Upgrading R9 290X Corssfire VS Single R9 295X2 both 8GB looking to run 7860 x 1440

[yabadaba2177]

As the title says I'm looking to do a GPU upgrade. Preferably within the next month. Plan to run 7860 x 1440 for gaming. Will be a mix of games (Bioshock,Swtor,GW2,Dragon Age,Skyrim etc...) but upgrading mainly for Project Cars, iRacing and Star Citizen as this setup is for my simpit in progress.

Current Rig : (nearly 3 years old)
i5 3570K 3.4GHZ
MSI Z77A-G45
16 GB Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Frostbyte PC3-12800 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24
XFX 850W PRO850W XXX Edition Single Rail ATX 12V 70A 80PLUS Silver
MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850 2GB

Monitors: Main Auria IPS 2560x1440 and aux 1680x1050

I'm happy with my current setup on a single monitor but need the upgrade for eyefinity at this res. I do not want to consider going to 5760x1080 as I've grown far to fond of my 1440 monitor. The 7850 will be crossfired into my wife's pc if I upgrade (she has the same build less 8gb of ram)

I've been searching for awhile and haven't found a good side by side of R9 290X Corssfire VS Single R9 295X2 both 8GB. Or a benchmark for either cards at my target res. (I may have failed at searching) My assumption is it should be near identical being the 295x2 is essentially 2 290xs on one card and happens to be the way I'm leaning since it's more cost effective. Though I've also heard The r9 295x2 is crossfire 4GB cards in one card and it only 4 GB of effective vRAM. If that's true then crossfired 8gb 290xs seems to be better.

Here are the cards I'm considering :
MSI 290X
XFX 295x2
Sapphire 295x2 (frontrunner due to Dx12)

Not looking to run ultra on everything but would like to shoot toward high with a little AA but as close to 60fps as possible.

My concern is the 3570k or ram will be a bottle neck and if that's the case I'd rather wait and do a full build in a few months with a better CPU (i7 6 core or something) MB and ram. I'm fairly certain my PSU can handle the 295x2 but would have to upgrade if I squeezed out the cash to crossfire the 295s which I would consider if my current components aren't going to bottle neck me and I could squeeze 2 more years out of this build. My MB can also handle 32GB of ram if needed

Just looking for thoughts and opinions or if anyone is running a similar setup.

Thanks in advance

 

[nucolos]

1. Definetly wait for the new 390x gpu. They will be a serious difference to your setup. If you cant wait then I would go with the 2 290x, but only because it will be easier to sell separately later.
2. Your cpu is not bottlenecking your system and it wont do it for at least 1-2 years, maybe even later thanks to DirectX 12.
3. Your psu could handle that system. Yes, you will push it, but it can handle it.

 

[maddogfargo]

3570k will be fine for a single high end card. You only start to see it drop back a bit in crossfire / SLI scenarios with multiple cards.

I would get a 980 or 295x2 or wait til June for the new AMD GPU release.

 

[i7Baby]

3 x 2560 x 1440p is a lot of graphics to run - more than 4k.

To run 4k+ eg http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-295x2-crossfire-performance,3808-4.html

you might want to think about 2 x R9 295X2's.

And a 1600W power supply to run it.

 

[17seconds]

The 295x2 video card is 4+4 GB of memory, so each GPU only has 4 GB available. The advertising on Newegg is misleading. It will run out of memory for any game that uses over 4 GB of VRAM.

There aren't any AMD cards out now that are capable of the full DirectX 12.1 feature set at the hardware level. Only Maxwell can do that at this point. All AMD cards and all pre-Maxwell 2 cards can do DirectX 12.0, and only at the software level. Maxwell has special raster hardware to enable the full feature set.

 

[yabadaba2177]

Thanks for the feedback. Due to the 4GB vram of the 295x2 solution I'm leaning towards crossfire 290x or waiting for the 390x provided they launch an 8GB card at a decent price. Really whats a few more months of single screen if it'll give me better bang for my buck. The max I'd like to go is 12-1400 for the gpu solution but I'm not sure if crossfired 390xs will hit that price point. This bench mark looks pretty good to me as I'd drop below ultra and be ok with it. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-23.html sorry for an improper link I'm on my phone

 

[nucolos]

Thanks for the feedback. Due to the 4GB vram of the 295x2 solution I'm leaning towards crossfire 290x or waiting for the 390x provided they launch an 8GB card at a decent price. Really whats a few more months of single screen if it'll give me better bang for my buck. The max I'd like to go is 12-1400 for the gpu solution but I'm not sure if crossfired 390xs will hit that price point. This bench mark looks pretty good to me as I'd drop below ultra and be ok with it. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-23.html sorry for an improper link I'm on my phone

The best you could do is wait, some benchmarks show the 390x is up to 70% better than the 290x, but you never know. Worst case scenario, the 290x and the 380x are the same card and you get that one for the same current price, So yeah, if you can wait, then wait. And dont forget to pick the best answer.