Nvidia 770 vs AMD R9 290 @ 5760x1080

[Flavio]

So the answer for the OP would be something along the lines of what I am doing and that is waiting for the gamma version to come out and then decide which card to go for, for a number of reasons
1) by then the game might be optimised so that an upgrade isn't really needed
2) Newer cards will be out and the upgrade choice appears again so may prefer a newer card rather than one of these
3) Either of these cards (780Ti or R9 290x) should suffice for a long time to come but will be cheaper by then
4) Hopefully you will have saved up a bit extra cash so that price isn't such a big factor

 

[M3SS3NG3R]

I feel that I should chime in and mention that some R9 series of cards (270, 280, 290 and their x variants) have been known to produce artifacts on screen or black out the monitor under heavy load. This seemed to be related to memory modules overheating on the older architecture (270/280) and some bizzare vram stability issues with the GCN card (290).

Here's some experience. My brother has an MSI r280x. He gets artifacts running stock clock speeds (1020/1500). I advised him to adjust fan profile to increase cooling and downclock memory to avoid overheating the vram. With a clock of 1100/1350 he's able to finish valley and play planetside 2 without any artifacts while getting better fps than stock. I personally have a Powercolor 290x at stock speed 1050/1500 and have never gotten any black screen (Hynix memory). I did get some artifacts when I messed with the fan profile aggressively. With a custom partially linear fan profile in MSI afterburner (max fan speed at 70% at 80C) I have not gotten any artifacts for weeks and the performance certainly beats up similarly priced or even some more expensive Nvidia cards senseless. It does get loud with the stock cooler though.

 

[NoirWolf]

I feel that I should chime in and mention that some R9 series of cards (270, 280, 290 and their x variants) have been known to produce artifacts on screen or black out the monitor under heavy load. This seemed to be related to memory modules overheating on the older architecture (270/280) and some bizzare vram stability issues with the GCN card (290).

Here's some experience. My brother has an MSI r280x. He gets artifacts running stock clock speeds (1020/1500). I advised him to adjust fan profile to increase cooling and downclock memory to avoid overheating the vram. With a clock of 1100/1350 he's able to finish valley and play planetside 2 without any artifacts while getting better fps than stock. I personally have a Powercolor 290x at stock speed 1050/1500 and have never gotten any black screen (Hynix memory). I did get some artifacts when I messed with the fan profile aggressively. With a custom partially linear fan profile in MSI afterburner (max fan speed at 70% at 80C) I have not gotten any artifacts for weeks and the performance certainly beats up similarly priced or even some more expensive Nvidia cards senseless. It does get loud with the stock cooler though.

Personally recommend Sapphire if going AMD, yes more expensive but good build quality ( like EVGA is for Nvidia).

Oh and Nvidia GPUs tend to run hotter under load and stock settings.

 

[KING5TON]

I feel that I should chime in and mention that some R9 series of cards (270, 280, 290 and their x variants) have been known to produce artifacts on screen or black out the monitor under heavy load. This seemed to be related to memory modules overheating on the older architecture (270/280) and some bizzare vram stability issues with the GCN card (290).

Here's some experience. My brother has an MSI r280x. He gets artifacts running stock clock speeds (1020/1500). I advised him to adjust fan profile to increase cooling and downclock memory to avoid overheating the vram. With a clock of 1100/1350 he's able to finish valley and play planetside 2 without any artifacts while getting better fps than stock. I personally have a Powercolor 290x at stock speed 1050/1500 and have never gotten any black screen (Hynix memory). I did get some artifacts when I messed with the fan profile aggressively. With a custom partially linear fan profile in MSI afterburner (max fan speed at 70% at 80C) I have not gotten any artifacts for weeks and the performance certainly beats up similarly priced or even some more expensive Nvidia cards senseless. It does get loud with the stock cooler though.

