Hello everyone, I'm currently deciding between those 2 cards. Now, I am fully aware that the r9 performs better in benchmarks and has higher clock speed / VRAM; the reasons for my hesitation are : 1) I'm not planning to play games on higher resolution than fullHD in the near future 2) I definitely don't plan to play on multiple monitors 3) Currently I have only 60 hz monitor (on fullHD). It is then worth it to invest in r9 ?
Both cards are great at 1080p I think it's down to features and the type of games you play I like physX so went nvidia. PhysX or mantle
The 290 is considerably faster, I'd go for that all things considered. The comparable Nv card would be the 780.
770 is just a slightly oc 680 with 7ghz vram and gpu boost 2.0. It shouldn`t be in the same sentence as a 290, you would have to go to a 780 on nvidia side
Definitely worth it as said above, and will last longer. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1037?vs=1068
If you're going for the R9 290, wait a little bit more as prices are going to be going down. As far as MSI 770 Gaming vs MSI R9 290 Gaming you may see the following. Since the MSI Gaming cooler (2 big fans) was primarily designed for the 700 series, some companies slapped on the same cooler to their AMD counterpart thus the cooler probably wont be as efficient and would run hotter. Things to note, if you stick with nVidia they have better multi-card drivers than AMD, thats a given. The R9 290(x) series while runs faster clock per clock (vs nVidia) does run a little bit hotter, I can tell from experience I am pretty much going from 770 -> 780 -> R9 290 -> back to MSI 770. My bro currently has an MSI 770 and it runs current 1080p games just fine and its super silent, more silent than DC2 cooler and Tri-X cooler. It overclocks well and still runs on the silent side. I currently have an R9 290 Tri-X that I'm selling to my other bro (who has a 6970 lol) but reason why I'm selling it is because at the moment I don't need the power as well as the added heat with only being 10-15% faster than previous gen cards. Some people will buy based on features such as Physx or Mantle and each one has their pros and cons. Some people like AMD, some like nVidia drivers.. its all based on preference at that point. I personally am waiting for next gen so I don't mind going back one and upgrading something else. While that being said prices of the R9 200 series are going down lower than their MSRP and you will see it more come weeks-months. If you're going for an R9 290 I would probably go for a Vapor-X as it has a custom pcb, chokes, vrm, phase, cooler etc.. and runs much cooler than reference based. If the price is good I would go for the R9 290, performance is there. You will see a good 10-15-20% on average frame rate difference and the 290 is usually neck and neck with a 780 (I know I had one ) but a 770 is no slouch. Like I said I personally am going back a step R9 290 -> 770 but like I said I'm waiting for next gen as well as the games I'm currently playing ran pretty fast on 770 when I had one and I had an itch to upgrade to 780 and R9 290 but then realized I didn't really need it. Currently I saw the MSI 770 gaming go for $300, and the MSI R9 290 gaming go for $439 (prices still going down, others @$399 and continuing to go down w/ price slashing).
Nonsense, modern crossfire scales better than SLI. Also, support is up there, if not better than SLI, Crossfire working in some new games SLI isn't. Nvidia users had to wait for drivers to support SLI in Wildstar, it worked with Crossfire for a good while before that, Titanfall is the same story. Not saying either is better, they trade blows when it comes to new game support, with crossfire scaling ridiculously well. I wouldn't get a 2gb 770 now, going SLI in the future would be a bad idea due to 2gb vram. Depends on the OP's budget, if he can't afford the 290, I'd just go with the 280x, slightly faster than the 770 and more vram makes sense if he ever wants to go dual gpu. Also cheaper than the 770, by around £40 in the UK 770 MSI Gaming vs 280x MSI Gaming.
Yeah I think I've seen that from both sides and jumping to so many GPUs I can tell that it will depend on the games and driver support whether dual GPUs will have fast support. OP if you're not going to upgrade frequently I would just go for the faster (more current card) that will still have future support. I'm saying goodbye to this baby lol: Replacing it with this: I guess it will depend on the person but honestly I wasnt too impressed with the R9 290 as well as with AMD drivers, mind you I've had AMD cards for a lonng time now so until next year (waiting for stacked ram) I'm going to be using the 770.. again! lol...
