R9 290/x or 780

[Jdogbf]

I want to upgrade from my 750ti at some point but with the R9 290x's, and the R9 290's are dropping in price, should I go with the R9 290x, R9 290, or the GTX 780? I would want to go SLI/Crossfire. I personally am leaning to the 780 for Shadow Play, but I would like to know the difference in performance. I probably will not overclock them, but I might put them under water with the Kraken™ G10 and a cooler. What do you guys say?

 

EDIT: I forgot to say, these would be driving 3 1080p monitors at 60Hz.

[Thebman712]

the  x versions are not quite worth it as you can overclock the non x to x speeds, also you can get the r9 295x and that is basically 2 29 290s

[Jdogbf]

the  x versions are not quite worth it as you can overclock the non x to x speeds, also you can get the r9 295x and that is basically 2 29 290s

I would be looking 15 ish weeks out for the R9 295x2. I would get 1 card now and go to sli/crossfire latter.

[kaylexmorgana]

You are also using 3 monitors and I have a 780 and it works perfect for me averaging in the 40fps on ultra in bf4 on its own.

I'll get a 2nd in about 2 weeks

[Thebman712]

i belive that 2 r9 290 would be less but the r9 295x is watercooled stock, and if you go r9 290x and another amd card comes out you could go crosfire with that

[Jdogbf]

So If I went sli 780's, would they be viable gaming cards in 5-6 years? I personally think they will, but have no idea.

[exotioner]

I want to upgrade from my 750ti at some point but with the R9 290x's, and the R9 290's are dropping in price, should I go with the R9 290x, R9 290, or the GTX 780? I would want to go SLI/Crossfire. I personally am leaning to the 780 for Shadow Play, but I would like to know the difference in performance. I probably will not overclock them, but I might put them under water with the Kraken™ G10 and a cooler. What do you guys say?

 

EDIT: I forgot to say, these would be driving 3 1080p monitors at 60Hz.

Yeah, you'd think shadowplay is awesome, most of the time, it is. 

I had it active the last couple of days without really paying attention to it much, just saving some games I had fun in (Such as 30-2 Littlebird runs).

Which is all fine and dandy, except my Asus 780 Direct CU II could jump from 120Fps to 40 all of the time. I turned Shadowplay off, and it works as it should, stays at 75+ fps at all times, on max settings (Didn't check overclocked yet)

But, a friend of mine had an idea that it might be because I was saving my files to a (very) old harddrive, which is also basically broken by now. All I'm saying is that IF you get problems with shadowplay, try turning it off, it might save you troubleshooting.

[Jdogbf]

Yeah, you'd think shadowplay is awesome, most of the time, it is. 

I had it active the last couple of days without really paying attention to it much, just saving some games I had fun in (Such as 30-2 Littlebird runs).

Which is all fine and dandy, except my Asus 780 Direct CU II could jump from 120Fps to 40 all of the time. I turned Shadowplay off, and it works as it should, stays at 75+ fps at all times, on max settings (Didn't check overclocked yet)

But, a friend of mine had an idea that it might be because I was saving my files to a (very) old harddrive, which is also basically broken by now. All I'm saying is that IF you get problems with shadowplay, try turning it off, it might save you troubleshooting.

I run with shadowplay on w/ my 750ti. I do use it and it is nicer then recording every game I play with something like fraps.

[totjup5]

I would say the 290, because if you ever plan on going to a higher resolution the extra vram will help, and you can always get a second one if you need more gpu power. Also, it's possible that amd could do again what they did with 7000 series and boost performance a huge amount with a driver update (unlikely, but who knows).

[exotioner]

I run with shadowplay on w/ my 750ti. I do use it and it is nicer then recording every game I play with something like fraps.

Maybe I'm just the unlucky one, and it's not optimized with my setup, but I guess I have a ''average'' High end build (A little overkill, even, I'd say) with an Asus 780, Maximus VI Formula and i5 4670k. 

[nj4ck]

I'm super-happy with my R9 290. It will generally outperform the 780 in most games, especially when overclocked. If you get a good card and have good cooling, you can overclock it to perform similar to the R9 290X at stock speeds. I got mine for €360, the cheapest 780 would have been €430. At this bang-for-buck ratio, I really can't recommend a 780 or 290X... prices tend to differ a lot though, depending on where you live. Here in germany the whole coin-mining-thing hasn't been so bad so prices on AMD cards are pretty stable. 

