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780 or 290x

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I think if I was playing BF4 I would probably prefer the R9 290 or even a cheap R9 280X or HD7970GE card. The thing is if Mantle gives a 20% boost in framerates,then the a R9 280X or HD7970GE would be the best value for money cards for BF4. People forget that NVAPI was used in BF3 which is much less far reaching than Mantle might be,and that helped Nvidia have a decent performance boost over AMD for quite a while in BF3,even with new the latter having newer cards.

We shall soon find out how Mantel shapes up in less than three weeks though.
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Maybe but I feel too much emphasis is put on fps at times and what the desired acceptable frames rates are.

A 780 averaging 90 fps or a 290X averaging 108 fps (20%) for most is never going to be noticed.

If the averages were 40 fps on a 780, then 48 on a 290X would be more desirable of course but going from what I was getting in BF4, my first call is pretty spot on.
 
chaotic_uk said:
I lol at this as I remember when the gtx480 was released , NVidia got a right kicking due to the heat/noise . amd do it and everybody say "not a problem" lol
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AMD launched their "hot card" which beat their competition at £50-£70 lower in price; Nvidia launched their "hot card" which beat their competition at £130 higher in price...see the difference?
 
humbug said:
Right now go for the 780, its the cheaper of the two and the reference cooler on the 290X is not to good, with board partners coolers a little way off yet.
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I'm inclined to agree with this. The 290X is a great card but unfortunately let down by a poor cooler. Noise is subjective especially if you game with headphones tbh. I didn't mind the heat and noise initially of my GTX470 but in the end I fitted a third party cooler as it just got too annoying.
 
Gregster said:
Maybe but I feel too much emphasis is put on fps at times and what the desired acceptable frames rates are.

A 780 averaging 90 fps or a 290X averaging 108 fps (20%) for most is never going to be noticed.

If the averages were 40 fps on a 780, then 48 on a 290X would be more desirable of course but going from what I was getting in BF4, my first call is pretty spot on.
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Its not the point though. The performance boost will be more noticeable on "lower end" cards like the HD7970GE and R9 280X. Something like Mantle has the ability to push them up to the current level of much more expensive cards. You really only need a 15% to 25% peformance boost at 1920X1080. Nvidia managed to hold off the HD7950 and HD7970 in BF3 for months due to the use of NVAPI by DICE,even though the first two now end up being faster in almost all games over a GTX580.

Mantle looks more far reaching than that,and if it does deliver decent enough gains,it will be people with less expensive cards who will notice the most. If it means instead of spending £400 on a new card to get acceptable performance in BF4,someone can spend £230 to £250,then surely that is a good thing??
 
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chaotic_uk said:
I lol at this as I remember when the gtx480 was released , NVidia got a right kicking due to the heat/noise . amd do it and everybody say "not a problem" lol
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There are differences though. The 480 was £120 more expensive than the 5870, and there wasn't that much difference in performance between them. The 480 was also over 20 degrees hotter and used over 100watts more power. You also gotta remember that the 480 was on a die shrink too. Those were the reasons it got slated. If the 480 had come in roughly at the same price as the 5870 it would have been a different story.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Its not the point though. The performance boost will be more noticeable on "lower end" cards like the HD7970GE and R9 280X. Something like Mantle has the ability to push them up to the current level of much more expensive cards. Nvidia managed to hold off the HD7950 and HD7970 in BF3 for months due to the use of NVAPI by DICE,even though the first two now end up being faster in almost all games over a GTX580.

Mantle looks more far reaching than that,and if it does deliver decent enough gains,it will be people with less expensive cards who will notice the most.
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Well as the OP asked between a 290X or a 780, I thought it was the point but I am not arguing over it and will let others have their say :)
 
At this time a 780, personally I would until thursday for the 290 performance and pricing. AMD is the way to go for BF4, mantle should boost performance.
 
yeah defintely wait for weekend and bf4 launch as many people will put deals on all cards to shift for bf4 as its the best game to sell gpus this year so there will be many related deals.
 
BF4 is one game, there's others coming out on the frosbite engine that make use of mantle but until I've seen what it can do I wouldn't be buying a card now for something that may not be that great. I can see it paying off for the lower/mid range cards more than top end ones.
 
jonathan may said:
Just dont want to buy a 780 and when mantle comes out then wishing I had got a 290x hard choice :(
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The easy choice,is wait a month or so. AMD and Nvidia would have finished their new releases for the year,Mantle will be out,and probably a few non-reference R9 cards. Both companies would have sorted out their drivers and APIs for BF4,any bugs in the game would have been ironed out and prices probably would have dropped even further due to the competition.
 
jonathan may said:
Just dont want to buy a 780 and when mantle comes out then wishing I had got a 290x hard choice :(
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You still haven't answered the question, when are you playing to buy?

If you can wait until after the 11th of November, AMD are doing a developers summit from the 11th to the 14th which should explain all about mantle. This will also mean that the 780ti will be out so it might be another choice for you.

If mantle turns out to be good get the 290x, if it doesn't get the 780. It's really a win-win either way.
 
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