290 or 780

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fergus1

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May 19, 2013
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Hi all, my friend was looking to upgrade from a GTX 670, to maybe an R9 290 for a GTX 780, his budget is ~£350 but it is flexible, he is currently playing @1440p on a single monitor but would like to be able to upgrade to 4k OR surround in 6-12 months maybe with a second card. His system specs are 3570k, 8Gb @2133MHz, 256Gb SSD, and a corsair AX750 ( I have warned him that he will need to upgrade the PSU if runninn crossfire or SLI). He plays mainly AAA titles. So, 290 or 780 or anything better, or should he wait? And are there any good reasonably priced brands you can recommend?
Thanks
 
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It honestly all depends on how eager he is to get started. I know it's hard to wait when you can get "something" now, but for the most part (and I recently learned this myself) Getting one better card, is a better option than going for two lesser cards in SLI/Crossfire. Basically logic dictates to go for the best single GPU you can afford, and if you want to SLI, do that later when you can afford a second of said better card. The main factor in how good 4k/Surround will perform is memory, and memory bandwidth. Both the 780 and 780 Ti have 3GB of GDDR5, but the 780 Ti has a faster Memory Clock, which makes it superior in that configuration. And SLI does not effect your mem. clock or amount of memory, so having two 780s or even two 780...
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Egitel

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Dec 16, 2013
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If he wants to run 4k or surround, I really can't think of anything better than a 780 Ti right now. Even with one he'd be able to play most things surround or 4k right now, with SLI it would just be nuts, especially with that new SLI focused driver Nvidia just released (it's currently a beta driver, but I'm sure they'll have a WHQL version very soon).The card is about $480 in the UK, but if he wants to do 4k/Surround down the road, the 780 or R9 290 just won't compare, not just one anyway. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvn78toc3gd

Here's a review of the card from December comparing it to the R9 290x (an overclocked 290), before Nvidia's latest drivers which improved the performance.
http://www.legitreviews.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-ti-vs-amd-radeon-r9-290x-at-4k-ultra-hd_130055
 
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fergus1

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May 19, 2013
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Thanks for the fast reply. His budget won't really stretch above about £400 but in 6 months he hopes to have £800-£900 for a 4k monitor and another GPU, would you say it would be better to wait for 6 months and get a 780Ti, or get a 290/780 now and add a second 290/780 in 6 months?
 
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Egitel

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Dec 16, 2013
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It honestly all depends on how eager he is to get started. I know it's hard to wait when you can get "something" now, but for the most part (and I recently learned this myself) Getting one better card, is a better option than going for two lesser cards in SLI/Crossfire. Basically logic dictates to go for the best single GPU you can afford, and if you want to SLI, do that later when you can afford a second of said better card. The main factor in how good 4k/Surround will perform is memory, and memory bandwidth. Both the 780 and 780 Ti have 3GB of GDDR5, but the 780 Ti has a faster Memory Clock, which makes it superior in that configuration. And SLI does not effect your mem. clock or amount of memory, so having two 780s or even two 780 Tis will still net you 3GB total of VRAM. However, all that said, if he can hold off a few months, there is a 6GB 780 on the horizon, and probably a 6GB 780 Ti as well, which would definitely be much better for Surround/4k than their 3GB counterparts (The 6GB 780 is confirmed, the 780 Ti isn't yet, but seems likely).
 
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