-155-1515-Performance-Check-Validating-AMD-R9-390-Testing 

 

 

You want to have a powerful PC, that will last you 4-5 years, so 980 Ti's are the way to go imo.

 

That's what people with 780 ti's said a year ago, but now.... Eh..... 

[DarkSmith2]

Im using a i7-2600k for about 4 years now.

I had used my GTX460 for about 5years until i freshly upgraded it to a gtx970 2month ago.

And i havnt had any issues playing on my 22inch 720p Monitor which was standard when i bought it a long time ago.

 

Seriously there wasnt any reason to upgrade, i just made it because i wanted to revamp my old hardware for the fun of it,

getting a new case, getting a new monitor, getting a new graphics card.

 

Maybe getting a new PSU is the next step.. maybe a custom water loop after that or SLI, Don't know how far i want to push it. 
Maybe ill just go for a complete new RIG when pascal or volta (in3years) and skylake are available and use my 2600k rig as a streaming Plattform or Guest Gaming PC.

 

The reason why im writing this is simple.

Hardware lasts more then long enough when you are not trying to stay on the highest edge of performance of freshly released hardware.

Sometimes its better to stay with your Hardware waiting stuff out until you run into a performance leak which could lower your fun while gaming.

It also safes you alot of money. In your case it isnt because of the powerdraw of your amd cards... but thats a different story.

 

I would in your case just return 1card or return both to get 1 single GTX980ti. This will definitly decrease your sick powerconsumption (safe the earth you know). 

And will last for the next 3 years until you probably want to buy a whole new PC anyway.

[TechSilver13]

Uh uh uh http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Catalyst-155-1515-Performance-Check-Validating-AMD-R9-390-Testing 

 

 

 

That's what people with 780 ti's said a year ago, but now.... Eh..... 

November of 2013 was 365 days ago?

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

November of 2013 was 365 days ago?

 

1.5 years actually 

[Hunter259]

780 TI's are still very much high end. If I remember right they are near 980 levels of performance at stock.  

[DarkSmith2]

780 TI's are still very much high end. If I remember right they are near 980 levels of performance at stock.  

before nvidia raped its performance with drivers yes. Now they are worse then 970s

[Hunter259]

before nvidia raped its performance with drivers yes. Now they are worse then 970s

Where did you get that from? http://www.bytemedev.com/the-gtx-780-ti-sli-end-of-life-driver-performance-analysis/

Proof that performance has just gone up since the start with small dips every now and then.

[jim2point0]

Can two 390x's consistently maintain 60+ FPS in 4k at ultra settings?

Not even 2x 980TIs can. At least not in all games. Witcher 3 for example. And these are much more powerful cards.

 

That said, in Battlefield 4, a single 980TI is enough for 60 fps. 

 

Depends on the game, really.

[DarkSmith2]

Where did you get that from? http://www.bytemedev.com/the-gtx-780-ti-sli-end-of-life-driver-performance-analysis/

Proof that performance has just gone up since the start with small dips every now and then.

wow cool, good to know, just heard it everywhere.. ^^ But good to know it isnt true though.. thank you

[RyGuy99]

before nvidia raped its performance with drivers yes. Now they are worse then 970s

970s have been able to trade blows with 780 ti's for a while now. Especially the G1 gaming.

[RyGuy99]

I have had dual 290X's witch perform worse handle triple 1080p with everything maxed and get over 70 fps solid, dual 390X's will easily perform over 60 fps on 4K.

I wouldn't say you could get full 60 fps on all games at 4K. You can't really take his 290X's testimonial even with 3 monitors. Ultra settings are killer at 4K and that doesn't even include anti-aliasing. Granted AA isn't needed but at 4K even Titan X's and 295x2's get hammered at 4K.

[B3NJ4M1N]

You made your bed, now sleep in it!

Why should you be allowed to return a purchase just because you' change your mind'.

Not fair on the retailer, nor the next person they on sell your cards to. 

Learn to do your research before splashing the cash!

[Monarch]

Uh uh uh http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Catalyst-155-1515-Performance-Check-Validating-AMD-R9-390-Testing 

 

 

 

That's what people with 780 ti's said a year ago, but now.... Eh..... 

 

The fact that GTA 5 performs better with 15.15 is a proof that they did something with that driver. Whatever they did, it doesn't seem to improve performance across the board. It could be anything, like tessellation, driver overhead... and it won't manifest unless the game benefits from that particular improvement. Like when Nvidia reduced driver overhead, it only increased performance when draw calls were the bottleneck.

Either way, 390X is still just an OCed 290X. 

 

And regarding Kepler cards, it's never proven that Nvidia purposely gimped the drivers. Perhaps they stopped optimizing the driver for them. But they did address the issue, didn't they? Latest drivers are supposed to improve performance. I've heard people reporting 5 fps more or so.

[iludez]

Return and get two furyx;s?

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

The fact that GTA 5 performs better with 15.15 is a proof that they did something with that driver. Whatever they did, it doesn't seem to improve performance across the board. It could be anything, like tessellation, driver overhead... and it won't manifest unless the game benefits from that particular improvement. Like when Nvidia reduced driver overhead, it only increased performance when draw calls were the bottleneck.

Either way, 390X is still just an OCed 290X. 

 

And regarding Kepler cards, it's never proven that Nvidia purposely gimped the drivers. Perhaps they stopped optimizing the driver for them. But they did address the issue, didn't they? Latest drivers are supposed to improve performance. I've heard people reporting 5 fps more or so.

