Should i pick gtx 970 over r9 390?

[Etheviel]

well here's my final conclusions.

GTX 970

advantages
1-better drivers
2-can reach a very solid performance by overclocking , easily beat the 980 on stock and obviously the r9 390.
3- Gameworks
4- less power consumption and more cooler.

but the vram ruin it up for me, i wouldn't be able to change this card for over 4 years at minimum. and that vram won't really help it.

the r9 390 has 8gb vram therefore it will last longer. but i'm really struggling to find a nitro one with reasonable price in my country , also i will have to buy a more expensive power supply and i'm very limited. however as i don't have much choices i will work on getting it.

what do you guys suggest ?

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Are you planning to do more than 1080p?

 

[utroz]

If you are going to keep the card for 4 years or even more than 2 years I would get a 390 as it will age better than the 970 especially when DX12 games come out.

 

[Etheviel]

Are you planning to do more than 1080p?

NO

 

[Sakkura]

The GTX 970 doesn't have better drivers. It does overclock a little better. Gameworks, meh. It does draw significantly less power, doesn't run cooler though - that just depends on whether the particular model of 970 or 390 has a good cooler or not.

The 390 performs a little better, and AMD cards' performance usually holds up better in the long run. The 8GB VRAM adds some extra insurance there.

In most situations I'd recommend the 390. The 970 has an advantage if you use a small form factor case with limited airflow.

 

[Etheviel]

If you are going to keep the card for 4 years or even more than 2 years I would get a 390 as it will age better than the 970 especially when DX12 games come out.

That's literally everyone says , but it would be a kick in the balls if the GTX 970 kept in pace in the next 4 years

 

[Etheviel]

The GTX 970 doesn't have better drivers. It does overclock a little better. Gameworks, meh. It does draw significantly less power, doesn't run cooler though - that just depends on whether the particular model of 970 or 390 has a good cooler or not.

The 390 performs a little better, and AMD cards' performance usually holds up better in the long run. The 8GB VRAM adds some extra insurance there.

In most situations I'd recommend the 390. The 970 has an advantage if you use a small form factor case with limited airflow.

which brand do you recommend?

the gigabyte one is flooding the market, with only a store offers the Sapphire one and it's about 20$ expensive.

 

[loki1944]

well here's my final conclusions.

GTX 970

advantages
1-better drivers
2-can reach a very solid performance by overclocking , easily beat the 980 on stock and obviously the r9 390.
3- Gameworks
4- less power consumption and more cooler.

but the vram ruin it up for me, i wouldn't be able to change this card for over 4 years at minimum. and that vram won't really help it.

the r9 390 has 8gb vram therefore it will last longer. but i'm really struggling to find a nitro one with reasonable price in my country , also i will have to buy a more expensive power supply and i'm very limited. however as i don't have much choices i will work on getting it.

what do you guys suggest ?

If you're at 1080p a 970 will be ok for most games; 1440p is where more VRAM is going to be more important (though you can breach the 3.5GB of full speed VRAM on a 970 @1080p with a few games like SoM); at 1440p you need at least 4GB of VRAM, but the r9 390 isn't really powerful enough to effectively use all 8GB of VRAM "Having 8GB of VRAM is great, but it won't fully be utilized until you put two of these video cards together in CrossFire and run at 4K. You simply do not have GPU power to push the massive amount of 4K pixels, so the extra VRAM is a waste in single GPU configuration. CrossFire is the only solution that will make the Radeon R9 390/X a good gaming experience at 4K. That is what it is going to take, in single-card format, these are not going to handle 4K very well purely based on performance they are able to deliver. The horsepower just isn't there as a single-GPU." http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/18/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_video_card_review/11#.VlkI7XarRhE.

That being said I would personally get a 390 over 970 even at 1080p because in VSR (vs DSR) that extra VRAM can come in handy and even if only 4-5GB of the VRAM can be utilized, it is all at full speed unlike that last 500MB on the 970. Driver wise, AMD does tend to lag behind; however, most of the time they are fine. I just bought a 390X for my mini-ITX build because at $350 it offered way more VRAM in tandem with performance than a GTX 970/980 /R9 Fury at the time. But if the cost of the 390+power supply is exceeding your budget then obviously get the 970.

 

[utroz]

If you are going to keep the card for 4 years or even more than 2 years I would get a 390 as it will age better than the 970 especially when DX12 games come out.

That's literally everyone says , but it would be a kick in the balls if the GTX 970 kept in pace in the next 4 years

I highly doubt the 970 will keep pace because this is how Nvidia cards have been since the beginning (g92 being an exception). Even the original Titan or 780Ti are showing their age already..

