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Switching from NVIDIA to AMD..some questions.

marsha11

marsha11

marsha11

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Joined
20 Aug 2014
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45
So im thinking of Swapping my 970s for a pair of 290x 8gb advertised here.

Ive always bought Nvidia. If anyone could confirm a few things that would be most helpful. I game at 1440p and have an overclocked monitor of 110hz.


- The 290x's will run hotter and louder? My MSI 970s even a full load are very quiet and maintain low temps.

- AMD's driver updates and driver's in general arent as good as NVIDIA's?

- I will need to upgrade my XFX GOLD Black edition 750w PSU for say a 1050 PSU? My CPU is overclocked at 4.5g.

- Some games in SLI produced micro stutter, is this any worse or better in general with Crossfire?

- Finally im hoping that Crossfire 290x's will perform as well as if not better than the 970's in SLI.

Thanks
 
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I really really wouldn't bother at 1440p. The 290X cards are going to run hotter and be noisier (although not dreadfully as the 8GB cards are Vapor-X no?) and it's going to be around a sidegrade in performance at your resolution.

If the upgrade was at zero cost to you and you had a 4K screen I could maybe see it being worthwhile but at your resolution, nope! :)
 
Im already knocking at the 4gb vram door in some titles at this res. Plus im aiming for very high frames. This is why the 8gb is callling me.
 
what frames are you getting with them cards?
i run on 2560x1440 with a single GTX780 and manage fine.so you should have no problem at all?! unless you are itching to spend some money:D
 
290X 8GB are great cards. The R9 290X Vapor-X from Sapphire isn't loud at all, quality cards and well set for the future with all that VRAM.
 
Id stick with what you have its pointless when newer cards are on there way. Unless you swapping for free (selling or returning the 970s covers the price of the amd cards)
 
marsha11 said:
So im thinking of Swapping my 970s for a pair of 290x 8gb advertised here.

Ive always bought Nvidia. If anyone could confirm a few things that would be most helpful. I game at 1440p and have an overclocked monitor of 110hz.


1. - The 290x's will run hotter and louder? My MSI 970s even a full load are very quiet and maintain low temps.

2. - AMD's driver updates and driver's in general arent as good as NVIDIA's?

3. - I will need to upgrade my XFX GOLD Black edition 750w PSU for say a 1050 PSU? My CPU is overclocked at 4.5g.

4. - Some games in SLI produced micro stutter, is this any worse or better in general with Crossfire?

5. - Finally im hoping that Crossfire 290x's will perform as well as if not better than the 970's in SLI.

Thanks
Click to expand...


1. Yes, they will. but its not unmanageable.

2. AMD driver updates are good, wouldn't put them in a different light compared to Nvidias drivers.

3. Maybe... I get away with 4.8 at 1.35v and 290 at 1.35v using 550W~. So depending on your overclocks you may or may not be able to get another one running.

4. For the short while i had xfire id have to say i was extremely impressed, it was very smooth. And with the extra RAM you're getting and higher bandwidth you can say goodbye to RAM related stuttering :)

5. It'll perform better, no doubt.

Good luck.
 
- AMD's driver updates and driver's in general arent as good as NVIDIA's?
Cant believe people still think its true.

From my experience my mate with 680gtx and 970 got MORE DRIVER PROBLEMS than i got on 290x with omegas !!!!
0% gpu usage drops on 970 ANYONE ?? We did everything we could even upgraded psu to 1300w superflower for single gpu pc. Tried fresh windows all drivers and finally on NV forum we found out its driver problem.. All of em drivers got it in some system configurations and just need to wait for working ones :/
 
^^yea I've had low fps/usage on the 970 since I've had it. Been banging on about for ages on the geforce driver forum and other forums but nothing has changed.

I've got a feeling it won't get sorted. Nvidea have had months to sort it out but haven't.

Nvidea reps just keep saying there engineers can not replicate the issue which loads of people are having and its bottleneck issues and not the cards
 
They might have a point if your i5 isn't heavily overclocked. Even my i5 with a 4.7 overclock would bottleneck 680s in certain games nevermind 970s.
 
Rusty0611 we are talking single cards here and my nates 4770k is at 4.3 cause wont do more even tho its on water :(
So from what i see NV drivers went down the hill and AMD are much better.
 
AMD drivers are top notch these days. I would say better than Nvidia. The Catalyst Control Centre has more features than the Nvidia panel for sure.

As for noise and heat it depends on the cooling system. The vapor-x and most non-reference coolers are on par with the Nvidia cards maybe just slightly noisier. Temps are usually around 70C for a vapor-x for example. The GALAX gtx970 was running at 65C so not a major difference. A reference 290X can go to over 82C but some of the cheap gtx 970's hit 80C anyway (Inno3D / Zotac) ..
 
i have got a Radeon HD 5830 which i have been using for 4 year now, my 970 is going back which was to replace this and waiting to see what AMD release next.

i have had no issues with the drivers since i have owned the card from new and been quite happy with it but due to the age of the card its time to put it to bed and get something better lol
 
This would be a straight swap (a few quid extra). The only thing with my current setup is my 750w psu. From what ive read is just a shade under power.

I wouldnt be bothered if it was a single card or i gamed at 1080. But im at 1440p and im a stickler for everything maxed (within reason) and as near to my refresh rate as pos of 110hz.
 
I'm in a similar situation to OP... debating what to do. I only have a single 970 but SLI was always my plan. Seems a bad idea now though, at 1440p anyway. And I also planned on going ultra wide later this year. 4K doesn't hold much appeal at this stage, as I don't think the monitor tech is quite there. Some far more interesting 1440p and UW monitors coming later this year.

I'm certainly interested in hearing about users actual experiences of going from 970 to the 290X cards... noise, temps, game performance. Seems to be a lot of suggestions flying around, but with little actual experience to back it up. But then up until recently I don't think many people would have even considered such a switch, given how highly a 970 SLI set-up was regarded... but that's all changed in the past couple of weeks.
 
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