The waiting game... 290X over 390X?

[Kaapstad]

As I say, AMD are better value for money but not performance. 2 290x's will do ok at 4k, but will struggle, but what do you expect at that price from gpus that old. Plus the heat and noise is a pain to deal with. Compare them to 2 980s or 980ti's and AMD are left in the dust especially with the OC potential Maxwell has, but as with everything you are paying a lot for those gains.
But nothing at the moment hits 60fps at 4k so frankly if anyone wants 4k, wait until the 14nm shrink happens next year and then empty your wallet at that.

290Xs are the equal and sometimes faster than 980s @2160p.

The GTX 980 has a 256bit bus that causes performance to dip at very high resolutions.

 

[Kushiro]

OP defo get the Lightnings over the Matrix Plats, the Matrix 290x is S***. Amazing coolers.

The 290x's are better at 4k than the 980s especially if you can get a good watercooling loop.

My trifire 290x setup was much smoother than my tri sli 980s without any throttling.

 

[Tolemac]

The best air cooling on a 290X is a lightning then the Saphhire Tri-x or Vapor-x IMHO

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

Don't get the lightnings either. The XFX cards are solid!

 

[Kushiro]

XFX cooler isnt as good as the lightnings, not to mention the VRMs and the fact that it is just a reference board with improvements. It certainly does look nice though.

 

[Jbo1234]

290Xs are the equal and sometimes faster than 980s @2160p.

The GTX 980 has a 256bit bus that causes performance to dip at very high resolutions.

Could you link those benchmarks as I would be interested to see it. Though as I said, 2 or more 290s is going to get stupidly hot meaning either no OC, harsh thermal throttling, noisy as hell air cooling, or you have to have water cooling. If you went for the wc option, after the cost of all of that you might as well just bought two 980ti's with the reference cooler.

 

[Tolemac]

Could you link those benchmarks as I would be interested to see it. Though as I said, 2 or more 290s is going to get stupidly hot meaning either no OC, harsh thermal throttling, noisy as hell air cooling, or you have to have water cooling. If you went for the wc option, after the cost of all of that you might as well just bought two 980ti's with the reference cooler.

Not really there are some good 290x Air coolers out there

EDIT: I done some benchmarking today for an hour using firestrike as you can see my R9 290X vaporX never went over 75C with an overclock of 1170/1400

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[Kaapstad]

Could you link those benchmarks as I would be interested to see it. Though as I said, 2 or more 290s is going to get stupidly hot meaning either no OC, harsh thermal throttling, noisy as hell air cooling, or you have to have water cooling. If you went for the wc option, after the cost of all of that you might as well just bought two 980ti's with the reference cooler.

Have a trawl through this lot there are plenty of 2160p scores in there for 980s 290Xs and other cards.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27044564&postcount=7

@2160p the 290Xs and 980s trade blows with the 980 more likely to win with a single card and the 290Xs more likely to win with multi GPU setups.

 

[Nessaja]

http://videocardz.com/56225/amd-radeon-fury-x-3dmark-performance some more light has been shed.

 

[Sheza]

£250 on a R9 290 Vapor-X or £210 on an R9 290X DirectCUII?

 

[NeverBackDown]

£250 on a R9 290 Vapor-X or £210 on an R9 290X DirectCUII?

Vapor-X hands down.

 

[Jbo1234]

Have a trawl through this lot there are plenty of 2160p scores in there for 980s 290Xs and other cards.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27044564&postcount=7

@2160p the 290Xs and 980s trade blows with the 980 more likely to win with a single card and the 290Xs more likely to win with multi GPU setups.

It is odd how AMD almost get 100% gains from dual gpu setup, yet Nvidia don't. I would say a redeeming feature Nvidia has is its great OC potential at the moment but unless money is no object you would be right in going for 290Xs.

 

[NeverBackDown]

It is odd how AMD almost get 100% gains from dual gpu setup, yet Nvidia don't. I would say a redeeming feature Nvidia has is its great OC potential at the moment but unless money is no object you would be right in going for 290Xs.

It is probably because it is more efficient to do Xfire through the PCI bus than say the finger method Nvidia use. That'd be my first theory though I could be wrong.

 

[Bartacus]

It is probably because it is more efficient to do Xfire through the PCI bus than say the finger method Nvidia use. That'd be my first theory though I could be wrong.

Not sure I'd buy that one. The stutter I had with Xfire 7950s vanished once I migrated to dual 980s. Xfire sucks IMO, and until AMD get that crap sorted out, I'm on green team. And I hate that. I hate it when 1 of 2 competitors sucks so bad (Xfire) that the OTHER team becomes the only option.

Goddamnit, I sincerely wish Matrox was still in the game. This race needs more than 2 horses.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Not sure I'd buy that one. The stutter I had with Xfire 7950s vanished once I migrated to dual 980s. Xfire sucks IMO, and until AMD get that crap sorted out, I'm on green team. And I hate that. I hate it when 1 of 2 competitors sucks so bad (Xfire) that the OTHER team becomes the only option.

Goddamnit, I sincerely wish Matrox was still in the game. This race needs more than 2 horses.

That has nothing to do with Xfire through the bus.. only cards that support the XDMA are the R9 290 series currently. Both companies suck with Multi GPUs tbh. The R9 290 series are pretty much the best at doing so in regards to scaling and no one has had any issues with them tbh. Besides AMD have drivers that fixed that, this whole micro stutter and runt frames issue from last year was just overdone and wasn't that big of deal.. both companies fixed them as best they can get.

 

[Bartacus]

Yeah you may be right. But I don't play enough games to notice. The games I DO play seem to respond to SLI a LOT better than Xfire. That AMD stutter jumps right out at you. That was NOT overdone IMHO. I noticed it IMMEDIATELY with MOST games, so it didn't seem overdone to me.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Yeah you may be right. But I don't play enough games to notice. The games I DO play seem to respond to SLI a LOT better than Xfire. That AMD stutter jumps right out at you. That was NOT overdone IMHO. I noticed it IMMEDIATELY with MOST games, so it didn't seem overdone to me.

That could be down to game preference in regards to scaling and overall FPS

 

[Bartacus]

That could be down to game preference in regards to scaling and overall FPS

I dunno man, I NEVER look at FPS. I just look for a smooth gaming experience, and AMD didn't provide that on my old 7950s. I don't like to admit that for fear of giving Nvidiots more ammo, but it's the truth. Even in games that don't require a ton of juice (aka Skyrim at 1080p), it was noticeable to the point where it makes playing the game painful. And I'm not one of those picky arses who LOOKS for things to complain about. SLI > Xfire IMHO, at least for the time being. But I really hope AMD remains competitive. Or that Matrox comes back.

 

[barnsley]

I dunno man, I NEVER look at FPS. I just look for a smooth gaming experience, and AMD didn't provide that on my old 7950s. I don't like to admit that for fear of giving Nvidiots more ammo, but it's the truth. Even in games that don't require a ton of juice (aka Skyrim at 1080p), it was noticeable to the point where it makes playing the game painful. And I'm not one of those picky arses who LOOKS for things to complain about. SLI > Xfire IMHO, at least for the time being. But I really hope AMD remains competitive. Or that Matrox comes back.

To be fair, the 7xxx era had awful Xfire drivers. They are alot better than they used to be since they fixed micro-stuttering issues.

Atleast it feels that way.

 

[Kushiro]

Haha try 4k gaming for multiple 980s, the 290xs deliver a much better experience. Crossfire is has definitely improved a great deal on the older cards as well.