R9 290 or GTX780 ??

[blackened23]

AMD pays to have the MKT centered in one place in the frontpage, I wonder who takes care for the rest of the site (including this forum)? :think:

I seem to remember one marketer being banned from this forum for spreading false benchmarks for his new AMD GPU. Recently. So I guess the answer is AMD is taking care of both? Apparently.

But this is off topic. Let's not discuss this shall we? My main point was this: The 780 has proven to be an excellent overclocker. Time and time again. On air, on water, etc. The 290X? It does scale very well. It OC's decently. But I haven't seen anything mind blowing yet. That could be, and probably is due to the lack of aftermarket 290X cards. Although the 290X DC II didn't overclock all too well either.

We'll see when more aftermarket 290X cards hit the market. The GK110 does have the advantage of having more aftermarket cards available. Just to be clear here, though: I'm not saying the 290 / 290X aftermarket cards are bad. If they are at MSRP, they are great purchases. My question has to do with the overclocking headroom of the 290X versus the overclocking headroom of the GTX 780. IMO, the 780 has been proven by many many websites. Many aftermarket 780 cards as i've mentioned have hit 15-20% faster than Titan speeds *without* BIOS modifications. With only a measly +38mV of additional voltage.

The 290X isn't proven yet in terms of OC'ing (IMO), but also doesn't have tons of aftermarket cards out. That doesn't mean the 290X is a bad card. As far as i'm concerned, the aftermarket cards are great so long as 1) The price is at MSRP and 2) The reference issues are fixed. Which they are with aftermarket cards. I personally think the reference cards should be avoided like the plague, but the aftermarket cards fix all of the issues associated with reference. So they're great as long as the price is MSRP, as mentioned.

 

[Stingercjc]

Figured I'd chime in as a 780 owner (EVGA Classified). I ended up going with the 780 due to the price hikes on the 290 and I couldn't be happier. My card overclocks to 1.3 with a small voltage bump and the RAM hits 7200Mhz.

It does all this while remaining quite cool. I'm confident I could go higher, but I don't see why I'd even bother other than to just see how high I can go.

Now when the 290 drops back down to 400, the 780 becomes a much harder sell no doubt.

 

[Gloomy]

I seem to remember one marketer being banned from this forum for spreading false benchmarks for his new AMD GPU. Recently. So I guess the answer is AMD is taking care of both? Apparently.

Wait, I missed that. Care to clue me in? I love a good drama

 

[sushiwarrior]

AMD has a stealth marketing campaign giving free stuff to "respected" "influencers" who spam forums, Facebook, and Twitter full of pro-AMD stuff, so actually, AMD pays for both. That's not including employees and AMD affiliates (e.g., subcontractors, AIB partners) who do not often identify themselves. I wish I were joking.

I'll really level with you here, AMD has no "stealth marketing campaign", they have a program to give bloggers free stuff to review (which they pretty much always mention when they post said review) but that's pretty similar to like, every hardware company ever. I don't identify myself not because I have some kind of ulterior motive, but just because I can't share hints with anyone if I have my info advertised to the world.... nobody is pulling at any strings, I'm just a guy doing what I feel like doing.

 

[blackened23]

I'll really level with you here, AMD has no "stealth marketing campaign", they have a program to give bloggers free stuff to review (which they pretty much always mention when they post said review) but that's pretty similar to like, every hardware company ever. I don't identify myself not because I have some kind of ulterior motive, but just because I can't share hints with anyone if I have my info advertised to the world.... nobody is pulling at any strings, I'm just a guy doing what I feel like doing.

So just to be clear here. You're affiliated with AMD? That's good to know. You should put that in your sig, maybe people will take that fact into consideration when they see anything you post. I'll also disagree with you about the stealth marketing campaign. If you have posters here pushing AMD cards without identifying themselves. Guess what. Stealth marketing. The guy that was banned, Durvelle27, did not initially identify himself and was found to post false benchmarks of his 290X which was given to him by AMD.

Quick side note - I used to think that guys like that were just fanboys. Live or die for "insert brand here". Turns out that there really are a contingent of posters with nefarious intentions trying to push sales of GPUs. I was wrong in my initial assumption that this was all fanboy nonsense. *MOST* of it is fanboy nonsense. But some of it? Marketing.

In his case, did he have ulterior motives? Yes. Stealth marketing? Yes. He did not identify his affiliation until he was confronted for lying. Stealth marketing. He tried to manipulate opinions in favor of AMD without being forthright about his affiliation to AMD. When he was discovered to be a liar, he then admitted to being affiliated with AMD.