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Four years is beyond the event horizon.

GTX 970 August 2014
GTX 770 April 2013
GTX 670 April 2012
GTX 570 November 2010

A GTX 670 has similar graphics power to a modern GTX 960. A GTX 960 is still usable for AAA, although limited.

I would be biased in favor of the 970. It is based on more modern technology and the lower power use will make the rest of your system cheaper and cooler.. The 390 is essentially a four year old GPU today.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

If you are going to keep the card for 4 years or even more than 2 years I would get a 390 as it will age better than the 970 especially when DX12 games come out.

That's literally everyone says , but it would be a kick in the balls if the GTX 970 kept in pace in the next 4 years

I highly doubt the 970 will keep pace because this is how Nvidia cards have been since the beginning (g92 being an exception). Even the original Titan or 780Ti are showing their age already..

But not for 1080p.

 

[Etheviel]

Four years is beyond the event horizon.

GTX 970 August 2014
GTX 770 April 2013
GTX 670 April 2012
GTX 570 November 2010

A GTX 670 has similar graphics power to a modern GTX 960. A GTX 960 is still usable for AAA, although limited.

I would be biased in favor of the 970. It is based on more modern technology. The 390 is essentially a four year old GPU today.

i know it's a long period
but i wouldn't really mind playing on medium or even at low on the fourth year. as far as the fps doesn't drop below 30fps i'm fine

 

[DonkeyOatie]

With overclocking it should do that. Heck a GTX570 will still do that at 1080p.

 

[Etheviel]

With overclocking it should do that. Heck a GTX570 will still do that at 1080p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc_yqCxd0QE

Well it looks like that it would still run the witcher 3 on medium.

this guy runs it on high but it barely reaches 30 fps

 

[loki1944]

If you are going to keep the card for 4 years or even more than 2 years I would get a 390 as it will age better than the 970 especially when DX12 games come out.

That's literally everyone says , but it would be a kick in the balls if the GTX 970 kept in pace in the next 4 years

I highly doubt the 970 will keep pace because this is how Nvidia cards have been since the beginning (g92 being an exception). Even the original Titan or 780Ti are showing their age already..

As long as you keep settings turned down at 1080p you might get away with it potentially. GTX 680 can still pull off 30FPS on medium settings in a lot of games, then again so can a 7950.

 

[Sakkura]

which brand do you recommend?

the gigabyte one is flooding the market, with only a store offers the Sapphire one and it's about 20$ expensive.

Well, the Powercolor one looks cheap in the US, and seems to have excellent temperatures and mediocre noise levels - a little tweak of the fan curve could probably make that good on both fronts. Anyway, it looks to me like most of the vendors have come up with coolers that do well enough that you can focus more on price.

 

[Etheviel]

well here's my final conclusions.

GTX 970

advantages
1-better drivers
2-can reach a very solid performance by overclocking , easily beat the 980 on stock and obviously the r9 390.
3- Gameworks
4- less power consumption and more cooler.

but the vram ruin it up for me, i wouldn't be able to change this card for over 4 years at minimum. and that vram won't really help it.

the r9 390 has 8gb vram therefore it will last longer. but i'm really struggling to find a nitro one with reasonable price in my country , also i will have to buy a more expensive power supply and i'm very limited. however as i don't have much choices i will work on getting it.

what do you guys suggest ?

If you're at 1080p a 970 will be ok for most games; 1440p is where more VRAM is going to be more important (though you can breach the 3.5GB of full speed VRAM on a 970 @1080p with a few games like SoM); at 1440p you need at least 4GB of VRAM, but the r9 390 isn't really powerful enough to effectively use all 8GB of VRAM "Having 8GB of VRAM is great, but it won't fully be utilized until you put two of these video cards together in CrossFire and run at 4K. You simply do not have GPU power to push the massive amount of 4K pixels, so the extra VRAM is a waste in single GPU configuration. CrossFire is the only solution that will make the Radeon R9 390/X a good gaming experience at 4K. That is what it is going to take, in single-card format, these are not going to handle 4K very well purely based on performance they are able to deliver. The horsepower just isn't there as a single-GPU." http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/18/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_video_card_review/11#.VlkI7XarRhE.

That being said I would personally get a 390 over 970 even at 1080p because in VSR (vs DSR) that extra VRAM can come in handy and even if only 4-5GB of the VRAM can be utilized, it is all at full speed unlike that last 500MB on the 970. Driver wise, AMD does tend to lag behind; however, most of the time they are fine. I just bought a 390X for my mini-ITX build because at $350 it offered way more VRAM in tandem with performance than a GTX 970/980 /R9 Fury at the time. But if the cost of the 390+power supply is exceeding your budget then obviously get the 970.

but i guess there are some games that already demand more than 3,5 gb out there. and that would look more scary after 2 years

 

[DonkeyOatie]

well here's my final conclusions.

