About as cheap as they get, limited stock so save one for me, I don't really need to say much else as these bad boys sell themselves ….. or maybe they didn't since there's still stock :)
As pointed out to me in the comments, it also comes with 3 games the buy chooses - some good games too.
How?
More heat, more noise, takes up more space and the R9 295X2 still smokes SLI 970s by 10-20% in most triple-A games. The higher the res, the bigger the gap, due to not being able to pool all of that VRAM together with two separate GPUs. For 1440P or higher, the R9 295X2 is a much, much better choice.
Maximum saving with two budget vendor 970s is $120. Factor in shipping (most likely) and realistically you'd probably end up saving $70-80 dollars tops. For that price gap, the performance lead of the R9 295X2 is worth it, especially at 1440P or 4K.
No sane person is considering SLI 970s or an R9 295X2 to game at 1920x1080, period. People gaming at 1440P or 4K have money to burn; a $100 difference is trivial.
In any case multi-GPU setups are fraught with a whole host of side-effects that don't justify their purchasing except for in extreme cases (3-Way or 4-Way SLI/CF; where you can reliably eliminate stuttering). Only on synthetic benchmarks do two, mid-range GPUs look better than a single, high-end card. These days the price difference between the two options is a lot smaller than it was in the past.
R9 295X2 and SLI 970s have the same amount of VRAM.
SLI 970s will have 4GB of VRAM.
@Yuri Lowell:
As does the 295X2. Both configs have 4GB effective video memory.
So I don't know why the hell I'm getting voted down.
Suppose I gotta remember; this is not a tech forum.
@O15: Oh is that true? The 8GB is pretty misleading in the title on the webpage then. Sorry about that.
@Yuri Lowell:
I absolutely agree. I don't know why it is accepted for dual GPU cards are marketed in this way.
VRAM doesn't stack with multiple GPUs. The R9 295x2 is two GPUs on one board. Arguably an SLI configuration produces less heat because each GPU has its own independent cooling instead of the two GPUs sharing the same cooling.
That is not to say that this GPU doesn't have great cooling, but the tradeoff is the high cost, but this deal is great and would personally prefer it over two 970s at this price.
More heat, more noise, takes up more space
295x2 should easily produce more heat than 2 970s, noise depends on coolers/airflow, even space can be subjective as the 295x2 needs space for the radiator.
R9 295X2 still smokes SLI 970s by 10-20% in most triple-A games
This can also be pretty subjective too as it depends on what games you're wanting to play. Many recent games have been released with little or no scaling with crossfire, e.g. Far Cry although I think it's changed now http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-…
due to not being able to pool all of that VRAM together with two separate GPUs
Crossfire should be the same as SLI, the 8GB on the 295x2 should effectively be 4GB for each GPU and not combined.
No sane person is considering SLI 970s or an R9 295X2 to game at 1920x1080
Considering there are games that don't even get 60FPS at 1080p, multiple GPUs can still be a good option especially for those that want to use screens with higher refresh rates. It might not scale the best at lower resolutions but there's no single GPU that's capable of high FPS in every single game.
295x2 should easily produce more heat than 2 970s
Every benchmark I've seen shows it hitting 70C at load. One 970 hits 65C alone. It logically follows that two of them are easily going to be hotter. Ambient case temps will increase due to the blower-style cooler designs on the 970s being very open.
As for noise, Guru3D's benchmark has dual 970s and the R9 295X2 at the same dBA at both idle and load, while Hardware Canucks shows the 970s to be significantly louder at idle and loud.
This can also be pretty subjective too as it depends on what games you're wanting to play. Many recent games have been released with little or no scaling with crossfire,
That would be an issue with either option.
I was going by comparisons of games that are at least a year old if not older (BF4, Metro: Last Light, Thief, Crysis 3, etc); which is plenty of time for the drivers to mature and the SLI/CF profiles to be fine-tuned.
Crossfire should be the same as SLI, the 8GB on the 295x2 should effectively be 4GB for each GPU and not combined.
Dual 512-bit memory buses versus dual 256-bit memory buses; big difference. At 4K resolution or 1440P with lots of AA, the scaling is dramatically different.
