AMD Radeon R7/R9 vs. NVIDIA GTX 7xx

  • Thread starter Luminis
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Luminis

Luminis

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I've come across a few people around here saying that they're eager to see what AMD's got up their sleeve with their new generation of GPUs. I, myself, have been saying that for a while - and while I've been drooloing over NVIDIA's new GTX 7xx series of GPUs, there's been rumours about AMD's Mantle API and whatnot. Now, though, some first reviews are out. Yup, AMD manned up and sent a few cards out to get them reviewed. One, for example, went to Eurogamer and their Digital Foundry.

Here we go, a comparison between the R9 280X, the HD 7970, the GTX 770 and the GTX 760:



So, what did I take from this? It's on par with/ever so slightly surpasses the HD 7970 and the GTX 770. Basically, hardly an upgrade to someone, like me, who's got a GTX 680 in his rig. It figures, I guess, given that it's basically the same hardware as a HD 7970. Makes me wonder: Is there a point to AMD's new cards? From what I've heard, they're going to be sold at relatively cheap proces - which is great. This might lead to NVIDIA cutting prices as well, but, as off now, there's no competitor to the GTX 780. And AMD's Radeon R9 290X is supposed to be a GTX Titan-level entusiast card.

I am, quite frankly, a bit underwhelmed. I mean, AMD cutting prices is neat and all... But, there seems to be so little to be gained from buying one that I'd rather get a 780 - which, at least, would result in a considerable bump in power. Sure, AMD's card is way cheaper, but what good is that if I might as well buy a better fan, OC my existing card further and get the same (or better) results?

So, what's your guys' (and girls') take on the matter?
 
I think you're overstating the matter just a tad. :P

At their GPU'14 conference all cards (other than 290 and 290X) were never marketed or presented as new, and while I'm also underwhelmed by the performance given they're by no means bad purchases. If anything at all this is their single most successful 'bang for buck' lineup to date; undercutting the GTX 770 by $100+, having comparable or better performance and even being on par with the 780 is quite the feat for a card that costs $299 or a little more.

The one thing I will concede is that the upgrade for you (and myself as well) is virtually worthless. The 280X may be better than the 680 and both my 6950's, but the advantage is so narrow you're better off clocking the cores a little higher to negate the differences as much as possible.

I think the R9 series itself is fantastic but a repackaged card isn't exactly what I was looking to upgrade to. The 290 and 290X are rumored to be $499 and $599 respectively, assuming the $729 price discovered on Newegg doesn't turn out to be true, but with next month bearing the console launches I can't justify spending that much money two months in a row. :lol:
 
It will take some time until I'll buy an AMD card again, in my opinion they're cheaper for a reason. I hope they will force nVidia into a pricecut though. Just bought a monster rig, but it lacks a proper graphics card (will come around Christmas) and I'm still on the fence if I should buy a 770 (4GB version from EVGA) or a 780....
 
The R9 290 has been spotted on Newegg. Here is the Link but I'm not sure if it will work or not.

It seems the 290 is also a 4GB VRAM card.

OT: I find it great that AMD is competing with their new cards. Though it seems the re-branding of most of their cards is kind of helping them, it sure saves the consumer a few dollars in their pocket. IF the 290x rumors are true then AMD will have the best Single GPU card on the market and it will also be on a smaller die.

I hope the drivers can support the cards.
 
Would this be a decent upgrade from a Radeon HD 6850? I'm possibly looking at a new graphics card, but £250 is my upper limit (Which if I go with Nvidia is only enough for a GTX 760 at the moment). I decided I should wait for AMD to show their hand, but now i'm not sure whether to go with them or save up a bit more and go with a Nvidia GTX 770.
 
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As if nVidia doesn't rebrand their cards...

The GTX770 is a slightly faster GTX680, and the GTX760 is a slightly faster GTX660Ti.

At the end of 2013, we will only have had three new cards; GTX Titan, GTX 780, and the R9-290X. Everything else is a rebrand from both teams.

The fact that AMD offers the same for slightly less and with a game bundle included makes for an easy choice for me personally.

AMD cards will in my opinion be the cards to go for until nVidia take the graphics card market by storm with their new Haswell cards in Q1 2014.
 
Terronium-12
I think you're overstating the matter just a tad. :P
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Don't get me wrong, I don't really mind AMD just rebranding their cards. Neither do I dislike the idea of getting cheap cards that might very well force NVIDIA to cut their prices as well. It's just that I was sitting around, hoping for something like 7970 GHz was compared to the GTX 680 - and there's nothing of that sort, as of yet. We'll see what the 290/290X will have on offer, but I would've expected AMD to throw a little bit more at NVIDIA, aside from being good value.
 
I was considering upgrading to a GTX 780 not long ago from my 7970 but waited due to rumors about the 290/290X. Looks like I won't be disappointed. Just hoping the price won't be extortionate; however on the Overclocker's forum an insider is saying it will be give or take around current GTX780 prices. But unsure whether that is for the BF4 bundle or for just the card itself. If the bundle is about £70-£80 more than the separate card I won't mind anyway, as you get the game plus the premium subscription with it which is worth around that in total alone. :P

The reason I'm jumping on board is mainly because of all next-gen consoles having AMD hardware, so theoretically games made for the PS4 and Xbox One would be more optimized for AMD hardware while porting to PC than they would be for Nvidia's. Then there is the case of Mantle, their new API. Apparently this will give a huge performance boost to AMD's hardware as developers will be able to have more access to GPU hardware that DirectX doesn't allow.

All quite interesting to me, but whether developers will take advantage of it is the big question. Same with the new audio technology.

