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Forums - Gaming Discussion - I think the R9 290X doom was premature.

TheJimbo1234 on 22 October 2014
Captain_Tom said:

So the 980 and 970 came out and everyone acted like the sky was falling.  However I think a few things need to be pointed out:

 

1) The 290 series is around a year old at this point.  They went a full year with no price drops (Which is unheard of).  Of course the 900 series would look good!

-Before you shout "BUT LITECOIN MINING" remember that the $700 780 Ti wasn't exactly putting pressure on AMD to lower prices either lol.

 

2) Further analysis is showing that Maxwell isn't really dominating anything in 4K, which is the market the 290 series is aimed at.  Here is an interesting article that shows 290 CF = 970 SLI for less money:

http://www.techspot.com/review/898-geforce-gtx-970-sli-4k-gaming/

 

3) I don't think we have the full story yet.  At first the 980 seemed to dominate in every game, but more and more games are coming out that prove the 290X does indeed trade blows with the 980 fairly often.  Yes, the 980 uses 30% less energy (In gaming) but it also costs 40% more.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Ryse-PC-259308/Specials/Test-Technik-1138543/

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Sniper-Elite-3-Performance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Middle-earth-Shadow-Mordor-Performance-Testing/4K-Testing-and-Closing-Thought?page=1

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_STRIX_OC/12.html

 

I guess what I am saying is that with the inevitable price-cuts made to the Rx 200 line, AMD is in my opinion still totally competitive with the Nvidia's latest series.  Yes in 1080p the 900 series will always win, but who in their right mind gets an ultra high end GPU for 1080p these days?!  PLEASE keep in mind that I am not trying to prove the 200 series dominance in any way.  I am just saying that it really isn't as bad as most initially thought.

 

P.S.  This is clearly for PC enthusiasts so please keep that in mind before you comment.


Just generic gpu 12 month cycle. Who ever had the most recent launch has the better product. The only issue with the R9 series is it got hijacked by litecoin miners who drove the price up. This meant it only became a decent price come February, thus knocking off a good few months of what it could have achieved. 

Sure, the R9 290 series is now a great bargin for the price, but shit do they get hot. Last night I used mine as a quick heater running Furmark. Because of this, I would recommend the 900 series, especially as they come with new coolers and the size is absurd (mini-itx 970 gpu), but £215 for a R9 290? That is just a steal. 

 

However, the important fact is that all of these gpus are out-stripping the software by miles....unless it is Star Citizen.



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JEMC on 22 October 2014
the-pi-guy said:
JEMC said:

You have a 1024x768 monitor?

If that's the case, forget everything else and first get a 1080p monitor (24" or smaller) and then go for whatever you budget allows you, any R or 7xx series cards can play Skyrim at 1080p at >40fps.

An the 9xx series isn't worth an upgrade for anyone with a 290 or 780 card.

With my other computer.  

Currently I have a 1280x1024 monitor + 1080p Television.  I am thinking about getting a 1080p monitor regardless though.  At the moment I only have intel HD 4600.  

I think I'd get a 750 TI or better, but I was originally looking at a 770 at about the same price as the 970 is now, so it's a remarkable improvement.  

Well, gaming on a panoramic 1080p monitor will greatly improve immersion, as you know comparing your current monitor with your TV.

And even a 750Ti will be a very big improvement, and needed with the bigger resolution.



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.

Badassbab on 22 October 2014

According to Steam the most popular resolution on PC by far is 1920x1080 and 1366x768. In fact the majority of Steam users seem to have pretty weak PCs. The Intel + Nvidia combo seems to be the most popular.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

I had a Sapphire 290 Vapour X for about a week and sent it back for a MSI 970 GTX GE as it was more powerful and cheaper. I was pretty lucky as I got nearly all my money back and got to keep the 3 free games (Gold offer) AMD were giving away with their GPUs. It's my first Nvidia card in ages and I was impressed by how much smaller the 2 fan 970 was compared to the behemoth that was the 3 fan 290.

I concur with those who say such cards are not overkill for 1080p gaming. Graphics are getting more complex due to the current gen consoles and brute forcing your way to ultra settings @ 1080/60 will be more problematic compared to the last few years of last gen console ports.

For those sitting on the fence I'd wait for 6-8GB VRAM cards if you have the patience and want to play at ultra settings.






Vasto on 22 October 2014

I am so tempted but I have to wait and see AMD's next line.

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GDDR5-4GB-2xDVI-Graphics-GV-R929XOC-4GD/dp/B00HS866AK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1414016881&sr=8-3&keywords=Radeon+R290x



torok on 22 October 2014
Captain_Tom said:

The Titan line was a a great way to trick some ethusiastes out of their money and nothing more.  Everyone has figured that out, and Nvidia knows they have.  They have no problem getting rid of it at this point considering how much cheaper Maxwell is to manufacture.

I'll agree that the 970 is somewhat justifiable at 1080p considering its price, but its still kinda silly imo.

P.S. Please drop the whole "driver" montra.  Me and my brother switched from Nvidia to AMD because Nvidia's drivers were so terrible (At least at the time).  Neither company really has worse drivers though on average.

 

Oh, sorry, is that I usually run Linux on my machines too, and the NVidia driver for linux is much better than the AMD one. But even on Windows I saw some AMD issues with specific games, like Wolfenstein. Of course, it's a vendor preference for me and I know a lot of people that will buy only AMD GPUs.



Bet with jetforcejiminy: PS4 will pass the Wii lifetime numbers.

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HollyGamer on 22 October 2014
Captain_Tom said:

So the 980 and 970 came out and everyone acted like the sky was falling.  However I think a few things need to be pointed out:

 

1) The 290 series is around a year old at this point.  They went a full year with no price drops (Which is unheard of).  Of course the 900 series would look good!

-Before you shout "BUT LITECOIN MINING" remember that the $700 780 Ti wasn't exactly putting pressure on AMD to lower prices either lol.

 

2) Further analysis is showing that Maxwell isn't really dominating anything in 4K, which is the market the 290 series is aimed at.  Here is an interesting article that shows 290 CF = 970 SLI for less money:

http://www.techspot.com/review/898-geforce-gtx-970-sli-4k-gaming/

 

3) I don't think we have the full story yet.  At first the 980 seemed to dominate in every game, but more and more games are coming out that prove the 290X does indeed trade blows with the 980 fairly often.  Yes, the 980 uses 30% less energy (In gaming) but it also costs 40% more.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Ryse-PC-259308/Specials/Test-Technik-1138543/

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Sniper-Elite-3-Performance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Middle-earth-Shadow-Mordor-Performance-Testing/4K-Testing-and-Closing-Thought?page=1

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_STRIX_OC/12.html

 

I guess what I am saying is that with the inevitable price-cuts made to the Rx 200 line, AMD is in my opinion still totally competitive with the Nvidia's latest series.  Yes in 1080p the 900 series will always win, but who in their right mind gets an ultra high end GPU for 1080p these days?!  PLEASE keep in mind that I am not trying to prove the 200 series dominance in any way.  I am just saying that it really isn't as bad as most initially thought.

 

P.S.  This is clearly for PC enthusiasts so please keep that in mind before you comment.

I know my question is out of topic, but if i may ask, when  GTX 960M will be release, do we have to wait for GTX 960 to come out first or they will just build the Mobile card from the previous chips?

I am planing to get new Asus ROG NX500 with  GTX 960M, currently they only have GTX 860M for the laptop.



Abaddon on 23 October 2014

I rather xperience good FPS on everything than when I simply "check out" the 4K clarity simply cause noone would buy a high end card to play in unplayable FPS. I didn't know that PC gamers have lower standards than console gamers ( yeah i know its the fanboys crying, just being sarcastic ) nowadays.

I'm avoiding PC gaming for the time being for multiple factors, One that I have no time for it but I know i woldn't settle for low fps just for the shake of going 4K.

PS, I used to be an O.C. and 3DMark junkie...



WagnerPaiva on 23 October 2014

Me too!


(I am a console peasant, so I have no idea what you´re talking about).



My grammar errors are justified by the fact that I am a brazilian living in Brazil. I am also very stupid.

Cobretti2 on 23 October 2014
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:
Captain_Tom said:
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Well... I never said it was a great deal loll... All I said was that for those that just want the best of the best, they will get a 980, even if the price/performance isnt there

And I have had better driver support from Nvidia than amd, specially considering how often Nvidia updates their drivers with new profiles by comparison


I got better driver support from Nvidia.  I know people who will say one way or the other as well.  My point is that clearly there really is no difference.

Well... The thing is, Driver support from Nvidia does "enhance" the experience a bit more than amd does. And what I mean by that is that in some situtions that me and my friends have come across, both having used amd and nvidia cards, having a bit better driver support would have been great for some situtions.

For example, when Crysis 2 came out, it had tons of issues with SLI/Crossfire configurations. The game had tons of graphical glitches and it was virtually unplayable but Nvidia rolled out the lastest profiles faster than amd in which case, the Nvidia users with SLI got to experience the game a lot faster than the amd users did. Another example was when cod ghosts came out, it was poorly optomized as hell but Nvidia's driver updates helped with the issues a lot sooner than amd did.

Now, I am not saying that if the Nvidia card costs like $200 more and its only slightly better than the amd card, you should get it cause of driver support but if the cards are similary priced with similar performance, people should go for the Nvidia card or at least consider the driver support as an option

I had similar experience however I been holding of as this gen is all amd video cards so perhaps devs will start optimising their games better for amd GPUs.

SHRUG LOL. I guess we will find out in due time with next wave of games.



 

 

Cobretti2 on 23 October 2014
Badassbab said:
According to Steam the most popular resolution on PC by far is 1920x1080 and 1366x768. In fact the majority of Steam users seem to have pretty weak PCs. The Intel + Nvidia combo seems to be the most popular.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

I had a Sapphire 290 Vapour X for about a week and sent it back for a MSI 970 GTX GE as it was more powerful and cheaper. I was pretty lucky as I got nearly all my money back and got to keep the 3 free games (Gold offer) AMD were giving away with their GPUs. It's my first Nvidia card in ages and I was impressed by how much smaller the 2 fan 970 was compared to the behemoth that was the 3 fan 290.

I concur with those who say such cards are not overkill for 1080p gaming. Graphics are getting more complex due to the current gen consoles and brute forcing your way to ultra settings @ 1080/60 will be more problematic compared to the last few years of last gen console ports.

For those sitting on the fence I'd wait for 6-8GB VRAM cards if you have the patience and want to play at ultra settings.

This is I wouldnt even rely on those results too much.

Look at how high the laptop GPUs and onbaord GPUs dominating that list.  Most people these day have steam installed on theri gaming PC and on a laptop or regular use PC simply so they can purchase games during the 100 sales steam has each yer lol.