Gtx 970 or r9 290x for 1440p gaming?

[jbradsonp]

Nearly finishing my gaming rig however only the GPU is missing in the puzzle.
Both only have £20 price difference here in the UK (Amazon.co.uk)

Planning on gaming at 1440p 60hz with Dell U2515H.

What are the benefits of each card?
I know about the 970VRAM issue
But what about performance wise? The future of both cards? future drivers? Life span? DX12? Etc...

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

My Specs:
i5 4690k @ Stock
1TB WD Blue
HyperX Fury (2x4GB) 1866MHz
MSI Gaming 3 z97 Mobo
Corsair 750w Modular PSU
120GB ssd samsung evo
BitFenix Neos Case
212 Hyper Evo CM
Dell 25" U2515H 1440p 60hz Monitor.

 

[UnDeaDKnight]

The 970 is faster out of the box and has more overclocking potential. I wouldn't worry too much about the last 500MBs of the 970 being very slow, that would rarely be a factor at 1440p. Lots of games these days are sponsored by Nvidia (aka crippled for AMD) so it would probably be wiser to go for the 970 for that reason as well. SLI is also better supported than Crossfire, in case you want to go that route in the future.

Here's videocardbenchmark high end benchmark chart:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Given the fact that both cards also cost the same, I'd pick the 970.

 

[sizzling]

I second the 970 for reasons already given

 

[spdragoo]

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1056?vs=1355

Looks like both are pretty much neck-and-neck, with the leader card in a particular game only ahead of the other by maybe 5FPS or so...not enough to be truly significant. Although, if you ever go above 1440p, the R9 seems to have a slight advantage. In either case, though, they're both at the same tier (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html), so either one is a good buy. If there's a price difference, go with the cheaper one.

As for the 3.5GB/4GB issue...it's not as much of an issue now, but in the future it will become a problem. We're already starting to get some games that truly use 4GB of VRAM -- which is how the whole issue was discovered in first place -- and I highly doubt that the trend of ever-increasing-VRAM-needs among games is going to turn around...which means that, going forward, you'll see more games that will push the 970's VRAM usage past the magic 3.5GB mark, thereby limiting the details you can select and/or the resolution you can play at. But, 4GB isn't a whole lot more than 3.5GB, so there's not much of an edge there. If you pick the 970, just be aware of the potential issue.