So, I've got a 780 Ti (Galaxy reference) coming this week and I already have an R9-290 (Powercolor reference). I plan to run some benches to pit the two against each other using my sig rig. Most reviews/benchmarks you see use the same games all the time, I'm looking at maybe doing some different ones. If anyone has any interest in potential results, let me know what kind of benches you'd like to see run on the two. I've got a fairly decent library of games and also 3DMark. Built-in benches on game engines are good but if anybody has any custom bench runs that they want to see used instead, let me know (and where to obtain said "run"). I may do some overclocked results too, but that's going to be limited as they're going to be using stock cooling.
By the way, benches are going to be at 2560x1440.
I'll update OP with the results / graphs after I've gotten time to run the benches. Please open spoiler tags to view results of each category.
(Despite frame rate, Dirt felt a little smoother on the R9-290 card.)
(Hitman had some jitters on the GTX 780Ti, but nothing serious. The R9-290 was very smooth.)
(GTX 780Ti seemed to be exhibiting some fairly noticeable microstutter during all of the Just Cause tests, also some random flashing colors/shapes, strange display anomalies. The 290 performed flawlessly here.)
(Bench crashed while testing GTX 780Ti a few times and also had some times where the bench wasn't loading correctly and was causing missing textures, bad frame rate, and obnoxious lights. Again, 290 performed flawlessly here.)
(Performance aside, SSAA modes on the R9-290 seemed to do a better job at eliminating jaggies, most noticeable on the 2x test.)
(Despite basically the same Avg score, the R9-290 was jittery and the GTX 780Ti was smoother (though some small textures/decals flashed/flickered). It should be noted that neither would be considered 'playable' with Ubersampling on at 1440p. I might re-test at a later date with Uber off.)
UPDATE: Some other things to note:
-The GTX 780Ti has some pretty ridiculous coil whine at times, something the R9-290 actually doesn't exhibit (though I realize this can happen with any card, regardless of branding, my old 7970 did it but it improved with use).
-Both cards are audible while gaming and also start throttling. They have different sounding fans, but neither are of a tone that are real annoying. If you crank up fan speed, this all changes however; there is a reason I prefer to water-cool. Both under stock settings aren't that bad.
-Tested both cards (without benching) with both FarCry3 Blood Dragon and Deus Ex Human Revolution...
-Human Revolution ran about the same performance-wise on both cards (between 105-120 FPS with v-sync at 120hz)... However, there were a few jitters related to latency spikes (or maybe dropped frames) on the R9-290, although nothing too obnoxious. The GTX 780 Ti did play a bit smoother here. The 780 Ti did exhibit some flashing decals (such as bullet holes, etc).
-FarCry 3 Blood Dragon. Here the 780 Ti did have better performance and also smoother game-play. However, it's long been known that FarCry 3 titles weren't a strong suit for AMD and performed better on Nvidia. The performance on the 290 was still good and it was surely playable, but the 780 Ti gave a better experience. Although, the 780 Ti still exhibits moments of GPU usage dropping out of nowhere resulting in low FPS suddenly, which is easily noticeable while playing.
-During FarCry 3 Blood Dragon I finally got to hear the GTX 780 Ti's fan ramp up. It was rather loud during certain scenes of play, not unbearable, but certainly quite audible... Sort of a honkier (lower mid-frequency) than the 290's, which is a bit higher pitched. Louder than I've heard the R9-290's fan get. (Keep in mind, this is both with tested while at stock settings.)
-AMD's picture controls are, in my opinion, better. I'm able to achieve near perfect results while calibrating with the help of Lagom.nl. Nvidia control panel leaves a little to be desired here, I cannot quite get the gamma, contrast, or brightness near as perfect as with AMD when using Lagom.nl. Even at stock, AMD's colors are a bit more consistent. This is nice since it requires less messing with each individual color's brightness/contrast etc. I do calibrate by doing each color individually and not with the "all colors" sliders. Another thing that prevents getting Nvidia perfect is the fact that their sliders "jump" from let's say 50% to 53% or down to 47% from 50%... You cannot select 48%, 49%, etc. Sometimes the value that I feel would work ended up falling in these "between values" that Nvidia does not let you select. Achieving a totally neutral grey is near impossible due to this, and certainly annoys me.
