MSI AMD RADEON R9 290X LIGHTNING EDITION or MSI NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX780TI GAMING Ed ???

[Pyromaniacghoul]

That's asking way too much I think. They don't accept credit cards because of the 5% commission charged by banks.

Well the only way I can think of making it cheaper is by going from an i7 4770k to an i5 4670k...

But I do plan on doing some video editing so I can't convince myself to do that.

 

[Bryn]

Well the only way I can think of making it cheaper is by going from an i7 4770k to an i5 4670k...

But I do plan on doing some video editing so I can't convince myself to do that.

Or just get a cheaper video card? Or buy the video card at a later date.

 

[acidrain]

Or just get a cheaper video card? Or buy the video card at a later date.

Ye really downgrade that card. People can say what they want here but 9K for a graphics card is throwing money away unless you planning on playing on a 4k monitor which even then I still think its too OP.

All this card gets you is being future proof for longer ( but not really seeing as DX12 is in the near future )

 

[Rickster]

This one EVGA GTX 780Ti SC 03G-P4-2883-KR

Busy looking for local pricing/availability .

 

[CataclysmZA]

Ye really downgrade that card. People can say what they want here but 9K for a graphics card is throwing money away unless you planning on playing on a 4k monitor which even then I still think its too OP.

All this card gets you is being future proof for longer ( but not really seeing as DX12 is in the near future )

And playing games on a 144Hz monitor with G-Sync capability isn't worth the expense? At the end of the day it's still Pyro's money, he can spend it on what he likes regardless of recommendations.

On that note, Pyro, have you considered the cheaper Radeon R9 290? It's nearly identical to the 290X, packs in very similar performance and once overclocked comes within 5% of the performance of the GTX780 Ti and over 10% faster than a stock GTX780 for a lot less money.

MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming 4GB GDDR5 @ R6429
Sapphire TRI-X R9-290 OC 4GB GDDR5 @ R6488
GIGABYTE Radeon R9-290 4GB DDR5 WINDFORCE 3X @ R6595

 

[Pyromaniacghoul]

And playing games on a 144Hz monitor with G-Sync capability isn't worth the expense? At the end of the day it's still Pyro's money, he can spend it on what he likes regardless of recommendations.

On that note, Pyro, have you considered the cheaper Radeon R9 290? It's nearly identical to the 290X, packs in very similar performance and comes within 5% of the performance of the GTX780 Ti, over 10% faster than the GTX780 for a lot less money.

MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming 4GB GDDR5 @ R6429
Sapphire TRI-X R9-290 OC 4GB GDDR5 @ R6488
GIGABYTE Radeon R9-290 4GB DDR5 WINDFORCE 3X @ R6595

I actually hadn't, thanks I'll take a look

 

[acidrain]

And playing games on a 144Hz monitor with G-Sync capability isn't worth the expense? At the end of the day it's still Pyro's money, he can spend it on what he likes regardless of recommendations.

So i suppose only a 9k card will be suited for that application. Why not just recommend the GTX Titan then ( even though we all know why and it's the exact same reasoning as I gave )?

He came here asking for input and I gave him mine... if he doesn't want to take the advice, that's his prerogative. No where did i state that my word is god.

 

[Pyromaniacghoul]

How much of a difference does mantle make on AMD cards?

 

[Rudimental]

How much of a difference does mantle make on AMD cards?

Mantle is largely irrelevant for you. Mantle is essentially about optimising CPU performance for rendering. If you're running at 1080p or 1440p with a single 290x on a fast Intel processor, then it will make little difference.

I suppose I should add the caveat that this is from what we have seen so far.

 

[Pyromaniacghoul]

I'll be impressed if they discount because their prices are already about as low as possible in most cases. Profit margins must be rather tight as is.

Just letting you know I managed to get some discount

Mantle is largely irrelevant for you. Mantle is essentially about optimising CPU performance for rendering. If you're running at 1080p or 1440p with a single 290x on a fast Intel processor, then it will make little difference.

I suppose I should add the caveat that this is from what we have seen so far.

Yeah I also read up and saw benchmarks, on high end rigs it made little to no difference.

 

[Bryn]

Just letting you know I managed to get some discount

How much did they discount?

 

[Pyromaniacghoul]

How much did they discount?

R600

While not a huge amount, never the less I am happy that money is still in my pocket.

 

[dudewotevr]

780TI!!

 

[CataclysmZA]

So i suppose only a 9k card will be suited for that application. Why not just recommend the GTX Titan then ( even though we all know why and it's the exact same reasoning as I gave )?

He came here asking for input and I gave him mine... if he doesn't want to take the advice, that's his prerogative. No where did i state that my word is god.

Eh, you have a point. I don't think anyone would recommend a Titan for gaming anyway, no game needs double precision math.

My apologies if my post came across as brash.

How much of a difference does mantle make on AMD cards?

There's a benefit to the high-end rigs under Mantle, although people aren't too excited about it for now. If you run a single card in a high-end configuration, Mantle helps reduce frame time variances resulting in smoother gameplay, as well as reduce the severity of hiccups because your hardware is being taxed in a more efficient manner, rather than brute-forcing a job. Although this benefit is also seen on high-end rigs, most sites have been looking at results with weaker processors because the improvements are very apparent.

That's a multiplayer benchmark by PC Perspective run of Battlefield 4 in Paracel Storm, using a AMD A10-7850K along with a Radeon R9 290X. The blue line represents GPU time in milliseconds which is the time it takes for the GPU to render one frame. Overall the line is much thinner and more collected than the Direct3D results, which ends up as higher average framerates over time because the GPU isn't being held back by the processor's performance.

And because Mantle directly affects processor performance, at the weaker end of the scale the CPU is allowed to work much harder with more multi-threading action going on, pushing up average framerates and improving the experience overall. On a high-end system the results won't be as pronounced, but they'll definitely be there in terms of smoother gameplay and will help when you're playing at higher resolutions with all the eye candy turned on. Nvidia's doing something similar with their drivers, but they aren't capable of producing the same benefits without their own API or DirectX 12.

If you run two GPUs at 2560 x 1440 or higher, Mantle also helps out with frame metering and frame variance. Two R9 290X cards in Crossfire using DirectX may have an average frame rate higher than the same pair under Mantle, but the Mantle tests by PC Perspective show obscenely predictable results.

 

[Pyromaniacghoul]

Ah I see, thanks for making it clear. That post explained mantle better and was more in-depth than any video or article I've come across so far