If that is the case, if you are affiliated with AMD marketing, you do have ulterior motives, period. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that in a BAD way or as any type of personal attack. It's fine. This is not meant in any way to be an attack against you. I'm just saying, look at this way....... if I worked for Ford Motor company, I would do the same thing - I would be in favor of my employer. I would never post anything positive about Chevrolet. The Corvette? Junk! Anyway, this theoretical situation would be FINE as long as I DISCLOSE that fact. If I do not disclose such a fact and post nonsense about Ford Motors across the internet, then that is stealth marketing.

I'm sorry for this being off topic, but I felt like this had to be stated. I won't post anything else on the subject, as it is not relevant to the discussion at hand. /tangent.

 

[rtsurfer]

The only thing that happened was an R290x at 1200MHz failed to beat a 1300MHz 780.

So between the shilling and member call outs of bias there is a discussion going on about what is a fair clock speed for comparison between Hawaii which doesn't clock as well as Kepler.

Yes, about that.

I remember the guy with 1200Mhz on his 290X being labelled as having a golden sample.

Where according to you will the Hawaii GPU OC on Avg.

Because I think Z15CAM was also able to get 1175 on his 290X on stock cooler.

I think 1200 Mhz is realistic for Hawaii.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Now when the 290 drops back down to 400, the 780 becomes a much harder sell no doubt.

Which is where I am as well.

$500 vs $400 or $550 vs $450 is a harder sell for the 780, you specifically need to value the Nvidia software ecosystem in order to make that choice in favor of the 780. The 780 imo is faster, once both are overclocked. However it isn't fast enough vs the 290 to justify the price difference based on performance alone.

If you're in the states and can't find a sub $500 290 there is really very little reason to consider it over the 780 right now. If you're outside the states and are seeing the "normal" price difference which should be present than it really comes down to how much value you place on having a slightly faster card and the software and now hardware (G-Sync) that is exclusive to the Nvidia branding. That's a personal choice, and not really one that should be argued on the forum because of it's personal bases.

I went for the 780 while the R290 was still at $400. I did this personally for several reasons. I don't care too much about fps, only what that traditionally meant (smoothly rendered frames). I do care about TXAA and PhysX, I also care about ShadowPlay. And most importantly for me, I care about power usage and noise, if I can get away with running my 780 at 900MHz with 240w total system power consumption on a G-Sync panel, I'll take that any day of the week over 200 fps in a game that supports Mantle with 400w system consumption. The sole objective is a smooth gaming experience, both seem to offer it. Mantle will give you more fps and less cpu bottlenecks, G-Sync removes the need to target high fps. Both have their pros and cons, with Mantle you have limited (currently none) support, and requires devs patch their games to support it. With G-Sync you have to pay extra for the pleasure, but it works with everything.

Yes, about that.

I remember the guy with 1200Mhz on his 290X being labelled as having a golden sample.

Where according to you will the Hawaii GPU OC on Avg.

Because I think Z15CAM was also able to get 1175 on his 290X on stock cooler.

I think 1200 Mhz is realistic for Hawaii.

I think 1200 is in the realm of 1300-1350 for Kepler, and 1250+ is in the realm of 1400+ for Kepler. All possible, just exceedingly rarer the higher you go.

 

[Gloomy]

I paid 400 dollars for my 290, so I'm not allowed to be sour over getting stomped @ OCing. It's in the contract

 

[Spidre]

You do not understand. People are telling you you're biased to the card you have at the moment. Because you need to justify the purchase to yourself, like a moron, as you would have said.

Backwards thinking. People don't throw a dart at a list of graphics cards, buy one, then blindly defend their purchase. They find the card that best meets their performance priorities and then they buy it. People defend the card they have because to them it's the best card for their situation, not because of some brand loyalty.

 

[blackened23]

I paid 400 dollars for my 290, so I'm not allowed to be sour over getting stomped @ OCing. It's in the contract

Look, nobody is stating the 290 and 290X are bad products in aftermarket form. At least, i'm not. I think the aftermarket 290 and 290X cards are excellent since they FIX all of the problems with reference. So long as the price is at MSRP? A 420$ish aftermarket 290 is a hell of a buy.

