Need some advice: gtx970 vs R9 290x

[Connell_]

Yeah, the 8GB VRAM is very appealing. I've heard good things about MSIs cooler. Anyhow, good luck with your build!

[gupsterg]

So there is Sapphire R9 290X 4G on french amazon for 230quid (sacrebleu!)

Indeed a good deal, I think now increased by 10 euros, still not bad. Personally I maybe inclined to go for the 2 newer deals on HUK regarding a 390 (prefer the PCS+ out of the 2 on there).

my dillema: go for this (heat and power problem biggest sfx is 600w), wil it fit?

When at one point I owned Tri-X 290 , Asus DCUII 290X & Vapor-X 290X, I had the Tri-X 290 in the OC'd Q6600 rig and the Tri-X was OC'd from 947/1200 to 1000/1300 (may have also done some@1100/1475) and did solid continuous 48hrs folding@home no issues (650W PSU).

What are exact details of your PSU?

Big fan of CustomPC / Bit Tech review so here's some links to Sapphire Tri-X 290X OC edition review.

Test setup

Power / Thermal results

SO if whole PC drawing MAX 403W from wall and Lepa G1600 gonna be about 90% efficient at that load, PSU really pushing out to system 362.7W.

Besides that figure the important factor is what amps can the PSU you have currently kick out on 12V rail.

Alot of the power used by GFX is gonna be on the PCI-E plugs. Only MAX 75W is given by PCI-E slot on mobo to GFX then MAX 225W can be supplied by the 8 (150W) + 6 (75W). If a 8+8 card then you have MAX 2x 150W from them.

[alexw]

What are exact details of your PSU?

So I have to go with silverstone and either this:
Silverstone Strider SFX 600W Fully Modular '80 Plus Gold (SST-SX600-G)
or Silverstone SFX-L 500W
but I'm not sure it's gonna be enough for power hungry R9

[gupsterg]

In this post on HUK is a member with R9 390, i5 4690K OC'd to 4.5GHz and has a Seasonic M12 II 520W.

If it's a Bronze 2x 12V 20A = 40A .

If it's a Evo 1x 12V 40A .

The Silverstone Strider SFX 600W is 1x 12V 50A .

My opinion, you'd be OK, saw a SPCR & Bit Tech review and that PSU is solid.

The only thing I can think is 3.3V & 5V rails are lower on Strider vs the 520W Seasonic but IIRC those don't get loaded as much as 12V so should be fine.

SPCR state:-

Overall, the noise performance is not quite as good as one of SPCR's top-rated ATX power supplies, which benefit from 120mm or larger fans, but the SX600-G is still a very quiet power supply, certainly to ~200W load. Above that power level, it becomes increasingly and plainly audible but not highly intrusive, due to the relatively smooth quality of the noise. There's very little or no electronic noise (such as buzz, hum or whine) to be perceived.

A review on HardOCP wasn't as praise worthy on fan noise as load increased.

Choice is all yours .

[alexw]

That's interesting, my cpu is gonna be 4690k as well, and now I'm thinking that maybe I would get away with 500W if I overclock card and cpu only a little...
500W silverstone has 120mm fan which would be better noisewise, I have to read through those reviews again..

[gupsterg]

What else are you planning to but in rig? if it's very minimal you may just get away with it.

Manufacturer recommendations on PSU requirement for a 290/X 390/X are to cover those situations where a person has say a peak output rate PSU vs continuous usage.

[alexw]

What else are you planning to but in rig? if it's very minimal you may just get away with it.

Manufacturer recommendations on PSU requirement for a 290/X 390/X are to cover those situations where a person has say a peak output rate PSU vs continuous usage.

It's gonna be pretty basic: no DVD, 1ssd, 1x2.5", i5 4690k and MB. oh and some ram

[gupsterg]

SSD such a low load.

Bit Tech Z97 roundup of mobos, they stress an i7 4770K with P95. From tests I've done on my system this pulls way more power through CPU than normal use.

You can see stock and 4.8GHz OC P95 stress test loading figures last diagram here.

