upgrading my GPU for a few certain games...

[pikkie-mahn-mastah]

So, Fallout 4 has come out, and games that have come out in the past are freaking awesome. I'm mainly talking about Skyrim (modded), GTAV, and Fallout 3, and Arkham Knight. I currently have a GTX 750 Ti. I've been looking at cards, and I want to run a dual card set up. Because of GTAV, and other mods in my games, I wanted to upgrade from a 2gig card to a 4gig card, and I narrowed my prices and min specs to 3 cards, the r9 290, the r9 380, and the GTX 960. I want to run a dual card or more set up with these, the 960 is the only one that can only go two way sli. I know that in way of performance, it goes 960, 380, and 290. but which one should I get? or if you have a recommendation, what one do you think should get?

[The Official Czex]

AMD's current drivers suck on FO4. Like, really bad. I'd wait a bit to see how they turn out before choosing a card.

[Fassive]

why do you REALLY want sli/xfire tho

[Lotus]

You can cave to NVidia doing blatant anti-competitive bullshit and get a GTX 970 (which by the way still wont max out FO4), or you can get the better card, the R9 390 and turn settings down on FO4, especially using AMD's control panel for specific settings.

 

TL;DR: FO4 is an NVidia Gameworks game with proprietary code that is purposely designed to run well on NVidia architecture, but gimps AMD hardware.
 

Also, what's your CPU? Because FO4 is currently destroying CPUs that are poor at single-threaded performance.

[Morgan MLGman]

R9 290's all the way. Besides the recent Fallout fuckups, the R9 290 can outperform a 780Ti @4K (just found out about that yesterday), and is overall significantly better than the other two cards, it's very close to a GTX 970 in terms of performance.

If you're considering getting two of those, make sure your PSU is adequate and that you get two of those cards with good coolers on them (sapphire tri-x for example), also your case airflow is important. Check if maybe you can find R9 290X for cheap.

[Masada02]

AMD's current drivers suck on FO4. Like, really bad. I'd wait a bit to see how they turn out before choosing a card.

Can they suck if their current drivers don't support the game at all?

 

But really, wait to see what the new AMD drivers do for performance.

[pikkie-mahn-mastah]

R9 290's all the way. Besides the recent Fallout fuckups, the R9 290 can outperform a 780Ti @4K (just found out about that yesterday), and is overall significantly better than the other two cards, it's very close to a GTX 970 in terms of performance.

If you're considering getting two of those, make sure your PSU is adequate and that you get two of those cards with good coolers on them (sapphire tri-x for example), also your case airflow is important. Check if maybe you can find R9 290X for cheap.

thanks, I'll be waiting till Black Friday / cyber Monday to buy the cards... besides, anything I get would be an improvement from my current card.

[aneil1998]

A single GPU generally outperforms a SLI/CrossFire Setup. A GTX 960 SLI setup will still be limited to 2GB VRAM while a 970 will have 3.5GB VRAM.

 

If you decide to go with a GTX 970, go with a R9 390 as it outperforms a GTX 970 

[pikkie-mahn-mastah]

You can cave to NVidia doing blatant anti-competitive bullshit and get a GTX 970 (which by the way still wont max out FO4), or you can get the better card, the R9 390 and turn settings down on FO4, especially using AMD's control panel for specific settings.

 

TL;DR: FO4 is an NVidia Gameworks game with proprietary code that is purposely designed to run well on NVidia architecture, but gimps AMD hardware.

 

Also, what's your CPU? Because FO4 is currently destroying CPUs that are poor at single-threaded performance.

I have an fx-8350 OC to 4.5

[Morgan MLGman]

thanks, I'll be waiting till Black Friday / cyber Monday to buy the cards... besides, anything I get would be an improvement from my current card.

If you only find one 290X for a good price, you can always crossfire a 290X as your main card and a 290 as your spare one, if running a non-demanding game just game on a 290X, turn on Crossfire if necessary only

[App4that]

Nvidia is more reliable, a AMD card is only more powerful if AMD delivers the drivers needed for it to run, and those drivers are missing.

[pikkie-mahn-mastah]

A single GPU generally outperforms a SLI/CrossFire Setup. A GTX 960 SLI setup will still be limited to 2GB VRAM while a 970 will have 3.5GB VRAM.

 

If you decide to go with a GTX 970, go with a R9 390 as it outperforms a GTX 970

I was going to get the 4 gig 960

[don_svetlio]

out of those - R9 290 is the most powerful.

 

I was going to get the 4 gig 960

960 is 15% slower than a 380 and the memory bandwidth is a severe bottleneck

[App4that]

out of those - R9 290 is the most powerful.

