R9 290x or GTX 780 OC

sink

Ok so I was seriously considering a R9 290x, I was just going to wait for non-reference coolers. But now I can get a factory overclocked GTX 780 for £400 which is about £30 cheaper than the cheapest reference R9 290x. And overclocked the GTX 780 is every bit as fast as a reference R9 290x and will run cooler with less power and noise. Am I as well going for one of these models now or waiting? I play a wide variety of games but I am a BF fan so if BF4 mantle is all it's cracked up to be I may be missing out.

These are two I'm looking at (hardwareversand haven't dropper their prices at time of writing)

Gigabyte GTX 780 Windforce 3X - £399.19 - scan.co.uk

Gainward GeForce GTX 780 Phantom - £399.95 - overclockers.co.uk

Gumbi

What res will you be playing at and what are the rest of your system specs. The HOF on Overclockers is going for 450 pounds right now, that will overclock to 1300mhz (unlocked voltage). That would be a good buy. But tell us the rest of your system specs and the res you play at first.

sink

I have a 1440p monitor and a i5-2500k @4.5ghz, 8gb ram, p67 (PCIe 2.0). Currently have 2x 6950's which I will sell.

sink

Also case is well ventilated with 3 intake and 3 outtake fans (define r2).

raymix

This video should answer your question. It's rather lengthy, but he covers few key differences between these high end GPUs and prices. He also mentions 780 more than titan, don't let the thumbnail fool you.

Personally I'd go with 780 OCed since it can be pushed bit faster than Titan. Reference design on 290x sucks compared to 780 one, no doubt there.

BloodBath

I'd wait for a 3rd party 290x with a good cooler. I'm sure prices will come down as well with some competition.

You have to remember drivers are in a very early state for the 290x as well. There's big improvements to be made there.

SterlingArcher

The release of the 780 ti is going to push 780 and 780 oc prices down. Which may also affect the r9 prices. Be worth your while holding out. And like bloodbath said. The drivers for the r 9 will need to be fine tuned.

Gumbi

Indeed. Definitely wait for some custom coolers. There are 780 price drops incoming (some already in place) which bode well for consumers

game4it70

Dont forget the 290pro will be out soon too and is likely to be a good bit cheaper than the 290x.

Genghiz Cohen

And the 780Ti which is, apparently, less than a month away!

sink

Gumbi wrote: »

The HOF on Overclockers is going for 450 pounds right now, that will overclock to 1300mhz (unlocked voltage). That would be a good buy.

I was just reading the reviews of that card and it is very fast. However it is 12.5% dearer, it's not going to overclock a full 12.5% better and to get those clocks you need to turn up the fan speed which means more noise. I think if I was going for purely speed I might consider it but noise is also a concern, so I'm not going to push for the max OC.

sink

I took the plunge and bought the Gainward GTX 780 Phantom for €448.92 with free delivery from dabs.ie.

Genghiz Cohen

Nice.

Pics when it arrives plz.

EDIT: If its not too much bother, could you test to see the noise difference?
I have a Db Meter app and I leave it on the top fron tof my PC when I changed out my graphics cards. The new one cut like 20Db.

sink

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Nice.

Pics when it arrives plz.

EDIT: If its not too much bother, could you test to see the noise difference?
I have a Db Meter app and I leave it on the top fron tof my PC when I changed out my graphics cards. The new one cut like 20Db.

That's a good idea, will do.

sink

I downloaded Decibel 10th for the iPhone and tested various things just to see.

The background noise in the room with a fire going and wind outside was a peak 46db. I placed my iPhone on top of my HTPC which has an Antec Fusion case with be quiet! BQT E9-400W PSU & 2 be quiet! SW1 120mm Low-Speed fans and a Noctua NH-L12 cooler with low noise adapters, the peak was only 48db. I tested my Xbox 360 slim placing the iphone next to it and the peak while playing GTA V was 58db.

My gaming PC is a Fractal Design Define R3 with 5 120mm fans (2 stock and 3 NoiseBlocker blacksilent Pro 1200 RPM) & 1 80mm fan (NoiseBlocker blacksilent pro 1400 RPM), Corsair HX 750 PSU, Corsair A70 CPU cooler and two HD 6950's reference coolers. Placing the iPhone on top of the case I was getting 66db peak. We'll see how much of a difference replacing the graphics cards for a phantom makes. However I think the Corsair A70 isn't a great cooler for low noise, so I might look into changing that if there is not much of a difference.