I am between 2 GPU cards, please help pick the right one (the best for

[Werne]

Seems to me like AMD went with the all-in-one approach for winter conditions - the longer you play, the warmer you get, it's a win-win when you have cozy room temperature while playing your games. Gotta say, they are very considerate of their customer's comfort.

[FMod]

look at that http://www.anandtech.com/show/7481/the-amd-radeon-r9-290-review/15

and that http://www.techspot.com/review/736-amd-radeon-r9-290/page8.html

That's system power consumption. Not card alone. Whole system.

 

Yes, it's pretty high, but it's only a little higher than 7970. Sometimes about the same. The card, meanwhile, is a lot more powerful. What did you expect? They are still 28nm parts, there's no commercial 20nm chips, so more performance means more power.

 

At least it's not a lot more power.

 

 

 

My old gpu is gtx480, very power hungry, but these cards (gtx780, 290x, 290) does not give you the chance for crossfire or sli or its extremly expensive!!!

I used to have dual GTX 580's. Not just any, either - heavily overclocked Lightnings.

[ermacos]

Seems to me like AMD went with the all-in-one approach for winter conditions - the longer you play, the warmer you get, it's a win-win when you have cozy room temperature while playing your games. Gotta say, they are very considerate of their customer's comfort.

I agree, I comfirm that from GTX480 that is cooler than these!!! The only problem is summer time! You cant even turn the pc on.

 

 

gtx480 at winter about 90c and at summer 100-1005c. When we move in Russia, Greenland, frozen Canada, etc... Its a good deal.

Edited November 5, 2013 by ermacos

[Thor.]

The gtx680 and gtx640 where faulty cards and never was ever a good deal even here, we have summers that can make the desert look cool. My first cards where the gtx460 and they where just as faulty. The first Physx cards a believe.

[Werne]

 

Seems to me like AMD went with the all-in-one approach for winter conditions - the longer you play, the warmer you get, it's a win-win when you have cozy room temperature while playing your games. Gotta say, they are very considerate of their customer's comfort.

I agree, I comfirm that from GTX480 that is cooler than these!!!

 

Those are all reference cards, temperature results from reference cards shouldn't be taken so seriously.

 

As explained in this Techspot article regarding R9 290's temperature:

Update: Based on your feedback, I took the IceQ X2 cooler off the HIS Radeon R9 280X and stuck it on our R9 290 sample. Cooling was dramatically improved. The FurMark stress test maxed out at 76 degrees while the card never exceeded 63 degrees in Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4. So it seems as expected the board partners will be able to solve the heat issues of the reference card.

Basically, wait till XFX/MSI/Gigabyte/whoever releases one with a decent cooler, then you'll see temperature improvements. :smile:

[ermacos]

why gtx680 was faulty? Gtx460 was one of the best cards, they called it as "the queen of OC", why faulty? My experience with Nvidia was more than good, never had to bother with drivers, never experienced glitches or strange graphical problems! When I turned in my gtx480 due to high temps, didn't have any screen problems. The card was fine, the cooler was the problem.

 

In the other hand, I have very bad experience with ATI graphics. I bought 6 years ago, the mythical " 2900xt " by ATI and the following problems, happened in a daily bases :

 

1) some flickering time to time..

2) the screen turned black, more like I have no signal and I had to change dvi port from the back of the gpu card. And this happened all the time!

3) lots of problems with graphical glitches, but it was driver problems and I had to install drivers all the time.

 

It also burned me 2 psu's. 1 mobo and 1 cpu... Because I used a 850watt psu, but the card was faulty, it sucked more power than it should be. So the psu couldn't give that power to the whole system and stop working, or the cpu cooler stop working! That's how I lost 1 cpu q6600...

 

Since, I used only NVIDIA without issues... But now they tell me that AMD fixed all these problems and there is no issues.. time will tell, depends the card I will get as a replacement.

