• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

290 or 970?

lovelyhead said:
Is the power consumption really a big deal though? I read the difference over a year would be something like £15 in electricity versus a 970.
Click to expand...

It's more a factor when building a new system or upgrading more than the GPU, it basically means you can save money on the PSU and if water cooling on the radiators too.
 
ubersonic said:
It's more a factor when building a new system or upgrading more than the GPU, it basically means you can save money on the PSU and if water cooling on the radiators too.
Click to expand...

Emm,anybody having a decent 450W to 550W PSU would run something like a Core i7 4770 with a GTX780 or a R9 290 reasonably OK as long as the PSU had a strong 12V line or lines. Look at the system power draw results in reviews.

I bet most of the enthusiasts here would still get 550W+ PSUs anyway ,just "in case" as seen by the sigs you see on here.

Maybe if you have an overclocked FX9590 or something perhaps things would be different I suppose,but not especially with a socket 1155 or 1150 Core i5 or Core i7.

Valve was running a Core i7 4770 and a Geforce Titan fine off a Silverstone SFX 450W PSU. It was not even a full sized PSU.

Look at the TPU results for card power consumption over the years. The GTX780,GTX780TI,R9 290 and R9 290X are typically under GTX570,GTX580 and HD6970 power consumption.

Edit!!

With even graphics card overclocking to the limit,I don't think that is as common as people think it is either,since its more if you like benchmarking and so on.

Even with custom water cooling loops - I would suspect most people would sticking with stock GPU cooling and the nearest they would get to water cooling is one of the AIO jobbies for their CPUs.
 
Last edited:
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Even with custom water cooling loops - I would suspect most people would sticking with stock GPU cooling and the nearest they would get to water cooling is one of the AIO jobbies for their CPUs.
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to be a jerk but this makes no sense to me, you're saying that with custom water cooling people wouldn't cool their GPU or their CPU, so what is the custom loop for? the VRM and PCH? kind of a waste...

I have my CPU, both my GTX970's, my MB VRM and PCH in my loop.
 
Gibbo said:
Trying but can't find any reference 290's and the board partners don't want to go that low on custom designs, pushing them hard though!
Click to expand...

Good luck! Even £20 off from a custom cooled 290 would be really good and would be more than competitive with the 970.
 
ubersonic said:
I'm not trying to be a jerk but this makes no sense to me, you're saying that with custom water cooling people wouldn't cool their GPU or their CPU, so what is the custom loop for? the VRM and PCH? kind of a waste...

I have my CPU, both my GTX970's, my MB VRM and PCH in my loop.
Click to expand...

No,what I am saying is most people stick to whatever stock cooling comes with their card,and the closest they would ever probably get to water cooling of any sort is the AIO water coolers from companies like Asustek.

Anyway,at least from the OP I don't get the idea the OP is going for anything like a water cooling setup for their PCs though,so its a moot point. If he was that bothered to spend £100s of quid on such a setup I don't think he would really be caring about a potential £60 to £80 differences in price,or even saving a few quid here or there on a PSU(not that it is needed).
 
Last edited:
If you want the cheapest card for your money get the 290, if you want a card that can perform better when overclocked, has more features, uses less power, outputs less heat then get the 970. It shouldn't of really took 4 pages to decide this.
 
If you want the cheapest card for your money get the 290, if you want a card that can perform better when overclocked, has more features, uses less power, outputs less heat then get the 970. It shouldn't of really took 4 pages to decide this.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.
 
Ayahuasca said:
If you want the cheapest card for your money get the 290, if you want a card that can perform better when overclocked, has more features, uses less power, outputs less heat then get the 970. It shouldn't of really took 4 pages to decide this.
Click to expand...

When you say it is a better overclocker, how much are we talking about?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom