I think the R9 290X doom was premature.

[vivster]

Captain_Tom said:

vivster said:
I don't get what all that 4k is all about. Neither 290X nor 980 are powerfull enough to properly run games in 4K. Maybe if you reduce the details to nothing. The successors won't fair much better. Current gen GPUs can barely handle 1080p for current games on ultra and proper AA. Until single GPUs are properly beefed up 4K will be for dual GPUs only. And if you're going dual GPU, the vendor or price doesn't really matter anyway.

AMD petty much had and will probably always have the edge when it comes to price/performance and fast memory speeds. Until Nvidia realizes that you actually need high memory bandwidth for high resolutions.

I will look forward to the 390X vs 980ti duel.

1) LOL current gen GPU's can more than just "handle" 1080p.  My 3 year old 7970 can handle BL2 ar 120 FPS (Absolutily no drops) with x8 Supersampling enabled.  No this is not a hard to run game, but my 7970 can also max out litterally every game I have ever played in 1080p (Including Crysis 3).  At this point even $180 cards are maxing out 1080p with a little overclocking.

2) It is not at all impossible to run games in 4K on one GPU either.  Anything as strong as a 7970/780 or better can easily power though without AA and at medium settings.  However half the time they can handle Ultra too, because some games like Skyrim, Titanfall, and Borderlands aren't too hard to run.

3) I am looking forward to the duel as well!  However I think it is gonna be more of a bloodbath than a fight.  All rumors point to the 390X being about twice as strong as the 290X.  Goodluck catching that on 28nm.

Maybe I have to elaborate a bit. With "current games" I mean actual current games from this gen which utilize the latest graphics technologies. BL2 might just be one of the least taxing game of last gen. I know this because I can run it with my 680 perfectly and the 680 wasn't even high end when it launched.

And with "handling" I mean highest settings at 60fps minimum, not average. And not just cherry picked game but pretty much every game except the most badly coded ones.

A little example from my most trusted PC blog which just tested the 980. It's in German but you will get the gist from the diagrams.

http://www.computerbase.de/2014-09/geforce-gtx-980-970-test-sli-nvidia/7/#diagramm-tomb-raider-1920-1080

This is not what I would call handling well. And remember, what you are seeing are average FPS, which means the game will dip even lower than that.

As long as single GPUs stay that weak, there is not much reason to even go 4k. And if you don't think high end cards can be maxed out at 1080p, try downsampling.