 

 

 

So what's the take away? While in Grand Theft Auto V there is some performance delta between Catalyst 15.5 and Catalyst 15.15 with the R9 290, that is not the case in Battlefield 4 or Metro: Last Light. (Note: the results at 4K testing, which I did run, showed identical behavior to the 2560x1440 testing shown above.) It makes sense that GTA V would see some improvement in gaming experience with a newer driver as it is still a new title getting updates and fixes from both AMD and NVIDIA.  BF4 and Metro: LL are quite a bit longer in the tooth and thus the lack of change is expected.

[Volxen]

440 more for GPU's is a lot but I can't really talk because I sold my 980s for 980 ti's. Me personally, I would do it. The 980 ti is WAY better than 390x's. I had dual 290x's and my 970's beat those and when I upgraded to my 980's it was an even bigger gap. The 980 ti is obviously even that much better than the 980 so speaking from experience and not reading about it I would highly recommend upgrading since returning them won't cost you anything.

 

Did you notice a significant increase in your FPS at 4K resolution when you switched from dual 980's to dual 980 ti's?

[Volxen]

Return and get two furyx;s?

 

The fury X only has 4 GB of vram, and I don't want to have to mess with trying to fit two radiators/fans into my case. And it's just as expensive (if not more) than a 980 ti.

[Volxen]

Im using a i7-2600k for about 4 years now.

I had used my GTX460 for about 5years until i freshly upgraded it to a gtx970 2month ago.

And i havnt had any issues playing on my 22inch 720p Monitor which was standard when i bought it a long time ago.

 

Seriously there wasnt any reason to upgrade, i just made it because i wanted to revamp my old hardware for the fun of it,

getting a new case, getting a new monitor, getting a new graphics card.

 

Maybe getting a new PSU is the next step.. maybe a custom water loop after that or SLI, Don't know how far i want to push it. 

Maybe ill just go for a complete new RIG when pascal or volta (in3years) and skylake are available and use my 2600k rig as a streaming Plattform or Guest Gaming PC.

 

The reason why im writing this is simple.

Hardware lasts more then long enough when you are not trying to stay on the highest edge of performance of freshly released hardware.

Sometimes its better to stay with your Hardware waiting stuff out until you run into a performance leak which could lower your fun while gaming.

It also safes you alot of money. In your case it isnt because of the powerdraw of your amd cards... but thats a different story.

 

I would in your case just return 1card or return both to get 1 single GTX980ti. This will definitly decrease your sick powerconsumption (safe the earth you know). 

And will last for the next 3 years until you probably want to buy a whole new PC anyway.

 

A single 980 ti is not going to be nearly enough to play at 4K resolution on ultra settings and consistently maintain 60+ FPS. 

[alphaproject]

I seen a video of this guy trying to show some benchmarks on 2 cards. One 390 and one 390X. So he takes out his 290X tri-X and puts in the 390X and nothing...black screen. Same with the 390...black screen.  Both cards never showed ANY output, was so crazy. Puts back in the Tri-X boom, windows.

 

What are the chances of him getting 2 bricked cards?  Was weird.

 

He also did the video in real time and said he already tried MANY things to get them to work, bios settings, driver uninstalls...everything.

[m_tieu]

I would go with dual 980ti. Sure it costs more money, but you get better performance.

[Damir]

Your MSI 390X are good with cooling. As far as heat output, you probably won't notice the difference. Power consumption is negligible really, unless you are running them full load 24/7, your electric bill will be about the same, your GPUs are most of the time idle than anything else in their life cycle.

 

So it is up to you if you want to spend additional $440ish+(depending on the version) more for an 980Ti SLI setup. Remember both cards are 1st gen DX12 GPUs(both support main DX12 features), both are really not capable of 4K 60FPS+ consistent gaming in many games, let alone capable of fully utilizing 4K 60Hz monitors fully. Not even 1440P 120HZ/144hz monitors are being maxed out right now.

 

If it was me, I'll sit on the 390X CF for now since I already have em, because from my point of view, neither 390X/980Ti 2way will give me what "I" want in 4K, which is 60FPS minimum most of the time. So, I don't see a reason of spending more money right now at all. That is one of the reason why I have not upgraded to a 4K monitor setup at all, because I prefer smooth ULTRA SETTINGS 1080p 60FPS gaming over 4K low FPS ULTRA SETTINGS, neither freesync or G-Sync can make 25-30FPS look smooth to me. I've looked at demos personally in the stores it didn't sell to me at all.

 

The talk about DX12 improving performance on current gen cards, is all about drawcall performance, and we have not seen any actual games that are DX12 yet. So I would not expect to see all of a sudden a huge jump in gaming peformance, very unlikely that we will see many current AAA games being upgraded to DX12 to even see the improvements from DX11.

 

So, just wait til we actually see any DX12 games and AMD and Nvidia have released cards capable of high FPS at ULTRA settings in 4K.

[Monarch]

 

 

I'm not saying they reduced driver overhead, I'm just saying they did something that does not improve performance across the board, but rather only in certain situations/games, like how CPU overhead is only evident in CPU-bound scenarios, tessellation when there's heavy tessellation like in Witcher 3, etc.

[Weak1ings]

It is a tough choice...  I'd vote for a single 980 Ti as it can handle most games at 4K. 

Really, I suggest more that you wait a while for say Pascal which will hopefully bring 4K to the 1070 or even 1060 if it pulls a Fermi-Kepler Jump.