About to switch to a new Video Card, possibly the Sapphire Vapor-x R9 290X 4GB or 8GB

Thank you both for your replies! I am just a bit in the unknown regarding amps on the 12V rails. Like a Corsair 1200W PSU it has a 100.4A amp single rail. My 1000W Enermax Galaxy (bought it back in 2009 already) was the beast at that time. But I read it has only 17 amps per rail divided over 5 pieces. And I am not sure if you can just "add" them together (5x17=85Amps) and if that is ok too.... I have no clue.

Very simple but a little off-topic question though, is, if someone has experience with quadfire 5970's cards (so two of them bridged like I have now) and replace them with just one single R9 290X with either 4 or 8GB will outrun my current setup with ease speaking of fps gains in games?

I have to add that one of my 5970's is failing me and I have not the money right now to upgrade my whole system. For now I can spend max 500 euros and in so hoping that at least I can get a good card that outruns my quadfire 5970 setup/ Speaking of VRAM I know it will but I hope also in GPU strength. Some old games work pretty fast now in DX9 like Resident Evil 5 etc. But merely I am for RPG's and adventures and games the might need more than 1GB of ram that the 5970 has.

I just hope that one single GPU of the 290X will be faster in all terms that what I have now. It's only that I can keep using my PC because the rest is still fine. I can always upgrade to something better when I am able to much later.

Btw a cheaper solution for me now would to buy a second hand 5970 with a good fan (my fan died on one 5970) but both of mine are Asus 5970. Is it ok to mix with an xfx 5970 for example?

Thank you Yous for your great assistance, it's very much appreciated!! You are right regarding my old 5970's. It's just a pity I am not able now to build myself a new rig at the moment.

Maybe you can look with me at some other alternatives, first will show you my specs:

My specs are:

Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU
Silverstone Raven RV02 case
Asus Rampage II Extreme Motherboard
Intel Core i7 960 3,20Ghz @ 3,85Ghz
12GB Corsair RAM
2x Asus HD 5970's Videocards
Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Soundcard (below the 2nd HD 5970)
Bluray burner + dvd burner
1 SSD and 3 2.0TB WD Black drives
Some other stuff connected but I think not too many power hungry consumptions here

Just to help you that the rampage ii extreme is also a fine board but has a bad architecture. I have to put the 2x 5970's against each other in the 1st and 2nd pci-e x16 slots. Below the 2nd is the soundcad because I also had onboard sound issues with the rampage ii I had to get myself a nice soundcard. After all I was glad I did.

But what I like to know is that in combination with my older bloomfield i7 960 processor it is still possible to go for a SLI or Crossfire? For example, could I not switch to Nvidia this time? Like one 980 GTX Strix, from what I saw it only uses 1x 8-pins and 1x 6-pins (same as one 5970) and also only uses up 2 slots wheras the Vapor-x R9 290X from AMD uses up 2,5 slot so I could not add another in my combination because of the limited space on my rampage ii board. You agree with me so far?

Well, I am thinking that what if I am about to go for a Nvidia 980 GTX Strix instead and if this goes well maybe add another when I am able to? After that perhaps get a 4k Monitor also. Most of all, will one 980 GTX work on my system, let stand 2 in SLI if I wanted to later on? I have an older PSU too from Enermax with only max 17A on 5 12V rails... I am not sure if this will become a problem. No bottlenecks either expected with my 960 processor?

I am just not really sure what to choose or do yet. As long as I get at least a little more or the same fps in each game old and new with just either one GTX 980 or one R9 290X then I am sure I will be satisfied for awhile.

Thank you much! Yes I am now almost sure I will go for the GTX 980 Strix from Asus. It seems to be very good. I am only quite new to Nvidia and it's drivers. Does it work like AMD Catalyst, just go to Nvidia site and download latest drivers which is usually recommended?

I will use Driver Sweeper and uninstall all of AMD first before I will install a new Nvidia card, wise to do so right? Let's hope it will work because I like to prevent installing Win7 Ultimate x64 from fresh...

I wonder too if 2x GTX 980 will improve anything more in my current system. But you are quite sure one of them will certainly works well with my PSU, rampage ii and processor and will definitely kill my quadfire 5970's in both fps and stability? It has 4 times more VRAM to use as well!

Btw, I noticed there are also versions called the Asus Poseidon and Matrix GTX 980's, you know these and what's actually the difference with the Strix except the price and looks?

Thanks. But yes it keeps being about making choices. You sure the GPU itself on the newest GTX 980 is more powerful than four 5970s as well? Because then it would be a really easy choice...

I am thinking of buying another 980 another time so I have SLI. Even though my cpu might bottleneck it (let's hope not as my quadfire 5970s work well too with my current setup) and then after that a new system with new case, mainboard, cpu etc. So I will keep one 5970 with good fan and place it back in my old system and can move over the two gtx 980s in that new system which always will pull out even more from both the 980s.

It's an idea.

I just heard about coil whining on several gtx 970's and 980's.

www.rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?52609-Strix-GTX-970-coil-whine/page2

If you check and listen that youtube movie in there..... really annoying if that can happen. I heard it happens less with the 980's because of less Maxwell components. As I now was thinking about going SLI with the 970's instead. Very fast and cheap price per speed. And eats a lot less power as well.

I really am wondering what to do now.

Look at this graph: www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_970_sli_review,18.html

Dual GTX 270 in SLI seems to be much better than a single 280. I also heard this combination is much less power greedy than my dual 5970. The 970 only requires dual 6pins and some like the asus only 1x 8pins.

It does suppose to outrun my quadfire 5970 in all ways, let stans the vram alone which is 4 times as much as well and support for 4k and 3D if you would like to use this.

But the coil whinings.... we wouldn't want that. I heard the 980 has this phenomena as well but perhaps less.

If the coil whinings weren't such an issue then I would already have decided for two 970's. Price as well as power consumption based it's a lot better than a single 980 is it not then?

Look here: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1062?vs=1355

I was also mistaken. Maybe you were confused when I mentioned 4x 5970? But it's in fact a dual 5970 which has then 4x 5870 GPU. Because a single 5970 is in fact a dual 5870. Did you believe I was running 4x 5970 instead?

When you look at the graph, a single 5870 vs a single GTX 970, even if you would multiply the fps of the 5870 with 4 times, a single GTX 970 would still KILL four 5870. In reality crossfire or sli is never doubled fps. Then to think of it I can now use 4GB of Vram instead of only 1GB usable of the 5970. And even a single 5970 has slower clock speeds than a single 5870 due to it's multiple gpu's.

I am still thinking SLI GTX 970 would be a great choice and I will have more fps and 4GB of Vram to use, not to forget 4K and 3D support.

Hello Yous, yes I think I am going to try this! probably 2x Gigabyte as they have a backplate and enough power (1x 8pins + 1x 6pins wheras the asus strix only have 1x 8x pins which might be a problem for overclocking. Not that I will try this at first but you never know).