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Started by Doug13 | | 14 answers
Poll single 780 TI vs 290x Lightning vs 2 290 xfire
Which one would you choose for regular 1080p gaming. All will fall into my budget. Planning on playing arma 3 on max.
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a b 4 Gaming
July 27, 2014 8:45:25 AM

Doug13 said:
Alright thanks


No worries. :) 
July 27, 2014 8:41:58 AM

Alright thanks
a b 4 Gaming
July 27, 2014 8:26:47 AM

I think a single Asus or MSI 780 Ti would be the best decision. But it's all up to you. Two 290s would get very hot, loud and consume a lot of power, but it may be worth it for you for the extra performance in games that properly support crossfire. :) 
July 27, 2014 8:20:27 AM

The crossfire is just there I havent decided
July 27, 2014 8:19:03 AM

Hmm Thanks for all the good ideas IF I was to crossfire 2 290s which one should I buy. Also IF I should buy the 780 TI should I go reference or Other cooler? I am not Water cooling.
a c 250 4 Gaming
July 26, 2014 11:57:56 PM

I think that's an individual decision. If I can tell whether my PC is on of off with my ears, that's unacceptable.

Don't see the point in the 2 vs 1 thing, not exactly unique to the 290 ..... two 780 / 770/ 760 / 290 / 280 will rock any single card.....haven't done a dual 270 build yet so can't comment on that one.

Don't understand the "no heat issues" comment .... more heat means more fans and / or more radiators and a hotter room. That extra 70 watts adds almost as much heat to your case as a Haswell CPU (84 watts). Think about the effect of that on your CPU cooler if you don't take extra steps to get rid of it.

a b 4 Gaming
July 26, 2014 11:42:27 PM

Gaidax said:
290 crossfire clearly... not sure how it is even a question really... Getting custom 290s annihilates all the heat and noise issues and they cost very close to stock 290 anyway.


Well that's completely false. As I just said, I had one 290 twin frozr and it was horribly hot and loud. I also build a PC for a friend with a Gigabyte 290 and that is also hot and loud. I stand by what I said, one card is a lot better than 2 in terms of frame latency, heat, noise, power bills, drivers, game compatibility, pretty much everything. AMD seems like the obvious choice until you actually get it in your system, haha. :) 
July 26, 2014 11:30:06 PM

That does not really matter much since 40 dBA I'd pretty standard and good, but two 290s will clearly rock just about any other single card and will easily last 3 years of Ultra gaming at 1080p.

Also no heat issues like that either. And take Tri-X it's basically almost the same cooler just less factory overclock.

Best solution chosen by Alex Kelly

a c 250 4 Gaming
July 26, 2014 11:19:02 PM

The 290s are a very attractive choice from a performance standpoint running neck and neck with the 780s in price / performance ratio .... but they by no means "annihilate" the heat and noise issues.

Two Sapphire's R9 290 Vapor-X rack up 40 dBA (Two cards add 3 dbA to single card)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_290_Vapo...

That is twice as loud as a MSI 780 Ti (30 dbA)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Ti_Gamin...

Two Sapphire's R9 290 Vapor-X will throw 622 watts of heat out into your case / room
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_290_Vapo...

That's almost 3 times as much heat as the MSI 780 Ti
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Ti_Gamin...

That VaporX tho is $440 (same price as MSI 780 last week) ... a very long distance away from the $350 Gigabyte model.

The Saphire 290X and MSI 780 both run 4% better than the stock 780 tho the 7xx series has more OC headroom since the 290x is so aggressively overclocked in the box. But if power and noise are considerations, MSI 780 gets ya only 33 dbA and 552 watts. But both the 780 SLI / 290 CF options leave no room for further upgrades.

n the end, it's likely that one''s choice will come down to factors other than performance:

1. Heat - With 70 extra watts, figure on adding an extra case fan.

2. Power - With 70 extra watts, figure on upping PSU wattage.

3. Features - Mantle versus G-Sync, Shadowplay and PhysX

4. When you buy - For the last 10 weeks or so .... one week MSI 780 / 780 Ti's are $440 / $600 ..... the next week they are $470 / $680 .... R9's bouncing all around as well bit not as consistently up / down / up / down.

5. Sound - That's the biggest one for me and 7 - 10 dbA is huge but fir peeps who play w/ headphones won't matter.

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