Water cooled R9 290s CF or Water cooled 770s in SLI?

[Jioker]

Hey,

As the title says, I have a hard time to decide on which video card I'm going to buy. The idea was that I would have two graphics cards in a new rig with an NZXT H440 and both cards (processor included) are going to be to be water cooled by a 360 radiator and another 240 so cooling isn't going to be a problem (even though the AMD cards tend to get a bit warmer compared to Nvidia cards). Given that the R9 290 has fallen in price lately and costs as much as a 770 by now, so my question is which would be the best?

It seems that the 290 has better performance than the 770, but it gives off more heat and consume more power, vice versa for 770, But will that really be a problem if they are going to be water cooled?

I also feel that the 770 has more "features" such ass Shadowplay, geforce experience, physx and so on while the R9 290 doesn't. Though I'm aware of that AMD is working on a similar program but it seems to take a while. Article

For 770 rig, I'd probably only need a 800 watt power supply but in the 290 I would need about 1,000 watts, (PSU Req. Link)

PSU for 290 rig will be a Corsair RM 1000W

The R9 290 is a 4GB card I know, but I'm going to by a 4GB 770 card, so that's not an issue (or is it?).

I'm planning on using the cards for some time before switching so I want to assure that they will work well with upcoming titles for at least 2 years. So I'll wait and see what the 800-series of Nvidia GPUs will have to offer.

I'll be overclocking both cards and the processor fyi.

Water block and such is already fixed, no needs to worry.

Tell me if there is anything I forgot to add and such and thanks in advance!

 

[SieB]

There is quite a performance gap between 2x770 and 2x290, unless you meant 780?
Not much difference between a 780 and a 290 though, either setup would be good. Seen as you are watercooling heat won't be an issue, so it just comes down to the PSU.

Also that AMD gaming evolved app is up and running, I use it myself although it does have a few bugs but non that stop you from being able to use it.

 

[paulstung]

I found my self in the same boat on the weekend mate, one minute the 770's were in my basket then the R9 290's, in the end I went for the 290's the XFX DD's that Tom reviewed, the main reason being that they come with Battlefield 4 in the box, as well as the Gold reward, plus OC'ers are throwing in a Kingston 60gb With every XFX GPU.

Id say go with whatever you like the look of or what suits your colour scheme the best. From reading various review and comparisons the 290 is the more powerful card, and with like you said the AMD price drops it makes them a bargain.

 

[NeverBackDown]

The 290 has a lot more grunt than a 770 does. A 290 can handle resolutions at 1440p quite well where as the 770 would not be able to without really lowering settings for a quick comparison.

They are almost the same price and there is no sense in getting a 770. Its really only for the die hard nvidia people. Sure it is a great card but the price/performance is far better with the 290.

Also the features you mentioned aren't really worth losing performance on.. PhysX is nonexistent and the other 2 AMD are coming out with soon. AMD also gets Mantle/Freesync.

 

[RizeAllard]

I can also say that you shoud go on with 290s

 

[PC Master Race]

Hey,

As the title says, I have a hard time to decide on which video card I'm going to buy. The idea was that I would have two graphics cards in a new rig with an NZXT H440 and both cards (processor included) are going to be to be water cooled by a 360 radiator and another 240 so cooling isn't going to be a problem (even though the AMD cards tend to get a bit warmer compared to Nvidia cards). Given that the R9 290 has fallen in price lately and costs as much as a 770 by now, so my question is which would be the best?

It seems that the 290 has better performance than the 770, but it gives off more heat and consume more power, vice versa for 770, But will that really be a problem if they are going to be water cooled?

I also feel that the 770 has more "features" such ass Shadowplay, geforce experience, physx and so on while the R9 290 doesn't. Though I'm aware of that AMD is working on a similar program but it seems to take a while. Article

For 770 rig, I'd probably only need a 800 watt power supply but in the 290 I would need about 1,000 watts, (PSU Req. Link)

PSU for 290 rig will be a Corsair RM 1000W

The R9 290 is a 4GB card I know, but I'm going to by a 4GB 770 card, so that's not an issue (or is it?).

I'm planning on using the cards for some time before switching so I want to assure that they will work well with upcoming titles for at least 2 years. So I'll wait and see what the 800-series of Nvidia GPUs will have to offer.

I'll be overclocking both cards and the processor fyi.

Water block and such is already fixed, no needs to worry.

Tell me if there is anything I forgot to add and such and thanks in advance!

My opinion would be to get 2 r9 290s as they have more vram and abit cheaper also there the best "bang for buck"

 

[S_I_N]

you wouldnt need a 1k power supply for 2 290's either should easily be done with the same 850 watter.

 

[Kaapstad]

Forget the GTX 770s they are obsolete.

For high resolutions and future upgrading they will hold you back.

They come with 4gb of VRAM but that is not much use as the cards only have a 256bit bus and the GK104 chips lack GPU grunt.

The GTX 770s would be ok up to 1600p but still noticeably slower than the 290Ps but once the resolution goes beyond this the performance gap would widen even more.