So judging by that mobo you'll be going with 4790k? Should be a nice upgrade over Sandy at same clocks
Actually the Gene VII is my bros, hes going from Gene VI to VII with his 4770K lol, I'm still going to keep my 2600K till maybe next year. Hes trying to get me to buy his Gene VI which is a few months old but I don't see the need at the moment and I would have to get a 4K cpu as well. So maybe sometime next year I'll go for Z1xx or whatever chipset they'll have and a new GPU. The H110 and the 770 are mine so I'm upgrading my H80i as well.
Well I kinda mentioned it on a previous post but pretty much with my current use and games that I play I felt that I didn't need the power of the card. What I had last year was a 7950 and then this year I went to 770 so from there I got to see a good bump and from 770 I went to 780 and saw another good bump in benchmarks but as for the games I played I didn't see that big of a difference so again going from the based on what game you play. For instance say you play a game like SC2 or D3 or a light GPU game, you wont really need a 780Ti or any dual GPU for the matter. I then wanted to see how mantle and if AMD got better with their drivers so I went and got an R9 290 and that in itself is pretty much neck and neck with a 780 both in benchmarks and game performance with one gaining a little over the other on one sided optimized based games. So after a while I came to a realization that the things I need a GPU for isn't for my "current" needs so I'll be most likely doing an overhaul early next year so yes I literally went in circles. 7950 -> 770 -> 780 -> 290 -> 770 all in the span of this year. My bro has the same card (MSI Gaming 770) and he pretty much played the same games and I was highly impressed of the cooler. I personally am a little anal on acoustics so maybe that also is one of the things that turned me off with the previous cards. I went 7950 w/ accelero so I was spoiled with sound as it was nearly dead silent on gaming and overclock. With the 770 DUAL SC ACX it felt like the perfect card 94% ASIC boost to 1254 without touching any setting believe it or not and ram even oc'd to 2000. Seemed like the perfect card but I hated the ACX rattling to the point where I bought a 780...... ACX..... I liked how the cooler was better but the fan was annoying as hell and I didn't want to wait weeks just for an RMA. So after a while I went ahead and made my decision with the 290, it ran fine but wasnt highly impressed of the drivers again, it ran pretty hot (given with the 290 series) and I was going to just give up and keep it and just deal with it. After visiting my bro he told me he sold his 780 classy, pretty much a golden and he went back to a 770 and the games we played were pretty much the same and he showed me the performance and how silent the cooler was even at OC'd. I was a bit impressed at how it could perform that well and still stay cool and he also said he'll just wait till next gen while keeping a card that is good enough for current games. So I decided I would do the same, so pretty much I sold my R9 290 to my other bro who had a 6970 previously, we're slapping on a waterblock and I think it will fair well as it could clock 1200/1500 no problem but just got a little toasty on air after a while (I live in Florida lol). So pretty much I'm upgrading my H80i to H110 and downgrading my 290 to 770. TL;DR: For the current games and uses the 290 is a good card but I wouldnt do it much justice as I lowered my gaming use (as I study for my boards exam) as well as the games I currently play ran just fine on the 770 previously and I just had an itch to upgrade. Saw that it wasn't needed so I went back and focused on changing other things in my rig. So really I downgraded as I'll wait till next year to change CPU, Mobo, GPU and by that time they should have something better. As for OP sorry for posting this long life story lol. Prices of the R9 290(X) are definitely on a downward so the next couple of weeks-months will be a good time to buy as well as if you're like others who have been buying pre-mined gear they sell for cheap on ebay and other online forums, some have gotten $200-300 or even $300 for a 290X, others slap on custom or waterblock and it still runs fine. If you go for a brand new route they're offering more free games again.
I see good explanation and I understand completely your reason now. BTW as I live in Florida too I understand the need for water cooling as my main rig is under water.
You can easily land a 290 on EBay for just $190, the miners are unloading them in droves, and no one is buying them for much more than $240. ...It's a chance, but worth it in most cases IMO.
Nomatter what explanation buying a 770 instead, compare to a 290 is silly. 770 is not only slower its down grade in any sense and not future proof at all. Even if it was a 780 i would go 290 because its still better card and cheaper also. But if you prefer a lesser card go ahead you regret it later.
