Gave up on 290X and got a 780

Guys last night i was testing a 290X from MSI and honestly i gave up. Too much trouble messing around on AB to get the clocks fixed, and still the temps are just too high for my standards. Performance wise the 290X only shines on BF4, the performance on Titanfall and World of Warcraft is terrible.

I returned the 290x to the local store and got a MSI Twin Frozr 780 Gaming OC.

While BF4 is running great just like on the 290X, the performance in Titanfall and World of Warcraft is WAY better. And the temps are extremely lower. Also dont have to fight with the clock throttling that unfortunately the 290X still have.

Just wanted to share my experience. Thanks.

 

My 6970 maxing out both WoW and Titanfall so i don't know how your performance is terrible.

What ever makes you happy m8, enjoy your new card.

 

780 was always better than 290 290X. yes of course on stock 290X performance are a bit better, but reference 780 could oc so high it would ez outperform it. yet 290X at 95c was OK

Good choice, 780 are the best cards out there, oc the crap out of it.

 

I'm not here to flame the 290X, i got a 280X before that card and i was maxing out WoW and Titanfall, just wanted a little more performance, especially on BF4 so i tryed the 290X, and got the problems i listed. Not sure if it's a 290X only related problem, but i did search WoW forums and a LOT of people complain about 290X and WoW. And in Titanfall the performance with the 290X was really disappointing.

Thanks, i will.

 

when u feel good enough to flash bios of ur card say the word. i modified my Zotac bios to disable boost and "unlock" the card to oc it more.

 

Thanks i will think about that, lol. For now i just did a mild OC over the already existing one, card is gaming at 1084 Mhz and the performance is really good, temps also are extremely low.

For now im satisfied, but i will message you when i feel i need some more power.

Thanks!

 

With WoW, I've seen people with 600 and 700 series NVidia cards complain about performance as well. Quite honestly, the graphics engine is just so old that it's becoming more an issue as new cards come out. I had to disable "threaded optimization" for my 660's to get even half decent performance. I was struggling to run WoW on "High" with 2xAA, Sunshafts on low, Shadows on low and AO disabled with a single 660 whereas my 560Ti, 7870 and 7950 could run the game on "Ultra" with no issue. The game is so "hit or miss" that it's ridiculous. The problem isn't really the cards...or the drivers (most of the time).. It's the game itself.

 

Isnt the WoW like really CPU heavy? I don't think it matters what kinda GPU you have...

 

Sounds like a driver issue or OC issue with WoW.

That and its CPU intensive.

Any slight instability in OC will set that game off.

Same with drivers.

But at least you got what you wanted in the end.

 

Sorry to hear the 290 didn't work out for you, but the 780s are also cracking cards, so enjoy

No experience of Titanfall, but if it runs better on Nvidia now, it'll run even better before long, as its getting Gameworks implemented.

 

Really either top end cards are great cards. Can't fault anyone for cooing one over the other.

 

Well, since my processor was the same (3770k), just changed the videocards, i guess CPU load wasnt the issue, since 3770k can handle WoW easily.

That's very strange, cause my 280X was overclocked and WoW was fine. The 290X was stock and WoW performance was really bad (tryed OCing too). As for CPU load, my 3770k can handle WoW easily. In the end i got the 780 that runs all the games i play really well.

Yea, i really wanted to get the 290X working properly, lost like 5 hours last night testing the card, messing around with Afterburner. But in the end i gave up and returned it at a local store for a 780, for now, it's running all the games really well.

 

Dont think, just do it.

 

Titanfall runs on a toaster on max settings so definitely somet weird going on (I run it all maxed out including 8*msaa and its locked at 60fps on a 290)

I've seen my card reach 80c and still not down clock from 1050

Saying that I had huge problems with 2 stock 290x's before I got this msi gaming one so don't blame ya! If I wasn't so fed up with nivida I would of done the same.

 

It depends on the hardware man. If the OC is stable it's stable, if not it's not.

Wow's engine is a easy way to see if that is the case. That is why I said it could be just one possibility. The other likely possibility is drivers.

You might have even gotten a bad card.

 

If set to DX11, it's not as CPU dependent as everyone thinks. Things like Shadows, AO and Sunshafts are GPU dependent. With the presets, "Good" and below are CPU bound whereas "High" and "Ultra" lean more on the graphics card. With a single 660, I couldn't run on the Ultra preset at all.

WoW's graphics engine is insanely sensitive. I actually used it when I was OC'ing my processor.... WoW would crash long before Prime95 or IBT would show an error.

WoW isn't quite as CPU Bound these days, as it was in the past. If you crank up AO, Sunshafts and Shadows, the game becomes GPU bound.

I would venture to say he just got a bad card. But, if he's playing WoW....he's better off with NVidia anyway. WoW is a TWIMTBP title and is heavily optimized for NVidia hardware (contrary to claims made by Blizz tech support).

 

Im happy to see all those answers guys, about the bad card question, i dont think that the 290X i returned was 'bad', cause in BF4 it played flawlessly with everything maxed out. Sadly in WoW and Titanfall the performance was terrible (worst than the 280X i had before). So i THINK those games dont run well on the 290X. Also if you search WoW forums, you will see a lot of posts regarding problems with the 290X and WoW. Anyway, i'm glad i got the 780 and my problems are solved.

 

I just don't understand how a game that work flawless on ancient 6970 dosn't work on your 600 euro AMD flagship card?

What do you consider terrible? Lower than 60fps? Sounds to me you had an driver issues that didnt know or tried to solve...

 

Enjoy your new card. 780s are good cards especially oc them.

 

I did tryed to solve, cleaned up all the drivers, installed again (2 times), as i stated on an early post, i spend about 5 hours testing the 290X. I also tweaked A LOT on Afterburner, tryed on stock, tryed different overclocks. I really wanted to get the 290X working properly, but all i did was wasting my time. Like i sayd, it was running fine on the 280X (WoW). And if you look at Blizzard forums, you will see i'm not the only one talking about 290X issues with WoW. About the fps in WoW, the game was going up and down from 40 to 60 fps, it was choking a lot, in Orgrimmar.

Thanks !