AMD R9 290X CrossFire V Nvidia GTX 780 Ti SLI

Final Thoughts

The benchmarks speak for themselves – both the AMD R9 290X CrossFire and GTX 780 Ti SLI set ups are just incredibly powerful. Both combinations tear through the 4K resolution with highly playable frame rates. However, there are differences between them that are worth discussing.

Firstly, let’s assess the AMD R9 290X in CrossFire at 4K. As the results show we saw an average of 83% scaling from 1 to 2 GPUs across all our games which is pretty darn impressive by anyone’s standards. If you consider that you can currently pick up custom cooled R9 290Xs for between $600 and $650, which actually isn’t too bad considering R9 290Xs were retailing for as high as $900 a few weeks ago, then an AMD R9 290X set up will cost you about $1200-1300. There are some drawbacks to consider on the AMD R9 290X CFX set up relative to the Nvidia GTX 780 Ti SLI equivalent. It does consume more power in games – about 50-100W when comparing stock vs stock set ups. In return for that extra power consumption you get slightly less performance – 8% less. Extra power consumption means more thermal capacity to deal with and the R9 290Xs are hot running cards so cooling them is a challenge. However, good custom cooled versions – like the epic Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ we tested – easily stay in acceptable temperature parameters with moderate noise. The AMD R9 290Xs do have more frame buffer, 4GB vs 3GB, but this appears to make little difference. There is also the frame latency issue to consider, AMD’s latest drivers do have a frame pacing option enabled by default for CrossFire set ups, this doesn’t work for all games so in some applications you will experience runt and dropped frames. Though to be fair to AMD they have pretty much fixed the frame pacing issue for all current Direct X 11 titles, although some older games running on DX10 and DX9 will experience problems. However, the bottom line is for $200/15% less ($1200 instead of $1400) in a dual GPU set up you only drop 8% in performance which is a convincing deal by anyone’s standards. On the whole AMD’s R9 290Xs do punch above their weight at 4K gaming but they really do need to fall in price to make them stand out more from the GTX 780 Ti.

Now onto the GTX 780 Ti SLI set up. Clearly this option is significantly more expensive at around $700-750 per card, 15% more based on the cheapest available non-reference cards, but you do get quite a lot more in return. From our results we’ve seen about 8% more performance stock for stock, also with an impressive 83% scaling from 1 to 2 GPUs, but for all intents and purposes the performance of both options is broadly similar and varies between the 3D applications chosen. However, you also need to consider overclocking: Most R9 290Xs will overclock by about 150MHz over reference of 1GHz, so by 15%, most GTX 780 Ti graphics cards on the other hand will tend to go a little bit further – from 928MHz stock to 1200MHz – which is 30%. Of course Nvidia’s GTX 780 Ti doesn’t actually realise all of that 30% gain because most cards will typically boost higher than their boost clock, but with non-reference cards you will get higher clocks and more overclocking potential out of the GTX 780 Ti without question. You also have a more refined product in the way of in-game power consumption, which is lower, and in game heat output, which is also lower. This means you’ll recoup some of that extra purchase price in the long term with lower power bills, you’ll need less in the way of cooling to keep them under control and it should run quieter – though this will depend on the type of graphics card you choose – some vendors offer quieter solutions than others.

While I find two non-reference AMD R9 290Xs an attractive proposition at close to reference pricing, e.g. around $579~, the reality is right now you’re looking at something in the region of $620-650, though you can find some better deals if you hunt around, but the same can also be said for the GTX 780 Ti. With the AMD R9 290X being priced close to the $700 GTX 780 Ti it does make an uncomfortable situation for AMD. Given the heat, power consumption and frame latency caveats already mentioned there is no reason to pick R9 290X CrossFire over GTX 780 Ti SLI if there isn’t much difference in price between the two (e.g. around $100~). However, when both cards sell close to (within 5%) their MSRPs the decision is a tough one. Green or red? As always the decision is yours to make but we hope this article has helped you.

Edit: The AMD Radeon R9 290X has recently begun to fall into sub $600 territory shortly after writing this. Custom cooled versions like the Powercolor PCS+ and XFX Double Dissipation can now be found for $579.99 and $589.99 respectively making it a significantly more attractive option than it was under previous pricing. It is also worth noting that there is an upcoming 28 inch 4K monitor, the Samsung U28D590D, that will cost as little as $699.99 to display a full 3840 x 2160 4K resolution at 60Hz, the only downside is that it is based on a TN panel but it works out much better value than Dell’s $689.99 28 inch 4K P2815Q which is limited to 30Hz and is also a TN panel. A big thanks to one of our readers “Luay” for pointing these things out. 

Thank you to Nvidia for providing the 4K monitor that was essential to this testing.