I am not against AMD and I may give them a second chance... I am not an nvidia fanatic. I just found peace with Nvidia.

 

As for the r9 290 custom cooler : The 290 PCB is the same as the 280x? 290 is bigger than 280x!! How is it possible to have so low temps if they trully did that, lower than the 280x? Newegg said, that they contacted AMD stuff about the hot gpus and they told them, 290x and 290 are designed to work at these temps... Time will tell. Even though, they consume about 400watts, its allot.

 

I think this guy who said that, tries to comfort the potential customers and make them wait....Because if he trully did that, why they didnt post some photos and some new tests! because if a 290 works at 62c, the performance increase dramatically! Because all new gpus, have a gpu boost inside them and if the gpu is cool, it performes more and better.

 

I cant wait for custom cooler for 290's even if that is true. Because I turned in my card, its being decided to exchange my card with one of my choice and I cant tell them " wait a couple of months, till the new gpus come". Its a replacement ...

Edited November 5, 2013 by ermacos

[Thor.]

Its because the temps, they sky rocketed. I had a EVGA model and it wasn't the greatest when it came to OC'ing back then. Just touching the core clock it would reach over 100C and would restart or blue screen. I also had two of them in sli so it made it even harder. They where the hottest cards i ever owned. I had a really good case back then, so it had no excuse overheat like that.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Thor.

[ermacos]

Its because the temps, they sky rocketed. I had a EVGA model and it wasn't the greatest when it came to OC'ing back then. Just touching the core clock it would reach over 100C and would restart or blue screen. I also had two of them in sli so it made it even harder. They where the hottest cards i ever owned. I had a really good case back then, so it had no excuse overheat like that.

gtx 770 is a gtx680 a bit modified and its cooler than the 280x and lower power consumption.

[Thor.]

I realize the newer models have improved allot sense my last nvidia card, more reason two switch over, knowing i have a lot more experience when it comes to choosing one that suits my needs.

I may get a gtx780 Ti along the road this year, just i need finances and Christmas is on its way so its making it a bit trickier to get one this time of year, and they are not even out yet so that helps a lot. :yes:

Edited November 6, 2013 by Thor.

[Werne]

Even though, they consume about 400watts, its allot.

R9 290X has one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connector which puts it at 300W maximum power consumption (150W 8-pin + 75W 6-pin + 75W PCI-E). You are looking at the consumption of the entire PC since most guys measure wattage on the wall socket and are too lazy to calculate the GPU wattage, the real power draw of the R9 290 and R9 290X is close to GTX 780 and Radeon 7970, it's a normal power draw for a high-end graphics card. Besides, gamers only look at power consumption to know how big of a PSU they have to get, gaming machines are built to use a lot of power.

 

As for the cooler, you can fit a smaller cooler on a bigger card, and a smaller cooler can do a better job than the big one if it's been designed good. My guess is AMD messed up with the cooler design and used crappy TIM, it's possible they did so to lower the price as much as possible, wouldn't surprise me. And temps also don't matter if you have decent case airflow, which gamers mostly do.

 

Either way. the bottom line is that for 400$ you get the performance on-par with GTX 780 without paying the 100$ premium, and you are yapping about benign things like 4W higher power draw on a system that draws ~500W under load and 10^oC higher temperatures compared to other cards? And then you mention a malfunctioning 2900XT (as in literally, malfunctioning electronics, nothing strange) which made you lose faith in AMD? What the... I don't even...

 

All that reminds me of Intel vs AMD fanboys - "Intel is more energy efficient and runs cooler" vs "AMD gives better performance for the price and there's no premium". The argument is actually identical, just replace Intel with Nvidia. Fanboism... I hate it.

 

Anyhow, when it comes to R9 290 - with what you get for the money in mind, I can forgive the high temperatures, which will likely go away anyway after AMD partners release their coolers. Wattage is normal, performance is great, a good card overall with a slight minus on temps.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Werne