MSI R9 390 or MSI GTX 970 for 1440p Gaming and Video Editing?

[Guest]

Hello everyone!
I'm currently building a new PC for Gaming and Video Editing. As the title implies, I'm planning to play most games at 1440p. I've read many threads about this topic, but none of them could satisfy me. I know a few points for and against both cards, I don't know if they're right though:
The 390 performs slightly better at higher resolutions, but it consumes more power and has a higher heat output, which means that a PC with a 390 in it will probably be noisier than one with a 970.
The 970 is very efficient and has higher OC potential, but performs worse at higher resolutions and has less VRAM.
My questions are:
1. If I overclock the 970, will it perform better than the 390? An will it still be more silent and efficient?
2. Are Nvidia drivers really better than AMD drivers?
3. Will I benefit from the 8 GB Vram of the 390 when editing videos?
4. I don't like noisy PCs, will my PC really be noisier if I use a 390?
5. Any other things I should know?

Here's the rest of my setup:
Case: BeQuiet! Silent Base 800 black-silver
CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K, 6x 3.30GHz
Mainboard: MSI X99S Gaming 7, X99, Intel X99
16 GB DDR4 RAM
250GB Samsung 850 EVO
2TB 3,5" Seagate SSHD 8GB SSD Cache
PSU: 800W - BeQuiet! Straight Power E10 CM

 

[ak47jar3d]

1. If I overclock the 970, will it perform better than the 390? An will it still be more silent and efficient?

Yes, 390 almost has no overclocking headroom while pretty much any gtx 970 can get into the 1450+ MHz making it faster than 390. Neither msi card is loud, but the 290 will run hotter.
2. Are Nvidia drivers really better than AMD drivers?
Yes, games like watchdogs, witcher 3 and project cars shows nvidia's driver superiority.
3. Will I benefit from the 8 GB Vram of the 390 when editing videos?
No, When I render videos in Sony vega, my two 970s idle while my cpu is running at 100%.
4. I don't like noisy PCs, will my PC really be noisier if I use a 390?
No, both boards are relatively quite so no worries in this department.
5. Any other things I should know?

390 is not powerful enough to ever use 8 gb without tanking frames to unplayability. At 1440p, you will be hard pressed to use more than 3 gb. I use sli 970 at 4k and don't have any vram issues.

 

[Azn Cracker]

1. If I overclock the 970, will it perform better than the 390? An will it still be more silent and efficient?

Yes, 390 almost has no overclocking headroom while pretty much any gtx 970 can get into the 1450+ MHz making it faster than 390. Neither msi card is loud, but the 290 will run hotter.
2. Are Nvidia drivers really better than AMD drivers?
Yes, games like watchdogs, witcher 3 and project cars shows nvidia's driver superiority.
3. Will I benefit from the 8 GB Vram of the 390 when editing videos?
No, When I render videos in Sony vega, my two 970s idle while my cpu is running at 100%.
4. I don't like noisy PCs, will my PC really be noisier if I use a 390?
No, both boards are relatively quite so no worries in this department.
5. Any other things I should know?

390 is not powerful enough to ever use 8 gb without tanking frames to unplayability. At 1440p, you will be hard pressed to use more than 3 gb. I use sli 970 at 4k and don't have any vram issues.

1. Well if you overclock the gtx 970 it will run pretty hot as well. It will still consume less power though, but with better performance.

2. Witcher 3 and Project Cars have NVidia Gameworks, so that is not a good example at all. But I do agree nvidia drivers are still better, although AMD ones aren't that bad either. Watch Dog runs like crap on nvidia cards as well.

3. Did you utilize gpu acceleration? Probably not. I am not sure about the vram though.

 

[maddogfargo]

390 can only do 100-150 MHz over stock before hitting a wall.

970 can usually do 200-300MHz over stock before hitting a wall.

Overclocked they will both still be very close.

Prelim tests show Win 10 with DX 12 giving great performance gains over Win 7 / 8 with DX 11. AMD seems to benefit from DX12 slightly more than nVidia, so it will likely even out a bit if you upgrade.

Performance being so close, it boils down to heat / power / cooler noise.

The whole reason I went to the Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 970 was for the great cooler. It is very quiet. Even with a custom BIOS mod that has mine at 1200/1500 core and 3800 vRAM, it still stays below 66c and 65% fan speed with my custom fan curve. Inside a case, this is inaudible. With the side panel off, it is barely audible...but only becuse I have a custom 480x60mm water loop cooling my PC and the loudest part is the D5 pump.

This is from a long time AMD user, 10+ years with ATI/AMD GPUs. Maxwell was a real leap forward for nVidia and I'm very pleased with my 970.

 

[MT6Anime]

1. The 390 and the 970 both have very good overclocking headroom but if you overclock both of them the 390 will beat out the 970.

2. The drivers are equal in most cases the games that have better performance with Nvidia are because of things like hairworks. In fact there was a whole controversy about it being sabotaged

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.875628-AMD-Nvidia-Completely-Sabotaged-Witcher-3-Performance-on-Our-Cards

I recommend watching this video on the 390 as it answers most of your questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9cKZiJw6Pk

My personal recommendation though is to get the 390 it is a very good card and as someone whos owned both "team green" and "team red" I can say that the 390 is the better card without bias.

 

[ak47jar3d]

1. Well if you overclock the gtx 970 it will run pretty hot as well. It will still consume less power though, but with better performance.

2. Witcher 3 and Project Cars have NVidia Gameworks, so that is not a good example at all. But I do agree nvidia drivers are still better, although AMD ones aren't that bad either. Watch Dog runs like crap on nvidia cards as well.

3. Did you utilize gpu acceleration? Probably not. I am not sure about the vram though.

The consumer doesn't care if its a "gameworks" title. The bottom line is that works on nvidia cards like its suppose to and not on AMD cards as intended. Nvidia doesn't have the same issues with AMD based games like tomb raider and battlefield 4.