$250 R9 290 Installed :)

[voodoo7817]

I'm super close to pulling the trigger on a Sapphire Tri-X for $225 AMIR and Visa Checkout. Has anyone seen any other Black Friday deals that might be comparable for such a reputable card?

Unless the 960 GTX comes out at $200 in the very near future and matches the 290, it's hard for me to think they'll be a better deal price/performance wise for at least 6+ months.

Edit: Just noticed the Tri-X isn't eligible for the Visa Checkout, so the best deal with the Tiger Direct deal now OOS is the same $250 as OP. Still a great deal, especially considering you get 4 games. I love Civ, so that's a keeper. Not sure about the other 3 games but I think CoH 2 and Shogun 2 are keepers.

 

[raghu78]

I'm super close to pulling the trigger on a Sapphire Tri-X for $225 AMIR and Visa Checkout. Has anyone seen any other Black Friday deals that might be comparable for such a reputable card?

Unless the 960 GTX comes out at $200 in the very near future and matches the 290, it's hard for me to think they'll be a better deal price/performance wise for at least 6+ months.

Already the R9 290 is matching or close behind the GTX 970. The GTX 960 has no chance of matching R9 290. In the latest games both these cards are definitely well matched. Tri-X is one of the best coolers. There is no better deal than R9 290 for bang for buck. :thumbsup:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/928-20/recapitulatif-performances.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/928-8/bruit-temperatures.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7601/sapphire-radeon-r9-290-review-our-first-custom-cooled-290/4

"At 41.1dB the 290 Tri-X OC beats a number of Tahiti based cards, including our 7970GE and Sapphire’s own 280X Toxic, and it even edges out Asus’s impressive 280X DirectCU II. This not only makes Sapphire’s 290 the quietest high-end card we have, but it also means we’re seeing Sapphire dissipate an estimated 250W of heat while only generating a very, very limited amount of noise while doing so. Or to put this another way, Sapphire’s 290 is 16dB quieter than the reference 290, nullifying our earlier noise concerns and then-some."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-8.html

 

[thilanliyan]

Right now is the best time to sell 290s in Canada because prices haven't dropped on 290/290X series. Reference R9 290s are going for $230-250 CDN, which isn't too bad, considering after-market 290 cards are $240-250 USD brand new with 4 games!
http://www.kijiji.ca/b-gta-greater-toronto-area/reference-r9-290/k0l1700272

At the same time if you are gaming at 1440P or below, dual 290s should last you another 1.5 years and then there will be big price drops on 390/390X/980, and so on, right before the Pascal generation in 2016.

Yeah I sold one xfx 290 DD and I have two reference 290s left from the mining days. I think I will keep those two cards as they are water cooled anyway and use them for a couple of years. I'm gaming at 1920 still haha.