It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussion2x Radeon R290 or 1x nVidia GTX 980?(49 posts)solved(49 posts)solved
(49 posts)solved
Pages:
1
2
3
4
This is my favourite topic
Posted March 18, 2015
This is a followup to a question I presented a short while ago. I'm slowly preparing to build a new PC later in the year. I am looking at the graphics at present. I have decided to put a fair amount of money into that area, but I still have questions about the relative merits of nVidia vs Radeon.

Currently, for a similar price, I could buy either 2 4Gb R290s or one decent 4Gb GTX 980.
Barring the whole "there still aren't heaps of games that can take advantage of two cards" issue, what are the other things I should consider?

For the price is a single nVidia 4Gb card truly as good or better than two Radeon 4Gb cards?
This question / problem has been solved by A_Future_Pilotimage
Posted March 18, 2015
You'll need a much better psu for 2 290s than 1 980. Also cooling will be a much bigger issue. All around I think you'll be better off with 1 980.

Edit: A bit more info...firstly, the 2 290s are technically more powerful than a single 980, but the added hastle and cost aren't worth it IMO. Another option would be to get a 970, put the extra $200 into future proofing the rest of the build, then get a second 970 for sli down the road. What resolution are you planning on using?
Post edited March 18, 2015 by A_Future_Pilot
Posted March 18, 2015
You should consider that the Radeon R9 390X may be out by the time you build the PC, which will affect market prices and expected performance.

For this specific choice: check benchmarks. I imagine that the two R290s will perform better, but I'm not going to search for that now. The high end always feels like a waste of money to me, and my choice would normally be to spend less and get something like the GeForce 970.
Posted March 18, 2015
Instead of 2 R290s, you would probably be better off with one Radeon R295X2. It is essentially two R290X-cards in one (dual-GPU card). I think the price of it might break your budget though. I also don't know if games that have problems with Crossfire/SLI will have problems with a dual-GPU.
Post edited March 18, 2015 by Random_Coffee
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
anomaly: This is a followup to a question I presented a short while ago. I'm slowly preparing to build a new PC later in the year. I am looking at the graphics at present. I have decided to put a fair amount of money into that area, but I still have questions about the relative merits of nVidia vs Radeon.

Currently, for a similar price, I could buy either 2 4Gb R290s or one decent 4Gb GTX 980.
Barring the whole "there still aren't heaps of games that can take advantage of two cards" issue, what are the other things I should consider?

For the price is a single nVidia 4Gb card truly as good or better than two Radeon 4Gb cards?
Two cards will be quicker. But two cards are always worse than one, bigger thermal emission and an overheat respectively and high noise, high power consumption, and not all games support two videocards.
The best choice one videocard!

Also I would like to advise you, to save a little money and to buy GTX970, Difference in FPS the very low
Attachments:
gtx-970.jpg (93 Kb)
Post edited March 18, 2015 by Morddraig
Posted March 18, 2015
I'd go the green team card. 1 card is so much less heartache than 2 and it seems to be well equipped for future operating systems. Blah, blah, blah.
avatar
Morddraig: Also I would like to advise you, to save a little money and to buy GTX970, Difference in FPS the very low
wasn't there a big huff about the gtx 970 having memory crashes because it only uses something like 3.5GB instead of the advertised 4GB of VRAM?
Post edited March 18, 2015 by micktiegs_8
Posted March 18, 2015
2 cards are not the optimal solution. Like the other said, heat, noise, not every game supports them and there is still
a little problem with micro lags.
Still i see no reason to buy such a high price card (GTX 980)....only if you want to play games with all options...or Witcher 3
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
ET3D: [..]spend less and get something like the GeForce 970.
Wait, didn't someone find that the GTX970 has issues with games requiring >3.5Gb vcard ram?
Post edited March 18, 2015 by phaolo
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
micktiegs_8: wasn't there a big huff about the gtx 970 having memory crashes because it only uses something like 3.5GB instead of the advertised 4GB of VRAM?
Not crashes, reduced performance (at least of what I've read). And the issue only appear when it uses at least 3.5GB VRAM.

