Nvidia Launches GTX 980 And GTX 970 "Maxwell" Graphics Cards ($549 & $329)

Go with the 970, unless you can find a bargain 290 or 290x.

Even at $250 the R9 290x looks like a crappy deal to me. Why put up with the most power hungry card on the market and AMD' jankiness when you can get the same performance with half the power draw and far better drivers/features for just $330? It was always a compromise buying a 290/290x, no one has to make that compromise anymore.

The 290 needs to drop to $200 and the 290x to $250 to make them interesting again. As it stands they may as well not exist.
 
So unless I don't know my shit, a slight overclock on a 970 will bring it to a 980 and saves you over $200 bucks?
 
Good, I like what they're doing at Nvidia. If I can get MFAA and DSR on my Titan Black through a driver update I'll keep it until big Maxwell comes out. If not, I'll hand it over to the first person who offers me between $400-500 CAD, in favor of a custom-cooled GTX 980 a.s.a.p., and upgrade again next year to hopefully a 20nm Maxwell high-end part.
 
Any rumours about the successors for the 290 and 290X yet?

AMD needs to respond in some way other than just cutting the price of their current line-up.
 
So at least one none reference 980. Two 8-pin power ports. Yikes!
 
i didnt even mentioned DSR. And if you want to play VR i think the VR stuff alone is enough. And if you live in a country with super high electricy prices 100-140W less is alot. That would be around 30-40€ less here per year in germany if you game for 3hours per day in average.
Right now in the benchmarks the 970 performs 5-30% better than a 780. A german Benchmark but you can really good compare FPS jump in % in these graphics.

And this was without MFAA, wasnt in the acutal drivers.

All that is not much of a leap for a $500 card I bought 8 months ago. It looks nice, but really won't affect anything for me for a long long while.
 
The 970 is tempting, but my 770 still does everything I want it to do. I don't know if it's worth it just yet.

Yeah the lingering feeling of "BUT IT'LL BE BETTER NEXT YEAR THOUGH!" is still there. But god oh man the review and benchies on techpowered are really tempting. I'm gonna try and hold back unless I get a big bonus this Christmas or whatever.
 
What to do with my 780... for a single 970, the change wouldn't be worth it (unless I ended up paying no more than $30-40 out of pocket, I guess)... but at that power consumption I could SLI 970s... hmmm...
 
So unless I don't know my shit, a slight overclock on a 970 will bring it to a 980 and saves you over $200 bucks?

That's really nothing new. An overclocked 8800GT was about as good as an 8800GTX, an overclocked GTX 260 Core 216 was about as good as a GTX 280, and an overclocked GTX 570 was about as good as a GTX 580.

But the 980 can be overclocked as well to negate the performance parity. Also, the extra money is going towards E-peen satisfaction of having the best thing. lol.
 
better perf but from what I hear, more issues with games at launch

True, but the real world gap between a nice custom OCed 970 and the reference 980 is so small that even when SLI fails to work, you're still going to be able to play at very similar settings.

I can't make an unqualified recommendation for SLI but if you plan to use VR then SLI 970s have to be your choice over a single 980.
 
So I just built a gaming PC and had been waiting for cards.

970 SLI makes so much sense, but my employer just handed me a $500 Visa gift card.. It really shouldn't, but it's tempting me to go 980 SLI.
 
So I just built a gaming PC and had been waiting for cards.

970 SLI makes so much sense, but my employer just handed me a $500 Visa gift card.. It really shouldn't, but it's tempting me to go 980 SLI.

Do it. Do you really want to be running at lower framerates than people with 780 Ti's in SLI?
 
Even at $250 the R9 290x looks like a crappy deal to me. Why put up with the most power hungry card on the market and AMD' jankiness when you can get the same performance with half the power draw and far better drivers/features for just $330? It was always a compromise buying a 290/290x, no one has to make that compromise anymore.

The 290 needs to drop to $200 and the 290x to $250 to make them interesting again. As it stands they may as well not exist.
Power isn't an issue for desktop enthusiasts unless your country charges really high power bills. Driver-wise, both vendors have their fair share of problems. Glancing back at the DR3 thread, many of the CTDs and problems are from Nvidia drivers.

Having said that, I agree AMD needs to have some major price cuts thanks to the insane GTX970.
 
So I just built a gaming PC and had been waiting for cards.

970 SLI makes so much sense, but my employer just handed me a $500 Visa gift card.. It really shouldn't, but it's tempting me to go 980 SLI.

DO IT. You will feel so much better than all the peasants running 970 SLI bragging about price/performance. That alone is worth it.
 
No, AMD is still king of the roost when it comes to that, but that fad has died down anyway.

Ok sweet thanks. I want to get a 970 for my new build, but I didn't want to have to immediately buy one without worrying about miners or the price going up from gougers
 
Even at $250 the R9 290x looks like a crappy deal to me. Why put up with the most power hungry card on the market and AMD' jankiness when you can get the same performance with half the power draw and far better drivers/features for just $330? It was always a compromise buying a 290/290x, no one has to make that compromise anymore.

The 290 needs to drop to $200 and the 290x to $250 to make them interesting again. As it stands they may as well not exist.

I agree with those numbers. R9 290 looks way overpriced now and needs to drop to $200.
 
DO IT. You will feel so much better than all the peasants running 970 SLI bragging about price/performance. That alone is worth it.

Winter's coming up. I should probably consider the 295x2.

You're right though. I can also tell the peasants what it felt like to drop down that free gift card.
 
Even at $250 the R9 290x looks like a crappy deal to me. Why put up with the most power hungry card on the market and AMD' jankiness when you can get the same performance with half the power draw and far better drivers/features for just $330? It was always a compromise buying a 290/290x, no one has to make that compromise anymore.

The 290 needs to drop to $200 and the 290x to $250 to make them interesting again. As it stands they may as well not exist.

I haven't had problems with AMD drivers recently, but the R9 290 and 290x need to drop in price immediately. I suspect they will.
 
when can I buy these? my 6950 is getting old. I'd like to play assetto corsa smoothly with more than 1 car on the track. AMD disappoint me with the lackluster 285. Looks like I'll be jumping ship for the first time since the 9600 Pro
 
Top Bottom