NVIDIA GTX Titan X

Meh. Hopefully the 390X is as impressive as the rumors indicate, but who knows with AMD. They have a long history of very hyped up products that end up being flops in actual execution. They also need to stop releasing cards that sound like leafblowers and get hot enough to cook an egg. The 290X may have had impressive performance for the price, but it was a miserable card to use to due to the heat and noise. I find my 980 to be very impressive because it achieves a high level of performance while never making a sound. In fact, with it running so cool and with it being a semi passive card, the fan often doesn't even come on when gaming.

 

I'll believe it when I see it. AMD has a long history of overpromising and underdelivering.

 

This is pretty much the performance level I'm wanting from a GPU, but no way will I ever pay that much. These things go for $1500 here... My 290X was $430 in October last year and will do me for at least another year for 2560x1450 gaming depending on what happens with VR.

I have an MSI aftermarket cooled 290x and on default settings in summer it definitely exhausts a lot of head out of my case. My case has 2 180mm fans just in front of the video card though so any heat generated you will notice coming out the back a lot more than many other cases. So yeah, the noise issue is pretty much solved with an afermarket cooler (although it was noticably louder than my old card which I didn't notice at all), but the heat and power, not so much. However, set the GPU to quiet mode or -20% power draw in the ccp and the difference is huge, yet the performance hit is around 2% most of the time. This is how I'm running my card for now, at least until winter when I might want extra heat. MSI afterburner reports that clock speeds vary between 975 and 1050MHz in this mode, where as the normal mode varies between 1000 and 1050MHz... so yeah, as you can see, not a huge difference for performance.

I think AMD just pushed the 290X a bit hard at launch to go head to head with the 780Ti. The card is essentially overclocked. Anandtech ran their 290x in quiet mode for the titan X review and it came out using less power than the Titan X:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9059/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-review/16

So while AMD do have a long way to go on perf/watt, the 290x on 'uber' mode is not the best indication of where they actually are right now as it runs beyond the bounds of what is most efficient for the chip voltage wise to ensure higher constant clock speeds.

 

I feel like the STRIX 980 is the card I've been waiting for for many years. A card that basically functions like a fanless HTPC card most of the time, but can keep pace with the big dogs. You used to have to water cool to get this kind of user experience. Someone is going to have to produce a cool, silent, powerful card to get me to upgrade. Just having good performance is not enough, especially if the card gets hot and screams like a banshee.

 

I have a Seasonic power supply that is the same. Most power supplies have been silent for a long time, but with my flipped case and the PSU intake being at the top of the case right under my desk, I really appreciate that it pretty much never turns the fan on. I think it turns on in summer if I game a bit, but I honestly can't tell. It also means the dust filter for the PSU intake never needs cleaning... well 18 months in so far and it looks fine, where as my front filters need it every month.

It sounds like Nvidia's Gxx04 series are ideal for your needs. Kepler and Maxwell's midrange have been amazing. The only thing I don't like is how they sell them as high end until the Gxx00 or Gxx10 series comes along in the form of a titan to make it look cheap, and then finally a cut down version of that finally drops the prices on the x04 variants. I guess it's like a double release cycle this way... refreshing the former high end a year later and re-pricing it for upper mid. Also, the GK104 and GM104 have been a lot higher end than the old Gxx04's were. Maybe AMD will catch up in perf/watt in this segment, but I don't expect it for their upcoming range on 28nm.

I haven't really been hearing anything with regards to 380X. So far there is Fiji, which looks to be 390X, and then there is just a fully enabled Tonga... which has been pretty lacklustre on perf/watt in it's R9 285 form. I would assume a cut down 390X would be 390, not 380X, and as said there is no leaked info on a slightly smaller chip to fit between... so it seems like AMD may just rebadge Hawaii for that, 290X becomes 380X. Boring, but it seems likely at this stage.

I personally don't see anything exciting happening with AMD anywhere aside from the high end until they can use a smaller process node. It's looking like there will be a new high end and everything else will just be tweaked/rehashed. I guess the 300 series will have a pretty short life, hopefully even less than a year.

 

I was very tempted by this.. but glad I just stuck with my 780ti for the time being.

I am never going to go xf or sli again.. AMD put me off that for good.

 

I wish they'd hurry up both of them.

For someone like me choices I have are either get another 780ti (which is nearly half price now), or a titan X which is the price of nearly 4 780tis.. Like you say nothing between 980 and titan x.. sucks so much ass.

 

Definite no to the 780ti. That 3GB will kill you in upcoming games, even some current ones.

 

I got a second 780ti..

I'll just switch off MSAA.

I'll sell 780ti x2 when the 980ti comes out.