970 at 1440p

[PCN00B79]

I want to get the Asus PG279Q (IPS Version) and I am wondering if a single 970 will be able to handle 1440p. What worries me the most about this card is the .5 Vram buffer, So my real question I guess is how easily/often is it for 1440p gaming to hit 3.5 Vram usage. Or should I just look at a 980 and get better performance and extra Vram for like another $200.

 

[cdrkf]

I want to get the Asus PG279Q (IPS Version) and I am wondering if a single 970 will be able to handle 1440p. What worries me the most about this card is the .5 Vram buffer, So my real question I guess is how easily/often is it for 1440p gaming to hit 3.5 Vram usage. Or should I just look at a 980 and get better performance and extra Vram for like another $200.

Hi, well firstly I think the vram issue with the 970 is blown out of proportion. Most reviews I've seen show it copes pretty well with 1440p and if it suffered from serious micro-stutter there would be a lot of complaints.

That said, given the current prices and performance, I'd take an R9 390 for a 1440p over a GTX 970 any day. The 390 has double the vram and is repeatably faster (especially at higher resolutions like 1440p). Stock vs stock, 390 wins, overclocked vs overclocked, 390 still wins (I saw a recent review where they had the 970 ahead, then it turned out it was stock 390 vs overclcoked 970, and even then the scores were pretty much tied).

The only downside to the 390 is it's more power hungry than a 970, although it's no worse than the last gen GTX 780 or R9 290 cards (it's more that the 970 is especially efficient than the 390 is really that bad, people forget that lol).

 

[RCFProd]

From what I've seen the R9 390 is not always faster and should be threated more like a 4GB GPU (imo), although it can prove to be smoother with high VRAM usage in a few particular titles like Shadow of Mordor.

But as I said, really not always better than the GTX 970.

 

[cdrkf]

From what I've seen the R9 390 is not always faster and should be threated more like a 4GB GPU (imo), although it can prove to be smoother with high VRAM usage in a few particular titles like Shadow of Mordor.

But as I said, really not always better than the GTX 970.

At 1920 x 1080 pixels, no it isn't always better. At 2160 x 1440 pixels however it is pretty reliably faster when doing a like vs like comparison (i.e. stock vs stock, or overclocked vs overclocked). I think the added vram helps a bit at that level of resolution.

That isn't to say the 970 is a terrible card, far from it, although I think for 1440p gaming specifically it 1: Costs more, and 2: Is generally slower.

 

[jerdle]

MG279Q + R9 390 is a better choice for a lower cost than the g-sync equivalent and 970.
MG279Q + R9 390X is an equally performing choice for a lower cost than the Pg279Q and 980.

If for some reason you have to go with NVIDIA, I would certainly recommend a 980 for 1440p. 3.5GB isn't going to last you long.

 

[RCFProd]

I actually thought the GTX 970 and R9 390 performed roughly the same at 1440p with some higher fps consistency benefit on the R9 390 in a particular amount of games, with on the other hand a benefit to the GTX 970 for efficiency.

8GB of AMD VRAM is not comparable to ''3.5'' or 4GB VRAM on Nvidia's architecture remember. They both are powered in their own ways and certainly on the same architecture Nvidia proves to be more powerful with the same amount of VRAM and lower memory bus. Take a look at the numbers of the GTX 950 and 960 cards. Both were heavily underrated when people judged the GTX 960 especially before release, saying that it would stand no chance to the R9 270X.

So I think that these discussions should be held purely on results and benchmarks, not on specification numbers. The R9 390 8GB is pretty much an R9 290X with 8GB VRAM or something along those lines. Officially a 4GB GPU. Old architecture.

 

[cdrkf]

I actually thought the GTX 970 and R9 390 performed roughly the same at 1440p with some higher fps consistency benefit on the R9 390 in a particular amount of games, with on the other hand a benefit to the GTX 970 for efficiency.

8GB of AMD VRAM is not comparable to ''3.5'' or 4GB VRAM on Nvidia's architecture remember. They both are powered in their own ways and certainly on the same architecture Nvidia proves to be more powerful with the same amount of VRAM and lower memory bus. Take a look at the numbers of the GTX 950 and 960 cards. Both were heavily underrated when people judged the GTX 960 especially before release, saying that it would stand no chance to the R9 270X.

So I think that these discussions should be held purely on results and benchmarks, not on specification numbers. The R9 390 8GB is pretty much an R9 290X with 8GB VRAM or something along those lines. Officially a 4GB GPU. Old architecture.

Uhm I think you're mixing things up a bit lol.

You don't have a '4gb gpu'. Also the amount of Vram required is determined by *the game and settings* not the gpu. So for example, you could have the same gpu with 1gb, 2gb, 4gb and 8gb of vram and so long as it's configured at the same speed and bandwidth, you'd get the same performance on all 4 configurations provided the software being run fit within the 1gb frame buffer. If you then try and run some different software that requires 4gb of frame butter, the 4gb and 8gb cards would fare the same but the 1 and 2gb version that are otherwise identical would tank as they are having to fetch data from the far slower system ram.

So the R9 390 compared to the R9 290 is the same underlying gpu (although the 390 is tweaked and uses slightly less power, whilst is also clocked a bit higher so it is a tad faster). The also have the same memory interface of 512 bits wide (double the GTX 970 btw). The 390 comes with 8gb of vram as standard, the 290 4gb. Now most current games only need 4gb of vram- so there's no benefit in the extra on the 390 (in fact most games fit comfortably on 3gb, hence the odd memory config on the 970 seldom causes a problem). *however* if you push the textures, AA and other settings hard enough it is possible to blow past 4gb of vram, and then cards with more shine. All of a sudden the GTX 980ti looks loads better than it normally does against a 980 due to 6gb of vram vs 4, and a 390 will perform better than the 290 for the same reason. Actually maybe that's a bad way of putting, actually what happens is the boards with more memory will take a *much smaller performance hit* with the higher settings than cards without enough. So extra memory doesn't make a card faster but it *does* help it keep going further if that makes sense.

As for memory bandwidth AMD vs Nvidia cards- yes Maxwell uses narrower memory interfaces than GCN, part of that is to do with the fact nVidia has memory compression which effectively increases their bandwidth (something AMD added onto Tonga / R9 285 / R9 380 cards, which also feature a narrower memory interface than the previous gen similar gard the 280 / 280X). However, nvidia also uses *faster memory modules* in order to make up the difference. So whilst the GTX 970 only has a 256 bit bus, it also uses crazy high clocked ram to compensate so its bandwidth isn't so far behind. That said the bandwidth available on the R9 390 is crazy- it's got a 512 bit bus, and has more bandwidth than the GTX 980ti let alone the 970. As a result if you have a game / software that pushes the memory hard enough, the 390 can outpace a 980 for this reason.

It's a complex topic, and certainly the Maxwell cards are decent, though I wouldn't pay extra for them when the only benefit they provide is they use a bit less power (I really think the AMD cards are going to *age* much better- for an example look at recent benchmarks of the HD 7970 vs the GTX 680, at launch the 680 was faster, now the 7970 is still keeping pace while the 680 has fallen well behind it).

As for the 270X, it's still a great card. The 'newer 370' that looks so bad against the GTX 960 is actually the cut down R7 265 core, not the full Pitcarin core used in 270 and 270X (why they used the cut down core I have no idea lol).