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Do I Swap My R9 290X Reference for new MSI GTX 970?

zack1667

zack1667

zack1667

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The benchmarks are very similar,

but obviously the GTX is 30% cooler sitting around 65 degrees on load.

Even though its said the Reference R9 290X i have is supposed to sit at like 90 degrees plus, I have never seen it go above 80 degrees but then I suppose that's dependent on what games you have and system. Still not too sure about this guys, opinions would be great.

Cheers
 
Is your 290x overclocked? A high clocking 970 will beat a stock 290x but it's a sidegrade really and you'll notice no difference apart from temps and noise.
 
Your in the same boat as me :)

I have a reference Powercolor r9 290x and bought it when it was on for a little over £300.

Only reason I'm considering the switch is because I'm on a 450w sfx psu and I've had to limit my cpu to be on the safe side. That, and the fact it does get noisy even when I'm just watching a bluray.

If I manage to sell my card for a decent price I will definitely be getting a gtx 970, if not then I'll keep it until 20nm finally makes an appearance.

So in answer to your question, I would upgrade if you run a rig which is itx based and would benefit from consuming less power and generating less heat, and also if you can get a decent amount from selling your current card. Otherwise I would just wait until 20nm.
 
The 290x will murder it with a slight overclock and the money you'll lose selling the 290x and moving to a GTX970 you can spend on a better cooler and get more performance.
 
1Deep said:
Your in the same boat as me :)

I have a reference Powercolor r9 290x and bought it when it was on for a little over £300.

Only reason I'm considering the switch is because I'm on a 450w sfx psu and I've had to limit my cpu to be on the safe side. That, and the fact it does get noisy even when I'm just watching a bluray.

If I manage to sell my card for a decent price I will definitely be getting a gtx 970, if not then I'll keep it until 20nm finally makes an appearance.

So in answer to your question, I would upgrade if you run a rig which is itx based and would benefit from consuming less power and generating less heat, and also if you can get a decent amount from selling your current card. Otherwise I would just wait until 20nm.
Click to expand...

The problem I have is I can't overclock my card as my power supply is only 600W and I don't want to risk it, with the other card it uses a lot less power therefore more room for Overclocking.
 
zack1667 said:
The problem I have is I can't overclock my card as my power supply is only 600W and I don't want to risk it, with the other card it uses a lot less power therefore more room for Overclocking.
Click to expand...
As long as your PSU is a decent brand and model and have strong 12v rail, there should be nothing you need to worry about even with the 600W.
 
zack1667 said:
The problem I have is I can't overclock my card as my power supply is only 600W and I don't want to risk it, with the other card it uses a lot less power therefore more room for Overclocking.
Click to expand...

Depends on what your current pc spec is and the quality of the psu. For example my spec is as in my sig. Currently my 4770k is running at 3ghz @1v and the r9 290x undervolted slightly but clocked at 1030mhz core and stock on the memory.

Under load, for example when running 3dmark firestrike on extreme. my power consumption according to my power monitor is 320w. Take efficiency into account and its a little under 300w total consumption. Obviously different games and application will consume more/less power but that's just an example. At stock settings for the gpu (normal voltage and clocks) and cpu, the consumption jumps to 400w at the wall. Bare in mind my rig is a small RVZ01 Silverstone and has just the one ssd inside, no additional hard drives consuming power.

Given you have a 600w psu you should be fine to overclock the gpu at least at stock volts.
 
1Deep said:
Depends on what your current pc spec is and the quality of the psu. For example my spec is as in my sig. Currently my 4770k is running at 3ghz @1v and the r9 290x undervolted slightly but clocked at 1030mhz core and stock on the memory.

Under load, for example when running 3dmark firestrike on extreme. my power consumption according to my power monitor is 320w. Take efficiency into account and its a little under 300w total consumption. Obviously different games and application will consume more/less power but that's just an example. At stock settings for the gpu (normal voltage and clocks) and cpu, the consumption jumps to 400w at the wall. Bare in mind my rig is a small RVZ01 Silverstone and has just the one ssd inside, no additional hard drives consuming power.

Given you have a 600w psu you should be fine to overclock the gpu at least at stock volts.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I have a 750W CZ Storm on standby but I've heard the quality isn't as good as Corsair so I have left the 600 in for now.
 
zack1667 said:
The benchmarks are very similar,

but obviously the GTX is 30% cooler sitting around 65 degrees on load.

Even though its said the Reference R9 290X i have is supposed to sit at like 90 degrees plus, I have never seen it go above 80 degrees but then I suppose that's dependent on what games you have and system. Still not too sure about this guys, opinions would be great.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Keep your card. Undervolt it to lower the temps. And as someone else said, you would be better off changing the cooler, than selling the card at loss to get the GTX970.

After the 20nm cards are out from both companies, then make a decision if worth to change it. I doubt we going to see any major performance boost, until late 2015-early 2016 cards gen.

5 fps more, on some game while using the ancient 13.12 drivers on the benchmarks, doesn't mean anything.

Even the GTX780/780Ti cards are not as bad as benchmarks showing against the 970/980, since the significant majority use drivers before the April ones, which gave a big flat 10%+ performance overall to those cards. (I had a 780 until 2 weeks ago.....)
 
Only change if you want to lower power usage and/or possibly go SLI. I bet a pair of GTX 970 cards in SLI will still consume less power than a single R9 290X. The DSR function sounds very promising for people with 1080p screens... Not sure how much of a performance hit there is though?
 
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