Hey!
I have question for you guys. I want to upgrade my graphics card since after release of 970/980 they are super cheap.
I am wondering how those cards perform.
My thought about this comparison:
290X pros:
- better general 3D performance in games
- more memory
780 pros:
- it is known that nvidia drivers are more reliable
- CUDA cores
- lower wattage
- generally higher culture of work (however I intend to buy either of this in Windforce/Lightning version so it doesn't really matter)

Thx

i can't tell you the best solution but when you can wait a bit till the H14 is out we can judge it better. maybe someone from sesi can give a tip because they have more different gpu's the i have.

If it comes out I would bet GTX 980 8Gb may be the best value for the money. With 8Gb you are all set if you need to render scenes on the GPU as well (well the ones that can fit, or use out of core renderer like Redshift3D). The viewport performance shouldn't be bad as well.

The 970 looks like a good value - performance around the 780 (non-ti), with 4GB, for $330. Prices are slightly inflated at the moment, closer to $400, but it still seems like a quite a lot of GPU per dollar. The sales on the 780ti are enticing, but most of the ones on sale are 3GB models, and they're still more expensive than the 970.

But is there any difference between nvidia and amd when it comes to what houdini prefers? For example Maya viewport tends to work better with AMD cards.

Judging solely on my personal experience, +1 for nVidia.

+1 for nVidia