Radeon R9 295X2 vs Nvidia Titan Z

[CAaronD]

+1 to 17seconds post. Exactly, people who call others fanboys usually are fanboys themselves, unless they are really so bad and they say things like "AMD is so hot and the power usage is horrible! The drivers suck! AMD sucks Nvidia is the best!" Or something like "Nvidia is overpriced AMD is the best, they can give the same performance for half the price, who cares about TDP?" Those are both horribly wrong. Those are the most common insults, about Nvidia being overpriced and AMD having bad drivers and lots of heat and TDP. You have a right to call those people fanboys who insult the other company because they own a product from the company and want to support that company because of pride. Whereas the non biased person would give fair answers and even if one card is a better deal, he would say it properly pointing out the specs and the performance, etc. And they wouldn't curse also.

 

[17seconds]

+1 to 17seconds post. Exactly, people who call others fanboys usually are fanboys themselves, unless they are really so bad and they say things like "AMD is so hot and the power usage is horrible! The drivers suck! AMD sucks Nvidia is the best!" Or something like "Nvidia is overpriced AMD is the best, they can give the same performance for half the price, who cares about TDP?" Those are both horribly wrong. Those are the most common insults, about Nvidia being overpriced and AMD having bad drivers and lots of heat and TDP. You have a right to call those people fanboys who insult the other company because they own a product from the company and want to support that company because of pride. Whereas the non biased person would give fair answers and even if one card is a better deal, he would say it properly pointing out the specs and the performance, etc. And they wouldn't curse also.

I appreciate your supporting the idea, but I think your examples seem to be missing the point just slightly. There's a difference between raising negative points about a product or a company, and directly insulting a member of the forum. It's okay if you don't like a particular brand name to point out the flaws, or perceived flaws. But I generally wouldn't consider that a personal "insult", or automatically assume that person was being nefarious and trying to make themselves feel better by hurting someone's feelings.

Hey, I know we like to pretend that everything's the same with these companies and the only real difference is price-performance.... But that's just not true. There are significant differences between these cards and these two manufacturers. Some people get that, and some people don't. What may seem obvious to one person might be equally as obvious the other way around. That's what makes these forums so interesting, when the discussion centers on ideas and debate rather than personal insults. That's why we have the Best Answers, your reward for winning the debate.


Thanks for your time, now let's get back on topic......
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TechPowerUp lists these positives for the 295x2:
•Excellent scaling and performance at Eyefinity and 4K
•Low temperatures thanks to watercooling
•Dual-slot cooler
•CrossFire scaling works in almost all games
•Dual BIOS
•Backplate included
•Nice packaging, comes in a suitcase

And these negatives:
•High price
•Noisy in idle, could be quieter under load
•Very high power consumption
•Coil noise
•Needs driver support for proper CrossFire scaling
•High VRM temperatures
•Watercooling radiator takes up extra space
•No fan control
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_295_X2/30.html

I'm surprised (not really) that most of you have glossed over the lack of fan control and, yet again, the coil whine and potential driver problems. Thus making your $1500 video card no better than a $500 R9-290x in several games, not to mention every DirectX 9 game and every OpenGL game. What's up with that?

 

[kalijaga]

Well then I am a fan of both teams.
Will that be ok?
The fan control is not much an issue at least for me as I had already added and plan to change the ref fans to something a bit more significant. But case and space not permitting, thus a push pull of diff fans at the moment.
Coil whine is not present for me, or if they where present, they are drowned by the sound of those 15 fans in the case (not counting the ones on the motherboard and PSUs)....hahahah
Well at least not when I run full power....

 

[CAaronD]

15 fans, no wonder your "boss" says the room has got hotter xD The R9 295x2 is quieter under load? Is that true?

 

[kalijaga]

The 295x2 in CF is much quieter than my 780 TF at full load. But with the added jetflos ..the sound about the same.
No complain about heat...better out than in eh???

 

[CAaronD]

15 fans must be a racket there lol. I've only got 3 fans 😛

 

[CAaronD]

Maybe I should put all of my household fans to blow into my PC xD Put an air cooler directly infront of it xD

 

[kalijaga]

I did that on my old dell xps with the 680. Open the side of the case, put a big house fan in front of the opening, press number 3, and you have the most powerful fans on. Temp were about 5-6C better, as there is a limit to what air cooling can do...

 

[CAaronD]

Hahahaha, for my laptop I put a stand a bucket of ice just a few centimetres underneath, no money for cooling pad xD temps went down by 10C believe it or not >.<

 

[CAaronD]

Next time I should put my PC in the freezer, does that work? XD

 

[smeezekitty]

The problem with below ambient cooling (such as ice and freezers) is damaging condensation.

 

[spartaman64]

Guys, I gotta let you know that calling someone a "fanboy" constitutes a personal insult and is a great way to get your post deleted, at the least. Attack the idea, not the person.

Probably the worst thing about it... I don't think I can recall a single time when someone has called someone else a fanboy without completely calling themselves out as a fan in the process. So not only is that attitude insulting to others, you're also pasting that same label right back on to yourself.

I called out fans on both sides and I didn't name any names so if you are not a blind fanboy this does not apply to you

 

[SuperAdithya]

Wow! I think its the biggest thread I have ever seen in TomsHardwareForum! 😀 😉

 

[SuperAdithya]

Radeon r9 295x2 is better as it has better clock speed, and the price is much lower than the titan Z. I have used this radeon in m super gaming build with 2-way crossfire and it works very smoothly and fast. It's real good, go for the radeon, instead of spending too much money, and don't make your wallets cry! 😉 😀

 

[SuperAdithya]

Bigbootesonly is right, this is boring debate/discussion. instead of this there should be a poll thread or help thread and then you can get a quick answer too! 😀 😛

 

[CAaronD]

Single R9 295x2 is enough to make a student's wallet cry though lol, let alone two!

