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I'm fairly sure I bought an MSI R9 290 Gaming for under £200 with 3 free games in October 2014.
Wish I had just kept it now lol.
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Has Nvidia Forgotten Kepler? The GTX 780 Ti vs. the 290X Revisited
- Thread starter Razor Time
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I'm fairly sure I bought an MSI R9 290 Gaming for under £200 with 3 free games in October 2014.
Wish I had just kept it now lol.
Soldato
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- 14 Aug 2009
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R290 was a great card price/performance when it went against the Kepler generation. and now, as you look back. A year later (after its own and Kepler launch), the 970/980 launched, with the 970 offering lower power draw at roughly the same performance and price as AMD's cards (R290/x). There was also a mining craze with higher prices for the red team and lower availability, just before - if not mistaken. Some of those cards sold for ridiculous amounts. AMD didn't do much with Maxwell except bad jokes about "4GB is 4GB" and such. Mantle didn't had enough traction, they didn't had Bullet/Havok or the AI on the GPU as they had some demos a while back, nothing to really show their GPUs in a good light. And moving a bit forward, the mining was about done at that point.
GTX970 was, probably still is, the most popular card on Steam. Do players buy other cards? Sure, price/performance isn't the only reason or else there wouldn't be any Titans on the market or other cards that have a poor ratio under this variable, however for the average Joe who's not brand biased, who doesn't need that extra speed an overclocked 780ti would offer, there is no reason to buy it as there was no reason to buy R290X. Extra money that could go for other hardware to gain a advantage/performance that you actually felt it.
And it may have been the same with the 7950/7970/7970GHz Ed. My 7950 would do about 1100-1200GHz ( I don't remember exactly) on the GPU, 24/7 no problem, at which is was about equal to a 7970GHz Ed/R280x.
If we look back now, R290 aged very well. There wasn't always the best buy out there, but if you caught a deal or a really good price on the users market, there is no reason not to spend money on it. If you're the kind of gamer that keeps his cards as long as they perform for his needs, it definitely lasted longer and at a much lower price point than what was then (when it launched) on the market. Even now if you have a model with good cooling and unlocked voltage, I'd say there is a high chance you're neck in neck with the newer gtx970 or even 980, depending on which games you play - of course, at the cost of power draw and heat.
GTX970 was, probably still is, the most popular card on Steam. Do players buy other cards? Sure, price/performance isn't the only reason or else there wouldn't be any Titans on the market or other cards that have a poor ratio under this variable, however for the average Joe who's not brand biased, who doesn't need that extra speed an overclocked 780ti would offer, there is no reason to buy it as there was no reason to buy R290X. Extra money that could go for other hardware to gain a advantage/performance that you actually felt it.
And it may have been the same with the 7950/7970/7970GHz Ed. My 7950 would do about 1100-1200GHz ( I don't remember exactly) on the GPU, 24/7 no problem, at which is was about equal to a 7970GHz Ed/R280x.
If we look back now, R290 aged very well. There wasn't always the best buy out there, but if you caught a deal or a really good price on the users market, there is no reason not to spend money on it. If you're the kind of gamer that keeps his cards as long as they perform for his needs, it definitely lasted longer and at a much lower price point than what was then (when it launched) on the market. Even now if you have a model with good cooling and unlocked voltage, I'd say there is a high chance you're neck in neck with the newer gtx970 or even 980, depending on which games you play - of course, at the cost of power draw and heat.
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