Nadleeh said:

Hi all.
I hope you guys can help me to make the right choice

I am building a mATX PC for LAN purposes and it consists of Cooler Master N200 case, Asrock H61M DGS R2.0, 8GB Crucial BallistiX 1600MHz, Intel Core i5 3570K, Cooler Master Hyper 212 cooler, Enermax MaxPro 600watt.

I have in my possession a Sapphire R9 290 4GB reference card

and a Zotac GTX 780 OC 3GB card

I am unsure which card to use for the longest possible time ? I want the best performance of but also not a jet plane noise like PC.
I like that the R9 290 is a bit faster and with 4GB vram, but I dislike the potential heat and noise. The GTX 780 I know is a bit slower and only has 3GB vram with may not be enough - but I like that it's cooler and quieter.

"The winner" I keep and the "looser" I sell

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a) Sell both get a Nano.
b) Sell 780 get for peanuts a descent aftermarket cooler for the 290. Plenty left to spare....
c) Sell 780, add bit more go fully under water with EK kit, and overclock the 290

The 780 going to be as loud in that case as the 290 with the blower, while you get a hefty performance hit from the core, and an additional BIGGER hit due to the lack of VRAM.

Panos said:

The 780 going to be as loud in that case as the 290 with the blower, while you get a hefty performance hit from the core, and an additional BIGGER hit due to the lack of VRAM.

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Dont be silly, i take it you have never have an 290 stock cooler next to you? the stock AMD fan is VERY loud and VERY low quality
to play BF4 at 1440 setting on ultra i need to fan set to 75% to keep temp under 90C(about 87c) so the gpu docent throttle, this is at stock speeds.

the 780 aftermarket cooler even at 100% will not be as loud i would bet a weeks wages on it

R9 290 with an aftermarket cooler would be a clear winner here but with the card he as the more power full would be the 780 because of heat and throttling on the 290. the 290 would also dump a lot of heat into the case as the stock cooler at about 50/50 vent to rear and the grill on the side(inside case).

P4Clock said:

Dont be silly, i take it you have never have an 290 stock cooler next to you? the atock AMD fan is VERY loud and VERY low quality
to play BF4 at 1440 setting on ultra i need to fan set to 75% to keep temp under 90C(about 87c) so the gpu docent throttle, this is at stock speeds.

the 780 aftermarket cooler even at 100% will not be as loud i would bet a weeks wages on it

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I had the gibabyte 780 WF, with the 3 fan cooler. When overclocked was loud even on open case. And also had the 480 with the blower. And I know what means "loud".

Hence I proposed to him to get an aftermarket cooler for the 290. It will be far quieter than the 780

Never found the WF3 particularly loud - all the ones I've had are largely inaudible until above 60% speed even with an open case unless you stick your head in the case - sure they can get quite noisey above 60% but even with a fairly big overclock I'm getting nowhere near 60%.

Panos said:

I had the gibabyte 780 WF, with the 3 fan cooler. When overclocked was loud even on open case. And also had the 480 with the blower. And I know what means "loud".

Hence I proposed to him to get an aftermarket cooler for the 290. It will be far quieter than the 780

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The point your missing here is he was the bast out of the 2 he as. That would be the 780 for his needs. You said he should get an aftermarket aio cooler but there would be £75.... if he is going to do that he would be better getting an all new card.

290 all the way but - you honestly should see what you can get for both and then upgrade towards nano fury; both faster and quieter.

Selling both should ave get 150 to 160 each; maybe a little more; so you're looking at having to shell out min 50 to maybe 80 more for a nano.

That would be the way to go.....honestly

Thank you all for the answers. Before both cards I had a Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce X3 oc in the case and that card additionally overclocked reached about 68°c in this case, so I am pretty confident that the zotac too would run not far from those temperatures.

As for selling the cards (both) of them and getting a new I can't afford, I only have the two cards because I bid on both in hope of just getting one, but ended with both (got them for £200 in total). A new GTX 970/R9 390 is at least £260 where I live. So selling one of the cards will reduce my overall expenses and keep things within budget. Also my LAN/HTPC is purely made out of used hardware I bought to keep the costs at a minimum. Only the case is new.

I think I'll have to try both cards and if the noise is unbearable with the R9 290 I'll settle with the GTX 780.

290 with cheap aftermarket cooler.

Would HTPC use stretch the 290 enough to make it noisy?

r22snapper said:

Would HTPC use stretch the 290 enough to make it noisy?

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It will be noisy nomatter what mate.

Lokken86 said:

It will be noisy nomatter what mate.

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Ugh, 780 then.

Lokken86 said:

290 with cheap aftermarket cooler.

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Like what lol? ever an air cooler that can handle the 290/x is £50

r22snapper said:

Would HTPC use stretch the 290 enough to make it noisy?

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YES! in my very well vented case with stock fan profile the GPU hit mid 80's and the fan had to ramp upto around 30/40%, the problem is the gpu/ram dont step up, its all or nothing so even just watching 1080p movie the ram and gpu are at full speed. this is something that they should have fixed in the 390 range but didn't

290 for the future (DX12), 780 for the past/present (DX11)

I'm also living in the present

JediFragger said:

290 for the future (DX12), 780 for the past/present (DX11)

I'm also living in the present

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780 support's dx12, all the way back to GTX500's will support dx12

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/dx12/supported-gpus?field_gpu_type_value=All&page=4

780 all day everyday. Case will have very good airflow with dual intakes and exhausts available plus a side fan mount and generally unobstructive design.

If I was an objective person I would still be using a GTX 780 for 1440p gaming. It was really really good at it. However I bought a 2nd hand Titan cause it has a cool name but the performance is the same.

I would use the R9 290 - its simply the faster card,and any driver updates to the 390 series will benefit it too.

P4Clock said:

780 support's dx12, all the way back to GTX500's will support dx12

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/dx12/supported-gpus?field_gpu_type_value=All&page=4

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Dude, there's 'support' and *support*. nVidia tend to be very 'loose' on that term and usually tend to be poorly performing, ATi/AMD have mostly been a little more forward thinking (from my 15+ years of experiencing this ****)

If you hadn't guessed, I'll be dumping Maxwell for Polaris/Pascal asap due to nVidia stellar 'support' on older GPU's

JediFragger said:

Dude, there's 'support' and *support*. nVidia tend to be very 'loose' on that term and usually tend to be poorly performing, ATi/AMD have mostly been a little more forward thinking (from my 15+ years of experiencing this ****)

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you have 15 years of dx12 support experience?

In such a small case the 780 is going to be the better choice. While the 290 is a better card the reference cooler is horrible and not enough to cool the card in a heated case.

So I have tried out the Sapphire R9 290 reference card today in the living room. For normal browsing etc it is quiet but when we started watching movies it started being noisy. When I later tried playing a bit Singularity my fiancee got pretty annoyed by the noise while she was reading (I had headphones on), and granted when I took of the headphones the pc was louder than our dishwasher at its loudest in use...
So it seems that the GTX 780 is going in there, so tomorrow I'll swap cards and retest.