GTX 780 or R9 290x

[mikeBEZZ]

Intel i5 4670k
8GB RAM
750W PSU
Z87X-SLI Mboard
1920x1080p 60hz Monitor

I am buying a new gpu and am not sure which, I have heard that NVIDEA gpus are better in general but in my price range which is about £250 - £375 I am unsure as the R9 290x looks pretty good on some benchmarks. I mostly play BF4 but also pretty much any new games that come out, I will give them a buy and try em. Any help would be appreciated, I understand that I can't really go wrong with either card as they are both high end and that it is more opinion based or more based on what I want, I don't intend on recording my gameplay just so you know 😉

 

[Avocade]

a 780 is slower than a 290x but the 780 Ti beats the 290x so the 290x is the better choice between the two you posted

 

[mikeBEZZ]

Thanks for the quick reply, I was also wondering if any1 can inform me on the power consumption, noise levels, temperatures and operating system advantages, & if the R9 290x would lose to games that use directX 11.1 and such as Mantle is pretty much just a BF4 thing right now, & I understand that PhysX only works with NVIDEA cards, I am just trying to take everything into account

 

[Avocade]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

Mantle is in beta. I wouldn't bet on mantle and yes I'm partial to Nvidia but it's not looking good for Mantle if you go to BF4 forum and hardware and game forums you'll see lots of threads saying that AMD users are switching back to DX11 because mantle is acutally giving them worse performance. Those who benefit are really small minority.

Windows 8 uses less system resources its a little better optimized over 7 however windows 7 is a more proper pc OS as windows 8 is a bit annoying with all its attempts to integrade things we dont want and the touch screen start screen thats annoying to have.

Either card is going to perform great in BF4 at ultra 1080p! Hope this helps

 

[combine1237]

As a 290x owner my card maxes out bf4 on 1080p easy, though mantle still has its issues, it is in beta and hopefully they will be resolved. As for performance 290x will beat 780. The aftermarket coolers have fixed many of the stock's noise issues and my card can maintain a steady 1125 core on stock voltage. I usually run around 60 to 70 degrees in games with fairly silent operation, to me its quieter than my old 7870. I usually put the 290/780 on about par, and then the 290x next in the performance pile, and the 780 ti at the top. The nice thing about the 290/290x is it has 1 extra gig of vram for things like modding skyrim, or higher resolutions.

Bottom line, if you want the nvidia exclusives like shadowplay, g-sync, and phys-x get the nvidia card, if you don't mind a little more power/performance ratio, and want to go with freesync, mantle, trueaudio get the 290/x. Also the best price to performance ratio right now is an aftermarket r9 290 for 420 USD.

 

[photonboy]

GTX780.

Let's look at real benchmarks:

Asus GTX780: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_780_Direct_Cu_II_OC/26.html

The above is just to point out that the Asus GTX780 is roughly 5% faster than a stock GTX780 so we can look at THIS:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_290X_Tri-X_OC/24.html

If you use both benchmarks you realize that the Sapphire R9-290X is maybe 3% faster than the Asus GTX780.

However, not all R9-290X cards are the same. Some of the cheaper ones will get lower performance once they heat up which brings us to the PRICE:

Sapphire R9-290X: $640

Asus R9-290X: $540

ASUS GTX780: $510

*So I can't recommend the Sapphire, but both Asus cards are similarly priced which then brings us to the differences between AMD and NVidia:

AMD:
- Mantle (as discussed future is uncertain)

NVidia:
- PhysX (some games support CPU PhysX to be fair but not all)
- G-Sync (requires upcoming G-Sync monitor but it's truly awesome for smooth gaming)
- Shadowplay (recording gameplay with minimal frame rate loss)

GTX780Ti?
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_780_Ti_Direct_Cu_II_OC/24.html

About 20% faster if comparing similar cards (i.e. Asus to Asus both with good coolers). However, the difference would drop slightly if overclocking a bit more so let's call that 15%.

Cost of Asus GTX780Ti: $687

$687/$510 = 34%

So the GTX780Ti is about 34% more money for about 15% to 20% more performance.

Summary:
- R9-290X makes most sense if Mantle is a priority, or if you think the extra 1GB of VRAM matters (I don't yet)

- GTX780Ti makes most sense for performance, and NVidia-specific features

- GTX780 makes most sense for VALUE, and NVidia-specific features

There's no poor choice here really, however I personally prefer NVidia for all three of the reasons I linked.

I should add there's been a lot of speculation that upcoming Cross-platform games will work better on AMD cards due to an optimization to the GCN architecture of the GPU. I do believe that's possible, though it may be for specific features (i.e. TressFX for Tomb Raider) which overall might not be a big deal. Will it end up being choose better HAIR (AMD TressFX) versus choosing better FOG (NVidia PhysX)? Sigh...

It's unfortunate that there is such a split between AMD and NVidia making it hard to choose or even recommend one over the other, but I say make your choice and never look back.

 

[mikeBEZZ]

Thanks for all the replies, these were very helpful, I think I will go with a NVIDEA card but one thing that I constantly think about is the difference in performance between GTX770, GTX780, GTX780ti and their price tags, I have never overclocked anything btw and don't intend to, I'm just worried about messing it up or shortening component life-span, I also am very uninformed about buying different brand of GPUs, I know that some come OCd. The GTX780ti is out of my price range but I suppose I could save for it but if a GTX780 or 770 would max out games at 60+fps then I will probably go with one of them, in the future I may buy a new PSU and use SLI but that won't be for like a year so I want to be setup playing the newest games at a smooth 60fps at max graphics

 

[combine1237]

780 will max out all games 1080p 60fps, and you can buy some fairly overclocked models. If your psu is decent it should handle 780 sli.