280X-CF or GTX 780ti? Help me pick...

[iGrindlay]

Pretty straight forward, i want your opinion as to which graphic card(s) will best suit me at their rough price range, i'm going for a 5760x1080 setup and am not bias towards either brand. My problem is that i'm constantly hearing awful reviews about Crossfire™ and the "terrible" microstutter, with regards to that i've heard people say it's the drivers and other people say it's not going to be fixed because it's the actual board architecture. I also really like the features Nvidia has to offer, like shadow play etc...

PS: i'm into 3D modelling and am aware that Nvidia would help with this thanks to their Cuda cores, however, this is not a game changer for me

PPS: the 290x would also be an option...

 

[iGrindlay]

*bump*

 

[lmaonade200]

I would assume Eyefinity makes AMD the winner in this case, though I'm not too sure since I don't use multi-monitor setups.

 

[Gate9er]

Well either way you will need to pay a valuable amount of money to get that resolution running properly. Regarding the micro stuttering issues, yes it's true, so you would like to first eliminate all of your single gpu choices in order to consider SLI or Crossfire-X. GTX 780ti is indeed the fastest gpu on the market right now, which would obviously run your 3 screen setup. The 290X is still a beast, which would also run your setup, plus you have AMD's eyefinity for multimonitor rigs and is obvisoudly cheaper than the 780ti. So, hands up for the R290X!

 

[llkashll]

Crossfire has been drastically improved since AMD instituted frame pacing although it is still slightly inferior to SLI.

Have you looked into the 290x and 290? They scale better at high resolutions than the 780ti and realistically the performance of the 780ti isn't nearly enough to justify its pricing (in my opinion at least). Nor will the 780ti be powerful enough to render games at a decent IQ at that resolution on its own, a SLI/Crossfire solution is probably the most practical (the higher frame time variances aka microstutter will be much more tolerable than the low framerate of a single GFX solution).

Also, if your 3d modelling software is reliant on OpenCL AMD cards will perform SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

 

[iGrindlay]

Crossfire has been drastically improved since AMD instituted frame pacing although it is still slightly inferior to SLI.

Have you looked into the 290x and 290? They scale better at high resolutions than the 780ti and realistically the performance of the 780ti isn't nearly enough to justify its pricing (in my opinion at least). Nor will the 780ti be powerful enough to render games at a decent IQ at that resolution on its own, a SLI/Crossfire solution is probably the most practical (the higher frame time variances aka microstutter will be much more tolerable than the low framerate of a single GFX solution).

Also, if your 3d modelling software is reliant on OpenCL AMD cards will perform SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

Great, i think you're the one to talk to.
As for the SLI/CF vs Single cards that was my initial impression too, however for my price range (~$750) i felt it would make more sense to get the 780ti instead of the 780 seeing as how i have the cash for it now but not enough cash for a 780-SLI setup. As for the micro-stutter, i'd like to agree, but, at the same time even if you're running 120+ fps if your frame variation is high enough that it's causing you to "jitter" around the map then it doesn't make any sense either :/ and unfortunately that's what i've been seeing from AMD lately :/, do you have any recommendations for a multi-card setup on Nvidia's side?

 

[llkashll]

Crossfire has been drastically improved since AMD instituted frame pacing although it is still slightly inferior to SLI.

Have you looked into the 290x and 290? They scale better at high resolutions than the 780ti and realistically the performance of the 780ti isn't nearly enough to justify its pricing (in my opinion at least). Nor will the 780ti be powerful enough to render games at a decent IQ at that resolution on its own, a SLI/Crossfire solution is probably the most practical (the higher frame time variances aka microstutter will be much more tolerable than the low framerate of a single GFX solution).

Also, if your 3d modelling software is reliant on OpenCL AMD cards will perform SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

Great, i think you're the one to talk to.
As for the SLI/CF vs Single cards that was my initial impression too, however for my price range (~$750) i felt it would make more sense to get the 780ti instead of the 780 seeing as how i have the cash for it now but not enough cash for a 780-SLI setup. As for the micro-stutter, i'd like to agree, but, at the same time even if you're running 120+ fps if your frame variation is high enough that it's causing you to "jitter" around the map then it doesn't make any sense either :/ and unfortunately that's what i've been seeing from AMD lately :/, do you have any recommendations for a multi-card setup on Nvidia's side?