GTX 970

advantages
1-better drivers
2-can reach a very solid performance by overclocking , easily beat the 980 on stock and obviously the r9 390.
3- Gameworks
4- less power consumption and more cooler.

but the vram ruin it up for me, i wouldn't be able to change this card for over 4 years at minimum. and that vram won't really help it.

the r9 390 has 8gb vram therefore it will last longer. but i'm really struggling to find a nitro one with reasonable price in my country , also i will have to buy a more expensive power supply and i'm very limited. however as i don't have much choices i will work on getting it.

what do you guys suggest ?

If you're at 1080p a 970 will be ok for most games; 1440p is where more VRAM is going to be more important (though you can breach the 3.5GB of full speed VRAM on a 970 @1080p with a few games like SoM); at 1440p you need at least 4GB of VRAM, but the r9 390 isn't really powerful enough to effectively use all 8GB of VRAM "Having 8GB of VRAM is great, but it won't fully be utilized until you put two of these video cards together in CrossFire and run at 4K. You simply do not have GPU power to push the massive amount of 4K pixels, so the extra VRAM is a waste in single GPU configuration. CrossFire is the only solution that will make the Radeon R9 390/X a good gaming experience at 4K. That is what it is going to take, in single-card format, these are not going to handle 4K very well purely based on performance they are able to deliver. The horsepower just isn't there as a single-GPU." http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/18/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_video_card_review/11#.VlkI7XarRhE.

That being said I would personally get a 390 over 970 even at 1080p because in VSR (vs DSR) that extra VRAM can come in handy and even if only 4-5GB of the VRAM can be utilized, it is all at full speed unlike that last 500MB on the 970. Driver wise, AMD does tend to lag behind; however, most of the time they are fine. I just bought a 390X for my mini-ITX build because at $350 it offered way more VRAM in tandem with performance than a GTX 970/980 /R9 Fury at the time. But if the cost of the 390+power supply is exceeding your budget then obviously get the 970.

but i guess there are some games that already demand more than 3,5 gb out there. and that would look more scary after 2 years

Not for 1080p. likely. If they do, almost no current GPU will be able to handle that. 4Gb+ GPUs are a small minority today. You may need to wind back the AA modes and what-not.

Games in four years time still need to run OK on old hardware or there will be no volume in the market. As the video shows, a five year old GPU can still just play Witcher 3, so must it be for a very popular main-stream GPU like the 970 (or anything else in current production) in four year's time.

Really old GPUs that were great in 720p can still do OK at that resolution in modern games.. So long as you stay with 1080p things should be fine. (the world may be 8k holographic 3d then, but you will still be able to do 1080p OK.)

 

[loki1944]

well here's my final conclusions.

GTX 970

advantages
1-better drivers
2-can reach a very solid performance by overclocking , easily beat the 980 on stock and obviously the r9 390.
3- Gameworks
4- less power consumption and more cooler.

but the vram ruin it up for me, i wouldn't be able to change this card for over 4 years at minimum. and that vram won't really help it.

the r9 390 has 8gb vram therefore it will last longer. but i'm really struggling to find a nitro one with reasonable price in my country , also i will have to buy a more expensive power supply and i'm very limited. however as i don't have much choices i will work on getting it.

what do you guys suggest ?

If you're at 1080p a 970 will be ok for most games; 1440p is where more VRAM is going to be more important (though you can breach the 3.5GB of full speed VRAM on a 970 @1080p with a few games like SoM); at 1440p you need at least 4GB of VRAM, but the r9 390 isn't really powerful enough to effectively use all 8GB of VRAM "Having 8GB of VRAM is great, but it won't fully be utilized until you put two of these video cards together in CrossFire and run at 4K. You simply do not have GPU power to push the massive amount of 4K pixels, so the extra VRAM is a waste in single GPU configuration. CrossFire is the only solution that will make the Radeon R9 390/X a good gaming experience at 4K. That is what it is going to take, in single-card format, these are not going to handle 4K very well purely based on performance they are able to deliver. The horsepower just isn't there as a single-GPU." http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/18/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_video_card_review/11#.VlkI7XarRhE.

