No, absolutely wrong, you're pulling stuff that provides such mediocre difference to suggest a highly inferior product.
First of all your increased electricity cost assumption is ignorant, you never once pointed out that amount of time the gpus spend using their TDP is extremely small in 24 hours, you forget to point out that for an overwhelming amount of games and programs, the gpu usage will not even warrant half of that wattage usage for prolonged periods of time.
You forget to mention that idle wattage difference is not as big, and that the increased cost is negligible, and would take up to 10 years to mount to a money difference worth mentioning, and the kicker is that you would lose more money due to inflation for how long it would take.
The second part of the coin, hypothetically ignoring everything i wrote above and acknowledging that there is some money to be saved, in comparison to how much W your other house appliances use, and how much the cost of electricity is compared to the purchasing power parity of your country, and your specific paycheck, the amount is so negligible again, that a runaway burger or soda, or buying of a finished meal instead of ingredients at the cheapest store around will be more money "wasted" that the "wrong gpu electricity cost"
In comes the AMD fanboy nerd raging. Whatever, he's an adult, he can read both our posts and make his own decision. I'm not going to sit here and argue the merits of each card with you.
Edit: And just for clarification, i never once suggested its is a "highly inferior" card. I did in fact say specifically, that it is a good card, that it is just inefficient, which is absolutely true. If you sit here and try to argue that the card is not significantly less efficient, then i know you're 100% fanboying it up.
I have 0 issues with people buying the cards, i just wanted to make sure that he has the information in case things like noise and power draw are important to him.
Edit 2: I decided to do the math just for the sake of information.
So, my card genrally is around 70% load when i game, a little higher or lower depending on the game, but lets call it 70%
Assuming the 960 is using 70% of 130w, it is using ~91w during gameplay. The 290 would be using ~182w under the same 70% load.
Assuming an average of 10 hours of gaming per week, that means the R9 290 is using ~3.85 kw/hr's a week, vs 1.82 kw/hr's a week for the 960. Average that by 52 weeks in a year, that comes out to a difference of the R9 using 105.56 kw/hr more in 1 year than the 960.
Depending on the area, utilities tend to run about $0.17 per hw/hr of usage. On that math, that means you would spend roughly $17.94 more per year on electricity with a r9 290 vs a 960gtx. Average that over 2 years (average life of replacements for cards for "enthusiasts") and that means you spent, roughly 36 dollars more on the card with electricity costs factored in.
Thats only based on 10 hours / week, that number goes up substantially if you game a lot more.
That being said, the OP's electricity is included in his rent, so for him its a non issue, but to my point, the electricity costs are NOT insubstantial over the life of the card, and DO makeup for the price/performance difference.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Second bit: Listen to Quizz, particularly when it comes to getting an SSD. It's more than just load times, believe me. It improves "hitchy" games by a TON, more than a new vid card in many cases. (I'm lookin' at YOU, Marvel Heroes/Lotro...)
Third bit: 8 gig is fine now, but it won't be long(maybe a year) til you'll need to upgrade to 16. It's not rare these days that I hit 2/3-3/4 load, which is on the brink.
4th bit: A good audio system goes a long way. Most MB onboard audio is fine, but plug it into something that doesn't sound like a bullhorn, only quieter. Audio is half the experience. It really is.
Good to hear. As far as the 290, even a quiet 290 is going to be loud compared to a maxwell 2 series nvidia card. Its all about physics, the TDP on a 290 is 275 watts, the TDP on a 960 is 130w's. That means that the r9 has to dissipate more than twice as much heat. Also, think about electricity costs. yeah, it may only add up to 2 or 3 dollars difference a month, but that adds up over time, so while you might save a bit of money as far as price performance now, after 2 or 3 years you came out WAY ahead, had a quieter, cooler running card, etc.