Toms did an observational study on frame pacing if im not mistaken and despite it being in beta it almost tied with NVIDIA in terms of perceptable smoothness.

My main concern is that with the 780Ti you wont be able to achieve a frame rate of anywhere close to 60 at that resolution so will be trading smoothness anyway. It really comes down to the kind of games you hope to be playing. On non-intensive games I'd say a 780Ti could suffice but for upcoming title it wont have the grunt on its own to chuck out an acceptable frame rate (this is observable in alot of 4k reviews).

On AMD's side I'd go with 280x crossfire (290 would perform much better but you'll have to wait on custom coolers to come out for it to be a practical solution). On NVIDIA's side, given that you can't get the 2x780's I'd guess 2x770's would be a concession but that kind of undermines the recommendation of 2 cards for grunt since they wont perform that much better than the 780ti.

Check out the reviews here and see what best suits your needs since I'm not sure on what games you're looking to play and at what IQ:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/7

 

[iGrindlay]

Crossfire has been drastically improved since AMD instituted frame pacing although it is still slightly inferior to SLI.

Have you looked into the 290x and 290? They scale better at high resolutions than the 780ti and realistically the performance of the 780ti isn't nearly enough to justify its pricing (in my opinion at least). Nor will the 780ti be powerful enough to render games at a decent IQ at that resolution on its own, a SLI/Crossfire solution is probably the most practical (the higher frame time variances aka microstutter will be much more tolerable than the low framerate of a single GFX solution).

Also, if your 3d modelling software is reliant on OpenCL AMD cards will perform SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

Great, i think you're the one to talk to.
As for the SLI/CF vs Single cards that was my initial impression too, however for my price range (~$750) i felt it would make more sense to get the 780ti instead of the 780 seeing as how i have the cash for it now but not enough cash for a 780-SLI setup. As for the micro-stutter, i'd like to agree, but, at the same time even if you're running 120+ fps if your frame variation is high enough that it's causing you to "jitter" around the map then it doesn't make any sense either :/ and unfortunately that's what i've been seeing from AMD lately :/, do you have any recommendations for a multi-card setup on Nvidia's side?

Toms did an observational study on frame pacing if im not mistaken and despite it being in beta it almost tied with NVIDIA in terms of perceptable smoothness.

My main concern is that with the 780Ti you wont be able to achieve a frame rate of anywhere close to 60 at that resolution so will be trading smoothness anyway. It really comes down to the kind of games you hope to be playing. On non-intensive games I'd say a 780Ti could suffice but for upcoming title it wont have the grunt on its own to chuck out an acceptable frame rate (this is observable in alot of 4k reviews).

On AMD's side I'd go with 280x crossfire (290 would perform much better but you'll have to wait on custom coolers to come out for it to be a practical solution). On NVIDIA's side, given that you can't get the 2x780's I'd guess 2x770's would be a concession but that kind of undermines the recommendation of 2 cards for grunt since they wont perform that much better than the 780ti.

Check out the reviews here and see what best suits your needs since I'm not sure on what games you're looking to play and at what IQ:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/7

That's amazing, you're clearly very well educated on this subject. Now although i'm aware i wouldn't be running 8xAA or anything like that i think for the games i want to play i would be getting around 60 fps (if benchmarks are to be believed) and i'm fine with that, the only reason i'm refraining from going with a more powerful card now is to help future proof my setup. It's easier to get an additional 780ti in about a 6-12 month time than it would be to have to buy 2 entirely new cards that would than be out of my budget if i were to try to get 2 that were equivalent in performance to the SLI-780ti. So with that in mind would you suggest i get the 290x or the 780ti?

 

[llkashll]

Crossfire has been drastically improved since AMD instituted frame pacing although it is still slightly inferior to SLI.

Have you looked into the 290x and 290? They scale better at high resolutions than the 780ti and realistically the performance of the 780ti isn't nearly enough to justify its pricing (in my opinion at least). Nor will the 780ti be powerful enough to render games at a decent IQ at that resolution on its own, a SLI/Crossfire solution is probably the most practical (the higher frame time variances aka microstutter will be much more tolerable than the low framerate of a single GFX solution).

