Thinking about upgrading. R9 290x OR 780 TI?

Hitman IRL

Howdy.

I was thinking about upgrading my GPU to either the R9 290X or the 780 TI but I'm kind of in two minds about it. I know there's better driver support from Nvidia but I really want to see how, if at all, Mantle will prove to be a better API. On the other hand I want to see how shadowplay works out, I don't have a Youtube channel but a man can dream can't he?

I know I should wait to see how effective mantle turns out to be, I'm mostly playing BF 4 at the moment and a bit of CoH2 and R2:TW to break the monotony, so I won't be buying until around January(and hopefully there will be some third party cards out by then). I'm not to keen on over clocking, hence why I don't have any kind of water cooling things in my case(Pokemon always told me the two don't mix well) but I might look into it in the future.

Would I also need a better processor/motherboard or even more RAM to actually notice any difference?

Here's my current specs.

8GB G.Skill PC3-12800U
AMD FX-8350 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+
ASRock 970 Extreme3, AM3+
be quiet! Pure Power L8 CM
Nanoxia Deep Silence One White
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s
Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 OC Boost, 3GB GDDR5, Full Retail
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's

Budget wise the TI's price point is kind of a non issue at the moment but if the bump would be minimal at best I can't really justify spending an extra 150 quid's worth of drinking money...

I also only use a single 22 inch Samsung monitor that displays at 1920x1080 and I don't plan on going for 4k gaming for a long time(I honestly doubt I could tell the difference)

BloodBath

-edit- Actually scratch all of that. An overclocked 8350 should be fine for bf4. What do you have it overclocked to? Your board isn't the best for overclocking 8350's. Do you have the 7970 overclocked?

An overclocked 8350 and 7970 should be able for a solid 60 fps in bf4 once they sort drivers and/or mantle.

Hitman IRL

BloodBath wrote: »

I'd grab a 4670k and a new board instead. BF4 is very cpu reliant. An overclocked 4670k + overclocked 7970 should net you a solid 60fps in bf4 once the drivers and/or mantle is sorted.

You could grab a sli/crossfire capable board so you have the option of adding a second 7970/280x if you need more performance.

Hi, and thanks for the speedy reply

I was thinking about crossfiring, I know I'd probably be getting a big jump in frames when it's available but I'm kind of wary of the excessive noise that would create(and the extra power needed) and there's also the issue of Crossfire being kind of finicky and less supported.

Would you suggest and i7 over an i5? I'm just thinking of future proofing for down the line.

Hitman IRL

BloodBath wrote: »

-edit- Actually scratch all of that. An overclocked 8350 should be fine for bf4. What do you have it overclocked to? Your board isn't the best for overclocking 8350's. Do you have the 7970 overclocked?

An overclocked 8350 and 7970 should be able for a solid 60 fps in bf4 once they sort drivers and/or mantle.

As I said before I'm kind of wary of overclocking at all(I had a PC melt on me before due to excessive heat and inadequate ventilation) but I do have the GPU on the factory OC setting, I'm not at home so I couldn't tell you the exact figures at the moment.

BloodBath

The factory overclock setting is probably still very low for that card. The entire 7000 series cards are great overclockers if they can be kept cool.

You have a great card cooler and case so that shouldn't be a problem. You could probably squeeze an extra 20% performance out of the card easily enough.

I wouldn't try to push the cpu any higher on that board.

uncle_sam_ie

Hitman IRL wrote: »

As I said before I'm kind of wary of overclocking at all(I had a PC melt on me before due to excessive heat and inadequate ventilation) but I do have the GPU on the factory OC setting, I'm not at home so I couldn't tell you the exact figures at the moment.

It melted because you skipped cooling. Adequate cooling is part of Overclocking.

BloodBath

It might also be worth upgrading to windows 8 if bf4 is mainly what you play.

It will give a significant performance boost over 7 in bf4.

I'm still dubious about the results of these tests though.

Hitman IRL

BloodBath wrote: »

The factory overclock setting is probably still very low for that card. The entire 7000 series cards are great overclockers if they can be kept cool.

You have a great card cooler and case so that shouldn't be a problem. You could probably squeeze an extra 20% performance out of the card easily enough.

I wouldn't try to push the cpu any higher on that board.

It might also be worth upgrading to windows 8 if bf4 is mainly what you play.

It will give a significant performance boost over 7 in bf4.

I'm still dubious about the results of these tests though.

Mkay well I'm definitely going to have to get a new motherboard then. Would you recommend any in particular that would go well with the FX processor?

To be honest I think I'm going to stick with the old reliable OS that I know, I have to use a Windows 8 computer in work and I can't stand it(I like to modify Total War games). I think the next OS upgrade I make will either be over to Linux,if and when a significant portion of my library gets ported, or the next Windows OS that doesn't make my rig feel like a tablet...

Would more RAM give me any kind of perceivable difference?

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

It melted because you skipped cooling. Adequate cooling is part of Overclocking.

It actually melted because it was an 8 year old Dell laptop =D My cousin borrowed it, used it on the couch for about two hours and the rest is history...

Jonny7

FX8350 and 7970 should run BF4 at 60fps no prob

Apart from the bugs and crashes, the game is actually v well optimised - and this will only improve as updates and drivers are released

BloodBath

You should be aiming for at least 1150 on the gpu core and 1500-1600 on the gpu memory.

It should be easy enough with that card and case. I have the Sapphire dual-x 7970 which is not as good and I can get those speeds and higher.

viperirl

Interesting results posted by pcper.com

Even at load the r290x is only 2dB louder than a reference 780ti which is barely audible. Perhaps a bit unfair to AMD given the heat(no pun intended) they've taken over their reference cooler noise levels. It does show though how better the NV ref cooler is at keeping the temps down. The 290x does have a smaller die though.