Final Thoughts

Going into this article, we somewhat expected to be showing readers how much better dual GTX 970 cards perform at UHD 4K than R9 290s. This expectation was based purely on the fact that nosotros saw a unmarried GTX 970 beat the R9 290 by a sixteen% margin at 2560x1600 while consuming less power when we reviewed it last month.

At the time the GTX 970 was also much cheaper, but with contempo AMD price cuts the R9 290 is now slightly more than affordable than the GTX 970. With AMD'due south pricing at present in cheque, the R9 290 in Crossfire compares a surprisingly well against Nvidia's newer GTX 970s in SLI, with the latter offering but 3% more performance on average.

Scaling wasn't an issue either as ii GTX 970s were on average 86% faster than ane. The problem for Nvidia appeared when playing games at the Ultra-Hd 4K resolution, which slashed functioning in most titles by more than one-half of the effigy we saw when testing at 2560x1600.

Overclocking didn't help much either as the GeForce setup was still just 4% faster. Of the 7 games nosotros tested at 4K, the Radeons were faster in iii while the GeForces won the other iv. Withal, at 2560x1600 the GTX 970s beats the R9 290s in everything, often by a land slide.

The GTX 970s also uses around ten% less ability, but that'southward negligible if we are honest . And then to break it down, the GTX 970s are on boilerplate just 3% faster, use 10% less ability, but also cost x% more. They too overclock better, but overall the performance remains much the same.

Had AMD not been and so quick with its cost cuts, the slightly faster and more efficient dual GTX 970s would have been the obvious selection for 4K gaming, simply as information technology stands, a pair of R9 290s in Crossfire are technically a better value as they simply deliver more than frames for the coin.

That said, I still prefer the GTX 970s as they are libation, quieter and use less power, plus I'chiliad not convinced we're seeing everything dual GTX 970s have to offer at 4K. There was as well much of a performance driblet from 2560x1600 -- a driblet that didn't impact the Radeons nearly every bit much.