decision time........

[Stalker_26]

Evening all,

Just dropping in to get some advice...
Currently i have an R9 290 Tri-x from Sapphire
However, i've been given a GTX780 Matrix Poseidon to test.

Question - should I change from the 290 to the 780?

 

[Lokken86]

No the 290 is much better.

 

[RavenXXX2]

3GB is a downgrade.

 

[Klo]

No you shouldn't.

 

[Rroff]

I wouldn't go backwards VRAM amount wise personally - while decent boosting 780s still hold up well (way better than most reviews/benchmarks appear to show) there are some recent games where they fall down a bit.

No the 290 is much better.

Just before I changed it out for the 1070 my 780 GHz still largely beat out a friends R9 290X Tri-x in most games - I know it would have fallen down more if we included the witcher 3 and/or the division (I have neither and he only has the division) but in most other titles I still just about stayed ahead or atleast matched - fair turn around from when the cards were new and I was quite a way ahead in almost everything though. For some reason a lot of sites seem to benchmark the 780s with really low clocks compared to real world scenarios. Still wouldn't recommend the 780 though these days.

 

[r7slayer]

Nope the 290 will be the better card.

 

[MissChief]

I must admit to being surprised by this. Not that the 290 is the better card, but the margin by which, in some games it's by far the better card.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1772?vs=1718

 

[Rroff]

I must admit to being surprised by this. Not that the 290 is the better card, but the margin by which, in some games it's by far the better card.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1772?vs=1718

A large number of those are ashes of the singularity and hitman - neither of which are particularly a great benchmark of anything in general. Based on the GTA V results doesn't look like the 780 is even running at 1006MHz either.

EDIT: Most recent info I can find suggests the 780 tests are at 900MHz in which case way below what most people would experience.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I must admit to being surprised by this. Not that the 290 is the better card, but the margin by which, in some games it's by far the better card.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1772?vs=1718

Remember these are reference R9 290 cards.

Non-reference R9 290 cards will run at a higher clockspeed.

The GTX780 will have very poor DX12 and Vulkan performance too in comparison to the R9 290,so at this point OP don't bother.

 

[Rroff]

Remember these are reference R9 290 cards.

Non-reference R9 290 cards will run at a higher clockspeed.

The GTX780 will have very poor DX12 and Vulkan performance too in comparison to the R9 290,so at this point OP don't bother.

Non reference 290 series clocks aren't that much higher IIRC - something like +50MHz?

 

[TheRealDeal]

Non reference 290 series clocks aren't that much higher IIRC - something like +50MHz?

You would be surprised what a small boost can do. At 1040/1350 my 290 matches a 290x out of the box. Pretty much a 10% boost over stock. I have had it go to 1200/1500. I don't want to push for more on my aging hardware though. Got this feeling it could go boom .

Keep your 290 everyday of the week OP it's just a better card full stop these days.

 

[Ian Evey]

Why not just test it on the games you play and then decide?

 

[Stalker_26]

Why not just test it on the games you play and then decide?

Because i'm lazy if im honest!! my 290 has a custom backplate on which means getting to the clip on the PCI-e port is really difficult and usually means i need to take the mobo out.

The 290 i have is the OC version so its fairly powerful already, but just wanted to check here where the knowledge is The main reason i was thinking to change is because it's ROG and fits well with my motherboard, but if swapping means effectively stepping backwards then sack that for a game of soldiers

Thanks all for the input!

 

[Terrorfirmer]

I would go with the R9 290, a while back the 780 maybe but AMD driver support and performance for older cards is better than Nvidia.

 

[Rroff]

You would be surprised what a small boost can do. At 1040/1350 my 290 matches a 290x out of the box. Pretty much a 10% boost over stock. I have had it go to 1200/1500. I don't want to push for more on my aging hardware though. Got this feeling it could go boom .

Keep your 290 everyday of the week OP it's just a better card full stop these days.

Was thinking of the 290X clocks (I don't really have a lot of experience with the plain 290) - the 290 is a bit more than 50MHz reference versus non-reference.

Thing is though from what I can see those numbers appear to be from a 290 at 947MHz and a 780 at 900MHz - more realistically in terms of what people will actually be seeing in the real world then you are talking around 1040MHz on the 290 which is around 9-10% clock uplift while on the 780 A1 cards will mostly be around 1050-1070MHz actual boost probably around ~18% average and B1 cards are usually ~1140-1200MHz ish out the box which is like ~30% higher.

I still wouldn't recommend the 780 in this context just find it annoying how often the 780 is under represented compared to my experience with one.

 

[RavenXXX2]

wow didn't realize how bad Kepler is in DX12, owned. Goes to show buying AMD lasts you a lot longer than Nvidia.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1718?vs=1772

 

[Rroff]

wow didn't realize how bad Kepler is in DX12, owned. Goes to show buying AMD lasts you a lot longer than Nvidia.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1718?vs=1772

In a lot of those results the framerates are in the 20s or way below 50-60fps for both cards I think it becomes a bit meaningless when you really need a new card regardless of which of those is faster if you really want to enjoy DX12 titles at decent quality settings.

EDIT: Wouldn't use the hitman (Dawn) engine as any indication of actual DX12 performance though - it seems pretty meh at the best of times and performance between AMD and nVidia can change dramatically in different parts of a game depending where you benchmark.