Considering there are games that don't even get 60FPS at 1080p, multiple GPUs can still be a good option especially for those that want to use screens with higher refresh rates. It might not scale the best at lower resolutions but there's no single GPU that's capable of high FPS in every single game.
Metro: Last Light or Arma III with the AA cranked to ridiculous levels are the only two that come to mind.
What else are you referring to that an R9 295X2 or SLI 970s can't max @ 1920x1080? Unless it's something like Skyrim with several hundred gigs of texture mods.
Very true.
I had twin GTX295's, now twin GTX590's. No more, never anything but issues, especially if I update Nvidia.
My 590's cost me $1K each and take up so much room I can't have any other cards. You get 6 months tops before their outdated.
True, but only if purchased overseas. This is the first time I've seen an Aussie dealer drop it below my personal benchmark of AU$1K.
My twin Gigabyte GTX590's are getting long in the tooth, one appears to be starting to fail ……. might be that time.
ATI's "3xx" series card coming … relatively soon, going to use "HBM" memory which is from 4 to 9x faster. Even if they gimp it, so it's not a huge huge leap (so they can trickle sell us goods) - expect to see the next AMD card, at least quite a reasonable performance jump in a long time.
Google it up, there's some "captain jack" benchmarks out there which seem to indicate it's about 10 to 25% quicker than a GTX980 IIRC - and that's the 380x not the 390x
I'd estimate release in under 5 months,…. and probably only $699 AUD vs this behemoth hot, giant beast :/
This video card is really power efficient, so much so that when you play the majority of games, the second GPU doesn't even turn on!
Seriously though, crossfire profiles are really lacking these days and when they do exist they have so many problems, SLI also seems to have plenty of issues.
Do yourself a favour and stick to single GPU cards unless you have money to burn.
Isn't the R9 295X two R9 290X chips on the same board?
This thing cost more than my computer.
This thing costs more than my house
You must have bought in 2006 when they were cheap. Can't fail with property investment, government and banks back you all the way.
Technically that park Bench and cardboard box would be the Government's house, your just their current Tennant.
At least the park bench, unlike a Collingwood supporter, can support a family.
$999
That's some thick cash for a graphic card only.
Hey!
It has a waterblock too!
Just a heads up the promotion also entitles the purchaser to 3 free games (CD keys), which can be sold off to buy some stitching for that hole left in your wallet after buying this beast.
My bad, I better add that. I actually thought it was standard :)
I don't recommend this card. Go with Nvidia 970's or a 980. This card does not have DP ports or HDMI ports, only mini DP and they do not send you a mini DP to DP 2.0, its only a 1.3 so if you want to do 4k at 60 fps, not possible out of the box, its another ~$25 for the correct cable.
Card also has some issues displaying to the monitor on a fresh boot if you turn the monitor on too soon sometimes, or that just might be mine (I get unlucky).
Its water cooler is also massive (not to mention the card itself is wide and tall). If you don't have an over sized case, fitting it in will take a lot of reworking or may not even be possible.
Ironically I've just been reading about that.
I run a 46" (HDMI), 50" (HDMI), and a 28" (DisplayPort). This unit only has 3 DP's so I'd be pushing it to max. Working out my power req's means I'd need to upgrade my PSU past it's current 1200W …….
Maybe I should wait & upgrade my entire system, even my i7-950 is getting old now :/
Im running a 28" 4k on mine. The card has 4 mini DP's. I'm also running it on a 850 watt PSU. Doesn't to have an issue, even with DDR4 ram, Hex core CPU and 8 drives.
Sometimes I think I should downsize, or at the very least switch out the 50" plasma for a LED. The new plasma's claim good power efficiency but I'm not sure if it's worth it. These days I only seem to use it to play background music sigh
![[PC Case Gear] XFX Radeon R9 295X2 8GB, AU$999 (AU$700 off)](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/21/176921.jpg?h=5d44281d)
They've been this price there for a while. Still pretty good value, but you'd be better off with 2x GTX 970's in SLI in many cases.