Battle of the Flagships

When it comes to choosing a new graphics card for your computer, there are many factors to take into consideration:

- What you want to accomplish with the card
- Your budget
- Compatibility
- Longevity of the card
- Noise levels
- Heat generation
- Power draw

As of present, there are two major competing manufacturers of graphics cards for the PC market and they are Nvidia and AMD. Both have released quality products in the past and their latest offerings are rather impressive as well.

While last generation concluded with the battle between dual-GPU graphics cards (i.e. GTX 690 vs HD 7990), currently, it seems as though both companies are focused mainly on the single-GPU market. The current flagship cards for both are as follows:

Nvidia's GTX 780 Ti:

For a quality review: TechPowerUp Review.

AMD's R9 290X:

For a quality review: TechPowerUp Review.

So, do we have any members fortunate enough to possess one of these cards that can share their experiences so far? I hear a lot of people from the green camp are taking advantage of the drop in price of the GTX 780 (non Ti version), and many from the red camp are convinced the R9 290 (non X version) is the better choice.

Nonetheless, it might be a wise decision to wait a bit for non-reference versions of the R9 290x to address the heat/noise issues, and wait for the 780 Ti to lower in price before purchasing either.

reply to post by Dark Ghost


I must admit i gave up buying the best GPU on the market a few years ago as you seem to be paying a lot of money for not much benefit. I have a simple AMD 7970 now and at the moment i can run all my games on full settings with no slowdown.

reply to post by Dark Ghost


i bought a 290x. Waiting for my 2nd one to come in.

I also have a Titan already, which runs my gaming server.

The 290x spanks it. Like..literally destroys it in every single test I've run.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I have a question If your motherboard allows it can you rig up two of the same cards to make your rig run better?

boymonkey74
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

I have a question If your motherboard allows it can you rig up two of the same cards to make your rig run better?

Yes they are SLI/Crossfire enabled.

Which is why I bought 2. The Titan simple doesn't perform up to par for my server unfortunetely. I was running two 7990's prior to this and they had only slightly better performance together, than the Titan by itself.

The 290x blew both of the previous setup's out of the water, using a single card configuration.

I'm HIGHLY impressed.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Cheers
I just bought the wrong video card then
Oh well I will use it for a year and upgrade

boymonkey74
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Cheers

I just bought the wrong video card then

Oh well I will use it for a year and upgrade

Don't do that.

Sell it on Kijiji or Craigslist.

The 290x is only 600$. You could EASILY get that for a Titan whose MSRP is still around 800 I believe?

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Only? as a lowly support worker for people with LD, I could only just afford my new rig 500 quid with a GTX 650ti in but I made sure my motherboard can fit the latest cards so I have some saving to do.

reply to post by boymonkey74


They are expecting to release a lower end card of the 290x, probably I think a 270x or something similar. It should come in at about 400$ at that point. And it will be worth every penny as it will blow every card in the same tier out of the water as well.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


And by this time next year it will be half the price
I will manage with my new rig for a year and upgrade, this rig I have can just about run my games on low settings but I wanted to treat myself hence buying a new rig.
Cheers dude I now have a dude who knows about PCs I will ask you some questions when I upgrade