GTX 690 Vs AMD 290/x ?

[HyeVltg3]

Asking this weird and old question because I recently found these two, (well not 290x, just the non-X) Used for the same price, did some digging and found some really old threads that say the 290 is better, but most were dated before or near the 290's release, so it could have just been that New-Card high talking.
Now that we're 3 years later, Which one should I get?
I play games like TERA, Witcher 3, Batman and soon to be playing the new MGS5
But I also play old games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape and Unreal Engine 1-2 games.
I know both cards can tear through the older games buts I heard there were issues with dual-gpu cards playing unsupported old software, I've never owned a Dual-GPU card so I have no idea how it all works, Isnt it just SLI on one PCIe slot, I have had SLI in the past and it was awful.

Oh and no other options, I'm poor.

 

[Robert Cook]

it is pretty much SLI on one card. it will do well in SLI capable games, but in noncapable games, the R9 290 will win. also the heat on that 690 was pretty bad. I would grab the R9 290, because in everyday gaming and sue you will have the same if not better results. also, it uses less power.

 

[JUICEhunter]

The 690 will benchmark about the same as SLI 960s which isn't a bad thing and produces a lot of FPS. Be ready to turn some settings down because settings above 2gb will cripple FPS.

If you stay within the 2gb you will produce high fps, ideal for a high hz monitor, but still good for 60hz because your minimum FPS will also be a high number.

I'd personally go with the faster single GPU and the extra VRAM, even at the cost of loosing raw FPS compared to 690.

My 780ti (3gb) can run very high settings and it's not hard to go over 2gb and some games fill up the 3gb very quickly as well. It's always easy to turn something down to stay under but working with 2gb means more turning down. You can go over a little but the memory swapping will start to hamper FPS greatly.

 

[Robert Cook]

^