Also, if your 3d modelling software is reliant on OpenCL AMD cards will perform SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

Great, i think you're the one to talk to.
As for the SLI/CF vs Single cards that was my initial impression too, however for my price range (~$750) i felt it would make more sense to get the 780ti instead of the 780 seeing as how i have the cash for it now but not enough cash for a 780-SLI setup. As for the micro-stutter, i'd like to agree, but, at the same time even if you're running 120+ fps if your frame variation is high enough that it's causing you to "jitter" around the map then it doesn't make any sense either :/ and unfortunately that's what i've been seeing from AMD lately :/, do you have any recommendations for a multi-card setup on Nvidia's side?

Toms did an observational study on frame pacing if im not mistaken and despite it being in beta it almost tied with NVIDIA in terms of perceptable smoothness.

My main concern is that with the 780Ti you wont be able to achieve a frame rate of anywhere close to 60 at that resolution so will be trading smoothness anyway. It really comes down to the kind of games you hope to be playing. On non-intensive games I'd say a 780Ti could suffice but for upcoming title it wont have the grunt on its own to chuck out an acceptable frame rate (this is observable in alot of 4k reviews).

On AMD's side I'd go with 280x crossfire (290 would perform much better but you'll have to wait on custom coolers to come out for it to be a practical solution). On NVIDIA's side, given that you can't get the 2x780's I'd guess 2x770's would be a concession but that kind of undermines the recommendation of 2 cards for grunt since they wont perform that much better than the 780ti.

Check out the reviews here and see what best suits your needs since I'm not sure on what games you're looking to play and at what IQ:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/7

That's amazing, you're clearly very well educated on this subject. Now although i'm aware i wouldn't be running 8xAA or anything like that i think for the games i want to play i would be getting around 60 fps (if benchmarks are to be believed) and i'm fine with that, the only reason i'm refraining from going with a more powerful card now is to help future proof my setup. It's easier to get an additional 780ti in about a 6-12 month time than it would be to have to buy 2 entirely new cards that would than be out of my budget if i were to try to get 2 that were equivalent in performance to the SLI-780ti. So with that in mind would you suggest i get the 290x or the 780ti?

Alright that's a pretty big question.

If i were to recommend the 290x it would have to be on the condition that you would either be able to wait on custom cooled cards to come out or install a customer cooler yourself. Its hard to recommend it for anyone who will be sticking with the inadequate reference cooler especially when they're looking to crossfire down the road. (Reference cooler is very loud and even then provides inadequate cooling).

If you're going to go with the 780Ti, its important that you overclock it since really, at stock its not THAT much better than the 290x at purchase. Overclocked its an absolute beast. (see here if you want http://youtu.be/m1JOhT015ww?t=8m39s)

It then gets more complicated though since in deciding between AMD v NVIDIA you have to think about the proprietary tech they offer:

NVIDIA: GSYNC, Shadow Play, Physx and CUDA
-Given that you already have a multimonitor setup GSYNC isn't for you since you'd have to repurchase all those monitors.
-Shadow Play is a recording feature and useful if you stream games
-Physx is nice but barely supported: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

AMD: Mantle, FAR stronger OpenCL performance
-Mantle is a new API that has the potential to drastically increase performance on supporting titles and carry over console optimisations (better ports for AMD). Nobody knows its performance but AMD will be demo'ing it within a few days so I'd wait on that before deciding.
-OpenCL performance is self explanatory, I guess it depends on whether your modelling software uses it.

If Mantle comes out looking good, I'd say AMD is the more future proofed solution, if not than I would recommend the GTX780ti especially against a reference cooled 290x.

 

[ZippyPinhead]

If the OP's budget is around $750, Id be looking at the 290's in crossfire, 2 of those regardless of where the running frequency lays due to the reference cooling will be plenty for what the OP wants to do at that resolution and have no issues locking in on 60fps with nice high settings and be superior to a single GTX 780 ti etc...............I mean with a pair of 290's your looking a 5000 stream processors, dual cores, 8 gigs of ddr5 memory on 512bit buss...........no brainer. After a few more driver revisions these cards will really be screaming........I mean a single 290 already beats out a GTX 780 and Titan on some games as it is......but 2 of them? Good driver support will make sure that the superior hardware performs better. No question for the cost of one GTX 780 ti, you can basically pick up a pair of 290's...........again no brainer.

 

[llkashll]

"It's easier to get an additional 780ti in about a 6-12 month time than it would be to have to buy 2 entirely new cards that would than be out of my budget if i were to try to get 2 that were equivalent in performance to the SLI-780ti."

