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Need quick video card answer!
Hey gang, I need a quick video card answer. I'm browsing boxing day sales and there are some huge markdowns on GTX 780 Ti video cards. I'm a AMD fanboy, and this build I'm doing for my son is admittedly my first time I'm going with intel and considering Nvidia too. I know little about the Nvidia cards, so how does this card stack up against the 290x? I notice the regular price of this card is quite up there, but at the same time nvidia has 970's and 980's now? I don't understand the hierarchy compared to AMD. Can someone help me out here? I can get the 780 ti for about 400 bucks. Keep in mind this is Canadian, and we tend to pay more for stuff here, lol! Thanks guys!
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Here is a link that will show you some comparison benchmarks. You can change the cards out to see what X compares to Y gpu.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1355?vs=1072
The GTX 970 4GB can be had for around $330 USD. If I were buying a GPU today that is probably what i would get.
The 290x looks to be around $350 USD while the 780ti is around $450-$500 USD.
Any of those GPUs would be nice. At $330 the 970 would be my choice.
$400 is way too much to pay for a GeForce GTX 780 Ti. Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980 a few months ago, and that forced previous high end cards to slash prices to compete. That's why GTX 780 Ti prices have come down, but still not far enough to be competitive. I think it would be silly to get a GTX 780 Ti over either of these, for example:
http://www.ncix.com/detail/powercolor-radeon-r9-290x-975mhz-d3-103515-1265.htm
http://www.ncix.com/detail/visiontek-radeon-r9-290x-1-0ghz-47-103587-1265.htm
Or if you have a strong preference for Nvidia, try a GeForce GTX 970. It's a little slower, but quite a bit cheaper than the GTX 780 Ti. It's also a lot lower power.
In most reviews, using real world game benchmarks @ 1440p, the 780 Ti is a tiny bit ahead than the 290x.
In some synthetic benchmarks the results are overstated.
It also depends on which specific version of the 290x or 780Ti you're looking at but either is a good card - depending on price.
Which Boxing Day sale you looking at? Is i this one?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133546&AID=10657534&PID=749547&SID=rfdcb-d725&nm_mc=AFC-C8JunctionCA&cm_mmc=AFC-C8JunctionCA-_-na-_-na-_-na&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-%zn
If it is, Hardware Canucks has a review on it:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/67103-pny-gtx-780-ti-xlr8-oc-single-sli-14.html
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Quick answer, AMD sucks so get a better card.
Unless you're just going to run synthetic benchmarks and not actually play games, one should be wary of basing a video card decision on a benchmark that is known to have strong architecture preferences that aren't shared by actual games. That site is useful if you just want a ballpark approximation because you don't know if card A is twice as fast as card B or the other way around. But it has strongly preferred Nvidia's architectures of the last several years over AMD's, just like it preferred AMD's architectures over Nvidia's before that.
Good idea and keep an eye on NCIX, that's where I buy almost all of my stuff and they usually have great Boxing Day deals (which I don't think are advertised yet.)
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The GeForce GTX 980 is definitely the best single-GPU consumer graphics card on the market today. It's also the most expensive, and by a lot. Outside of unusual needs, if you want the best and are willing to pay what it costs, then the GTX 980 is for you. But if you'd rather have 80% of the performance for 60% of the price, there are alternatives, most notably the Radeon R9 290X.