Choosing between R9 390 or GTX 970 ( gaming )

[sanjiyoung]

Hello Tom's hardware,

I found lots of topics about 390 and 970. But I wanted to start my own topic about both of these amazing cards, I wanted see what you guys have to say for which GPU is the best for me.

What I'll do with my PC:
Gaming and perhaps recording my gameplay if I have the possibility to do so.

My other components:

Why I chose these components:

Intel Core i5-4460 Boxed:
I chose this i5 because it's the cheapest i5 I could find. And we all know intel > amd cpu.

ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer:
Cheapest mobo I could find with optical.

Seagate Desktop HDD 1TB:
Just enough for my junk 😀

NZXT S340:
Perfect budget case, it looks very nice has a window and has 2 good fans delivered.

AOC i2770Vhe:
Black 27 inch 1080p monitor with IPS. I wanted to go for an LG one but they cost 50 bucks extra.

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO:
I dislike stocker coolers so much, they're useless, too much noise and they don't even keep the temp low.

Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2C4...:
2x4GB RAM, I think it's enough for just gaming, I could go for corsair but this one has CAS Latency at 8, the lower the better they said, can anyone confirm this?

Seasonic M12II Evo 620W:
Enough for a single GPU/CPU without overclocking. Good brand, haven't had any trouble with Seasonic in my past gaming experiences

Samsung 850 EVO 120GB:
I had the 840 EVO, they're great, fast windows startup, fast loading times in gaming.

Tl;Dr :

And finally the reason why I opened this topic in a GPU category:
I can't choose between the 970 and 390, both same price 355 ( both MSI ). Some people are saying 970 is enough for 1080p and the others are saying 390's 8GB is great for upcoming games and mods which use lots of vram (according to them)

I do play games with mods, hd texture packs, games like Skyrim with 200 mods and 4k HD textures and other amazing texture packs, hair texture packs etc.

I also play FTB minecraft ( 200+ mods ), funny thing is, most people can't take minecraft serious but my FX 4350 and 270X 2GB can't handle FTB with mods at 720p (!). It doesn't get higher than 30 fps, stuck between 20-30.

PS : Also recording with shadowplay seems very very nice, something I could use for sure, since I really want to record my gameplay, does amd have anything similar to shadowplay that uses minimal GPU ?

 

[middlemarkal]

for the same price 970 less heat , less power,

you can also checks differents reviews as some game prefer one over the other.

 

[migronesien]

R9 390 is a tiiiiny bit faster than the 970. Also you could profil with the R9 390 because of the extra VRAM. I know that you have to go at least 1440p in high end games or even 4k to even notice a 4GB VRAM advantage over less VRAM but i dont know how much VRAM this amount of mods will eat up.

If they are the same price and you want to be on the safe side in terms of modding games go 390.

If you want the card to run cooler and have a little bit less noise and consume less power than 970.


To the shadowplay thing: i THINK that AMD offers no equivalent. In this case if you really want to use that my final recommendation would be the GTX 970.

 

[sanjiyoung]

R9 390 is a tiiiiny bit faster than the 970. Also you could profil with the R9 390 because of the extra VRAM. I know that you have to go at least 1440p in high end games or even 4k to even notice a 4GB VRAM advantage over less VRAM but i dont know how much VRAM this amount of mods will eat up.

If they are the same price and you want to be on the safe side in terms of modding games go 390.

If you want the card to run cooler and have a little bit less noise and consume less power than 970.


To the shadowplay thing: i THINK that AMD offers no equivalent. In this case if you really want to use that my final recommendation would be the GTX 970.

I'm leaning towards 970 with the shadowplay thingy, but the vram of 390 got me thinking haha.
Can anyone tell me how much VRAM is needed for 1080p gaming with mods ?

 

[migronesien]

R9 390 is a tiiiiny bit faster than the 970. Also you could profil with the R9 390 because of the extra VRAM. I know that you have to go at least 1440p in high end games or even 4k to even notice a 4GB VRAM advantage over less VRAM but i dont know how much VRAM this amount of mods will eat up.

If they are the same price and you want to be on the safe side in terms of modding games go 390.

If you want the card to run cooler and have a little bit less noise and consume less power than 970.


To the shadowplay thing: i THINK that AMD offers no equivalent. In this case if you really want to use that my final recommendation would be the GTX 970.

I'm leaning towards 970 with the shadowplay thingy, but the vram of 390 got me thinking haha.
Can anyone tell me how much VRAM is needed for 1080p gaming with mods ?

I think you're totally fine with the GTX 970 even with modding + 4k textures and stuff like that, because gaming at 4k resolution (the whole game, not mods) doesnt even require 4gb VRAM in the most cases, besides stuff like GTA V. There was an article where they tested 4gb cards against 6, 8, 12gb cards and they were barely faster and if they were faster than just because it was a better model.

Also the ability to use shadowplay will safe alot resources while capturing.

I dont even run into problems with just 3gb VRAM @ 1440p (SLI 780tis) and had quite alot of mods on Skyrim.
So Fallout, Oblivion, Minecraft and stuff is no problem either.

I suggest the GTX 970

 

[TheRyBobster347]

For what you want to do I'd say the R9 will perform slightly better. Especially when recording.

 

[sanjiyoung]

For what you want to do I'd say the R9 will perform slightly better. Especially when recording.

Why do you think the R9 will perform slightly better with recording ?
I mean, nvidia's shadowplay barely uses any power.

 

[sanjiyoung]

bump

 

[sanjiyoung]

I think I'm going for the GTX 970. Thanks.