TheDigitalRealm

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head, at 1440p and higher, the R9 290X crossfire outperforms the 780Ti in SLI. This is partly due to the 512bit bus on the 290X and partly because Crossfire is superior to SLI this generation due to the implementation of Bridge less Crossfire, along with a new engine.
It's also why I have two 290X Lightning cards and the EK water blocks and back plates that arrived this morning.

well in the case the lightning gets my vote also you might wanna add a poll so people can makes votes on what to get 

So I've been reading up on GPU's, GPU benchmarks and different 'this or that GPU' discussions on LTT I came across. I came to some conclusions based on my own opinion and the general opinions and conclusions I came across. You might think this is total BS or pointless but this is what I'll be basing my GPU purchase on so your input is appreciated. 
 
Notes:
1. Setup: single monitor 2560x1440 ultra settings.
2. The conclusions are based on the best overall performance split by setup so dual GPU's, single GPU, watercooled, aircooled, Nvidia or AMD. 
3. These conclusion completely disregard the GTX Titan and the R9 295X2.
 
Conclusions:
Best single GPU setup: GTX 780ti 
 
Best Dual GPU setup if you want Nvidia: 3GB 780's (Why? Extra performance from 780ti's in SLI isn't worth, 6GB version of 780 isn't worth it)
 
Best Dual GPU setup if you want AMD watercooled: R9 290X Lightning (cause you can have some sexy custom EK WB's on em)
 
Best Dual GPU setup if you want AMD aircooled: R9 290X Sapphire Tri-X
 
Best Dual GPU setup disregarding air or watercooled and NVidia or AMD: R9 290X
 

LG produce some of the best panels. for example the Apple £899 monitor uses an LG IPS display

But damn the price of that thing is unreal compared to other 290x cards.
You can get better toys at this price.

Read the patch notes....It states there that you have to pick up your helmet from the pedestal on the left side of the hangar.  

I'm using an alphacool Laing D5 Vario rebrand with a pump top.

Is it a 120mm mount? You need somewhere to mount the rad obviously. How big can you fit?  
If not just get a NHD15.

EK D5 Vario with top.

Snef’s Water-cooling evolution in the last year (or two)
Hi everyone
Just checked older post I and I saw some builds and compare to newer from the same builder/Modder and sometime its phenomenal how some take experience and some have evolved
I think it’s a good idea to make a post to see all evolution of what we do in the last year or 2
(just one or 2 pics per build)
I start
My background in computer:
I work in IT for more than 20 years
and in 2009, just disgust of my computer, I said to myself, I bought a Dell Alienware, I had no time to spend on my computer and some other personal reason, just want a trouble free solution, I was wrong but the warranty and service was exceptional and anyway, its another story
finally in 2012, the computer passion came back, give my Alienware to my stepmother and buy a lot of hardware to build my own computer
here start my last year evolution
First:
March 3 2012, just finish my air cooling build
And simple Antec case with a Asus deluxe z68 mobo , a i5-2500K and a Sli of asus gtx560ti cuii

Yes, why not, a 2d Surround at same time

Nothing special but everything running very well,
But you know, not able to set Ultra in game, 2d surround with 560ti, not enough power
Second:
April 2 2012
Only one month later and After spending some time in a lot of forum, and saw how the water cooling is no more just green coolant and only a cheap cpu waterblock
Why not, sold my Antec sli setup to a friend and order a LOT of hardware and I jump in water cooling
A Rampage IV extreme, 3930k, 32gb g-skill, 2 x hd7970 and a NZXT 810, (my wife cried when she saw the bill)
Yes I know, only one month later


This is my first water cooling build ever
Third:
June 8 2012
Everything was perfect but, I don’t like temp, I thought the temperature would be lower, very disappointing
Ok need a bigger case and I always like the cube format, start some research and found Caselabs, wow they’re not cheap but why not, order a M8, and change CPU waterblock, I had better temp with the swiftech apogee than the raystorm on a 3930k


Good but, hade some issue with the rampage, need to change everything again
Fourth:
March 17 2013
After some time and some upgrade like Maximus V Formula instead of the rampage, dominator GT, XSPC waterblock
I finally have the build I want (yeah Right)
I made a lot of change
Change the Formula for a Maximus v Extreme want a trifire setup (ahh Crysis 3) and want good temp for a day to day overclock
Now with an intel I7-3770k @4.6Ghz, change pump, res, rad finally change everything and add a pedestal
And install rad in it, this my better temp gain, put rad outside of the case help a lot


fifth:
My wife need a rig, I don’t want wait for my computer when I need it
I try to make a low cost computer, sure, I’m able to do that
A i5-3570k, gigabyte z68 mATX, 8gb corsair white ram, Bitfenix Shinoby white, hd7970, and a single 120 rad for cpu
I’m impressed by temp, sure its not the best but have a litte bit better temp than a best air cooling or a H100


