AMD takes aim at Nvidia's GTX 970 and cuts R9 290X price

[flearider]

for what I paid for my 290 I really happy with it ..and why once your system is up and running would you need to drain it ?
and if you did want to change a part you would just unclip it and remove it ..

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A friend at work has a dual R9 290X rig and another GTX980 rig. He had seems to have had no problems with his R9 290X cards(although he is a bit of a serial upgrader).

Have plenty of mates with sub £200 AMD and Nvidia current generation cards. They seem to be able to run their games all fine.

[Jimbo75]

Implying his 460 was bought when 6850 was out, which it wasn't for whole half a year lol... So yeah 460 was great, i had it and no complaints unlike all the 6000 series amd that ive seen on 2nd hand market trying to get sold. Not to mention 460 was running cool <70C on full load, again unlike 6850. Id take a card that works at 70C doing same job as cheaper card going for 85C any day.
NVIDIA FANBOY OUT

I had a cheap XFX 6850 - it never went over 70C and that was it completely silent with 29% fan speed set in Overdrive. I think I paid £118 for it on release day.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6850-review/7

As you can see, it's the 2nd best card on that in terms of delta.

55C at load - http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-...1005635/review





What I notice Nvidia fanboys are good at is comparing aftermarket cooled Nvidia cards with the reference AMD cards sent for review (you know back when reference cards were the accepted norm in the industry?). With so many Nvidia aftermarket cards being reviewed in the past few years it's an easy mistake to make for those who aren't quite up to speed on the tech I suppose.

edit - what's that at the bottom? A 480 at 94C and a 470 at 93C? Some of us know *exactly* what the score is here so give it a rest.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Lets look at the 9500GT:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications

Max rated temperature 105C.

Plenty of cards have been rated for 100C in the past including many Nvidia ones. Its only a problem when the card is an AMD one!!

Whats even more funny that the GTX470 and GTX480 had massive 500MM2+ dies too.

Edit!!

It appears most of the 9 series Nvidia cards were rated to 105C:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications

[Jimbo75]

Lets look at the 9500GT:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications

Max rated temperature 105C.

Plenty of cards have been rated for 100C in the past including many Nvidia ones. Its only a problem when the card is an AMD one!!

Whats even more funny that the GTX470 and GTX480 had massive 500MM2+ dies too.

Edit!!

It appears most of the 9 series Nvidia cards were rated to 105C:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications

I remember seeing a review where the 480 hit over 100C.

Some people seem to have very short memories that's for sure. Not only was "Thermi" huge, hot and power hungry - it was also very late. Compare that to the 290X and 290 (reference) cards which AMD rushed out after changing the clock at the last minute due to performance being better than anticipated.

It was a different story with a proper cooler though, wasn't it?



Funny how nobody seems to remember that either?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You forget,Nvidia gave away free R9 290X cards to review sites,as long as they tested them in reduced fanspeed mode.

[Jimbo75]

You forget,Nvidia gave away free R9 290X cards to review sites,as long as they tested them in reduced fanspeed mode.

Oh yeah that's right. And let's not forget Hardware Canucks tried buying up as many as they could find so they could do a full test on the bios-gate thing. I never did see that article, however - I guess the results weren't quite what they had anticipated?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Oh yeah that's right. And let's not forget Hardware Canucks tried buying up as many as they could find so they could do a full test on the bios-gate thing. I never did see that article, however - I guess the results weren't quite what they had anticipated?

Also,it took German and French review sites to indicate that both the Geforce Titan and GTX760 did throttle with the reference coolers. But did any of the English Language review sites bother??

Plus look at many review sites,where they put one or two lines about how they had to start pre-heating the Nvidia Kepler cards before reviews a few months after release since the boost was variable(read very high) when the cards were in a cold state and it was not as much when hot. The German and French review sites spelt it out,most of the English review sites just buried it.

Did they bother changing of the launch reviews to indicate the changes to the testing methodlogy - nope.

It was why the GTX680 went from being faster than a HD7970 MK1 to being no faster in literally a few months.

But when the AMD cards were tested in lower fanspeed situations at the behest of Nvidia and throttled,it was made a big deal.

OTH,the fact that the GTX780 price just crashed by a £100 with a game bundle was also ignored.

But then look at the pass Apple gets in the media??

[Jimbo75]

[nerbne]

XFX 290 for $232.99 at NCIXUS after rebate.
Gigabyte Windforce 290X for $279.99 at NewEgg after rebate.

[jigger]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1752

£249 is a bargain for an R9 290X.

TBH I think AMD are selling themselves short. Even before this rubbish with Nvidia the R9 290X was the better card.

[ZaO]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1752

£249 is a bargain for an R9 290X.

TBH I think AMD are selling themselves short. Even before this rubbish with Nvidia the R9 290X was the better card.

I agree. Amd are chopping their prices down quite a lot lately. I'm not complaining as a consumer, of course But it worries me about what Amd are thinking of their products these days. And it doesn't give me as much hope as I'd like for their future. But I'm sure they've had guys with way more knowledge and experience than someone like me who has figured this all out

[Bane2087]

I have had a 290 (not x) and a 780. The 780 is by far the preferable card, it stays much cooler and thus doesn't sound like a jet engine whilst cooking my processor when running demanding games. It's using less power and I've yet to see a game truly use more than that 3gb. For example Shadow of Mordor high res texture pack had practically no visible difference whatsoever.

[Jimbo75]

I have had a 290 (not x) and a 780. The 780 is by far the preferable card, it stays much cooler and thus doesn't sound like a jet engine whilst cooking my processor when running demanding games. It's using less power and I've yet to see a game truly use more than that 3gb. For example Shadow of Mordor high res texture pack had practically no visible difference whatsoever.

There's no way you paid (a lot) more for a slower card by any chance though, right?

The 780 was $649 at launch. How much was the 290 again? $399.

Unless you believe paying an extra $250 is worth a slower yet cooler and quieter card, this is somewhat relevant information don't you think?

[jigger]

IIRC the R9 290 and GTX780 use about the same power. Not that it really matters though.

If you have a reference R9 card try reducing the power target by a few percent, and increase the clock speed by a few percent. I have one in HTPC and after I changed the TIM I have it running at -8% power, +5% clock speed with the fan speed turned down.

[JGJones]

I bought a 970 when it first came out - 4GB is one of the reason as well as its power efficiency and the speed of 970 which is not that far off from 980 but at a lower price.

I'm very disappointed to find I don't quite get the full 4GB at full speed. However I don't plan to trade in my 970 just yet because despite the limitations, it is still a very fast card - benchmarks still show it to be among the fastest cards.

However had I have known about the limitation beforehand, would it make a difference? It's possible I might have gone with a 980 then. I wouldn't know, I picked the 970 because of its price and its benchmark results and the fact that I was after a 4GB card. Price and benchmarks worked out, but the RAM leave a sour taste.

(I still won't pick an AMD card, no matter how good it is - the drivers are simply too poor on Linux (primary desktop) - it's a shame. Improve the drivers and I'll strongly consider it)