 

960 is 15% slower than a 380 and the memory bandwidth is a severe bottleneck

You might want to look at the graph in this article then. Because the 960 beats a 380.

 

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/11/if-youre-playing-fallout-4-on-pc-youd-better-have-a-nvidia-card/

[pikkie-mahn-mastah]

out of those - R9 290 is the most powerful.

 

960 is 15% slower than a 380 and the memory bandwidth is a severe bottleneck

very true! I wish they would make a 960 Ti

[Naijin]

My r9 380 4GB crossfire setup performs somewhere between gtx 980 and 980-ti depending on the game. In 3dmark firestrike and firestrike extreme I get slightly higher graphics score than a 980-ti.

[don_svetlio]

You might want to look at the graph in this article then. Because the 960 beats a 380.

 

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/11/if-youre-playing-fallout-4-on-pc-youd-better-have-a-nvidia-card/

Will you stop with this already? If you really want to, sell your cards, buy a 970. When in a week the driver is out and the 390 performs better without the gameworks features you will regret it. For god's sake your letting you're emotions get the better of you - I get that you're pissed but that's just how it is - Nvidia games will fuck AMD hardware because Nvidia can afford the bad PR whereas AMD cannot.

 

very true! I wish they would make a 960 Ti

960 Ti exists as an OEM card - it has a 192-bit bus and 3GB of VRAM

[App4that]

Will you stop with this already? If you really want to, sell your cards, buy a 970. When in a week the driver is out and the 390 performs better without the gameworks features you will regret it. For god's sake your letting you're emotions get the better of you - I get that you're pissed but that's just how it is - Nvidia games will fuck AMD hardware because Nvidia can afford the bad PR whereas AMD cannot.

 

960 Ti exists as an OEM card - it has a 192-bit bus and 3GB of VRAM

Do you sit by when someone wants to buy a CX power supply? No, you know it's a mistake and you speak out. I'm not letting my emotions guide me, I'm speaking. What I'm saying is also backed by evidence, and proof from multiple testers.

[don_svetlio]

Do you sit by when someone wants to buy a CX power supply? No, you know it's a mistake and you speak out. I'm not letting my emotions guide me, I'm speaking. What I'm saying is also backed by evidence, and proof from multiple testers.

The difference is - the CX PSUs won't be fixed by a driver in 5 days whereas this will most surely be. It was the same with Witcher 3's release - why you ask? Because Nvidia get first dibs on the game code.

[don_svetlio]

Apparently some people have no issues with Ultra 58-60fps on a 390X.
https://community.amd.com/thread/191201

[Curufinwe_wins]

Apparently some people have no issues with Ultra 58-60fps on a 390X.

https://community.amd.com/thread/191201

There was a driver patch the afternoon of launch that @App4that (I think) noticed. Perhaps that helped.

[App4that]

The difference is - the CX PSUs won't be fixed by a driver in 5 days whereas this will most surely be. It was the same with Witcher 3's release - why you ask? Because Nvidia get first dibs on the game code.

Excellent point! Witcher 3 still won't support crossfire properly. I was really hopeful with the last driver update that it would be fixed but no.

 

If Nvidia can beat AMD that badly, that in itself is a reason to buy Nvidia. I'm not making friends with the company selling me something, I'

m buying a product and I should go with the company willing to support it. All AMD has to do is apologize for the embarrassing performance of their product. Nvidia did with Tomb Raider.

[don_svetlio]

There was a driver patch the afternoon of launch that @App4that (I think) noticed. Perhaps that helped.

15.11 is for Black Ops 3 only

[App4that]

There was a driver patch the afternoon of launch that @App4that (I think) noticed. Perhaps that helped.

I have it, no help at all. Outside of Lexington there isn't an issue, thats why some report there not being an issue. I fell for that myself. Until I tried to enter Lexington.

[don_svetlio]

Excellent point! Witcher 3 still won't support crossfire properly. I was really hopeful with the last driver update that it would be fixed but no.

 

If Nvidia can beat AMD that badly, that in itself is a reason to buy Nvidia. I'm not making friends with the company selling me something, I'

m buying a product and I should go with the company willing to support it. All AMD has to do is apologize for the embarrassing performance of their product. Nvidia did with Tomb Raider.

Do you know why? Because they spend the rest of their time pointing a finger at anyone they can. Look at Ashes - first the devs were "intentionally crippling" them, then AMD had payed them off before it was finally revealed that Nvidia can't do A-sync - fact of the matter is - Nvidia have been known to pay developers handsomely. Remember the Crysis 2 situation where they were rumored to have payed just shy of 2 million to Crytek to fuck with Tess? Yeah.