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- Joined
- 9 Jul 2013
- Posts
- 2,188
Well ive had the 970 for a couple of months now and although i think there good cards ive been feeling a little underwhelmed by it. For a while ive been posting about low usage, slight micro stuttering, sometimes having to restart pc on the odd occasion as the fps is just half what it should have been.
There have been loads of people posting about the same issues on the geforce driver forum and this was way before the vram issue came out.
Anyway i managed to bag the 290X Lightning with Gold reward & sid myers for £259 before it went up. Ive had it sat here for a while in the box while contemplating whether to send the 970 back or not.
Tonight i thought stuff it and whacked it in. First of all what an awesome looking card. The one thing thats been playing on my mind about the 290x is the Power consumption, heat & noise.
After gaming a little tonight i find it no more nosier than the 970. I think if the fans go over 50% then it will start getting slightly audible but the fans have not got to 50% yet while keeping the temps the same as the 970 between 60/70c in gaming conditions.
The other thing i was concerned about was the power consumption. I have one of these ** No hotlinked images **
So i did a few reading with the 970 and the 290x. Heres what i got;
970 first column, 290x second column (Total System Power)
Idle (Desktop) 84w - 85w
Fire Strike Bench 295w - 330w
TR Bench 270w - 340w
Sniper E III Bench 290w - 350w
1 game of WoT 250w - 285w
Not sure if your suprised by them results but im quite shocked. i was expecting quite a bit more from what the general consensus is regarding the 290x being power hungary.
The main thing ive noticed though and the most important is the games seem to play a Lot smoother. I tried ARMA III which with the 970 i had to turn all AA off with settings set to high and even then it wasnt smooth. With the Lightning i can up the settings with it playing a lot smoother.
All in All im well pleased with this big chunk of quality metal in my case, 970 is packed and waiting to be shipped. Like i said there good cards but im not sure if maybe the power saving side of it effects performance, Im not sure as im no expert but there you go.
Hope this helps others thinking of the switch
There have been loads of people posting about the same issues on the geforce driver forum and this was way before the vram issue came out.
Anyway i managed to bag the 290X Lightning with Gold reward & sid myers for £259 before it went up. Ive had it sat here for a while in the box while contemplating whether to send the 970 back or not.
Tonight i thought stuff it and whacked it in. First of all what an awesome looking card. The one thing thats been playing on my mind about the 290x is the Power consumption, heat & noise.
After gaming a little tonight i find it no more nosier than the 970. I think if the fans go over 50% then it will start getting slightly audible but the fans have not got to 50% yet while keeping the temps the same as the 970 between 60/70c in gaming conditions.
The other thing i was concerned about was the power consumption. I have one of these ** No hotlinked images **
So i did a few reading with the 970 and the 290x. Heres what i got;
970 first column, 290x second column (Total System Power)
Idle (Desktop) 84w - 85w
Fire Strike Bench 295w - 330w
TR Bench 270w - 340w
Sniper E III Bench 290w - 350w
1 game of WoT 250w - 285w
Not sure if your suprised by them results but im quite shocked. i was expecting quite a bit more from what the general consensus is regarding the 290x being power hungary.
The main thing ive noticed though and the most important is the games seem to play a Lot smoother. I tried ARMA III which with the 970 i had to turn all AA off with settings set to high and even then it wasnt smooth. With the Lightning i can up the settings with it playing a lot smoother.
All in All im well pleased with this big chunk of quality metal in my case, 970 is packed and waiting to be shipped. Like i said there good cards but im not sure if maybe the power saving side of it effects performance, Im not sure as im no expert but there you go.
Hope this helps others thinking of the switch
had to do it for myself just to see what the real life gaming usage was. I feel a lot better about the 290x after checking it out for myself.
