New gtx 960, 380 or used 290x?

[selwonkak]

I am 14 and I am looking to build a new computer for Christmas to last at least 4 years.
I can't decide which graphics card to use.

Gtx 960: £165+ for 2gb, £180+ for 4gb
R9 380: £150+ for 2gb, £165+ for 4gb
R9 290x: £160+ used, Gumtree/ Ebay.

My budget is £600 and I would like to spend up to £180 on a gpu.
I already have a mini tower case and 900p screen. because of the case, blower style cards would be best.
I will upgrade screen to either 1080p, 2560 1080 'ultra widescreen'
or 1440p in the future.
parts: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LGPhQ7

which card should I get?

 

[Hawkshot]

out of the 3 you have provided the R9 380 will be better in the long run, see if you can find a GTX 970 on ebay or Gumtree for the same price as this would beat out everything else for example https://www.gumtree.com/p/desktop-workstation-pcs/msi-gtx-970-oc/1139686534 is currently £190

 

[indiferenc]

290x all the way

 

[selwonkak]

out of the 3 you have provided the R9 380 will be better in the long run, see if you can find a GTX 970 on ebay or Gumtree for the same price as this would beat out everything else for example https://www.gumtree.com/p/desktop-workstation-pcs/msi-gtx-970-oc/1139686534 is currently £190

isn't the 290x better in terms of performance? and also, i would have to modify case or get new one to put a non- blower card in. I have considered that before, but can't find a blower 970.

 

[Hawkshot]

out of the 3 you have provided the R9 380 will be better in the long run, see if you can find a GTX 970 on ebay or Gumtree for the same price as this would beat out everything else for example https://www.gumtree.com/p/desktop-workstation-pcs/msi-gtx-970-oc/1139686534 is currently £190

isn't the 290x better in terms of performance? and also, i would have to modify case or get new one to put a non- blower card in. I have considered that before, but can't find a blower 970.

on paper it Is yes but from personal experience with my R9 290x its very stutter even at 1080p where as my friends 970 seems to be more stable in the same game.

 

[indiferenc]

out of the 3 you have provided the R9 380 will be better in the long run, see if you can find a GTX 970 on ebay or Gumtree for the same price as this would beat out everything else for example https://www.gumtree.com/p/desktop-workstation-pcs/msi-gtx-970-oc/1139686534 is currently £190

isn't the 290x better in terms of performance? and also, i would have to modify case or get new one to put a non- blower card in. I have considered that before, but can't find a blower 970.

on paper it Is yes but from personal experience with my R9 290x its very stutter even at 1080p where as my friends 970 seems to be more stable in the same game.

purely anecdotal. i have no issues will my 290x

 

[Hawkshot]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

 

[selwonkak]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

How bad is the stutter and do you know the reason for it? one forum thread suggested it was only happening at very high temps- thermal throttling?

 

[Hawkshot]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

How bad is the stutter and do you know the reason for it? one forum thread suggested it was only happening at very high temps- thermal throttling?

Yeah the thing with AMD cards is they can easily get clocked to 100% even when that much % isn't needed which means that heat up fairly quickly and stay a quite high temps that can in some games cause stuttering, by all means the R9 290x is a very good card I'm not saying its not but I just don't want you to go onto crysis 3 @ 1080px on maxed settings and expect more than 50 fps because unless you overclock it a fair amount this wont happen.

 

[indiferenc]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

i did an sh*t ton of research before i bought my 290x and i have never heard of this stuttering issue. pretty sure some of the early 290's had some issues, but not the 290x, and especially ones that you buy new, now that they've been through some iterations. and i dont know what site your looking at, but the scores are actually 8,655 for the 970 and 7,046 for the 290x, which in real life scenarios, means very little. as for the power draw; whatever. youre going to OC your 970 anyway and create a higher than stock tdp so the point is moot.

both are good cards. both are around the same price point, but i think that you would be hard pressed to PROVE that one is significantly better than the other. you can pull numbers and benchmarks all day, but it doesnt mean much in the real world.

