last wednesday i asked lowyat viewnet, they got stock of 290X 8GB at d price of 1699 but lightning at price of 1299, dunno it is wrth spend 400 on 4GB extra vram... much review shows against this tho.. but unsure they ever test something that will really stress the 4GB VRAM. no VRAM usage data detected

Yes, that's what I read too. That 8GB VRAM thingy is more like a gimmick. Okay, it does have some or little improvement but really not much.

I guess I should put my money for upgrade my PSU to platinum class? If you ask me, I don't think this is entirely gimmickry as the trending nowm the game are using more and more VRAM and engineers from some company seems lazy to optimize their game (namely ubisoft). For example, apart 2GB VRAM as being 'premium' few years ago, but 2GB now are actually minimum requirement. and much of the game requires more than 3GB VRAM to run on ultra setting.

from what i have observe from Watch dog gaming, one time i deliberately maxed all the setting and see the effect on my HD7870 2GB card. VRAM usage are reaching 2.0GB, mean almost full utilization but GPU never use over 40% mainly hovering from 28-35%. So i don't think AMD GPU are even bottlenecked yet, but the VRAM is the culprit. (observe through Microsoft process explorer.

4 me is medium the lowest i can go...less than that i trash the gpu already

Yes... for "future-proofing" then that's what you should look at... but who can be sure what to expect in the near future. Apart from the few games that do require high VRAM, the vast majority of them do not even fully utilize 4GB. So, if you ask me, I would rather go for the cheaper card (in your case, the 1299 one) rather than the 8GB version.

Yeap... 1299 for a enthusiast class card is just too tempting, i can opt for another upgrade 2-3 years later lol

Based on what you said, I think 290x 8GB will be able to last very long.

The reason people upgrading most probably due to RAM issue.

Let's say

HD7870 2GB only use 40% but 2GB RAM.
But if HD7870 have 4GB, you might not even need to upgrade now.

So let's say 290X 4GB. Probably some stuttering in newer games because low VRAM.
With 290X 8GB no more stuttering.

________________________________________________-


In another word:-
290X 4GB
390X 4GB

Running game XXX that need 6GB VRAM.

390X 4GB - 60fps
290X 4GB - 10fps
Reason:- 390X is faster to process so with same RAM, it can generate faster image to keep dumping out and no need to store so long in VRAM.
But 290X is slower than 390X. So it work slowing to store into ram and dump to HDMI.

But...if we use
290X 8GB - 35fps
Why I predict 35fps? Because it has more RAM to store and put out to HDMI.

We all know that once VRAM got full, your FPS will tanked.


____________________________________________________


Summary:-
R9 290X 8GB will be future proof.

This is what I found, just rerun the test to get the screenshot. Leftmost picture are High setting while next to it are in ultra setting.

Two settings tried, namely High and ultra setting. both utilises similar amount of GPU which are 30-33% and VRAM was maxed out by using 1.9GB out of 2GB. But I found that ultra setting uses 1.5GB of system memory, i guess this is the sign of bottleneck, while High settings wew use only about 500MB System memory.

My experience: High: very playable altho FPS are not that great.
Ultra: stuttering like hell...

Detail :
Ultra setting: everything max out with AA set to MSAA 8x
High setting: everything set to high with AA set to FXAA.

This post has been edited by wongkoewei: Jan 28 2015, 01:02 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

This means only 1 thing. Both AMD and nVidia are cheated customer to upgrade every year.

HD7870 are able to play all new game at ULTRA setting.

Just that not enough VRAM.

this is exactly what i have interpreted, but none of the 8GB review i read online are match my opinion.



update:
SAPPHIRE announces Radeon R9 290X Tri-X 8GB with triple fan cooler

Sapphire announces another 290X 8GB (Tri-X version)~~ Yesterday punya news... Do this mean 380X will be late?

This post has been edited by wongkoewei: Jan 28 2015, 01:15 PM

With current GTX970 fiasco, we can no long trust review.

We should trust ourselves. Just buy R9 290X 8GB.

When will you action? I'm planning maybe before CNY with 290X lightning or 8GB one. But before that need to search for more opinion 1st

Before GST. Probably after CNY. I'll be watching what you do. I might follow your footstep.

Seems like I will become a little guinea pig LOL!!!!!! I actually expect to follow your step, If we bought 8GB one i think we will become the only two 8GB user here.

then we'll be long time no need to upgrade LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Now my Lian Li mITX casing will be empty.
Will get Elite 130 or HAF915R then.

This post has been edited by gogo2: Jan 28 2015, 01:33 PM

Hope so, Ringgit falling now, i saw some part ady start increasing price.

Ringgit stabilized already...

what program is that? very handy.

Process Explorer from Sysinternal.

microsoft process explorer, it is a freeware, you can download it at microsoft website.