I have never, ever stated otherwise. I have many grievances with the reference design, but this DOES NOT apply to aftermarket. I think the Tri-X 290, in particular, is a fantastic card. Then there's the other issue with inflated pricing, but that is well documented. I expect that situation to auto correct at some point, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

The point of contention is overclocking headroom of the GK110 vs Hawaii. Lots of differing opinions here of course. think the GK110 is proven in this respect - you're free to disagree. I still want to see more Hawaii data as more 290X aftermarket cards are released. The GK110 does have an advantage in terms of having more aftermarket cards available. I want to see the aftermarket 290X GPU with mind blowing overclocks. Know what i'm saying? The 290X doesn't have as many aftermarket cards as GK110 yet.

 

[el etro]

Like I said, with b1 out 1163 is a joke. That's the out of box boost for GHz.

I'd say 1212 min for new 780s with no mods, 1300+ with skynet; 1.3v is just a AB softmod.

That's not even including top bins like HoF/Classy/Lightning.

The point is that is you two are stating that all GTX 780 cards can go this high overlocking and r9 290 not. The reviewer can make GTX 780 clock 1100-1200(Boost)Mhz and can make R9 290 clock closer to 1100Mhz in same conditions, this is not a big advantage to Nvidia card.

 

[blackened23]

The point is that is you two are stating that all GTX 780 cards can go this high overlocking and r9 290 not. The reviewer can make GTX 780 clock 1100-1200(Boost)Mhz and can make R9 290 clock closer to 1100Mhz in same conditions, this is not a big advantage to Nvidia card.

To be fair, you have to consider the fact that a 1163MHz GTX 780 is pushing way, way past the stock boost of 900MHz. It is also clear that aftermarket 780s do much better than reference in terms of OC'ing. Unless you go above the norm with BIOS mods for reference cards.

Right now the GK110 has an advantage because it has more aftermarket designs available. Right now, I do believe GTX 780 / GK110 is a better overclocker partially because of that fact. Like I said, the GK110 has proven it time and time again on practically every tech review website out there. But that could change once more 290X aftermarket cards arrive - maybe a future 290X will blow our minds with crazy overclocks. Is that fair to state? Or nah?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

The point is that is you two are stating that all GTX 780 cards can go this high overlocking and r9 290 not. The reviewer can make GTX 780 clock 1100-1200(Boost)Mhz and can make R9 290 clock closer to 1100Mhz in same conditions, this is not a big advantage to Nvidia card.

100MHz makes the 780 faster than the 290x, weather it's at 1300 or 1200 it shouldn't matter.

Everyone knew GK104 clocked higher, it was just a fact that Thaiti was faster per clock.

Now it seems they're similar in per clock, but Kepler has retained it's clock speed advantage which was present with Tahiti vs GK104. Hawaii seems to clock slightly lower than Tahiti on average as well, and I'd put Tahiti around 1150 for avg OC.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

@ spidre

yes, many people do, i´m not saying right here and right now,
i actually think the level of irrational fanboyism is rather low and civilized in this tread
i´ve read much worse name calling and desperately defending the own "camp" as if life depended on it before and elsewhere
same thing for intel vs amd
ios vs win vs android
everybody vs apple
it can be amusing to some level, but soon gets tiresome
and many defend the stuff they bought, so thy don´t look the fool

but: performance isn´t everything, especially if it´s pretty equal for both products

that´s were personal like or dislike or even cosideration about looks do matter and tip the balance in one direction

this is still athread about guskline wanting to buy a product suited for his needs
not about: which card is objectively better
there is no real answer to that, not in this case, i suppose

exclusive features have to be considered, only guskline can do so
mantle + strength at high res. + price(though not at the moment) vs physx + easy downsampling + gsync

all of which features in favor of nvidia guskline can cover with his more than adequate 670sli rig

 

[el etro]

Guess what. Stealth marketing. The guy that was banned, Durvelle27, did not initially identify himself and was found to post false benchmarks of his 290X which was given to him by AMD.

The false benchmarks Durvelle has posted were original from another forum(it is called overclock.net i think) and made by a real member that really bought a 290x, that's the story i know. But is better to end this OT discussion...

100MHz makes the 780 faster than the 290x, weather it's at 1300 or 1200 it shouldn't matter.

Is faster in your tests. Not on the tech sites/other users tests.

Everyone knew GK104 clocked higher, it was just a fact that Thaiti was faster per clock.

Now it seems they're similar in per clock, but Kepler has retained it's clock speed advantage which was present with Tahiti vs GK104. Hawaii seems to clock slightly lower than Tahiti on average as well, and I'd put Tahiti around 1150 for avg OC.

Tahiti have sightly higher performance per-clock than GK104. The problem was always that GTX680 can clock higher.
Hawaii not have the same performance per clock than your counterparts(780/Titan). Reviews are showing this(Especially at 2500x1600).

