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I got a new job - do I go XF 290???????

craptakular

craptakular

craptakular

Soldato
Joined
7 Jan 2007
Posts
10,607
Location
Sussex, UK
MY Credit card is trembling, but should I say fudge it and buy anyway.

My GTX680 cannot handle Arma 3 while using fraps and bf4 could run better...

Should I just go all in, feet first and buy two RX290??? or one RX290X?

Maybe even one GTX780?
 
I cant water cool as I am a clueless fool. My case is also M-ATX so it wouldn't fit.

Why spend an extra £160 on water cooling kits when the reference setup in XF would be a monster?
 
If you aren't watercooling then you have only 2 options to my mind

780 now or wait for custom cooled 290s

The reason people say watercool the 290s is that in games they are twice as loud as reference 780 due to the rubbish cooler.
 
hhmmm, but with non-reference coolers they add to the ££££ of the card.

The 290 was appealing at £320 not £380 each or what ever.

Is SLI GTX680 2GB an option?

What about a single card solution, do any offer double my GTX680 in performance?

I only wanna record and play arma 3 well, not to worried about bf4...
 
Craptakular,

What's the rest of your specs pal?

I'm a big arma fan too and recently got the 290X, all i can say is that alongside a good cpu, it'll run arma 3 run incredibly well.

In editor with my own max settings which is everything on ultra, fxaa on ultra, msaa x4, no blur, ssaa off as through testing i've found that it adds nothing to the look of the game while playing, but comes with a 15-20fps performance hit when use.

View distance is on 3500 for infantry, 8000 for helis and jets.

Average fps in editor is well over a 100fps, while as you know multiplayer is difficult to gauge as it's dependent on what server your on, but aslong as it's a decent one, my fps are normally around 80+fps average.

The card neither runs hot or loud imo, with the fan @55% it's not heard while gaming and temps reach a max of 75c.
 
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arma wants a really fast cpu before anything !

what cpu do you have ? what res you plat at ?

i think 780 gtx is a poorish move from a 680 really basically a 770gtx anyway oc your card depending on res might be close .

where as a cpu on the otherhand if you recording and playing arma could have a massive effect also record to a ssd or western digital black seperate drive .
 
Just thought i'd chuck this in.

Running a 4670k at 4.5Ghz, I too was pondering either a 290x or a 780.

In the end I went with the 780 as the price was a fair bit cheaper after Nvidia's price drops, plus there are no custom cooled 290x's at the moment.

This MSI Gaming Edition is silent, it really is quiet. Yet it runs BF4 at Ultra smooth as anything and i'm seeing average FPS of at least 80. I don't think it's dropped below 60 yet even on 64 man servers with a lot going on which considering it's a brand new title and i'm running everything at max is pretty impressive. Arma 3 is still a bit sluggish at times but that's because of the CPU, ideally you need an i7 for that game to benefit.

Plus with the extra features of Nvidia (g-sync in the future, shadowplay, etc) i'm pretty happy at the moment. Shadowplay would suite you down to the ground, being able to record without taking a performance hit.

Yes the 290x is a faster card but it's more expensive, hotter and louder.
 
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~>Dg<~ said:
i think 780 gtx is a poorish move from a 680 really basically a 770gtx anyway oc your card depending on res might be close .
Click to expand...

I'd have to disagree, I have just gone from a 680 to a 780, assuming you are overclocking the 780 then shines. I see improvements of 30% in games and 65% in heaven 4. That is overclocked 680 compared to overclocked 780.

Op adding a second 680 would still limit you to 2GB of vram, not a problem at the moment but perhaps it will be in the lifetime of your setup? However you can pick them up under £200 second hand so quite cost effective.
 
The 290X will do that for you no problem at all bud, try not the listen to the guys saying it'll melt your rig with it's running temps or take off because the fan sounds like a jet.

It's simply not true, yes, the card runs hotter than 780gtx's with non ref coolers:rolleyes:, but that to be expected when buying a card with the reference coolers, how hot does the 290X run? it'll run about 95c if you play Furmark on 20% fan speed.

If your sensible, set the fan @55% the card doesn't get close, idles temps on mine are 30-35c with max reaching between 72-82c on bf4, which is much more gpu intensive than arma 3.

As for noise, the fan is no louder than the His 6950 it replaced, sure if you wap the fan to 100% it's too loud, but every damn card is the same, at 55% which i set for gaming, it can't be heard over the speakers i use which aren't set that loud at all.

I'll happily make a vid for you if you'd like to ease your mind.
 
I still cant see custom coolers on 290/290x cards dropping to 780 temps tbh I watched Eric's "Tech of Tomorrow" YouTube channel last night & he was testing the R9 @ 70% fan speed to drop the temperature target of the card to 80c or something & OMG is sounded like a euro fighter taking off

I’m not sure about SLi/crossfire GPU utilization it could be very low across both cards, maybe someone who plays arma 3 on a SLi setup with an i5 could advise. Or wait a week or so... maybe the price of the GTX780 will drop again with the launch of the 290-non X as that card can keep up with the 780 from what I’ve read. Nvidia might drop prices again ;)
 
uksoldierboy said:
The 290X will do that for you no problem at all bud, try not the listen to the guys saying it'll melt your rig with it's running temps or take off because the fan sounds like a jet.

It's simply not true, yes, the card runs hotter than 780gtx's with non ref coolers:rolleyes:, but that to be expected when buying a card with the reference coolers, how hot does the 290X run? it'll run about 95c if you play Furmark on 20% fan speed.

If your sensible, set the fan @55% the card doesn't get close, idles temps on mine are 30-35c with max reaching between 72-82c on bf4, which is much more gpu intensive than arma 3.

As for noise, the fan is no louder than the His 6950 it replaced, sure if you wap the fan to 100% it's too loud, but every damn card is the same, at 55% which i set for gaming, it can't be heard over the speakers i use which aren't set that loud at all.

I'll happily make a vid for you if you'd like to ease your mind.
Click to expand...

Could you record Arma 3 with say 20-30 people on a server and leave the fps counter on, I need to work out the fps drop while recording.

I game at 1080p
 
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