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Help

I think I'm going to wait until December, Then get the Gigabyte G1 GTX 980.
Thanks for your comments, they have been very helpful.
DJL99 :)
 
Well at the end of the day, it's my decision and my money. Someone in this thread said that I should get the 980 instead of the 970 because the 970 is only a sidegrade and the 980 would be an upgrade.
 
K, bro :)

1 person said that lol, the whole thread says keep your 290. Probs a 10-15% gain going to the 980, with a good CPU.

I've got nothing better to do atm, so will reply BS to most threads
 
It will be better, but so would a 4770k and your 290, in some games there will Not be a big difference between the 980 and a 290, but in others there will be a massive difference, just like if you wanted a mantle endorsed game, it is suposedly faster in those games.
 
The 290 with a 4790k would be better.
The 970 with a 4790k would run cooler and use less power but offer similar levels of performance.
The 980 with a 4790k would run cooler and use less power but offer slightly better performance

Can't go wrong with either MSI or Gigayte for the 970/980

Hope that helps

On a sidenote, gotta love OcUK. Chap comes on forums asking for advice about the 970 and 980 and wants to change becuase "I want to have lower temps with a lower amount of power consumption while still being able to play graphically demanding games." and he gets shot down and 90% of replies say don't bother changing...

Do the 290s get more power efficient later in their life?
 
To be fair, I think everyone said that a 970 would run cooler and quieter, whilst also pointing out that there would be little to no performance gain.
 
DJL99 said:
I'm going to get the MSI 980. I'll be pairing it with an I7 4790K, so I think it will be better than R9 290 + 8350.
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You current CPU would bottleneck the graphic cards (game dependent) may it be 290 or 980, so you simply won't see the performance increase to the extent as shown in benchmarks that are tested with overclocked i5/i7 system.

If you don't have the money to upgrade both the graphic card, CPU/platform all at the same time, it simply make far more sense to upgrade CPU and platform first...and by the time you save up the money for the graphic card, you'd would probably be able spend may be 25% more money over the 980 price at around £550 ish may be, and get a true next gen card that's actually faster than the 28nm card, rather than these "similar performance as last gen but more efficient 970/980 cards" that are on the last stick of the 28nm process...

I mean we've stuck on the 28nm process for a long time now, and the 290 and 900 series are the "last calls" for this aged and over-stayed its welcomes 28nm process. If you already got a final gen card on the 28nm process, surely you wouldn't want to go from one final gen 28nm card to another final gen 28nm card, but to 20nm true next gen card that's "actually" faster to noticable level?

Yes it is your money you can spend it however you want it, but it might worth you considering that the advises that people giving you is actually for YOUR benefit (not THEIRS). Most of us are hardware and/or game enthusasists here...we simply don't want to see people make poor buying decisions.

Bottomline is "in my opinion", the best way for you to go and switch to Intel first, and wait for the launch of "big Maxwell"...possibly in the form of 980Ti (not these mid/mid-high level Maxwell 970/980).
 
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Most of the research I did before getting my 970 G1 seemed to say the 970 was better performance wise than the 290 and trading blows with the 290x, winning more than loosing at 1080p.

Seems the 290x is about 7% faster than a 290, I'd say getting a 970 would give you about 8/9% increase in performance, with the added luxury if lower watts & temps.

Just my 2p worth.
 
sprite1275 said:
Most of the research I did before getting my 970 G1 seemed to say the 970 was better performance wise than the 290 and trading blows with the 290x, winning more than loosing at 1080p.

Seems the 290x is about 7% faster than a 290, I'd say getting a 970 would give you about 8/9% increase in performance, with the added luxury if lower watts & temps.

Just my 2p worth.
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It's really mostly down to the stock clock speed difference when it comes to 290 vs 290x. On the same clock, the 290x is probably less than 5% faster than the 290.

Regardless, the performance difference is too small to worth the "upgrade". If we disregard the power-consumption aspect, from performance aspect going from the 290 to 970 is probably like upgrading from 5850 to 5870, or GTX670 to GTX680.
 
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After reading what Marine said, I think I might wait to see if any "big Maxwell" cards come out, because they are bound to be more of an upgrade.
 
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