 

[RussK1]

Guys, I gotta let you know that calling someone a "fanboy" constitutes a personal insult and is a great way to get your post deleted, at the least. Attack the idea, not the person.

Probably the worst thing about it... I don't think I can recall a single time when someone has called someone else a fanboy without completely calling themselves out as a fan in the process. So not only is that attitude insulting to others, you're also pasting that same label right back on to yourself.

I agree... we've went at it few times ourselves --> AMD vs nVidia. Lately I've been on an nVidia kick. I'm to the point where playing with drivers drives me bonkers. GeForce experience makes it easy and it isn't annoying like Raptr (2 machines with it). Half the time the driver update utility doesn't work and when it does it directs to AMD's driver page. GeForce Experience does it all for you and the "clean install" option can be chosen...

...then comes the features, for me it's CUDA vs OpenCL. The programs I use just don't work well with OpenCL yet work beautifully with CUDA.

Point is, that gaming performance isn't the end all, be all. Program compatibility is a big issue...

 

[kalijaga]

Guys,

I wonder if there is any programs that can benefit from the tremendous capabilities of these 295x2 and titan z (via CUDA and open CL or even, Mantle) beyond the realms of professional use. I know that chrome actually use some GPU capabilities. Adobe suite I think uses some multiGPU processing.
It would be nice to have this potential used for daily use. I am not a programmer and of course this is beyond me, but just a thought.

Then we can see the difference between 295x2 and titan z....

 

[smeezekitty]

Modern browsers like like Boogle Chrome and Mozilla firefox can use the GPU, but they do not need nearly that much power.
The accelerated rendering and scrolling probably doesn't gain much with GPUs over about the $100 mark
because other bottlenecks will come into effect

 

[Alpha3031]

wayy cheaper to get 4-way 290s. sad we can't CF/SLI more

 

[Memhorder]

Sooo. Those Firesrtike Bench scores point out the fairly obvious. The 295x can beat the Z thus far........for now. Owning one of the two could just be "future proof". Until everything catches up with the GPU's like support beyond 4 processors in SLI and crossfire. Imagine 8x SLI/CF. Then you would see those cards competing for number 1 & 2 spots as scores I can imagine would be in the 30K to 40K zones maybe higher. I'm very sure the Titan Z will evolve as well with EVGA putting them under water and superclocking without question. It's only a matter of time. The Kepler GK110 and the Hawaii are both outstanding chips and I personally wouldn't mind owning Either of them. But as it stands currently. 295x all the way.

 

[mordorrson]

Sooo. Those Firesrtike Bench scores point out the fairly obvious. The 295x can beat the Z thus far........for now. Owning one of the two could just be "future proof". Until everything catches up with the GPU's like support beyond 4 processors in SLI and crossfire. Imagine 8x SLI/CF. Then you would see those cards competing for number 1 & 2 spots as scores I can imagine would be in the 30K to 40K zones maybe higher. I'm very sure the Titan Z will evolve as well with EVGA putting them under water and superclocking without question. It's only a matter of time. The Kepler GK110 and the Hawaii are both outstanding chips and I personally wouldn't mind owning Either of them. But as it stands currently. 295x all the way.

Considering that 4 way SLI/CF doesn't work very well (it has horrible scaling), and considering that the motherboard required for 5 or 6 different cards would be huge and pretty expensive, I doubt we'll see anything more than 5/6 way by 2020

 

[core 2 duo dude]

Alright I'm kinda done with this thread. I'd say for all purpose computing r9295x2 wins also for the games that require physicx you can just buy a cheap 8800gts and it will work fine.

Is everyone in agreement?

i am sorry to say but the 8800 gts would be incompetent at playing the latest games at decent settings its sooo old haha.

Sooo. Those Firesrtike Bench scores point out the fairly obvious. The 295x can beat the Z thus far........for now. Owning one of the two could just be "future proof". Until everything catches up with the GPU's like support beyond 4 processors in SLI and crossfire. Imagine 8x SLI/CF. Then you would see those cards competing for number 1 & 2 spots as scores I can imagine would be in the 30K to 40K zones maybe higher. I'm very sure the Titan Z will evolve as well with EVGA putting them under water and superclocking without question. It's only a matter of time. The Kepler GK110 and the Hawaii are both outstanding chips and I personally wouldn't mind owning Either of them. But as it stands currently. 295x all the way.

Considering that 4 way SLI/CF doesn't work very well (it has horrible scaling), and considering that the motherboard required for 5 or 6 different cards would be huge and pretty expensive, I doubt we'll see anything more than 5/6 way by 2020

but the firestrike score seems to point out that 4way is better

 

[core 2 duo dude]

sorry about the extra quotes

 

[mordorrson]

@Core 2 Duo Dude 4 way IS better, but that 4th GPU doesn't scale well. It ends up looking something like this:

1st card: 100%
2nd card: 95%
3rd card: 85%
4th card: 60%

Getting 3 cards is still worth the extra performance, but that fourth one? Not really. That's why 3 780 Ti's is the highest level of graphics performance it makes any sense to invest in (unless you're on a budget).