OP wants to future proof the dual GPU's as long as possible though, 290cfx is a more compelling solution price wise than a 290x cfx but then that doesn't factor in that thee GTX780 Ti is very near 20% faster as a single solution than thee 290x/290. Not to mention its a much more power efficient card during idle in multi-monitor setups.

 

[iGrindlay]

Alright that's a pretty big question.

If i were to recommend the 290x it would have to be on the condition that you would either be able to wait on custom cooled cards to come out or install a customer cooler yourself. Its hard to recommend it for anyone who will be sticking with the inadequate reference cooler especially when they're looking to crossfire down the road. (Reference cooler is very loud and even then provides inadequate cooling).

If you're going to go with the 780Ti, its important that you overclock it since really, at stock its not THAT much better than the 290x at purchase. Overclocked its an absolute beast. (see here if you want http://youtu.be/m1JOhT015ww?t=8m39s)

It then gets more complicated though since in deciding between AMD v NVIDIA you have to think about the proprietary tech they offer:

NVIDIA: GSYNC, Shadow Play, Physx and CUDA
-Given that you already have a multimonitor setup GSYNC isn't for you since you'd have to repurchase all those monitors.
-Shadow Play is a recording feature and useful if you stream games
-Physx is nice but barely supported: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

AMD: Mantle, FAR stronger OpenCL performance
-Mantle is a new API that has the potential to drastically increase performance on supporting titles and carry over console optimisations (better ports for AMD). Nobody knows its performance but AMD will be demo'ing it within a few days so I'd wait on that before deciding.
-OpenCL performance is self explanatory, I guess it depends on whether your modelling software uses it.

If Mantle comes out looking good, I'd say AMD is the more future proofed solution, if not than I would recommend the GTX780ti especially against a reference cooled 290x.

At this point i'm in love with you, you've given me an insightful answer to nearly every question i've asked, thanks. As for waiting a few days i'm completely fine with that seeing as how i don't plan to buy my build for about another two or three weeks. It was a pleasure hearing what you had to say and I hope our paths cross again, you are hands down an inspiration and i can't say thank you enough.
-Grindlay

 

[lmaonade200]

be sure to give him a best solution for his work

 

[llkashll]

No problems, all the best with choosing your card

be sure to give him a best solution for his work

Thankyou

 

[ZippyPinhead]

"It's easier to get an additional 780ti in about a 6-12 month time than it would be to have to buy 2 entirely new cards that would than be out of my budget if i were to try to get 2 that were equivalent in performance to the SLI-780ti."

OP wants to future proof the dual GPU's as long as possible though, 290cfx is a more compelling solution price wise than a 290x cfx but then that doesn't factor in that thee GTX780 Ti is very near 20% faster as a single solution than thee 290x/290. Not to mention its a much more power efficient card during idle in multi-monitor setups.

The thing is, in reality, he can get "780 ti" SLI performance right now for basically the cost of a single 780 ti with a pair of 290's. Why wait 6 months to a year for a marginal price drop?

There is ALWAYS going to be something better and faster "just around the corner", the game of upgrading will never end. So why wait for performance that you can in reality have now?

Bang for the buck/absolute performance in the $7-800 range you really just can't beat a pair of 290's. It is what it is.

 

[iGrindlay]

No problems, all the best with choosing your card

be sure to give him a best solution for his work

Thankyou

Really want to, anyone know how to change a poll to a question so i can give it to him he totally deserves it!

 

[llkashll]

290 cfx is still inferior solution to 780ti crossfire, it competes well against 290x cfx so long as its overclocked but that relies on OP wanting to install a custom cooler since many reviews have demonstrated significant thermal throttling on the r9 2xx crossfire setups. Given that crossfire is limited by the lowest clock average performance is going to be diminished over what he would see with a stock gtx 780ti crossfire.

Also given OP would rather a single card upgrade over a dual card repurchase it leaves the 780ti as best suited to his purposes.

I definitely see your point and I would be tempted for a r9 290 cfx setup for the value, but it largely comes down to OP's choice of NVIDIA v ATI.

 

[llkashll]

No problems, all the best with choosing your card

be sure to give him a best solution for his work

Thankyou

Really want to, anyone know how to change a poll to a question so i can give it to him he totally deserves it!