 

[indiferenc]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

How bad is the stutter and do you know the reason for it? one forum thread suggested it was only happening at very high temps- thermal throttling?

Yeah the thing with AMD cards is they can easily get clocked to 100% even when that much % isn't needed which means that heat up fairly quickly and stay a quite high temps that can in some games cause stuttering, by all means the R9 290x is a very good card I'm not saying its not but I just don't want you to go onto crysis 3 @ 1080px on maxed settings and expect more than 50 fps because unless you overclock it a fair amount this wont happen.

LMAO none of that is true. i get 60fps in witcher 3 ultra settings at 2k without stuttering or throttling and the card is OCed

 

[Hawkshot]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

How bad is the stutter and do you know the reason for it? one forum thread suggested it was only happening at very high temps- thermal throttling?

Yeah the thing with AMD cards is they can easily get clocked to 100% even when that much % isn't needed which means that heat up fairly quickly and stay a quite high temps that can in some games cause stuttering, by all means the R9 290x is a very good card I'm not saying its not but I just don't want you to go onto crysis 3 @ 1080px on maxed settings and expect more than 50 fps because unless you overclock it a fair amount this wont happen.

LMAO none of that is true. i get 60fps in witcher 3 ultra settings at 2k without stuttering or throttling and the card is OCed

well here are some Benchmarks that I have just looked up with the R9 290x on Crysis 3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Gaming/14.html

and Indiferenc I was talking about Better PassMark direct compute score, not just Better PassMark score so please read into thing before you reply and telling me I'm wrong.

 

[indiferenc]

well its not Anecdotal, its a fairly well known problem that's R9 290x's can stutter in games where as the GTX 970 is the perfect card for 1080p gaming and to prove here are some hard facts the gtx 970 has Better PassMark direct compute score 4,184 vs 3,232 Around 30% better than the 29 290x and the GTX draws 50% of the power of the r9 290x, so takes less power and has a better passmark score for around the same price.

How bad is the stutter and do you know the reason for it? one forum thread suggested it was only happening at very high temps- thermal throttling?

Yeah the thing with AMD cards is they can easily get clocked to 100% even when that much % isn't needed which means that heat up fairly quickly and stay a quite high temps that can in some games cause stuttering, by all means the R9 290x is a very good card I'm not saying its not but I just don't want you to go onto crysis 3 @ 1080px on maxed settings and expect more than 50 fps because unless you overclock it a fair amount this wont happen.

LMAO none of that is true. i get 60fps in witcher 3 ultra settings at 2k without stuttering or throttling and the card is OCed

well here are some Benchmarks that I have just looked up with the R9 290x on Crysis 3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Gaming/14.html

and Indiferenc I was talking about Better PassMark direct compute score, not just Better PassMark score so please read into thing before you reply and telling me I'm wrong.

lmao you looked up 1 benchmark and called it a day? just google GTX 970 vs 290x and you see that it either outperforms (only by a little) or is equal with the 970 or equivalent Nvidia card. besides, that specific benchmark was done on the MSI variant which has been shown to have a sub-par cooler (designed for a different chip entirely), which makes it throttle and under perform.

do a little bit more research before you start bashing this excellent card.

 

[Hawkshot]

I didn't bash the card lol! I have one myself, I'm just saying from multiple test I've done and I have seen online the GTX 970 preforms better in games than the R9 290x as I said in a previous post the R9 290x is an amazing card its just the GTX 970 is perfect for 1080p gaming

 

[JasonL265]

Out of the 3, I would vote for the 290x as well (if you can get it for a good price). Back when the AMD 300 series came out, they did a bunch of benchmarks and the 290x is better than the 380 and 960. Averages about 10 FPS higher and in some games up to 30 FPS higher than the other two.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-390x-r9-380-r7-370,4178-6.html