Nevertheless, if you can get it for a fair price, go with the R9 290. Just don't get the XFX card like I did, VRM temps are above 100°C at stock voltages  :angry: good thing I have a waterblock on the way

[kaylexmorgana]

I'm super-happy with my R9 290. It will generally outperform the 780 in most games, especially when overclocked. If you get a good card and have good cooling, you can overclock it to perform similar to the R9 290X at stock speeds. I got mine for €360, the cheapest 780 would have been €430. At this bang-for-buck ratio, I really can't recommend a 780 or 290X... prices tend to differ a lot though, depending on where you live. Here in germany the whole coin-mining-thing hasn't been so bad so prices on AMD cards are pretty stable. 

Nevertheless, if you can get it for a fair price, go with the R9 290. Just don't get the XFX card like I did, VRM temps are above 100°C at stock voltages  :angry: good thing I have a waterblock on the way

430 euros.....?

600$.....?

[TechFan@ic]

I would recommend going with the R9 290, it's quite a bit faster than the GTX 780 in a 3 monitor setup the 290 is also is less expensive & is equipped with more VRAM which is going to give the 290 a real advantage for gaming on 3 monitors.

You can use AMD's dedicated VCE engine which is built into the R9 290 to record gameplay pretty much the same way Shadowplay works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEycdVoK0Ww

 

AMD's multi-monitor approach is also more refined and more intuitive with far less restrictions.
 

[nj4ck]

430 euros.....?

600$.....?

um... yep. Just double checked to make sure and found an MSI 780 gaming edition for €420, but other than that, €430 and up for the GTX 780 in germany. R9 290 starts at €340 for the reference leafblower and €360 for the a real cooler.

[kaylexmorgana]

um... yep. Just double checked to make sure and found an MSI 780 gaming edition for €420, but other than that, €430 and up for the GTX 780 in germany. R9 290 starts at €340 for the reference leafblower and €360 for the a real cooler.

Evga is 500

[Recon-UK]

Value= R9 290, but drivers from my experience can be a pain from AMD, however both Nvidia and AMD have their driver issues.

[nj4ck]

Evga is 500

euros? that seems expensive, even for EVGA.. I found an ACX 780 for €450

[kaylexmorgana]

euros? that seems expensive, even for EVGA.. I found an ACX 780 for €450

no dollars which is much less then that

[nj4ck]

no dollars which is much less then that

oh, I see. yeah, I get the feeling Nvidia GPUs are priced a little higher than usual over here...

[Jdogbf]

So it seems like people are saying go with the R9 290. I will look into it more.

[hal9001]

780 all the way

[Recon-UK]

1 image, seems like solid proof... Lol

[Jdogbf]

right now, still looking at the R9 290.

[SkilledRebuilds]

right now, still looking at the R9 290.

I'm happy with my experience overall in everything I do, coming from my Windforce HD7950 to this Windforce 3 290-OC.

 

Plus, while not "completed" "AMD's alternative to Shadowplay" it can be utilized in some games properly

with not just MSI Afterburner but some other recording programs.

Below is MSI Afterburner's selection process for enabling the ability to capture with it (DX9/10/11)

Has a Benchmark howing what you can do at what spec you choose.

HOWEVER, it's not finished, I can use it with Titanfall no problem, but BF4 it drops my GPU usage in a 'buggy' way..

@Quality spec settings 50mbps Titanfall, 60fps constant, recording 60fps@720p or up to 40fps in 1080p (for now)

GPU usage doesn't get bogged down by it at all

BF4 however, dipping usage from 90>65>0>12>0>25>60>50>80 <-- and so on... varies a lot, bogging down gameplay performance.

 

Once all this is 'hopefully' finetuned by both AMD and MSI, overall if AMD bring out their own software for it then the better.

[da_deity]

In a couple of weeks EVGA will come out with a 6gb vram gtx 780 so you can possibly compare it to the 4gb vram that a r9 290/x has for your triple 1080p monitors. I am running triple 1080p monitors as well running a 3gb gtx 780 and I kinda wish I had more vram just incase I run into some of the newer title games that will max out my vram. Even heavily modded games will max out 3gb of vram.