As for multi-GPU setup vs single:
avatar
Morddraig: Two cards will be quicker. But two cards are always worse than one, bigger thermal emission and an overheat respectively and high noise, high power consumption, and not all games support two videocards.
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
micktiegs_8: I'd go the green team card. 1 card is so much less heartache than 2 and it seems to be well equipped for future operating systems. Blah, blah, blah.
avatar
Morddraig: Also I would like to advise you, to save a little money and to buy GTX970, Difference in FPS the very low
avatar
micktiegs_8: wasn't there a big huff about the gtx 970 having memory crashes because it only uses something like 3.5GB instead of the advertised 4GB of VRAM?
NVIDIA divided the memory into two pools, a 3.5GB pool which maps to seven of the DRAMs and a 0.5GB pool which maps to the eighth DRAM.
Attachments:
3 (21 Kb)
Post edited March 18, 2015 by Morddraig
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
Random_Coffee: Instead of 2 R290s, you would probably be better off with one Radeon R295X2. It is essentially two R290X-cards in one (dual-GPU card). I think the price of it might break your budget though. I also don't know if games that have problems with Crossfire/SLI will have problems with a dual-GPU.
Ye gods that thing looks nice. But yes, I would need to upgrade my PSU. that said, I'd have to do that for a dual card setup anyway.
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
A_Future_Pilot: You'll need a much better psu for 2 290s than 1 980. Also cooling will be a much bigger issue. All around I think you'll be better off with 1 980.

Edit: A bit more info...firstly, the 2 290s are technically more powerful than a single 980, but the added hastle and cost aren't worth it IMO. Another option would be to get a 970, put the extra $200 into future proofing the rest of the build, then get a second 970 for sli down the road. What resolution are you planning on using?
I like to ask that question.

I am in the market for a GTX 980.

I have a 1080p monitor mind you if you want to know my resolution.
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
A_Future_Pilot: You'll need a much better psu for 2 290s than 1 980. Also cooling will be a much bigger issue. All around I think you'll be better off with 1 980.

Edit: A bit more info...firstly, the 2 290s are technically more powerful than a single 980, but the added hastle and cost aren't worth it IMO. Another option would be to get a 970, put the extra $200 into future proofing the rest of the build, then get a second 970 for sli down the road. What resolution are you planning on using?
Considering everyone is basically telling the same thing I'm going to mark this as the solution since you were the first response!

As for futureproofing, I have that mostly sorted, but have found that my old build was well equiped to handle modern games, but the graphics are where it has fallen down.

For the record my current build is:
i7-930 2.8 GHz
6Gb RAM
Sapphire 7850 2Gb GPU
750W PSU

Assorted other things bolted on...

Most of it will be 5 years old in September, and it is not capable of running the latest games at 1080p without significant screen tearing at times. It held up very well though. Have recently finished Shadow of Mordor and Wolfenstein TNO on it.
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
micktiegs_8: I'd go the green team card. 1 card is so much less heartache than 2 and it seems to be well equipped for future operating systems. Blah, blah, blah.
avatar
Morddraig: Also I would like to advise you, to save a little money and to buy GTX970, Difference in FPS the very low
avatar
micktiegs_8: wasn't there a big huff about the gtx 970 having memory crashes because it only uses something like 3.5GB instead of the advertised 4GB of VRAM?
see it :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb8WQ7atNkY
Post edited March 18, 2015 by Morddraig
Posted March 18, 2015
avatar
Morddraig: NVIDIA divided the memory into two pools, a 3.5GB pool which maps to seven of the DRAMs and a 0.5GB pool which maps to the eighth DRAM.
Now we just have to find people who actually play at such ludicrous resolution, and are willing to pay through the nose to upgrade for it. 4k is essentially just a stupid tech buzzword right now, and nothing more. Remember how 3D TVs were this big new thing? Yeah, well, that died pretty quickly. Why bring up TVs? Because it's those same manufacturers that try to cram all this 4k gobbledy-gook down our throats right now. I expect 4K to share a similar fate... for the near future anyway.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion2x Radeon R290 or 1x nVidia GTX 980?(49 posts)solved(49 posts)solved
(49 posts)solved