I don't think you can, don't worry about it, the thankyou is more than enough

Also OP, as Zippy has been saying, if NVIDIA doesn't come out on top and you're thinking about AMD, definitely go with the 290cfx and save yourself the money. There will be a slight performance cost, but the savings are worth it.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

crossfire has reported nearly 50% dropped frames and graphical corruption (mixed up frames) in crossfire + eyefinity. there is no fix for this. so that rules out crossfire.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Dissected-Full-Details-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Test-3

290x has 4gb vram which will be an advantage over the 780.

 

[ZippyPinhead]

290 cfx is still inferior solution to 780ti crossfire, it competes well against 290x cfx so long as its overclocked but that relies on OP wanting to install a custom cooler since many reviews have demonstrated significant thermal throttling on the r9 2xx crossfire setups. Given that crossfire is limited by the lowest clock average performance is going to be diminished over what he would see with a stock gtx 780ti crossfire.

Also given OP would rather a single card upgrade over a dual card repurchase it leaves the 780ti as best suited to his purposes.

I definitely see your point and I would be tempted for a r9 290 cfx setup for the value, but it largely comes down to OP's choice of NVIDIA v ATI.

290 cfx is not cut and dry inferior to 780 ti SLI...........its all program dependent. Some games and programs run better on AMD platform, some run better with Nvidia. And in reality benchmarking is hair splitting and many times does not even translate to real world PERCIEVED performance.

For example. I can run SC2 HOTS on my AMD based laptop(2 6990m AMD cards in Xfire)and rip out about 80-90 FPS with all settings maxed out. I can go over to my friends house and play the same game........on his Nvidia based laptop with a GTX 675MX he gets about 50-60fps.

Being able to tell the difference between em.............very hard, even when playing side by side.........even though I have about a 50% performance advantage over him.

Benchmark performance #'s and what we perceive in real world are 2 different things. Benchamrking tends to artificially inflate what we actually perceive. Many times that big performance boost translates into 0!

Again, the R9 290 and 290x in many games and apps outperform the Nvidia 780/ 780 ti / titan. It all depends on the game/application being run. There is no clear cut winner, and many times the benchmark winner isn't really a winner at all when it comes right down to it.

Which is why I think the OP would serve himself best going with a pair of 290's now for the money.........no point waiting.........and waiting.........and waiting.........and then spending ALOT more money for no REAL WORLD appreciable difference in many cases. These are all SAME GEN cards which all have similar performance capabilities. So get the best bang for the buck now and ENJOY! =D

2 years ago I got my current laptop with my xfire 6990m cards. Paid a good price for it...........have been playing SC 2 now for 2 years maxed out with all the eye candy having a blast. My friend decided to wait an extra year before upgrading his laptop, and stuck it out playing a lower resolution with low quality effects to keep it playable, he hated it, but he waited. He ended up paying more for his single card solution waiting on all the hype and promise...........which never really materialized he found........he plays with all the eye candy now and at native 1080p resolution, but still doesn't get anywhere near the hyped performance he expected in benchmarks and on some games in real play. Yet he wasted a years worth of his time and life patiently waiting for the next big gpu generation and now wishes he never did wait and picked up what I did WHEN I did.

Something to ponder for all.

Im not part of the AMD camp or the Nvidia camp, I am part of the best bang for the buck NOW camp. And in reality its the camp that ALWAYS WINS. =D

 

[iGrindlay]

290 cfx is still inferior solution to 780ti crossfire, it competes well against 290x cfx so long as its overclocked but that relies on OP wanting to install a custom cooler since many reviews have demonstrated significant thermal throttling on the r9 2xx crossfire setups. Given that crossfire is limited by the lowest clock average performance is going to be diminished over what he would see with a stock gtx 780ti crossfire.

Also given OP would rather a single card upgrade over a dual card repurchase it leaves the 780ti as best suited to his purposes.

I definitely see your point and I would be tempted for a r9 290 cfx setup for the value, but it largely comes down to OP's choice of NVIDIA v ATI.

290 cfx is not cut and dry inferior to 780 ti SLI...........its all program dependent. Some games and programs run better on AMD platform, some run better with Nvidia. And in reality benchmarking is hair splitting and many times does not even translate to real world PERCIEVED performance.

