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970 vs R9 290 which one shall i get?

triss said:
While i understand they will support it Can i just confirm all GCN cards will be able to use every feature DX12 may bring?
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Probably not, but I don't really recall seeing any confirmation that new Nvidia cards will use "every feature of dx12" neither...all it has is a dx12 print on the box and feature list, but says nothing about how much of it do they support.
 
The 290 has better value for money, the 970 has better power efficiency and overclocks better. Both cards are big steps above the cards 1 tier below (280x/960) and are good for 1440p. AMDs homepage says all R9 cards (even the 270 ones based on the 7870) support DX12, but in terms of feature sets.... pass.
 
there does seem to be a lot of confusion over it
i dont think microsoft even knows at this point with the "more details in march"
which is fair enough with it being a work in progress but reviewers that make the leap of "dx12 is not mantle so its better to get a nvidia card" is just so annoyingly wrong lol
 
If you can get a 290 for less than the cheapest 970 then I would go for that.

I have a powercolor 290PCS+ which is currently £228, it runs cool even in my tiny Lian Li case (about 65C when gaming) and overclocks really well (1130/1500 on stock volts), the only draw back is the power consumption is high compared to the 970.
 
Mei said:
there does seem to be a lot of confusion over it
i dont think microsoft even knows at this point with the "more details in march"
which is fair enough with it being a work in progress but reviewers that make the leap of "dx12 is not mantle so its better to get a nvidia card" is just so annoyingly wrong lol
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Nvidia have said their 9 series FULLY supports DX12 and that earlier cards support DX12 but some newer features might not be available. AMD are just saying that GCN supports DX12 but being deliberately coy on what feature level support they will have.

The specs for DX12 must be locked down by now internally, they said games would be released by xmas 2015 so those games would have to be in development already, and MS said that people with access to the W10 tech preview would have everything they need to start developing with DX12 and that was out a while ago
 
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Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X = competitor price.

970 = £260 (for a decent branded one)

Also the 970's are having issues when using over 3.5GB of VRAM at the moment.

Was going to swap my r9 but since im at 4k theres no point until next gen cards are out.
 
290 or the lightning 290x

970 May be less power hungry but there buggy as hell because of it in my opinion. I'm thinking of selling mine and getting the lightning.
 
It says the lightning needs 3x power leads....is that true? I heard someone say the third was optional for more voltage for overclocking headroom?

Just googled and it can be used wih just two 8pin without overclocking
 
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andybird123 said:
Nvidia have said their 9 series FULLY supports DX12 and that earlier cards support DX12 but some newer features might not be available.
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Nvidia also say the 970 has 4Gb ram, doesn't mean you can use it all.:p

On a serious note DX12 spec isn't finalised yet so idk how one claim has more substance than another.
 
Sencha said:
It says the lightning needs 3x power leads....is that true? I heard someone say the third was optional for more voltage for overclocking headroom?

Just googled and it can be used wih just two 8pin without overclocking
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The 6 pin is entirely optional. You can get away with just 2 8pin power with everyday use on soft overclocks. But the led on the Lightning logo will flicker when in use even when I only move my mouse which personally I found annoying especially when I can see it in my windowed case. I have my 6 pin plugged in just to keep it on a solid red.
 
Unfourtunalty the waters are extremely muddy on where the current cards support Dx12.

Lifted from here:

"We’ve also been informed that DirectX 12 will require a new graphics card in order to take advantage of everything it’s got to offer, though some existing cards will be able to get some benefit from it. “To get the full benefits of DX12, the answer is yes,” Mike Ybarra, Partner Director of Program Management, Xbox Platform told us. “There will be DX 11.1 cards that take advantage of a lot of the driver and software tech that we’re bringing in Windows 10, but if you want the full benefits of DX12, you’re going to need a DX12 card.“That’s a bit of a stinker – early word had it that current DX11 boards would do just fine. We don’t know the full story there yet though – trying to find out more about that ASAP."

Now Nvidia would be in big big trouble if they dont have FULL support for DX12, as the 900 series cards are advertised as DX12.

I did find another article (which I cant find) that did list from Microsoft the cards that would have DX12 support and GCN based cards where one of them.
Whether that is FULL support we dont know untill we get more info.

Here we go:

"Both Nividia and Microsoft today confirmed that most modern PC gaming hardware will work well with DirectX 12.

"Microsoft's recent demonstration of a few new Windows 10 game experiences powered by DirectX12 has led some people to ask what specific hardware will be supported by the DirectX12 API," according to a statement released by Microsoft today. "While we are not yet ready to detail everything related to DirectX12, we can share that we are working closely with all of our hardware partners to help ensure that most modern PC gaming hardware will work well with DirectX12, including; NVIDIA's Maxwell, Kepler and Fermi-based GPUs, Intel's 4th generation (and newer) Core processors and AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) based GPUs. We'll have more to share about DirectX12 at GDC in March.

"To get the full support of DX12 will users need to get a new graphics card?"

To get the "full benefits of DX12," Ybarra replied, "the answer is yes."""

Ouch!

I'f my 970, does not have FULL support I will be cheesed. It was advertised as such!! In fact I can see a reason why todays cards wont have FULL support. So both AMD and Nvidia can sell us new cards!

From an Nvidia forum: Where an Nvidia rep responded:

"All of our Maxwell GPUs will support the DX12 API. Our GTX 900 series have some new DX features including: Raster Ordered Views, Typed UAV Load, Conservative Raster and Volume Tiled Resources. These new features can be accessed by both the DX11 and DX12 API."

That sounds like to me anything older than the 900 series will not have FULL support for DX12.
 
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Another thing to mull over, surely MS will make sure that the GCN-based Xbone will have full DX12 support (or at least the important bits!??). It's in their interest of course....

I personally think that if the AMD GCN 1.1 cards don't have full support then they'll at least have the important stuff :)
 
andybird123 said:
Nvidia have said their 9 series FULLY supports DX12 and that earlier cards support DX12 but some newer features might not be available. AMD are just saying that GCN supports DX12 but being deliberately coy on what feature level support they will have.

The specs for DX12 must be locked down by now internally, they said games would be released by xmas 2015 so those games would have to be in development already, and MS said that people with access to the W10 tech preview would have everything they need to start developing with DX12 and that was out a while ago
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Nvidia said FULLY well before the spec would've been locked down. They're basically lying. Not to mention the silicon was baked when? With how much feature freeze before then while it was going round the houses as samples?
 
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