Edit: Worth a read:

http://n4g.com/news/1371767/playsta...e-the-same-8-ace-asynchronous-compute-engines
 
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The reason I'm jumping on board is mainly because of all next-gen consoles having AMD hardware, so theoretically games made for the PS4 and Xbox One would be more optimized for AMD hardware while porting to PC than they would be for Nvidia's. Then there is the case of Mantle, their new API. Apparently this will give a huge performance boost to AMD's hardware as developers will be able to have more access to GPUs that DirectX doesn't allow.
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The 360 was almost always the lead platform this gen and it had an AMD chip, didn't really help on the PC sector. Multiplatform games will be developed first on PC next gen, because the architecture is so similar and I'd guess they optimize for the cards with the better toolsets and that seems to be nVidia so far.

We will see, but I doubt the consoles will change anything on the PC sector.
 
G.T.Ace
The 360 was almost always the lead platform this gen and it had an AMD chip, didn't really help on the PC sector. Multiplatform games will be developed first on PC next gen, because the architecture is so similar and I'd guess they optimize for the cards with the better toolsets and that seems to be nVidia so far.

We will see, but I doubt the consoles will change anything on the PC sector.
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This is slightly contradictory, as you are saying games will be developed on PC first as the architecture is similar. Surely the new consoles do help the PC market as they can use PC as a developing platform much easier than previous consoles? Eliminating some dodgy console ports we have had to PC in the past? 💡
 
G.T
This is slightly contradictory, as you are saying games will be developed on PC first as the architecture is similar. Surely the new consoles do help the PC market as they can use PC as a developing platform much easier than previous consoles? Eliminating some dodgy console ports we have had to PC in the past? 💡
Click to expand...
I do wonder how the new console architecture will affect the PC gaming market, too. Better ports will surely be one thing to come from it, but what's going to be happening to PC exclusives? Porting between PCs and consoles is going to be considerably easier in the future, presumably - that's gotta affect PC exclusive gamaes (or the future lack thereof?) somehow.

Either way, given that the rumours about the 290/290X competing with the Titan seem to be false, I'd say that I'm quite eager to see how that card will do. In retrospect, where did that rumour of it being a Titan competitor even come from? Seems to make more sense for AMD to release the 290/290X as a direct competitor to the 780, doesn't it?
 
G.T
This is slightly contradictory, as you are saying games will be developed on PC first as the architecture is similar. Surely the new consoles do help the PC market as they can use PC as a developing platform much easier than previous consoles? Eliminating some dodgy console ports we have had to PC in the past? 💡
Click to expand...

Yes, the consoles themself affect the PC gaming market, but not the manufacturer of the graphics chip. I really doubt this will have any major impact.
 
G.T
I think the rumor is due to leaked benchmarks of it being on par or faster than a Titan. We will know for sure on Tuesday as that's when reviews are allowed to be put up.

http://www.techpowerup.com/191768/radeon-r9-290x-clock-speeds-surface-benchmarked.html

If all these rumors are true I believe it will beat the Titan in most tests, as AMD are known to improve their new cards with driver updates later after release.
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So, it all depends on the price, now. If I can get Titan performance with a 780 price tag from AMD, I'll be quite happy with what they did :) Let's hope for an exciting arms race.
 
G.T
Erm... yeah, quite a few very good ratings from reviews for the 290x:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/10/24/amd-radeon-r9-290x-4gb-review/14

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-35.html

The cooler limits the card (literally), quite a clever limiting system thought. I bought it anyways, hoping to upgrade the cooler at some point. Will post some benchmark scores when it arrives tomorrow. ;)
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Looks like a heck of a card! 👍

Congrats on the upgrade!
 
Luminis
So, it all depends on the price, now. If I can get Titan performance with a 780 price tag from AMD, I'll be quite happy with what they did :) Let's hope for an exciting arms race.
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That's pretty much the case now.

Looks as if Nvidia needs to drop the price of their 780.
 
It was fun having a top dog GPU while it lasted (GTX 780 SC). The R9 290X is really something! It's nice to see true competition in the top end single GPU space. I'm only bummed about the power and heat. Can't wait to see these with third party cooling!

I also give major props to AMD for their new Crossfire solution. The results speak for themselves in the Anandtech review.
 
It's not explicitly new. Hardware Crossfire was briefly used before the HD 2000 series went live. I used it back when I had two 1900's.

I am incredibly impressed with the 290X and if it weren't for having to buy the Xbox One next month (which still hasn't been finalized, funny enough) I'd have one right now to replace the 6950 twins.
 
Terronium-12
It's not explicitly new. Hardware Crossfire was briefly used before the HD 2000 series went live. I used it back when I had two 1900's.

I am incredibly impressed with the 290X and if it weren't for having to buy the Xbox One next month (which still hasn't been finalized, funny enough) I'd have one right now to replace the 6950 twins.
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Oh man, you had to use that crazy dvi dongle on the back for the crossfire bridge? UGH! I still have a slave X1900XT around here somewhere! :D
 
MHPALA
Not sure if this is real, but it is worth looking at:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...ttle-R9-290x&p=5213264&viewfull=1#post5213264
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If it's real it must've been running at clearly higher clocks than the titan.

Don't expect wonders, it's still the same chip just in comparison to the regular 780 with some more CUDA cores, TMUs and ROPs (but less than a titan). At the end it will all be about the clock and the titan still be ahead in relative terms. EDIT: Latest rumors say something different.


EDIT: They apparently didn't use the same system to test the 290X.
 
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Pako
Oh man, you had to use that crazy dvi dongle on the back for the crossfire bridge? UGH! I still have a slave X1900XT around here somewhere! :D
Click to expand...

No way man. I avoided that awkward mess like the plague. :lol:

I only have one XTX left and it's being used in an old Athlon X2 rig.
 

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