For example. I can run SC2 HOTS on my AMD based laptop(2 6990m AMD cards in Xfire)and rip out about 80-90 FPS with all settings maxed out. I can go over to my friends house and play the same game........on his Nvidia based laptop with a GTX 675MX he gets about 50-60fps.

Being able to tell the difference between em.............very hard, even when playing side by side.........even though I have about a 50% performance advantage over him.

Benchmark performance #'s and what we perceive in real world are 2 different things. Benchamrking tends to artificially inflate what we actually perceive. Many times that big performance boost translates into 0!

Again, the R9 290 and 290x in many games and apps outperform the Nvidia 780/ 780 ti / titan. It all depends on the game/application being run. There is no clear cut winner, and many times the benchmark winner isn't really a winner at all when it comes right down to it.

Which is why I think the OP would serve himself best going with a pair of 290's now for the money.........no point waiting.........and waiting.........and waiting.........and then spending ALOT more money for no REAL WORLD appreciable difference in many cases. These are all SAME GEN cards which all have similar performance capabilities. So get the best bang for the buck now and ENJOY! =D

2 years ago I got my current laptop with my xfire 6990m cards. Paid a good price for it...........have been playing SC 2 now for 2 years maxed out with all the eye candy having a blast. My friend decided to wait an extra year before upgrading his laptop, and stuck it out playing a lower resolution with low quality effects to keep it playable, he hated it, but he waited. He ended up paying more for his single card solution waiting on all the hype and promise...........which never really materialized he found........he plays with all the eye candy now and at native 1080p resolution, but still doesn't get anywhere near the hyped performance he expected in benchmarks and on some games in real play. Yet he wasted a years worth of his time and life patiently waiting for the next big gpu generation and now wishes he never did wait and picked up what I did WHEN I did.

Something to ponder for all.

Im not part of the AMD camp or the Nvidia camp, I am part of the best bang for the buck NOW camp. And in reality its the camp that ALWAYS WINS. =D

Not to use your own words against you, but, you're absolutely right about benchmarks not always displaying perceived performance... and that's where i'm weary of AMD right now :/ i'm not bias towards either brand seeing as how i've never personally selected one or the other and certainly haven't experience their higher tier cards yet so i can't have an opinion, But! as it looks now AMD's micro-stuttering is out of control despite their FPS being equivalent to that of Nvidia.

Also as a side note, the R9 and R7 series from AMD seem to be running incredibly hot on their reference cards, that's not to say that that after market cards wont fix this problem but while it's still relevant it's note worthy. The reason that i foresee this as a problem for myself is because I expect to OC my card(s) and the 13 degree difference can really have an impact on the ability to do so (on amd's side that is) so i'm also taking that into consideration :/.

 

[llkashll]

The thing is though, you're talking about there being no perceptible difference between 60fps and 90fps, thats VERY different to the difference between 30fps and 60fps that OP has to worry about considering his resolution. Everyone acknowledges 60fps to be the rate at which differences are visually imperceptible especially considering most monitors only have a refresh rate of 60 hertz so effectively can only deliver 60 frames visually. In other words in your laptop comparison, both laptops are only outputting 60fps (even though one is processing more frames than the other) since the monitor is delivering a maximum of 60 frames causing both to perform identically.

Most benchmarks are conducted within real world games now to solve that problem, it is true that most have scenes chosen specifically to be the most GPU intensive to ensure that GPU performance is consistent and a real indicator. In a game like cryisis 3 for example you dont want to run a CPU benchmark by just moving through an environment, you want a scene with many AI computations and physics to effectively determine the worst case scenario gameplay and whether a certain component will suffice.

Also, the GTX 780Ti benchmarks you are referring to are only at stock clocks, the core is easily capable of going >1150mhz from the limited 875mhz it ships at. Most benchmarks grossly understate its power On its own it will be quite a competent solution until OP decides to pair it up in SLI

 

[ZippyPinhead]

crossfire has reported nearly 50% dropped frames and graphical corruption (mixed up frames) in crossfire + eyefinity. there is no fix for this. so that rules out crossfire.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Dissected-Full-Details-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Test-3

290x has 4gb vram which will be an advantage over the 780.

The vast MAJORITY of the screen artifacts come not from the video cards themselves, but from flawed display technology. In other words fixed progressive scan LCD panels.

LCD panels for the most part SUCK. That's why I use an Asus(BenQ) 144hz 24" display. Gets rid of most of the artifacts........especially tearing.

