970/290x power draw.

[sprite1275]

Anyone have hands on experience of this. I keep seeing the 970 uses much less power but I've also heard when you OC it, it can use more than a 780!

My choice of gfx card is between these 2, the 290x is putting me off a little with the power draw and heat.

 

[snips86x]

I think it depends on the games your going to be playing and at what resolution. While the 970 is a fantastic card, you get the same performance from a 290 for as little as £200 where the better 970 will be around the £260 mark.

What games will you be playing?
Will you be using any nVidia features? PhysX?

The actual difference isn't much - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1068?vs=1355

 

[triss]

If you o/c any card it will use more power, 780's also increase a lot when you o/c them same as a 290x

 

[leon4112]

Better to compare it to this

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1056?vs=1355

290x keeps up with it in most games and if you oc both the 970 will clock better and will be faster and use less power and heat.

Plus the Amd and old 7 series of cards have been out a while and have mature drivers the new 9 series don't the card will get faster over the course of its life.

I replaced my old 290 and I don't regret it at all, 970 is more consistent in all games and quite a bit faster with the oc i have going also I have no issues with heat and the poor performance in games like borderlands with PhysX and the odd driver issues everything just works as it should.

And tbh and extra 30-60 quid isn't a lot of money these days for new tech.


Power draws even when the 970 oc to the same level as a base 980 its still 60-100w lower than a 290/290x

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8568/the-geforce-gtx-970-review-feat-evga/16

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

When 16NM/20NM hits people on this forum might faint at the reduced power consumption and extra performance.

That KFA2 GTX789 for under £200 was a great deal you missed OP and spending more on a R9 290x or GTX970 was not worth it. That sort of difference is far better put onto a 16NM/20NM card in 2015/2016.

Hardware enthusiasts will some excuse to "upgrade" to feed their habit - I know a few who need to keep being railed in by their better halves otherwise they will just throw away 100s of quid a year or more.

I expect a number here will ditch their new toys within the next year or year and a half. See **** happeno when Titan 2,the R9 390x and the 16NM/20NM cards are out!

 

[sprite1275]

When 16NM/20NM hits people on this forum might faint at the reduced power consumption and extra performance.

That KFA2 GTX789 for under £200 was a great deal you missed OP and spending more on a R9 290x or GTX970 was not worth it. That sort of difference is far better put onto a 16NM/20NM card in 2015/2016.

Hardware enthusiasts will some excuse to "upgrade" to feed their habit - I know a few who need to keep being railed in by their better halves otherwise they will just throw away 100s of quid a year or more.

I expect a number here will ditch their new toys within the next year or year and a half. See **** happeno when Titan 2,the R9 390x and the 16NM/20NM cards are out!

To be far I'm just after something looking great in my rigs window while getting a good performance boost over my drab looking 7950. Might sound daft but I've never had a top good looking card

That's why I'm asking the question. The sapphire and lightning amd cards look great with good gains, where as the 970 is the sensible option but they all look drab.

Regards the new NM or new cards, I can imagine that its going to be pretty expensive to start with so which ever card I get now is prob going to last me 2 or so years.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

To be far I'm just after something looking great in my rigs window while getting a good performance boost over my drab looking 7950. Might sound daft but I've never had a top good looking card

That's why I'm asking the question. The sapphire and lightning amd cards look great with good gains, where as the 970 is the sensible option but they all look drab.

Regards the new NM or new cards, I can imagine that its going to be pretty expensive to start with so which ever card I get now is prob going to last me 2 or so years.

Its most likely the whole range will be replaced by then with sub £300 20NM cards too. Any of the 28NM DX12 cards(bar perhaps a Titan II or maybe an R9 390X if it can get close) are going to be stop gap cards until the 16NM/20NM ones come out. This is when the extra density improvements will see a decent performance bump for the same power and TDP budgets.

A reasonable number of the people here "upgrading" from GTX780/GTX780TI/R9 290/R9 290X will be ditching their GTX970/GTX980 cards with a year or year and a half IMHO,especially if you see a Titan II/R9 390X and certainly when 16NM/20NM drops.

28NM is coming to an end as a process node and has been around way too long by GPU standards - this is why Nvidia is selling reduced power consumption and AMD is selling MOAR VRAM for 4K,since the generational performance bumps for the last few years have been very stunted for people running normal resolution screens.

People who went from a HD6970 to an HD7970GE or from a GTX580 to a GTX780/Geforce Titan saw the biggest overall leaps in actual performance(process node change) as eventually there was close to a doubling of performance IIRC in newer games. The rest has been mostly meh. Its no different than with 40NM.