PCFormat Forum Archive

9 290, feel the powa!

Also, I'm jelly

Iceblade wrote:I'm now stuck on this,
I have only owned NVIDIA cards,
but on price I can get a better RADEON card, or better according to benchmark and test scores.
They do run hotter on the test too.

So I could go for GFX770 or Radeon9290.

If you're only getting one, then get the 290. There's really not much in it, but it is slightly better for gaming and it has double the VRAM.

If you're getting two cards, forget AMD, unless you have a ton of money for water-cooling. A friend of mine has two 290s and in CrossFire they get up to 95 degrees, compared to 75 degrees in single card use. And this is the msi model with the TwinFrozr cooler and two slot spacing on the motherboard.

What resolution are you going to be gaming at?
What are the prices on the cards? (AMD should be cheaper)
What titles are you looking to be playing the most?

I also say go for the AMD R9 290 because there's a tad more performance on the 290 and the extra RAM helps at higher resolutions.

@Iceblade:
Consider what else you might be using your computer for.
Are you wanting a new card to enjoy better gaming performance only, or is there other software [such as Blender, for example] that you use regularly that would benefit from nVidia CUDA acceleration?

If I had thought my graphics upgrade through properly, I would not have opted for a Radeon for just this reason.

Just pure gaming pleasure.....

On benchmark and gaming preformance the 9290 beats the 770 and touches the preformance of the 780,

but the 9290 is priced in 770 range.

Only going for one card.
Just need to find it first,
seems the 9290X is only card at Pinnacle, but cost close to 780 then,
so want the 9290 rather

StarPhoenix wrote:@Iceblade:
Consider what else you might be using your computer for.
Are you wanting a new card to enjoy better gaming performance only, or is there other software [such as Blender, for example] that you use regularly that would benefit from nVidia CUDA acceleration?

If I had thought my graphics upgrade through properly, I would not have opted for a Radeon for just this reason.

Found the following on the net:

"Go here: http://www.luxrender.net/en_GB/standalone

Download the OpenCL archive for your operating system. Extract that somewhere you can easily find it, you'll need to find it again in Blender.
Now open up Blender. "File" -> "User Preferences" (Control + Alt + U) -> "Addons" tab -> "Install from file" (at the bottom).
Browse to the folder you just extracted, select the zip file.
My version is called "LuxBlend26_1.2.1_64bit_OpenCL.zip"
Now make sure it is enabled by making sure that it is ticked. If it does not show up automagically, click on the "Render" button at the left. "LuxRender" will show up in the list.
When that is done, do the same, but with "render_smallluxgpu.py". Make sure that is ticked as well.
Next, in Blender, at the top, next to the "Scene" textbox, change the render engine to "SmallLuxGPU"
At the right, in the "Render" tab, under "Full path to SmallLuxGPU's executable", enter the the path to "LuxRender_64_OpenCL\slg3.exe".
Next, under "Full path where the scene is exported", enter the path for the exported scenes to be stored. Entering "//" here will store the exported files in the directory of your Blender .blend.
If the "Rendering Type" is not yet set to "PathOCL", make sure it is. You could also try other "Rendering Types".
Now render to your heart's content!

Should you get any error messages, make sure you have installed the AMD APP SDK, which you can find here: http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks ... g-app-sdk/

Any other error messages, you can Google around.

Edit: you have to add a sun lamp though: Shift+A -> Lamp -> Sun (S). In the "Object Data" on the right (sun icon), make sure "Sky" is enabled."

And, in general, AMD's cards' OpenCL performance is better than NVidia's cards' performance. But then again, this is a gaming build, not a compute build, so OpenCL/CUDA is a moot point.

Speaking of builds, shouldn't the posts relating to Iceblade's build be in a separate build thread?

@Iceblade: Get two R9 295X2 cards.

Wish I had the money for two cards,

My build is under a different topic, http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=41805

but this question was aimed at NVIDIA VS RADEON.
770 VS 9290

Two things:

AMD Forms Radeon Technologies Group, A Dedicated Graphics Division Led By Raja Koduri
http://wccftech.com/amd-forms-radeon-te ... ies-group/

And with word on the street of an imminent injection of capital coming AMD’s way very soon, we should see the dedicated CPU and GPU groups take on a razor sharp focus and play a much more aggressive role in the PC industry’s perpetual game of chess.

Why quote that piece specifically (instead of, say, the meat of the article)?
Advanced Micro Devices Reportedly Selling 20% of Its Shares to Private Equity Firm: Silver Lake
http://wccftech.com/amd-nasdaq-selling- ... lver-lake/

AMD Reveals Polaris GPU Architecture: 4th Gen GCN to Arrive In Mid-2016
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9886/amd- ... chitecture