TBH currently keep a 4.4GHz OC as its so low voltage and temps for 24/7 use and it doesn't bottleneck a 290X, never tested stock.

Be aware depending on vcore for an OC = less or more power draw.

For example my original i5 4690K needed 1.18v vs 1.010v my new one. This meant my new shows CPU Power Package reading in HWiNFO about 50W for RealBench stress test vs 66W for original one. These figures are approx via MSR for CPU and do not take into account anything else.

I'll run a log of say Crysis 3 to see what watts HWiNFO read for CPU / GPU if you like?

[alexw]

For example my original i5 4690K needed 1.18v vs 1.010v my new one. This meant my new shows CPU Power Package reading in HWiNFO about 50W for RealBench stress test vs 66W for original one. These figures are approx via MSR for CPU and do not take into account anything else.

I'll run a log of say Crysis 3 to see what watts HWiNFO read for CPU / GPU if you like?

That's interesting with different voltages... it would be important for me, saving those few watts

Test would be great, although I see you have 290x while I'm thinking 390 is the choice and obviously power consuption differ even between manufacturers (and factory oc)

[alexw]

according to these guys 390 takes 371W under load and 390x takes 449
http://techreport.com/review/28612/a...rd-reviewed/11

[EndlessWaves]

Those are system power consumption numbers, not card numbers, and on a pretty power hungry system with an i7-5960X.

[gupsterg]

That's interesting with different voltages... it would be important for me, saving those few watts

Test would be great, although I see you have 290x while I'm thinking 390 is the choice and obviously power consuption differ even between manufacturers (and factory oc)

I'm using known stable settings for my OCs (tested for continuous 24hrs+ stress testing), this way you sort of see worst case IMO. But like I said before vcore / clock influence CPU package power.

I used the 4.8GHz CPU (1.210v) 4.1GHz Cache (1.10v) with XMP RAM 2400MHz @ 1T stock timings profile with GPU Core 1100MHz RAM 1500MHz.

SO Crysis 3 1080P 120Hz MAX settings.

CPU Package Power Aver. below 50W MAX 69W
DRAM Power Aver. below 13W MAX 15W
VRM Current (IIN) Aver. below 14W MAX 16A
VRM Power (PIN) Aver. 154W MAX 187W

VRM current / power is what its pulling in from PSU 12V rail simply put. Add on extra as software monitoring is never accurate.

Screen 1 Screen 2

May pickup a reasonably priced power draw meter for wall plug as I'm interested to know what my system uses .

[jigger]

So I have to go with silverstone and either this:
Silverstone Strider SFX 600W Fully Modular '80 Plus Gold (SST-SX600-G)
or Silverstone SFX-L 500W
but I'm not sure it's gonna be enough for power hungry R9

If you haven't bought the PSU yet have a look for a 650 watt SeaSonic or XFX. They are about the best PSU's you can buy and mine has run a pair of R9 cards no problem.

[alexw]

If you haven't bought the PSU yet have a look for a 650 watt SeaSonic or XFX. They are about the best PSU's you can buy and mine has run a pair of R9 cards no problem.

Ok, but I think I've mentioned that I'm building in mITX tower (rvz02b) which accepts sfx and sfx-l PSU's. Otherwise it wouldn't be a problem at all...

[jigger]

Ah right. I just did a search for the 600watt model and though £90 was a lot not realising the form factor. I've actually seen the older model in action and it's an extremely high quality PSU. A buddy of mine runs an Intel quad core system with a SFF silverstone 450W gold with an R9 290X. I told him he was crazy and I wouldn't try it myself, but it's been fine for about 2 years.

[alexw]

Ah right. I just did a search for the 600watt model and though £90 was a lot not realising the form factor. I've actually seen the older model in action and it's an extremely high quality PSU. A buddy of mine runs an Intel quad core system with a SFF silverstone 450W gold with an R9 290X. I told him he was crazy and I wouldn't try it myself, but it's been fine for about 2 years.

well, that's reassuring...
I've seen post on other forum and some guy wanted to do r9 390 with silverstone 450, but in the end he build something else entirely..
I thunk I'll be safe with 500w but no overclocking ( or maybe a little