I'm not saying I expect to play at Ultra for 3 years though. I figure a reasonable expectation is for it to be a high end card now, maybe an upper midrange card in a year, and a midrange or lower midrange card in a couple of years.
Honestly none of the 290/290X/970 will last any longer than each other over 3 years in AAA games. All will become too slow. The only exception would be GE vs. GW titles where we would see a larger discrepancy. Do I think a $320 MSI Lighting R9 290X will have a better resale value than a $350 970? Probably not. So that's not a strong enough factor either. I would say if you want another alternative, it would be to sell a 970 and get a used after-market R9 290 non-X and try to net $80-100 savings in the process (say sell the 970 for $300 and buy a used R9 290 for $200-220). That way when you upgrade to the next GPU in 2-3 years, you'll have $80-100 extra towards the next upgrade. That to me would actually provide you with the most benefit long-term. Again though if you play a lot of GW titles, then a 970 is still a solid card.
Powercolor 290X for $223.99 shipped after $30 MIR and $20 giftcard (new NCIX customers). Smoking deal.
WTF... damn I wish I had good tech deals here in Aus. You guys on NA are spoilt for prices.
Powercolor 290X for $223.99 shipped after $30 MIR and $20 giftcard (new NCIX customers). Smoking deal.
How does this compare to the Tri-X? I'm doing a 180 on video card choice now that the 970 has issues with skyrim and haven't really looked into the 290s much.
How does this compare to the Tri-X? I'm doing a 180 on video card choice now that the 970 has issues with skyrim and haven't really looked into the 290s much.
I'd get a card with 6-8 gigs of RAM and call it a day.
The point is, you can get an 8GB card today for the price less than a single 980 GTX. In 2 years time, 290X 8GB > 980 4GB. No question about that.It isn't the memory there, at 4k for that game it is the raw performance.
@cmdrdredd
Maybe it will be too slow, and maybe it will not. But it's nice to have some extra memory headroom. Especially, if you are planning to use it for non-gaming loads. And it's cheaper than the Nvidia's top card. Even with the extra power consumed, it's still a good deal. These cards are cool running and temps aren't a problem. Naturally, I am surprised, it's not being mentioned here often. Bet, if it were some GTX 980 8GB / Titan 2 12GB, people would have already had it in their sigs. Just goes to show, how some people just don't like AMD anything.
Lol 12GB I would love to see how someone justifies that much vram without doing their own cuda programming or something. I still think people buy based on benchmarks and price.
@cmdrdredd
Since Nvidia is trying to control development of the games now, the performance is going to be more controllable than before, letting the company decide when and how often users will need to change their video cards. Smart. Even Intel can't do that.
@cmdrdredd
Time will tell. Hopefully I am wrong, and that 8GB card is just overpriced AMD crap (over the 4GB model).
/sarcasm.
2) You can slow down and speed up any game with the usage of correct drivers. Nvidia doesn't promise us anything. We take this for granted. The more Nvidia tech is in the games, the easier it is for Nvidia to control. It is clear, Nvidia wants to monopolize the market.
@SteveGrabowski
It's still a good card. Can't blame you. Enjoy.
I didn't say that, but I did allude to my idea that 8GB right now is a total waste and by the time it's meaningful, the card (any card purchased today) will be too slow to really make use of it.
Unless you're on the fringe and want to try 3x 3440x1440 Eyefinity.
Plenty of people go multi-card, at which point extra VRAM is important.