R9 290 Vapour-X vs Gtx 970

[TheGamingKiwi]

Hi, I'm tossing up between two graphics cards at the moment, and I can't decide. I have the option of going with a second hand R9 290 Vapour X for $300, or a new Gigabyte G1 for $520. Technically it should be a no brainer because I could save $200 and they are roughly in the same performance ballpark. Are the Nvidia features as good as everyone says they are? Or should I save the money and get the 290 and try and get as much overclock out of it as I can?
Cheers

 

[RockyPlays]

Sapphire cards are great. I would definitely recommend the cheaper card in this case. The 970 will outperform the 290 but it is in no way worth $220 more.

 

[TheGamingKiwi]

Would it be possible to overclock the card to roughly the same performance? I'm only running at 1080p 60hz so a difference of 10fps for example 120 vs 130 doesn't concern me.

 

[RockyPlays]

The 290 is already only behind the 970 by 5-15 fps usually so if you overclock it should be very close to 970 performance even better in some instances.

 

[Vorpike]

For the price difference, the 290 is better, but the 970 is a bit better than the 290 (GPUBoss).