I have a 7970 that is the same as a 280X
I currently run a 1050hz clock speed and have no issues. Stock Volts, Stock Memory clock, stock fan speed.
It's a GIGABYTE WindForce card so I dunno if that matters.
Your anecdotal evidence <> my anecdotal evidence.

GCN cards are all relatively recent AMD cards, not just 290 cards. e.g. a 7870 LE edition card is a GCN card

For every AMD horror story you'll find similar Nvidia ones.
If lots of cards had the same issues you experienced there would be a lot more kerfuffle about it than there is (i.e. yours is the only post about it I've ever seen)

 

[M3SS3NG3R]

For every AMD horror story you'll find similar Nvidia ones.
If lots of cards had the same issues you experienced there would be a lot more kerfuffle about it than there is (i.e. yours is the only post about it I've ever seen)

The only post on the ED forum maybe. There's literally a pile of it on enthusiast sites like overclocker.net. There's even a poll to tabulate which R9 290 memory manufacturers are most suceptible to black screen (it's Elpida). I feel that anybody who's about to throw down $300+ for a video card deserves to at least know about it.

BTW, 7970, while physically the same as a 280x, is clocked differently. 280x has higher clocks overall and has four memory modules not covered by heatsinks. That's why its vram tends to overheat. This is of course, discovered by the multitude of people that have the same problem. My brother had the same problem and downclocking memory worked. Take it as you will.

EDIT: PS: my bad about GCN. I meant all cards with the Hawaii core.

 

[Zallibik]

I've had a Radeon card for last 2 years "7850 OC" never had a single problem... but likewise I've never had a single problem with an NVidia card.. certainly not driver related, that post is just a total joke, there is absolutely nothing wrong with AMD drivers.

I've ordered a 280x awaiting delivery and haven't seen anyone ANYWHERE complain about blacked out screens lol.

Basically the performance will not differ to a massive amount between rival cards of the same level.

but since this thread compared the GTX 770 to a R9 290 ... then the obvious choice would be the R9 290 as it is simply a way better card and should be compared to the GTX 780 not the GTX 770.

 

[Vingtetun]

I jave been watching this thread with interest. . For my own part, I run an older 5770 radeon and the game runs absolutely smoothly, albeit with minor downgrades on the settings. I have an itch to upgrade, but aside from the 'my choice of manufacturer is better than yours', I'm none the wiser. Does it matter? Will my 250 pictures of Her Majesty afford me an 'oooooh' when I see it?

Caveat: happy to upgrade further and replace whatever I waste my money on again in 2015/2016.

 

[Amos]

while I have always been a nvidia man I switch to amd this time I bought a MSI twin frozr r9 270X 4gb, it plays ED on 3 monitors at 60FPS I have an old phenom II 965 and 12gb ram, I purchased the r9 270x because of the vram, I did read multiple thread about vram in important for 3 monitors, my card was £180 from novatech and got 2 free games with it.

 

[KING5TON]

I jave been watching this thread with interest. . For my own part, I run an older 5770 radeon and the game runs absolutely smoothly, albeit with minor downgrades on the settings. I have an itch to upgrade, but aside from the 'my choice of manufacturer is better than yours', I'm none the wiser. Does it matter? Will my 250 pictures of Her Majesty afford me an 'oooooh' when I see it?

Caveat: happy to upgrade further and replace whatever I waste my money on again in 2015/2016.

If you can spring another 25 nicker you could get this. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-017-VX&tool=3
IMO the best card you can pickup around that price, A comparable 780 is £75 odd more expensive.

A 770 or 280x can be picked up for less than 250 and there's not much between them, varies per game. If you like to record playing or may get/have a gsync monitor then Nvidia may be a better option. If you run 3 screens/high resolution then AMD may be the way to go.

 

[Vingtetun]

If you can spring another 25 nicker you could get this. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-017-VX&tool=3
IMO the best card you can pickup around that price, A comparable 780 is £75 odd more expensive.

