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Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 or MSI R9 290X Lightning?

Bonjour said:
I'd get the Lightning, simply because I like tweaking and it is a tweaker's dream.
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yer i agree and if that was the only thing i would fuss about then i would get the lightning in a heartbeat cus it is one sexy card.

another thing i forgot to mention is g-sync i read on a couple reviews that it makes so much of a difference that they were running games at a lower setting and yet not being able to tell the difference between higher setting games without g-sync.

your thoughts on this if anyone has played games with g-sync?

Wish there was a waterblock for the 8gb sapphire 290x... that would be the card then.
 
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Might just be me but I wouldn't pay £500 for a 4k card at this moment in time. Any single card available at the moment isn't going to be a great experience, I'd save my money and wait till AMD and nvidia both make "proper" cards for that resolution. Even the next cards we see will probably take dual cards for a 60fps experience at 4k.

For lower resolutions I'd be tempted to get the Lightning for that price, pretty rare card and is definitely faster than a 970 stock vs stock and will at the least match it overclocked vs overclocked.
 
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JamesM said:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4375482?

That's less than 900 points off your 290 and bare in mind 970 drivers are pretty new so they need to mature PLUS the 970 is still limited with volts and power. Both things the 290 doesn't suffer from.

the 290x would be much better for 4k gaming with the bigger memory bus however card for card the 970 is the better card.
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My run comparison is from the same rig lol.

Each type of cpu has it's own bonuses or bias with futuremark. Basic benching 101. Ivy gets a large graphics score bonus while extreme cpus get physics. In other words you put your gpu into my x79 rig and your 14K gscore will shrink.

You never noticed Ivy scores always have higher gscores?? :eek:
 
xXxsephirothxXx said:
yer you right, however i have been holding off getting the major components for almost a year now and i have to crack on and start to finish the build or else i would end up waiting just a bit longer to get something thats a bit more powerful and in the end never finishing it.

i would like to w8 til the new amd card come out but once they come out something else would be announced then i would end up w8ing for that.

joys of the rapid advancement of tech... always 1 step behind. :p
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I hear you on the waiting and that isn't something I ever am a proponent of but after seeing Shadow of Mordor run with massive VRAM requirements but with very high fps, I feel we are seeing the start of the console transformation. I would hate to see you build a new system that is blazingly quick but when you fire up a game, it starts to stutter because you have run out of VRAM, even though you have some very high fps.

Of course if you are happy to turn down the settings, no bother and go for the 970/290X but if you want to run with the eye candy.... You know the rest :)
 
thesmokingman said:
My run comparison is from the same rig lol.

Each type of cpu has it's own bonuses or bias with futuremark. Basic benching 101. Ivy gets a large graphics score bonus while extreme cpus get physics. In other words you put your gpu into my x79 rig and your 14K gscore will shrink.

You never noticed Ivy scores always have higher gscores?? :eek:
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He doesnt know the 101s :(
 
Gregster said:
I hear you on the waiting and that isn't something I ever am a proponent of but after seeing Shadow of Mordor run with massive VRAM requirements but with very high fps, I feel we are seeing the start of the console transformation. I would hate to see you build a new system that is blazingly quick but when you fire up a game, it starts to stutter because you have run out of VRAM, even though you have some very high fps.

Of course if you are happy to turn down the settings, no bother and go for the 970/290X but if you want to run with the eye candy.... You know the rest :)
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well i'm at 1080p so that's no problem, but even when you turn up all the settings on 1080p you still need a decent card...just look at Metro, Crysis....far cry 3, all of these destroyed my old 7970 easily

so i only need another 300 quid in 2 weeks time and i have SLI, but the Lightning requires £620, the Lightning is much more fun to play with ( mine is voltage locked) and the MSI looks much better too.

alternatives

1................MSI GTX 970...........it's a bit silly really just to unlock the voltage
2................295X2
 
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There are times where I wish I was a fanboy if a certain brand, it would make choosing so much easier.

Well this all now boils down to is g-sync worth more than the extra performance the 290x lightnings give when running @4k?
Without me seeing g-sync its very hard fort me to decide. Anyone has experience with g-sync?

Or you know what i could just get a LG Flatron 34UC95-P which is what i was originally going to do until i heard it wasnt great for gaming and that the asus 4k g-sync was better.
 
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xXxsephirothxXx said:
There are times where I wish I was a fanboy if a certain brand, it would make choosing so much easier.

Well this all now boils down to is g-sync worth more than the extra performance the 290x lightnings give when running @4k?
Without me seeing g-sync its very hard fort me to decide. Anyone has experience with g-sync?

Or you know what i could just get a LG Flatron 34UC95-P which is what i was originally going to do until i heard it wasnt great for gaming and that the asus 4k g-sync was better.
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http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18612525&highlight=gsync+owners
Best people to ask about gsync
 
xXxsephirothxXx said:
There are times where I wish I was a fanboy if a certain brand, it would make choosing so much easier.

Well this all now boils down to is g-sync worth more than the extra performance the 290x lightnings give when running @4k?
Without me seeing g-sync its very hard fort me to decide. Anyone has experience with g-sync?

Or you know what i could just get a LG Flatron 34UC95-P which is what i was originally going to do until i heard it wasnt great for gaming and that the asus 4k g-sync was better.
Click to expand...

I have the Asus ROG Swift monitor and it is night and day for gaming. Has to be seen to be believed. Fantastic tech that gives unrivalled gaming smoothness.
 
Gregster said:
I recently completed SoM on a single Titan with all settings maxed including the HD textures at 1440P and frames were great. Ultra smooth with G-Sync :)
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That so odd. maybe its crap for me cus im running HD series AMD cards. Well that's just more reason to crack on and get my new build going.

BTW im going for Nvidia and a g-sync monitor i have decided. Now I need to work out what would be better a 5930k or a 4.8Ghz binned 4790k from OCuk motherboard bundle.

Let the fun begin....Again..... :P
 
thesmokingman said:
My run comparison is from the same rig lol.

Each type of cpu has it's own bonuses or bias with futuremark. Basic benching 101. Ivy gets a large graphics score bonus while extreme cpus get physics. In other words you put your gpu into my x79 rig and your 14K gscore will shrink.

You never noticed Ivy scores always have higher gscores?? :eek:
Click to expand...

GPU score is GPU score

If you wanted a fairer comparison, should have run Heaven 4 side by side.

I was simply pointing out that your 970 clock was pretty mild compared to the majority of the cards out there.
 
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