Gigabyte r9 290 or Gigabyte GTX 970

[machetazos]

As the title says, i'm looking into these 2 cards. The problem is price. Where i live, prices are:
- Gigabyte R9 290 Windorce OC: 400$
- Gigabyte GTX 970 Windforce OC: 485$
- Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming: 515$
As you can see, we have pretty nice prices here, my question is, is it worth an extra 115$ to get the g1 970? I have an 800w 80+ silver psu, so power consumption is not a problem.

 

[jafrankl]

Is the extra clock speed worth it to you? Use newegg.com to compare specs side by side. Why isn't EVGA's ACX cooling 970 considered? Or MSI Twin Frozr?

 

[machetazos]

I currently have the 270x windforce oc and i like it a lot, so i decided to stick with gigabyte. Besides, Evga acx and MSI are all within 500-520$ range.

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

Hi Machetazos!

Hands down the GTX 970 wins. Any GTX 970 will crush an R9 290 or 290x in both performance, heat output and power consumption.

In terms of future proofing, the GTX 970 has G-Sync (AMD will be rolling out their new "Freesync" variant of this technology) which means 4k will look smoother at lower frame rates. If you going to consider upgrading in the future, Nvidia's SLI scaling works brilliant with nearly all games (some require a little tinkering within Nvidia inspector), unfortunately I cannot say the same with AMD as I have tried Crossfire with 2x 7970's giving negligible performance increase.

If you are not particularly interested in 4k, you may be interested in Nvidia 3D, which is absolutely terrifying in games such as Alien Isolation (with helix mod) and Metro 2033. 100% recommend that!

If you are into 3D rendering using programs such as Maya or 3DSMax, an Nvidia GPU can make use of Mental Ray (looks great) or if you use a GPU renderer, you can use CUDA cores (only for Nvidia) to render a scene MUCH faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOaNGwEl0vU <-- Far Cry 4 benchmark showing the 970 kicking ass!

To conclude, get the 970, it beats the 290 by a fair margin and can even keep up/beat the 980 in real world environments. In terms of which card to get, it doesn't really matter (in terms of brand as the GPU itself is the same). Try not to get a "blower" fan design as they usually run a bit hot in comparison to a dual or tri-fan design. Also a cooler (temperature) card gives you more headroom for overclocking!

Hope this helped!
Alex

 

[jafrankl]

EVGA and MSI are around $500 for a 970??? What sites are you using? They are typically cheaper than Gigabyte.

 

[machetazos]

i am looking one one of the cheapest online stores here. The prices are as follows:
-GIGABYTE WINDFORCE 387€
-MSI 397€
-EVGA ACX 399€
-ASUS STRIX 404€
-GIGABYTE G1 408€

And the gigabyte 290 is only 322€. I should also mention i will use the gpu for gaming only at 1080p@60Hz

 

[jafrankl]

Ah, being outside the US the prices are changed a lot. Here EVGA is around $330-$370, MSI is nearly the same, and Gigabyte is $340-$370. The R9 will handle what you want to do, and is agreeably cheaper, but nVidia has better cards imo.

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

i am looking one one of the cheapest online stores here. The prices are as follows:
-GIGABYTE WINDFORCE 387€
-MSI 397€
-EVGA ACX 399€
-ASUS STRIX 404€
-GIGABYTE G1 408€

And the gigabyte 290 is only 322€. I should also mention i will use the gpu for gaming only at 1080p@60Hz

http://www.amazon.de/ZOTAC-GeForce-4096MB-GDDR5-256bit/dp/B00NNXVPS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418315312&sr=8-1&keywords=gtx+970 <--- Zotac
The brand does not effect the performance of the chip, all the brand does is adds fancy name (plus cooler) and a few more MHz added onto the base clock.

 

[jafrankl]

i am looking one one of the cheapest online stores here. The prices are as follows:
-GIGABYTE WINDFORCE 387€
-MSI 397€
-EVGA ACX 399€
-ASUS STRIX 404€
-GIGABYTE G1 408€

And the gigabyte 290 is only 322€. I should also mention i will use the gpu for gaming only at 1080p@60Hz

http://www.amazon.de/ZOTAC-GeForce-4096MB-GDDR5-256bit/dp/B00NNXVPS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418315312&sr=8-1&keywords=gtx+970 <--- Zotac
The brand does not effect the performance of the chip, all the brand does is have a fancy name (plus cooler) and a few more MHz added onto the base clock.

Agreed, the name brands do make you pay for it. But they have considerably better cooling systems than that one from what I've seen.

 

[jeffredo]

I recently compared an MSI GTX 970 to an XFX R9 290. I'd already bought the 970, but there was a very good sale on the R9 290, so I ordered it a week later. The GTX 970 was a bit smoother in certain games, but the price difference in the US was so huge ($120) that I sent it back and kept the R9 290. I could max game settings with both, so I could live with the slightly lower frame rate in those few games with the AMD.

Hands down the GTX 970 wins. Any GTX 970 will crush an R9 290 or 290x in both performance, heat output and power consumption.

lol - no. Its slightly better than the R9 290 (the higher the resolution goes, the more the gap narrows in favor of the R9 290) and its about dead even with the R9 290X. As far as heat output - I didn't notice any difference between the two in the room where the PC is. If you gamed all day long you might pay $25 more a year in electricity (at least in my home state of California). With less demanding tasks (browsing) there's no difference in consumption.

 

[machetazos]

Ok here's what i did. If not for performance(at 1080p either one would be a beast) i looked into heat output and power consumption, and if i decide to sli later on, i wouldn't have to buy a new power supply. I found a g1 gaming 970 for 392€, and for the reasons mentioned above i decided to get it. Thank you for all your help!