Do you know the first reaction of my wife when she saw her rigs “ah a Star War storm troopers, where is Dark Vader”
I told her “ok, Dark Vader will sell your computer and buy you a little Acer netbook for $300” :lol:
6th:
My wife start gaming at Call of Duty, tomb raider (old one) and some other game
The issue is, the GPU is still air cooled, and fan make same noise as a F-18 Hornet at full load
Tried to create a fan profile but GPU came to hot and start throttling, no choice, need to water cooled the GPU
But no rad space in a regular Shinobi, told my wife need to upgrade and asked her if she want a white Caselabs SM8
She said “No, I like the touch finish of the Shinobi”, ok go for a white Shinobi XL

7th:
No choice upgrade
No more project and want to do something special
When I ask my wife if she want a SM8, I saw sabertooth and my intial project was SM8 with a painted sabertooth
But my wife dosnt want the sm8, I kept simple and choose shinobi xl,
This time choose to go with another upgrade for my wife’s rig and make no compromise with her, I choose everything
Snef’s Icy Blue Angel is born


8th:
And finally Purple Chimera
Ok this one don’t have any story, just need a project to occupied my days and one of my wife’ friend asked me for a rigs
Finnaly she’s not able to buy it, but not an issue, I sold it to another person
Want something small, enough powerful to play all actual game and first, something different from generally build we see on the web


9th, Red Poseidon
July 2013,
I built a Bench test, Why? why not..... loll, no real need for it, but I want build one, finally understand absolutely no need for a permanent build on a test bench



10, Sand of God
September 2013,
for this one, just fall in love with Caselabs S5 case
but want more rad space, I added a pedestal and this duo is veryu close to perfection
again want to achieve something different with the color theme, but to be honest, I never like it enough to keep it on my desk and understand im not a big fan of Horizontal setup



11, Bloody Angel
February 2014
for this one, I want to make no compromise, want my dream gaming builds, but I don't want to choose a way overkill hardware like quad sli
and first, want to build it in my dream case at this moment, the SMA8
another thing, wan it White and Red, whatever if its already made a million of time, another thing, want to try 2 separate loop, one for GPUs and one for CPU




June 2014
That's it for now, and I don't think I will disassemble Bloody angel soon, I simply love it,
I work on a special project right now
Icy Blue Angel II, to replace my wife's computers

another thing, look at evolution of photo quality
with help of a lot of people on this and others forum, my photography skills are way better now
Yes, all of this in little bit than a year, sometime I think is ridiculous but I sit on a couch, take a long breath and think, WHY NOT

Definitely a 290x for 1440p gaming

I like how people are whining about the ship not being 'responsive enough', for a game being in pre-pre-alpha i think it ran surprisingly well and a ship being slow to turn has nothing to do with it.
On the contrary, the physics of flying in space is fantastic, turning would definitely not be easy thanks to lack of air resistance and Newton's third law of motion. All acceleration in a direction is fully dependent on the power of the thrusters, turning 90* will not only require a horizontal component of thruster force, but also a backwards component to prevent drifting. This is where Coupling mode is useful for dodging stalled vanduul craft by pitching up/down/left/right or just quick 180* turnarounds of the craft body without changing trajectory when targeting circling vanduul ships.

Could be better, but for what it is at the moment i think it's pretty good.
If you need help with the game, check this out and everything will make much more sense. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/dpd639fngtcakr/source/Arena-Commander-Pilots-Guide-V0-8.pdf

A 1440p monitor, but then only go for 780 sli, or consider the 21:9 LG 34UM95 - a 3440x1440p monitor. It looks truly excellent.

In terms of overclockability, the classified should have the best "potential" especially under a custom loop.
 
If your motherboard has good spacing, then anything with an aftermarket cooler will be fine, if it has poor spacing, reference may be a better option.