That being said I would personally get a 390 over 970 even at 1080p because in VSR (vs DSR) that extra VRAM can come in handy and even if only 4-5GB of the VRAM can be utilized, it is all at full speed unlike that last 500MB on the 970. Driver wise, AMD does tend to lag behind; however, most of the time they are fine. I just bought a 390X for my mini-ITX build because at $350 it offered way more VRAM in tandem with performance than a GTX 970/980 /R9 Fury at the time. But if the cost of the 390+power supply is exceeding your budget then obviously get the 970.

but i guess there are some games that already demand more than 3,5 gb out there. and that would look more scary after 2 years

Yes there are, but not too many at the moment and this can be circumvented by lower AA settings firstly and other settings secondly. It's going to depend how susceptible you are jaggies and such because when you talk about compromising 4 years down the road (or even sooner) then AA will be the first thing to turn down or off to keep you playable. Also the size of your screen can have an impact in tandem with how far away you are from it. Sitting 6 feet away from my 42 inch TV I can't really notice the jaggies that much in GTA V on my Xbox One. but sitting 16 inches away from my 27 inch 1080p monitor I can definitely see the jaggies and need to crank up the AA; at 1440p I can afford to tone down the AA thanks to the higher resolution; at 7680x1440p I have no choice but to do so as otherwise I will breach my 6GB of VRAM. With my 780Tis I found that for most games I was fine at 1080p and even 1440p last year; however there were certainly some games that I ended playing on my 290Xs at 1440p, because the 3GB of VRAM on the 780Tis just wasn't cutting it. For my mini-ITX build looking at the Fury, 980, and 390X, the 970 didn't even register for me because that .5GB at slower speed was a major turnoff, I'm sure it's better than dipping into RAM, but it's definitely not better than not dipping at all. The Fury's (non-x) performance was simply too close to justify getting it at the asking price over a 390X; similarly a 390X trades blows with the GTX 980, usually for a lot less money. Keep in mind on the drivers that while Nvidia the past few years has been more responsive, they are hardly without their own issues; i just had to roll back drivers on two different systems with Nvidia GPUs because the new driver cause myriad problems. I would say during my time with my 290Xs almost every game ran great single card, but a decent chunk had problems with Crossfire, but AMD still makes some great cards and the 390/390X are no exception. I'm not sure how DX12 will shake out, but initial impressions were that AMD was better positioned to take advantage of it (but really I don't think either Nvidia or AMD has 100% DX12 cards right now).

If you get the 970, just be prepared to compromise on AA sooner than with the 390X; I would hazard to say that the smaller your monitor screen the less of an issue this will be for you at 1080p. But 390X has the hardware to let you hang on to more VRAM hungry settings longer.

 

[Etheviel]

hmm, well it looks like that r9 390 is the winner deal. but what brand do you suggest?

 

[Etheviel]

Also you didn't add much to the overclock thing, GTX 970 overclocked gives you a GTX 980 performance at stock, and that's very tempting. i want to have your opinion on that matter, and how much it adds to the comparison

 

[loki1944]

hmm, well it looks like that r9 390 is the winner deal. but what brand do you suggest?

I don't know where you live, but newegg has an LE version of the MSI 390X that's $350 after a $30 mail in rebate in the US anyway.

As for brand I've only experience with Asus/EVGA/MSI, both my 290Xs were Asus MATRIX cards and they were great, no issues to speak of in terms of performance. If noise is an issue for you while not gaming then look for the 0db or whatever coolers. I've heard good things about XFX, but have not tried it myself. I've owned 6 ASUS cards in the last 24 months and only had to RMA one (980Ti STRIX 1 of 3 fans stopped spinning), RMA process was relatively painless and I got my card back within two weeks from Asus. I would say, as with any hardware which costs a significant chunk of coin, to find out what the warranty/RMA process is before buying. My brother has two MSI TwinFrozr GTX 780s and he has had no issues with them hardware wise (so basically I can say Asus and MSI have definitely worked out well from what I have seen).

Looking at the pcpartpicker forum and this review http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/11/24/windows-10-automatic-spying-begins-again/ the MSI R9 390 Gaming has excellent thermals with the reviewed card maxing out at 74C (my 980Tis run nowhere near that cool).

 

[loki1944]

Also you didn't add much to the overclock thing, GTX 970 overclocked gives you a GTX 980 performance at stock, and that's very tempting. i want to have your opinion on that matter, and how much it adds to the comparison

Overclocking could potentially get you 980 performance to a point; that point being where you hit 3.5GB of VRAM, either way you still have a 500MB drop-off, won't matter how fast your clocks are at that point. The only thing I would say with certainty is that if you get a 970 that is capable of that kind of overclocking you will have similar performance to a 980 for certain for 3.5GB.