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The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point (Techspot)

Boomstick777

Boomstick777

Boomstick777

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It's been an eventful year for GPU releases with updated models and prices across all budgets from both AMD and Nvidia. After finally shipping the Radeon R9 290X and R9 290 late in 2013, AMD returned to rebadging parts in February with the R7 250X (essentially an HD 7770), followed by an overclocked HD 7850 (the R7 265) and then a clone of the two-year old HD 7950 (the R9 280).

We received something fresh with the R9 295X2 in April, but with pricing around $1,000 it was cheaper to buy two R9 290Xs for the same or better performance. Rounding out the year, AMD delivered its next-gen Tonga architecture in the R9 285, but the card was crippled by a 256-bit memory bus and struggled to outpace the similarly priced R9 280 while being slower than the 280X.

Click Here to see the results >>>> http://www.techspot.com/guides/912-best-graphics-cards-2014/
 
What's the overclocking potential like in a 970? I ask because a 290 can easily be overclocked to match and surpass the performance of a 290x. I was wondering if it was similar for that of the 980.
 
With the same price as the R9 290X, the GTX 970 is 4% slower but consumes 16% less power
Click to expand...

Second article in a couple of days pointing out that the 290X is faster at the same price.

290 using a 'massive' 10-33w more than the 970 in game, nice to see proper power consumption talk blows that out the water.

Truth comes out in the end after the initial review guidelines are thrown to the side...
 
tommybhoy said:
Second article in a couple of days pointing out that the 290X is faster at the same price.

290 using a 'massive' 10-33w more than the 970 in game, nice to see proper power consumption talk blows that out the water.

Truth comes out in the end after the initial review guidelines are thrown to the side...
Click to expand...
Those numbers don't match mine.

System power consumption for me in Heaven is ~390W with 970 SLI.
With ONE 290p it's ~350W

Running all cards stock.
 
benjii said:
What's the overclocking potential like in a 970? I ask because a 290 can easily be overclocked to match and surpass the performance of a 290x. I was wondering if it was similar for that of the 980.
Click to expand...

most 970s will oc to a 980.

so then you have the benefit of the power usage being lower cooler and probably faster aswell.

im not biased to nvidia or amd i have both .
 
Performance wise a 1500mhz 970 is around the same as a stock 980. Of course if you were clocking your 970 you would clock the 980 as well if you had it so it's a pretty moot point.

I wouldn't pay the extra though for the 980, my days of buying the top end cards are over I think, outside of benchmarks you can't notice a difference between the model below whilst gaming. Props to the guys who do buy the most expensive cards though as those are the ones helping companies progress as I imagine the margins are much bigger on the top end £400+ cards.
 
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I don't think there is an objectively better card at a certain price point. Different people play different games, want different things and have different tolerances for noise etc.
 
Personally I'm all about price vs performance and getting a bargain which rules out the 970. Otherwise my only other consideration is my Jeantech Storm psu which rules out the 290. So really for now there's no suitable card out there for me to replace an overclocked 7870.

For others there will be different considerations but I do think budget is going to be the main one for most.
 
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