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In the market for a new g/card - 290/780/7990?

snips86x

snips86x

snips86x

Soldato
Joined
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I’m in the market for a new graphics card and I’m looking at the following:
• R9 290 Reference £210
• AMD 7990 £270
• GTX 780 £310

I will also be looking to upgrade my monitor to 1440p, so looking for something which will last with current and new gen games.

R9 290
Pros: Cheap, powerful, 4GB VRAM
Cons: Hot, noisy reference design, crossfire will be toasty

7990
Pros: Single card, powerful, cheap
Cons: still only 2x7970, hot

GTX 780
Pros: reliable (a lot of reports of 290s dying), quiet reference design, Sli cool and effective
Cons: Expensive

Final thought: I have been looking at the noise tests for the reference 290/780 and god damn the 780 is sooooo quiet compared.

Anyone have thoughts/recommendations?
 
I don't find 290s that bad when gaming, though I wear headphones and can't hear them.
They are audible at idle for me.
 
Having owned all of those my choice would be either 290 or 780 and then get another for crossfire/SLI later on.

290 crossfire isn't that hot while gaming, infact the reference cards are actually better in crossfire as they shove the hot air out the back of the case. Plenty of vram and memory bandwidth will serve you well at 1440

The 780 is more expensive but I bet you'll have less issues with it. Plus if you like recording in game stuff Shadowplay is a huge bonus for Nvidia. It also uses less power.

The 7990 is just too hot for air and ideally needs to be under water but even then it's old hat compared to the newer 290 and 780. 290 crossfire would kill a 7990 and when a game can't support crossfire you have a better single GPU solution (290 vs 7970)
 
Indeed. The fact crossfire may not always work with some games makes me skeptical about running a 7990.

I agree the 780 would be less trouble and its a shame they are more expensive, but the 290 draws ne in due to the price. The fact it draws 80w more power makes me look at the 780.

Swings and roundabouts, but totally not sure what to do. 7990 is deff out the window now though :D
 
Also AMD crossfire without a bridge is nice, Mantle is a bonus and TrueAudio could be a quality feature when games use it. I think the new Thief game does?
 
The 290 draws about the same power as the 780ti, it's not really a big thing to worry about.
My setup draws around 600w from the wall.
 
thefogo said:
The 290 draws about the same power as the 780ti, it's not really a big thing to worry about.
My setup draws around 600w from the wall.
Click to expand...

I draw around that as well and that's with 2x290's and a overclocked cpu. Please don't consider wattage used when making a purchase, the difference is tiny and won't be noticeable.
 
thefogo said:
The 290 draws about the same power as the 780ti, it's not really a big thing to worry about.
My setup draws around 600w from the wall.
Click to expand...

not looking at the Ti though....wish AMD would sort their power usage out though. nVidia are far more conservative!
 
thefogo said:
I know, but I've never heard anyone worry about power consumption when buying a 780ti :p
What PSU do you have?
Click to expand...

Corsair HX850 Pro so more than enough power. I think I'm going to try the reference 290 first and if I dont get on with it (unlikely) I will swap to a 780....actually, there is speak of an 8xx series, so may see what that brings before binning the 290.
 
Yeah if I were you I'd wait for a bit and see what happens :)
Personally I'd prefer a 780 over a 290 just for the idle noise difference, but I can't justify the price really.
 
thefogo said:
Yeah if I were you I'd wait for a bit and see what happens :)
Personally I'd prefer a 780 over a 290 just for the idle noise difference, but I can't justify the price really.
Click to expand...

Ok, now you've peeked my interest :D

What case have you got them in?
What is your idle noise and temp?
Have you replaced the thermal paste to a premium paste?
How close together are they?

Sorry for all the questions, its hard to find someone who has just what I'm looking to do.
 
thefogo said:
Yeah if I were you I'd wait for a bit and see what happens :)
Personally I'd prefer a 780 over a 290 just for the idle noise difference, but I can't justify the price really.
Click to expand...
The 290 is a wee bit ahead of the 780 in non-Nvidia titles...the chances are if it was to be underclocked from 940MHz down to may be 880-900MHz on the core plus undervolting, it would match the 780's performance and not that much noisier.
 
Reference R9 290 and run a custom fan profile (try to get it to max out at around 90 degrees with a fan speed of up to 50%) with some undervolting.

Yes it will still be louder than the 780 but you will end up with the same overall performance (10% here or there in both directions), and £100 in your back pocket.
 
oweneades said:
Reference R9 290 and run a custom fan profile (try to get it to max out at around 90 degrees with a fan speed of up to 50%) with some undervolting.

Yes it will still be louder than the 780 but you will end up with the same overall performance (10% here or there in both directions), and £100 in your back pocket.
Click to expand...

And 90°C red & black graphics cards which can't be overclocked. :p
 
oweneades said:
Reference R9 290 and run a custom fan profile (try to get it to max out at around 90 degrees with a fan speed of up to 50%) with some undervolting.

Yes it will still be louder than the 780 but you will end up with the same overall performance (10% here or there in both directions), and £100 in your back pocket.
Click to expand...

Acme said:
And 90°C red & black graphics cards which can't be overclocked. :p
Click to expand...

haha - this isn't making a 290 look like a worthy contender ;) Also, I don't really want a card which runs at 90c.
 
Can you still get reference 290s?
Reference 780s aren't that common now, seem more expensive than the ones with 3rd party coolers.

I suspect either the 290 or 780 will do nicely. While I'm sure 3GB VRAM will be enough for 1440p most of the time I might be tempted to go with the 290 just to get 4GB.

I'd say Mantle and TrueAudio are reasons to go for the 290, but at this point in time I don't feel either are used enough (unless you play a lot of BF4/Hardline, Thief and plan to play PvZ:GW). It seems adoption rate is good though so down the line it may be something to consider. Whether you consider it for this purchase probably depends on how often you change you graphics cards (Currently I plan to buy the next gen of cards, when they're released Mantle may be worth considering).

Personally I don't really consider PhysX a selling point either (I did for a while, when I had Nvidia cards and was reluctant to lose it, until I realised I didn't actually use it much). ShadowPlay might be something to consider if you record or stream a lot of gameplay footage.

There's probably not a lot in it, other than price and noise, so I guess you need to decide which is most important.
I'd probably go for the 290 (well I did, but 780 were more expensive then).
 
snips86x said:
Ok, now you've peeked my interest :D

What case have you got them in?
What is your idle noise and temp?
Have you replaced the thermal paste to a premium paste?
How close together are they?

Sorry for all the questions, its hard to find someone who has just what I'm looking to do.
Click to expand...

HAF932 advanced.
Idle temp is around 35 after powering up but eventually settles at 40-45 after gaming. I can hear them at idle, but I have a very quiet case/room.
Not replaced TIM as my cards have warranty void stickers.
Two slots between the cards :)
 
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