By the way, benches are going to be at 2560x1440.
I'll update OP with the results / graphs after I've gotten time to run the benches. Please open spoiler tags to view results of each category.
(Despite frame rate, Dirt felt a little smoother on the R9-290 card.)
(Hitman had some jitters on the GTX 780Ti, but nothing serious. The R9-290 was very smooth.)
(GTX 780Ti seemed to be exhibiting some fairly noticeable microstutter during all of the Just Cause tests, also some random flashing colors/shapes, strange display anomalies. The 290 performed flawlessly here.)
(Bench crashed while testing GTX 780Ti a few times and also had some times where the bench wasn't loading correctly and was causing missing textures, bad frame rate, and obnoxious lights. Again, 290 performed flawlessly here.)
(Performance aside, SSAA modes on the R9-290 seemed to do a better job at eliminating jaggies, most noticeable on the 2x test.)
(Despite basically the same Avg score, the R9-290 was jittery and the GTX 780Ti was smoother (though some small textures/decals flashed/flickered). It should be noted that neither would be considered 'playable' with Ubersampling on at 1440p. I might re-test at a later date with Uber off.)
UPDATE: Some other things to note:
-The GTX 780Ti has some pretty ridiculous coil whine at times, something the R9-290 actually doesn't exhibit (though I realize this can happen with any card, regardless of branding, my old 7970 did it but it improved with use).
-Both cards are audible while gaming and also start throttling. They have different sounding fans, but neither are of a tone that are real annoying. If you crank up fan speed, this all changes however; there is a reason I prefer to water-cool. Both under stock settings aren't that bad.
-Tested both cards (without benching) with both FarCry3 Blood Dragon and Deus Ex Human Revolution...
-Human Revolution ran about the same performance-wise on both cards (between 105-120 FPS with v-sync at 120hz)... However, there were a few jitters related to latency spikes (or maybe dropped frames) on the R9-290, although nothing too obnoxious. The GTX 780 Ti did play a bit smoother here. The 780 Ti did exhibit some flashing decals (such as bullet holes, etc).
-FarCry 3 Blood Dragon. Here the 780 Ti did have better performance and also smoother game-play. However, it's long been known that FarCry 3 titles weren't a strong suit for AMD and performed better on Nvidia. The performance on the 290 was still good and it was surely playable, but the 780 Ti gave a better experience. Although, the 780 Ti still exhibits moments of GPU usage dropping out of nowhere resulting in low FPS suddenly, which is easily noticeable while playing.
-During FarCry 3 Blood Dragon I finally got to hear the GTX 780 Ti's fan ramp up. It was rather loud during certain scenes of play, not unbearable, but certainly quite audible... Sort of a honkier (lower mid-frequency) than the 290's, which is a bit higher pitched. Louder than I've heard the R9-290's fan get. (Keep in mind, this is both with tested while at stock settings.)
-AMD's picture controls are, in my opinion, better. I'm able to achieve near perfect results while calibrating with the help of Lagom.nl. Nvidia control panel leaves a little to be desired here, I cannot quite get the gamma, contrast, or brightness near as perfect as with AMD when using Lagom.nl. Even at stock, AMD's colors are a bit more consistent. This is nice since it requires less messing with each individual color's brightness/contrast etc. I do calibrate by doing each color individually and not with the "all colors" sliders. Another thing that prevents getting Nvidia perfect is the fact that their sliders "jump" from let's say 50% to 53% or down to 47% from 50%... You cannot select 48%, 49%, etc. Sometimes the value that I feel would work ended up falling in these "between values" that Nvidia does not let you select. Achieving a totally neutral grey is near impossible due to this, and certainly annoys me.