I didn't even know which button triggered it...after 45 minutes I still can't decide which method of control to stick with, I've had problems with both.

right now 4K gaming or gaming with three 1440P monitors is downright crazy as you will need to spend close to 5 grand on the system alone
 
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU:  Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  ($549.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler:  Cooler Master Seidon 120XL 86.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard:  Asus Rampage IV Black Edition EATX LGA2011 Motherboard  ($468.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory:  G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Storage:  Sandisk Extreme II 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($154.44 @ Amazon)
Storage:  Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($144.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card:  XFX Radeon R9 290X 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (4-Way CrossFire)  ($494.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card:  XFX Radeon R9 290X 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (4-Way CrossFire)  ($494.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card:  XFX Radeon R9 290X 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (4-Way CrossFire)  ($494.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card:  XFX Radeon R9 290X 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (4-Way CrossFire)  ($494.99 @ NCIX US)
Case:  Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 ATX Full Tower Case  ($163.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply:  Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W 80+ Silver Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($319.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive:  LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($59.98 @ OutletPC)
Monitor:  Asus VE228H 21.5" Monitor  ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Case Fan:  Corsair Air Series AF120 Performance Edition (2-Pack) 63.5 CFM 120mm  Fans  ($24.15 @ NCIX US)
Fan Controller:  BitFenix Recon (Black) Fan Controller  ($39.98 @ OutletPC)
Keyboard:  Corsair Vengeance K70 Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($125.99 @ Amazon)
Mouse:  Logitech G502 Wired Optical Mouse  ($79.99 @ Best Buy)
Headphones:  Corsair Vengeance 2100 7.1 Channel Headset  ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $4562.39
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-05 05:57 EDT-0400)
 
this build is using four 290X but they will be water cooled so that will bring up the cost to 6k with all the watercooling parts
 
add the 3 ROG monitors which cost $799 each and you have to pay a whooping 8 grand!!!
 
yikes

780TI SLi
 
your best bet will be single 4K monitor at 60Hz
 
or the upcoming ROG Swift 1440P 144Hz gaming monitor from Asus

to add on
 
with dual 295x2s you will also need a motherboard which can support the system bus bandwidth between the CPU and GPU
 
in this case only the lga 2011 six core CPU and the X79 board which can support dual 16X PCI-express speeds to the GPU
 
drivers for the 295x2 is still not stable
 
and you need a huge power supply of excess of over 1300 watts to power two dual gpus
 
plus you will need a casing to install the cards along with the radiators

You mean, hire over 400,000? Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. Wide-scale testing in the form of a Pre-Alpha module is the only effective way to spot every bug - those that occur often, and those that are so rare, on small scale testing you'd probably never find it. It generates the most realistic scenario - 100,000's of players playing world-wide. If they can get that nailed down relatively bug-free, then it means moving the focus of employees to other aspects of the game. 

So, is anyone else having fun playing Download Commander?
I find it really fun, it's amazing to watch something download and hope that when you eventually turn your computer off that it won't start again from 0. It's also fun to hope that the download speed will go over 200KB/s and watch the estimated download time jump form 5 hours to 15 hours.
You need pretty good internet if you want to play it at a decent download rate, but it's not vital as the download is pretty slow anyway due to the fact that so many people like the game and play it.
I give it 8/10, Watch Load is also pretty good.

in terms of overclock the PowerColor PCS+ and MSI Lighting are pretty close
 
MSI got close to 1.7GHz @ 1690MHz and PowerColor @ 1645MHz while Sapphire Vapor-X got 1575MHz
 
@TheDigitalRealm
 
I hear you got the Lighting how is the OC on that card?
 
 
source from here
 
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Lightning/27.html
 
they were using the Sapphire Tri-X here but the Vapor X has a slight boost of 20MHz...

On the contrary I've had a great experience playing the game for about 2 hours. OK, the controls are not mapped great and response curves are random and there's tons of stuff to fix. But the flight model generally feels nice, maps look great and I haven't experienced any performance drop even on high resolutions.
I guess with more and more fixes coming the build will gradually become more stable and rich in options.
We have all been waiting too long so some frustration is to be expected
Have a great day guys.

Soo... i just want to take a moment to remind or even to inform some of you about the Arena Commander module.  This is not a full game, this is not even a beta or alpha game.  What we as backers of this project are experiencing right now is what a very few people get to experience.  We get to see the very beginning stages of a blockbuster game.  Not only that but we get to test it as well.  There is going to be bugs, glitches and crashes while playing anything that comes out of RSi for a long while.  Please bear with them and help make this game into something epic.  If you experience any of this, instead of spreading discontent about this game, help out.  You can do that by going here,
(https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/categories/arena-commander or
 
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/categories/ac-single-player or
 
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/)
and sharing your feedback directly to the developer.  Not only can you vent but what u share will make the experience better for everyone.
 
By the way i have not even been able to download the latest patch to even begin to try to play yet.  If i can be optimistic and keep an open mind so can all of you.
 
UOLTT is the place to be  see you all in the verse.

physx isnt worth it a single 780ti would be more then powerful enough to but sure if you want your power bills to go up go for it 

Loving the competition Phanteks are bringing back into the market, I love my Enthoo Primo and love the Mini XL.
 
If they can get the Evolv down to ~$120 and the Mini XL down to ~$150, they'll sell'em like hotcakes.