Second AMD Radeon R9 290 worth buying with my setup?

[zjef]

Hi all!

I was thinking about buying a second R9 290 graphics card to upgrade my build,

but I have two questions:
1. Is it worth buying a second one to upgrade my build or is it going to bottleneck with my CPU?
2. If I buy a second one which power supply wattage will I need to be safe?

My setup:
Motherboard: sabertooth 990fx
CPU: Amd fx-8320 @ 4Ghz
RAM: Gskill sniper ram (16GB)
GPU: Amd Radeon Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X
PSU: Corsair cx750W
Storage: Seagate 1TB
SSD: Samsung 250GB

Thanks in advance!
If you need more information please ask below I will answer as soon as possible!
Kind regards

 

[CRO5513Y]

Need to know your Power Supply and CPU to answer both those questions. Wattage alone won't be the only variable to determine whether it would work or not. As for the bottleneck we need you know your CPU for that 😛. Typically i would recommend getting a stronger card which for you might be something like a GTX 1070 (or wait for RX 500 series soon) as CrossFire scaling can be poor in some games and in others it might not work at all but it also depends what price you are looking at for another R9 290 if you can get it for really cheap then it might be a viable option just be wary of the CrossFire support/scaling being limited in some games. Hope this helps

 

[RCFProd]

No, a poor/mediocre 750 watts won't be enough neither will that amount of power draw be worth it.

 

[CRO5513Y]

Now that you have updated the post with specs. I agree with RCFProd, you would need a new Power Supply which wouldn't be worth all the trouble just to get a second card. Judging from your build i would suggest a CPU upgrade to something like an i5-i7 7xxx or wait for Ryzen 5 to see what that offers as your CPU is quite old now and if you were to buy a new GPU say around the GTX 1070 level your CPU would more than likely bottleneck in a majority of games.

 

[CRO5513Y]

I don't know any exact percentages but i wouldn't say it's less than 25%. Maybe around 50%? (Don't quote me on that). But even then the main issue now is your Power Supply not being able to hold up 2x R9 290 in CrossFire and the high power usage would cost you quite a bit over time if you calculated it. It wouldn't be worth buying a whole new Power Supply and R9 290. I suggest a CPU upgrade next when you have the cash, your GPU should still be fairly capable in today's games at 1080p. A new and more powerful CPU will give you the headroom to get a stronger GPU without any worries of bottlenecking.

 

[zjef]

I don't know any exact percentages but i wouldn't say it's less than 25%. Maybe around 50%? (Don't quote me on that). But even then the main issue now is your Power Supply not being able to hold up 2x R9 290 in CrossFire and the high power usage would cost you quite a bit over time if you calculated it. It wouldn't be worth buying a whole new Power Supply and R9 290. I suggest a CPU upgrade next when you have the cash, your GPU should still be fairly capable in today's games at 1080p. A new and more powerful CPU will give you the headroom to get a stronger GPU without any worries of bottlenecking.

Thanks alot for the information I will look for a better CPU to spend my money on.