The best monitors made........are now a thing of the past. CRT's. Multisync(resolution adaptable) displays capable of very high refresh rates. Problem obviously is that they are big and bulky and heavy and very expensive to produce.

 

[ZippyPinhead]

290 cfx is still inferior solution to 780ti crossfire, it competes well against 290x cfx so long as its overclocked but that relies on OP wanting to install a custom cooler since many reviews have demonstrated significant thermal throttling on the r9 2xx crossfire setups. Given that crossfire is limited by the lowest clock average performance is going to be diminished over what he would see with a stock gtx 780ti crossfire.

Also given OP would rather a single card upgrade over a dual card repurchase it leaves the 780ti as best suited to his purposes.

I definitely see your point and I would be tempted for a r9 290 cfx setup for the value, but it largely comes down to OP's choice of NVIDIA v ATI.

290 cfx is not cut and dry inferior to 780 ti SLI...........its all program dependent. Some games and programs run better on AMD platform, some run better with Nvidia. And in reality benchmarking is hair splitting and many times does not even translate to real world PERCIEVED performance.

For example. I can run SC2 HOTS on my AMD based laptop(2 6990m AMD cards in Xfire)and rip out about 80-90 FPS with all settings maxed out. I can go over to my friends house and play the same game........on his Nvidia based laptop with a GTX 675MX he gets about 50-60fps.

Being able to tell the difference between em.............very hard, even when playing side by side.........even though I have about a 50% performance advantage over him.

Benchmark performance #'s and what we perceive in real world are 2 different things. Benchamrking tends to artificially inflate what we actually perceive. Many times that big performance boost translates into 0!

Again, the R9 290 and 290x in many games and apps outperform the Nvidia 780/ 780 ti / titan. It all depends on the game/application being run. There is no clear cut winner, and many times the benchmark winner isn't really a winner at all when it comes right down to it.

Which is why I think the OP would serve himself best going with a pair of 290's now for the money.........no point waiting.........and waiting.........and waiting.........and then spending ALOT more money for no REAL WORLD appreciable difference in many cases. These are all SAME GEN cards which all have similar performance capabilities. So get the best bang for the buck now and ENJOY! =D

2 years ago I got my current laptop with my xfire 6990m cards. Paid a good price for it...........have been playing SC 2 now for 2 years maxed out with all the eye candy having a blast. My friend decided to wait an extra year before upgrading his laptop, and stuck it out playing a lower resolution with low quality effects to keep it playable, he hated it, but he waited. He ended up paying more for his single card solution waiting on all the hype and promise...........which never really materialized he found........he plays with all the eye candy now and at native 1080p resolution, but still doesn't get anywhere near the hyped performance he expected in benchmarks and on some games in real play. Yet he wasted a years worth of his time and life patiently waiting for the next big gpu generation and now wishes he never did wait and picked up what I did WHEN I did.

Something to ponder for all.

Im not part of the AMD camp or the Nvidia camp, I am part of the best bang for the buck NOW camp. And in reality its the camp that ALWAYS WINS. =D

Not to use your own words against you, but, you're absolutely right about benchmarks not always displaying perceived performance... and that's where i'm weary of AMD right now :/ i'm not bias towards either brand seeing as how i've never personally selected one or the other and certainly haven't experience their higher tier cards yet so i can't have an opinion, But! as it looks now AMD's micro-stuttering is out of control despite their FPS being equivalent to that of Nvidia.

Also as a side note, the R9 and R7 series from AMD seem to be running incredibly hot on their reference cards, that's not to say that that after market cards wont fix this problem but while it's still relevant it's note worthy. The reason that i foresee this as a problem for myself is because I expect to OC my card(s) and the 13 degree difference can really have an impact on the ability to do so (on amd's side that is) so i'm also taking that into consideration :/.

Its all part of a fun discussion. Impossible to use words against me, they are to be taken for best intentions. Getting the card solution that works best FOR YOU is the intended goal.

AMD's micro stuttering I think is more a problem of peripheral hardware and limitations and less software drivers than some may realize. But taking this into consideration along with the heat issue you bring up, then maybe an Nvidia solution is better for you. I would still highly recommend SLI though over single card solution in terms of performance per dollar. A pair of 4gig 770's can be had for about the same price as a single 780 ti and will offer better performance, especially for a multi monitor setup.