Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs. R9 290X - Should I upgrade?
Category : Should I Upgrade?
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 19.03.14
A gamer simply can't get enough graphics power in their rig, which makes the upgrade question omnipresent. To show you whether it makes sense to upgrade from one generation to another we created this series of articles, where we will compare graphics cards from different generations. Today we're having a close look at the differences between the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and the R9 290X.
Comparing the Radeon R9 290X with the
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition shows us a rather clear result. Looking at performance
differences a bit closer shows, that
the R9 290X is about 36 percent faster on average than the Radeon HD 7970 GHz
Edition, when it comes to ingame performance. The biggest performance
differences can be found with Far Cry 3, in this case, frame rates are about
57
percent higher on a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. On the other side there is the
Skyrim, where the R9 290X is
21 percent quicker.
At this point we also want to have a closer look at power consumption. If we
equip our test system with a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition we see that it pulls 60
Watts from the plug, whereas the same setup with a R9 290X needs 57 Watt.
Under load conditions there is a rather big difference between the two
cards. Once we plugged the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition card into the test system
power consumption goes up to 380 Watt and with the R9 290X power consumption
is at 425 Watt. In this case it looks like the new card is more energy efficient
in idle but on the other hand the old card, needs 45 Watts less than the new one
under load conditions.
The new Radeon R9 290X is on average almost 36 percent quicker thatn the Radeon
HD 7970 GHz Edition, which makes this conclusion rather simple. Upgrading from the
HD 7970 GHz Edition to
a R9 290X makes sense and quite a few games get playable again at
higher resolutions. Other than that, you might want to consider, that thanks to the
mining hype, Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards sell for about 130 Euro on eBay
easily. Keeping in mind that a R9 290X card with reference design costs roughly
425 Euro these
days will make you invest another 295 Euro to get a seriously quick, new card.
A gamer simply can't get enough graphics power in their rig, which makes the upgrade question omnipresent. To show you whether it makes sense to upgrade from one generation to another we created this series of articles, where we will compare graphics cards from different generations. Today we're having a close look at the differences between the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and the R9 290X. 
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