Just some things to chew on. R9's are not bad cards, they perform well, but they're very inefficient, which is why i primarily don't recommend them. In the long run they end up costing more money, they're louder, they create a ton more heat inside your case which doesn't help with the life of your other components and can affect potential overclocks of your cpu, etc.
Furthermore, even at load, dissipating 200 W while playing a relatively intense game in a desktop isn't hard to do. So the Radeon R9 290 isn't really going to be a problem unless you're unusually sensitive to noise or trying for a very small form factor.
Also, never underestimate the ability of stupid fan designs to make massively more noise than they ought to (see, for example, Intel's stock CPU coolers). Yes, lower power makes it easier to be quiet, but that's not the only factor.
Just a personal experience thing: I'm running an OC'd Asus R290 now, and it doesn't make any more noise than my processor fan, even at full load.
On the other hand, my old MSI twin Frozr 6970(a beast when it came out) sounded like a friggin jet plane taking off when you'd run games. I was actually considering ways to move the case downstairs and find a long range KMV solution at one point.
I think the moral of the story is, when you pay a crapton of money to buy the newest-latest-greatest tech, you might pay in more ways than just money.
Comments
In comes the AMD fanboy nerd raging. Whatever, he's an adult, he can read both our posts and make his own decision. I'm not going to sit here and argue the merits of each card with you.
Edit: And just for clarification, i never once suggested its is a "highly inferior" card. I did in fact say specifically, that it is a good card, that it is just inefficient, which is absolutely true. If you sit here and try to argue that the card is not significantly less efficient, then i know you're 100% fanboying it up.
I have 0 issues with people buying the cards, i just wanted to make sure that he has the information in case things like noise and power draw are important to him.
Edit 2: I decided to do the math just for the sake of information.
So, my card genrally is around 70% load when i game, a little higher or lower depending on the game, but lets call it 70%
Assuming the 960 is using 70% of 130w, it is using ~91w during gameplay. The 290 would be using ~182w under the same 70% load.
Assuming an average of 10 hours of gaming per week, that means the R9 290 is using ~3.85 kw/hr's a week, vs 1.82 kw/hr's a week for the 960. Average that by 52 weeks in a year, that comes out to a difference of the R9 using 105.56 kw/hr more in 1 year than the 960.
Depending on the area, utilities tend to run about $0.17 per hw/hr of usage. On that math, that means you would spend roughly $17.94 more per year on electricity with a r9 290 vs a 960gtx. Average that over 2 years (average life of replacements for cards for "enthusiasts") and that means you spent, roughly 36 dollars more on the card with electricity costs factored in.
Thats only based on 10 hours / week, that number goes up substantially if you game a lot more.
That being said, the OP's electricity is included in his rent, so for him its a non issue, but to my point, the electricity costs are NOT insubstantial over the life of the card, and DO makeup for the price/performance difference.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
First bit of advice: Listen to Quizz. In general.
Second bit: Listen to Quizz, particularly when it comes to getting an SSD. It's more than just load times, believe me. It improves "hitchy" games by a TON, more than a new vid card in many cases. (I'm lookin' at YOU, Marvel Heroes/Lotro...)
Third bit: 8 gig is fine now, but it won't be long(maybe a year) til you'll need to upgrade to 16. It's not rare these days that I hit 2/3-3/4 load, which is on the brink.
4th bit: A good audio system goes a long way. Most MB onboard audio is fine, but plug it into something that doesn't sound like a bullhorn, only quieter. Audio is half the experience. It really is.
Best of luck to ya, my friend!
Just a personal experience thing: I'm running an OC'd Asus R290 now, and it doesn't make any more noise than my processor fan, even at full load.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121842
Caveat: Better have a big case...
On the other hand, my old MSI twin Frozr 6970(a beast when it came out) sounded like a friggin jet plane taking off when you'd run games. I was actually considering ways to move the case downstairs and find a long range KMV solution at one point.
I think the moral of the story is, when you pay a crapton of money to buy the newest-latest-greatest tech, you might pay in more ways than just money.