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G1 970 to 290X lightning :)

sprite1275 said:
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 :)
Click to expand...

Glad to hear you're enjoying your 290X card. :)
 
Bonjour said:
Love the Lightning.

Also love getting genuine figures from other forum members. So thank you.
Click to expand...

No probs ;) 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.
I'm not that bothered about OCing as I just want to play the games although I will probably have a dabble later down the line.
 
Just a note in case some don't know, almost all third party 290/290 cards run at lower power usage than AMD reference (by design).

The mental power usage you see in a review of a launch card in uber mode isn't what you will see from a factory undervolted card with better cooling (and thus lower leakage).
 
sprite1275 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Very strange as with my 970 I'm having no issues, no micro stuttering, no reason to restart my pc and Arma 3 runs fune. Hell Skyrim highly modded is always at or near 60fps. Which blows my old 280'x out the water...

Yet the Palit 970 GTX I had was a pile of carp, lots of issues..

Most likely your 970 had problems, glad your new card is working good though
 
as i said to setter other day after having a friends 290 to try the 970 is better. thats why i kept mine.;) thought about swopping .

i prefer AMD as a company and the drivers and image quality just the 970 gtx is a better product than the 290.

the lightning looks a great card.
 
sprite1275 said:
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.

*SNIP*

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.

*SNIP*

Hope this helps others thinking of the switch :)
Click to expand...

Glad you're happy with the switch. 290X is a great alternative to Nvidia's high end cards. Especially at it's current price :)
 
sprite1275 said:
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 :)
Click to expand...

Got a cracking card there, enjoy.:)
 
Great write up OP.. I also find my two to be very quiet and also stay around 60/70c depending on game and my frame rate.. Capping or un-capped fps is massive difference in GPU temperature.

Enjoy the full 4Gb of advertised vram.. :D
 
sprite1275 said:
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 :)
Click to expand...

Performance, Power-consumption and heat comparisons and rhetoric about these card's is utter BS.

A lot of Nvidia Shilling on the Internet, you only have to look at the way people get targeted by trolls when they don't tow the "Nvidia is better" line.
 
no these cards will use so much power all the lights in your house will dim and flicker, also there will be so much heat you will have to game in your underpants, and amd drivers are utter rubbish, every nvidia fanboy knows this:D
 
Thanks for the replies folks. I'm gagging to have a blast on it but I get very limited gaming time these days. I get enjoyment just looking at it through my windowed case. Sad I know.
 
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