VTX3D X-edition 290X, Sapphire Tri-x 290x or Gigabyte Windforce OC 970

[Armoured Warrior]

I want to get the VTX3D X-edition since it's the cheapest of the three and I feel the price difference compared to the Windforce 970 to enough to go AMD. However I have no idea what VTX3D's reputation is like.

The Sapphire Tri-x 290x seems to be a trusted brand and from reviews I've read it produces much less heat and sound which is great since the reference 290x is not suppose to be great in that department.

However the Tri-X is only 5 Euro cheaper than the Windforce OC 970 and since the reference 970 produces less sound, heat and power...saving 5 Euro doesn't really seem worth it.

If the VTX3D is trusted then I'll definitely go for it.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

GTX 970 over R9 290X (pretty much same performance but less power use, less heat and bunch of new features like MFAA anti-aliasing that takes less resources, graphics upscaling, new lighting system, direct Oculus Rift support) and there are plenty of good GTX 970 around:

Asus Strix
MSI Gaming 4G
Gigabyte G1
EVGA Superclocked ACX 2.0

[Armoured Warrior]

The 970 is a very good card but the VTX3D X Edition 290x is 40 Euro cheaper and comes with three free games. I'm just trying to figure out if the VTX3D is a trustwordy brand.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Originally posted by Armoured Warrior:

The 970 is a very good card but the VTX3D X Edition 290x is 40 Euro cheaper and comes with three free games. I'm just trying to figure out if the VTX3D is a trustwordy brand.

Dont know about that, VTX3D is pretty obscure brand, I dont really trust other brands then Asus, MSI, EVGA and Gigabyte when it comes to graphics cards.

[Rove]

I'd go for a R9 290X over a GTX 970. Also what's the use of a Windforce 450W cooler on a GTX 970 seriously? I mean if you are going to overclock it that much then just get a R9 290X instead. R9 290X draws more power at stock than GTX 970 but should be more efficient and stable than a massively overclocked GTX 970 at it's stock clocks. Plus before you are able to draw 450W on a GTX 970 you will *probably* fry your VRM or some other component.

Compare card stats here:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 900 series:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_900_Series

AMD Radeon Rx 200 series:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Sea_Islands_.28Rx_2xx.29_Series

As you can see the R9 290X wins or ties in all the stats EXCEPT power use and efficiency.
However power use and efficiency wins will go out the window if you try and overclock the GTX 970 to beat the R9 290X in other stats and you will probably end up losing in everything then.

GTX 970 has exceptional power efficiency and low power use. It's also got a great pixel fillrate which can be superb for powering high FPS at high resolutions as long as there is no other bottleneck. It's also superb for things like video editing and streaming.

R9 290X is no slacker in Pixel Fillrate falling only slightly behind the GTX 970. It loses sorely in the total power use and power efficiency but in almost every other way than these 2 it scores a lot higher as per it's manufacturer stats. For example in GPGPU computing GFLOPS it's probably going to be a lot better than the GTX 970.

Also both of these cards have such a high pixel fillrate that you won't see a single monitor high enough resolution or fast enough Hz to stress either one of them for a pretty long time I think.

A important consideration here is how frequently are you going to be using this computer and what does power cost where you live?

The GTX 970 is more expensive up front but if you use it regularly enough for long enough it can end up saving you cash in electric bills.

Myself I live in Canada and usually have to heat my home. I know that pumping power into my PC is mostly like pumping it into a electric heater. ya my natural gas furnace is a bit cheaper but not by enough that I am concerned about my PC power bill. Also power is pretty cheap in Canada compared to many places in the world though not as cheap as some.

So for myself personally I'd definetly pick the cheapest R9 290X and run it at it's stock clocks without overclocking it. Ya it'd be nice to get a 3 fan model for sure, specially on this card which already draws 2 times the power of the GTX 970 just at stock speed. It's not required though as the reference model made due on 1 fan only.

Given the choice you have between the GTX 970 and R9 290X I'd take the R9 290X.

Your situation may be different and your needs different also.

I suggest using the available information and your personal circumstances to decide on your own. Cause I don't know if you are a streamer, a youtuber, a video editer or concerned about your power bill. I'm not any of those things currently so the GTX 970 is not for me.

I took a look at the exact model:
VTX3D AMD Radeon R9 290 X-Edition Graphics Card (4GB, GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/VTX3D-290-X-Edition-Graphics-Express/dp/B00HRJJHJC

It looks good to me. I see all the goodness of those copper heatpipe and 2 fans.

EDIT:
Uhoh, I think that is only a R9 290 that is a "X-Edition" but not actually a R9 290X?

Make very sure that the one you get is a real R9 290X and not a R9 290 "X-Edition" cause that seems to be 2 different things. If you got a R9 290 instead of a R9 290X thinking it was a R9 290X then you got screwed.

[Armoured Warrior]

Yea the VTX3D 290 X Edition is not a 290x. Strange naming scheme. Anyway I think i'll take your advice and get the cheapest 290x I can find which is the VTX3D 290x X Edition. Cheaper and comes with the Never Settle Bundle. I've been meaning to play Alien Isolation for a while now (or any DX11 game for that matter.)

Still using two Radeon 4870's 512MB in CF at the moment lol.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Rove is manic AMD fan btw, take anything he recommends with grain of salt since he will always recommend AMD even when it's clearly worse choice or outdated.

[Armoured Warrior]

In case anyone is wondering I ended up getting the Sapphire 290 Tri-X OC. The 290x Sapphire was way too expensive to justify it over a 970 and the VTX3D X edition 290x was not something I wanted to take a risk on since the brand doesn't have much of a reputation.

The reviews seem to say the Tri-x runs cool and quiet (for a 290) but only a modest factory overclock. I'd assume the OC version is pushed slightly ahead of that.

[Seitanmaus]

Rove, the plain hardware stats dont mean too much, especially since Maxwell uses them a tad differently than Hawaii. E.g. while the GTX970/980 both "only" have a theoretical 224Gb/s bandwidth, their newer compression methods effectively boost that to 300gb/s. Just to show that stats dont mean much between different architectures.

If you instead took a look at actual game benchmarks, you'd see the 970 OC clearly outperforming the 290X in almost all games, and that's with factory OC of sub 1200mhz, a 970 on air can often get to around 1400mhz manually, and that is with the first drivers for it. Rest assured future driver updates will improve the 970's performance.

Besides that, the 970 is simply far more efficient than the 290X, meaning quite less power consumption, much lower heat and lower noise.

Why put a cooler that can theoretically dissipate 450W (the one on the 970 is actually the WF 600W), if the card won't draw even close to that? Because then the cooler can run quieter and slower, not only reducing noise, but also maximizing its life span.

As for GPGPU, why should OP care about that when he's interested in gaming (which he clearly is, given this is a gaming platform)?

Also, sure there are single monitors than can stress out a 290X or 970, or actually even multiple. Take a 4K 60hz monitor, or the new 5K dell monitor, or a 1440p 144hz, or even 1080p 120/144hz monitor. If you want to "max out" such monitors while maintaining ultra graphics, a 290X or 970 can certainly be completely maxed out, if not end up insufficient.

PS: The 290X reference made do on one fan? Yeah sure it did, with heavily dropping core clocks and temps of almost 100°C. I dont call that "make do", I call that insufficient cooling.

[Chocolate]

If all 3 cards are very close in price then get the 970.

All three cards are in the same tier.

But if there's a huge difference in price, get whatever's cheapest.

People are grossly overestimating the 970's power savings.

Good price savings 290x will immediately pay off.