A 770 or 280x can be picked up for less than 250 and there's not much between them, varies per game. If you like to record playing or may get/have a gsync monitor then Nvidia may be a better option. If you run 3 screens/high resolution then AMD may be the way to go.

Will look into it.... Cheers!

 

[hunvagy]

Will look into it.... Cheers!

I switched from a HD5750 to a Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce, and I'm loving it. Runs E: D like a charm.. well it runs pretty much everything else like a charm xD I'm playing Guild Wars 2 in 1080p with Supersampling on, and it doesn't even flinch.

 

[Pyros]

I have a 7970 that is the same as a 280X
I currently run a 1050hz clock speed and have no issues. Stock Volts, Stock Memory clock, stock fan speed.
It's a GIGABYTE WindForce card so I dunno if that matters.
Your anecdotal evidence <> my anecdotal evidence.

GCN cards are all relatively recent AMD cards, not just 290 cards. e.g. a 7870 LE edition card is a GCN card

For every AMD horror story you'll find similar Nvidia ones.
If lots of cards had the same issues you experienced there would be a lot more kerfuffle about it than there is (i.e. yours is the only post about it I've ever seen)

Speaking of anecdotal evidence, mine is that there are plenty more nVidia owners that have issues with AMD drivers than AMD card owners.

OP: if within the same price range there is no debate that the 290 is superior. But get a custom cooled one (e.g. Windforce).

Disclosure: present owner of a quite overclocked R9 290 with aftermarket hybrid cooler. Past owner of lots of cards from different manufacturers, from Trident Tseng Labs, Sis/S3, Intel, nVidia, ATI... No issues with the last two manufacturers.

 

[Vingtetun]

Damn you all and your advice. I'm poorer again as a result of all your evil suggestions.

<shakes fist out of the screen of the Cobra>

 

[NoirWolf]

Damn you all and your advice. I'm poorer again as a result of all your evil suggestions.

<shakes fist out of the screen of the Cobra>

-targets Cobra from the bridge of his cutter-
Me: XO fire when solution is acquired.
XO: Aye sir, thread fethers locked.
-glances out via the viewscreen to enjoy the fireworks show while sipping on his Earl Grey tea-

 

[brumster]

To the OP, I run Eyefinity on an R9 280X at 5760x1080 and I must say, it's now starting to struggle in the online play when loaded up with players in an asteroid field. Elsewhere, with no lag issues, it's fine. So I would suggest a 290X will be fine, and that any framerate issues are really related to the game code rather than the graphics card (or, dare I utter those dreaded words, n e t c o d e)...

In single player it's absolutely fine, although the frame rate is reported in-game at 30fps it clear is better than that, so not sure whether the reported number is calculated wrong. Visually it's smooth as, 'feels' like 60fps+ to me, not 30.

 

[Vingtetun]

Fidget fidget fidget. The front door doesn't have an f5 button. Like a child at christmas! Will see how the 290 does and let you all know

 

[hunvagy]

To the OP, I run Eyefinity on an R9 280X at 5760x1080 and I must say, it's now starting to struggle in the online play when loaded up with players in an asteroid field. Elsewhere, with no lag issues, it's fine. So I would suggest a 290X will be fine, and that any framerate issues are really related to the game code rather than the graphics card (or, dare I utter those dreaded words, n e t c o d e)...

In single player it's absolutely fine, although the frame rate is reported in-game at 30fps it clear is better than that, so not sure whether the reported number is calculated wrong. Visually it's smooth as, 'feels' like 60fps+ to me, not 30.

Not sure if E: D likes of RadeonPro, but you could use that to get proper FPS results. It's been pretty accurate so far. But as it's an overlay, some games react to it quite rabidly (by crashing). If it works though, I'd recommend it, because you can set refresh rate, force AA, set LOD and the usual fluff.

 

[Vingtetun]

Jaw. Picked. Up. Off. Floor.