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Started by psychostoner | | 8 answers
780 or r9 290 for gaming?
just wanting to know which is better
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July 28, 2014 4:12:53 PM

I bought the Gigabyte R290 you're considering. Major improvement over what I had and really the only issue I have had is keeping it cool! I nicknamed it the space heater...

And price was the deciding factor. My case has some really bad stock cooling for GPU's and I knew I was in for upgrading that part. I spent less on the R290 and the cooling upgrades than I would have for the 780 alone. Since the performance is really close, I feel the R290 is the better deal for me.

Furmark stress test for an hour with 1080i ultra settings - I got an average of 227fps and temps fluctuating from 75C to 80C (still tweaking the fans and cooling, my goal is to keep the card below 75C without any fan hitting 100%)
a b 4 Gaming
July 13, 2014 10:15:27 PM

Yea see thats the difference. With the new AMD R9 290 and R9 290x they use a similar technology to Nvidia's GPU Boost but opposite. They are rated at a clock speed, for example 1000Mhz, and if the heat is too much it pretty much throttles back, but it uses some algarithem to control the throttling.

When these cards came out originally with just the stock coolers they couldn't stay cool enough to maintain their speed high enough. I think this was because they were trying to hide the full performance power of their cards until Nvidia had released the 780 Ti so Nvidia wouldn't push it up any further.
Then they let their partners like Sapphire and Asus make the cards with custom coolers after the 780 Ti was released and the speed of the cards shot up and now don't throttle at all with the right cards. Even manage to be overclocked.

Sapphire's Tri-X OC has proven to be one of the best for this, and its actually one of the cheapest also so its an all around win. In some games the 780 still manages a win so can't say the R9 290 is all out better, but it does manage it in a majority now.
a b 4 Gaming
July 13, 2014 8:55:00 PM

Odd, this site says the exact opposite: http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4954/6/amd-radeon-r9-29... Once the details and quality are turned up, the 780 generally beats the 290. However, these are both stock versions of the cards, but I couldn't find two versions of the same brand to compare.
a b 4 Gaming
July 13, 2014 8:43:56 PM

Swordkd said:
In general, the 780 will out-perform a 290. However, it is quite a bit more expensive so the better deal is, by far, the 290. The performance difference between the two is minimal though, while the price difference is: 380 for an r290 that I'd buy: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr929... while a 780 that I'd get is 460: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/zotac-video-card-zt7020310...


http://www.anandtech.com/show/7601/sapphire-radeon-r9-2...

The R9 290 also out performs the 780 usually.
a b 4 Gaming
July 13, 2014 8:42:38 PM

From what I have seen, the 780 and R9 290 trade places with each other in performance, but the R9 290 is typically faster. Its also cheaper so I would go with it.
July 13, 2014 8:33:46 PM

both are great in there own way. i have a 780 GHZ and it out performs a reference 780ti. haven't had a single issue. i think this one comes down to personal preference vs cost.

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