To be fair, you have to consider the fact that a 1163MHz GTX 780 is pushing way, way past the stock boost of 900MHz. It is also clear that aftermarket 780s do much better than reference in terms of OC'ing. Unless you go above the norm with BIOS mods for reference cards.

IMO the reference PCB of GTX 780 is much superior than r9 290 PCB.

 

[OCGuy]

With 780tis showing up for only $649, I cant imagine every recommending a Hawaii card for gaming at current prices.

 

[pauldun170]

All this talk about 780 oc got me to move my little offset slider to the right.
OC to 1250 and ended up getting sucked into Metro Last Light for 45min. No impacts on peak temp or noise. Maybe I'll try a few runs later to see how much it will take with memory oc and voltage boost

This is on EVGA FTW card so I'm guessing it has the newer stepping.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

This is on EVGA FTW card so I'm guessing it has the newer stepping.

Pretty easy to tell, just open gpuz and if your bios starts with 80.80 it's B1.

 

[pauldun170]

Pretty easy to tell, just open gpuz and if your bios starts with 80.80 it's B1.

Yup,
80.80.21.00.80

Base clock 980
Boost clock 1033
Memory 1502

OC at the moment is
Base 1200
Boost 1253


Guess I might as well play with this thing and see what it will do.


edit: Heaven benchmark strongly disagrees with my 1200mhz OC. EVGA OC utility is suggesting I go back to the regular clock until I know what the hell I'm doing

 

[blackened23]

IMO the reference PCB of GTX 780 is much superior than r9 290 PCB.

How so? The 780 reference PCB is 4 power phase with the 290/X PCB being 6. The 780 PCB doesn't have dual BIOS while the 290 PCB does.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Is faster in your tests. Not on the tech sites/other users tests.

I haven't seen a single review of 780 vs R290x OC vs OC where the 780 didn't win.

 

[Elfear]

100MHz makes the 780 faster than the 290x, weather it's at 1300 or 1200 it shouldn't matter.

Everyone knew GK104 clocked higher, it was just a fact that Thaiti was faster per clock.

Now it seems they're similar in per clock, but Kepler has retained it's clock speed advantage which was present with Tahiti vs GK104. Hawaii seems to clock slightly lower than Tahiti on average as well, and I'd put Tahiti around 1150 for avg OC.

Honestly though at 100Mhz higher the difference between the 290 and 780 is indistinguishable. When clocks are the same, the 290 is ~5-6% faster on average according to multiple websites. A 780@1300Mhz is ~6-7% faster than a 780@1200Mhz. So a 290@1200 and a 780@1300 are just a couple percentage points in favor of the 780. Close enough to call it even. Sure some of the binned 780s will hit 1400+ but a few of the 290s hit 1300+ as well (although not using the reference cooler).

With current prices I would go with a Lightning or Classy 780 although the Sapphire Tri-X 290 is a good buy too if it comes back in stock at $499.

 

[24601]

How so? The 780 reference PCB is 4 power phase with the 290/X PCB being 6. The 780 PCB doesn't have dual BIOS while the 290 PCB does.

The reference 780 PCB isn't pushing a chip with a stock voltage of 1.25v-1.30v.
That's the difference.

Reference PCB 780 maxes at 1.21v with skynet with EVGA Classified getting to 1.35v maximum.

From my testing with 1x 290x and 2x 290 at very modest clocks of 1000 core 1500 GDDR5 for two of them and 947 core 1250 GDDR5 on one of them, the system power at the wall is a whopping 1250-1280w.

The card at 947 core 1250 GDDR5 is actually throttling sometimes at +50% Powertune limit, and I had to undervolt it .006v to run it at stock without throttling.

All the cards are running @ 100% fan to keep them from spontaneously combusting.

1250 / 3 = 417w per card.

The 290x has a bios with a 900w powertune limit, so it is probably the one skewing the pull alot.

 

[Elfear]

How so? The 780 reference PCB is 4 power phase with the 290/X PCB being 6. The 780 PCB doesn't have dual BIOS while the 290 PCB does.

Actually the reference 780 has 6+2 power phases and the reference 290 has 5+1. The dual bios on the 290 is nice though.

 

[blackened23]

Actually the reference 780 has 6+2 power phases and the reference 290 has 5+1. The dual bios on the 290 is nice though.

Hmm. Coulda swore it was 4 + something, maybe that was GK104. In any case, I stand corrected. My mistake.