GTX970 Vs R9 290

[Area-45]

So recently my attention has been brought to the GTX 970. I have trying to figure out which of the two(R9 290 or GTX 970) I should buy. I won't be buying them until Black Friday and Cyber Monday though. I have Like AMD for a while and have been committed to buying a computer that is AMD Based. However I would rather buy the GTX 970 if it is truly better. I have never had an nVidia GPU Before so I am a little hesitant to switch. I would like to know the ups and downs to each(Also curious if the lower memory bit makes an in game impact). If any one has a suggestion to specifically which nVidia card is best for Price vs quality that would be fantastic too. Thank you.

 

[frag06]

So recently my attention has been brought to the GTX 970. I have trying to figure out which of the two(R9 290 or GTX 970) I should buy. I won't be buying them until Black Friday and Cyber Monday though. I have Like AMD for a while and have been committed to buying a computer that is AMD Based. However I would rather buy the GTX 970 if it is truly better. I have never had an nVidia GPU Before so I am a little hesitant to switch. I would like to know the ups and downs to each(Also curious if the lower memory bit makes an in game impact). If any one has a suggestion to specifically which nVidia card is best for Price vs quality that would be fantastic too. Thank you.

The 970 is the better card. It is faster (often beats a 290X), consumes less power and runs much cooler and quieter.

The 256-bit bus is no problem for Maxwell.

 

[rhysiam]

I too am a big AMD fan and like to support the underdog when price/performance justifies doing so, but the GTX 970 is just too good to pass over at the moment.

Performance wise it's actually fairly close, though the 970 is faster: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1068?vs=1355

The killer is power, heat and noise, where 970 absolutely trashes the 290. If you look at the 4K benchmarks (which is where you should start to see issues if the 256bit memory interface is slowing things down), the 970 remains competitive with the 512bit 290. If that's the case now at 4K, I would expect it to be some time before memory speed starts to become an issue for the card at 'normal' resolutions.