Originally Posted by
Uraniumz
Sorry, typo.......I was referring to the 290 and
290x.
Yes, 780's and 290's have the same TDP. I wouldn't recommend either of them in more than 2 way Xfire or SLI air cooled applications (with an aftermarket style dual/triple fan, that vents into the case). I never said that you cant make 2 work just fine, but 4-way is no-way. Not unless you want you cards running at 94*C and throttling, causing performance dips.
Also correct, 970's would be more expensive. BUT, with that extra price not only do you get more performance, you get a card that can be bought with a blower style cooler, hence you could easily run 3 or 4-way SLI with no heat problems. Try that with any of the aftermarket cooled 290's and you will be sweating in your brand new computer room sauna
.
Between the two low-end effective options of 4-way Xfire/SLI of:
1.)4-way Xfire 290's, which would need to be watercooled to run properly and,
2.)4-way SLI 970's, which would have a gain in performance off the bat, not require an expensive watercooling solution to run properly, and probably still have headroom to overclock,
I would choose the latter of the two. If it was my build personally, I would get 2 980's instead, and pick up a third when prices drop around Christmas for sales, and possibly when GM200 drops the new versions of the 780Ti and Titan Black. Better scaling, more room for cards later, less heat etc......Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that the GTX 970 is supported for 4-way SLI.