Strix vs G1 960

[EmeraldCube]

Hey guys, so I've decided to go with the 4gb version and I've found two really sexy cards. Now g1 cost 245 euros and strix costs 255 euros. I know that you can get higher overclocks with the g1 card and get about +2/3 fps in every game, but i get wither 3 with strix and I really love witcher. So the only time for me to buy Witcher 3 is on winter sale on steam if it's going to be lower than 25 euros because on G2A I can get it for 26 euros. Now the thing that conserns me the most is the vram cooling. I think that strix gpu's don't actively cool vram and the temps get high. Now is strix really worth it because paying exttra 10 euros for the gpu that doesn't cool vram is something I don't want to risk. I will be overclocking and I wanna know how close will overclocked strix be close to overclocked g1.

 

[fudgecakes99]

if you're paying about 300 usd in euro's i think you should look at the r9 280 it should be within that price point and it's only marginally worse then a 970 or 390.

 

[fudgecakes99]

sorry i meant 290.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£247.87 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £247.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-07 10:48 BST+0100

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 290 4GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£247.03 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £247.03
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-07 10:49 BST+0100

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£229.54 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £229.54
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-07 10:49 BST+0100

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 290 4GB DirectCU II Video Card (£224.62 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £224.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-07 10:50 BST+0100

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£229.54 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £229.54
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-07 10:51 BST+0100

 

[fudgecakes99]

Hey guys, so I've decided to go with the 4gb version and I've found two really sexy cards. Now g1 cost 245 euros and strix costs 255 euros. I know that you can get higher overclocks with the g1 card and get about +2/3 fps in every game, but i get wither 3 with strix and I really love witcher. So the only time for me to buy Witcher 3 is on winter sale on steam if it's going to be lower than 25 euros because on G2A I can get it for 26 euros. Now the thing that conserns me the most is the vram cooling. I think that strix gpu's don't actively cool vram and the temps get high. Now is strix really worth it because paying exttra 10 euros for the gpu that doesn't cool vram is something I don't want to risk. I will be overclocking and I wanna know how close will overclocked strix be close to overclocked g1.

but in case you're stuck on getting a 960 my votes for the g1.

 

[Understated]

If youre set on getting a gtx 960 id go with the strix strictly because you can the witcher for free. The 960 doesn't get very hot even when you overclock it. I used to use the msi gtx 960 and overclocked the hell out of it and it didn't get to hot. I dont think you should be concerned about the vram cooling as like I said, the card runs very cool and the power draw is minimal. This would be a concern on a much hotter stronger gpu but it shouldn't be on the gtx 960. Gpu vs Gpu I think the G1 is better than the strix, but seeing as its overclocking advantage over the strix isn't substantial, id get the strix for the free game.

 

[fudgecakes99]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Performance_Analysis/The_Witcher_3/3.html

Granted you would want to go with a 4gb version over the 2gb version you would get a lot better performance out of the 960 4gb though i'd still say the 290 would edge out in performance .

 

[fudgecakes99]

If youre set on getting a gtx 960 id go with the strix strictly because you can the witcher for free. The 960 doesn't get very hot even when you overclock it. I used to use the msi gtx 960 and overclocked the hell out of it and it didn't get to hot. I dont think you should be concerned about the vram cooling as like I said, the card runs very cool and the power draw is minimal. This would be a concern on a much hotter stronger gpu but it shouldn't be on the gtx 960. Gpu vs Gpu I think the G1 is better than the strix, but seeing as its overclocking advantage over the strix isn't substantial, id get the strix for the free game.

unless strix is doing their own special offer i'm pretty sure all gtx cards are getting a free copy of metal gear solid the phantom pain.

 

[EmeraldCube]

As for the r9 290, in my country it's more expensive than gtx 970...385 euros, gtx 970 is 350 euros. I can only get a used gigabyte r9 290 windforce and I really hear awful things about their drivers. The used one cost 240 euros and buying witcher 3 won't be a problem.

 

[fudgecakes99]

As for the r9 290, in my country it's more expensive than gtx 970...385 euros, gtx 970 is 350 euros. I can only get a used gigabyte r9 290 windforce and I really hear awful things about their drivers. The used one cost 240 euros and buying witcher 3 won't be a problem.

Where do you live if you don't mind me asking. I say go for the r9 290, you would get a noticeable improvement over the 960. It's not as good as a 970, but it's close. plus gigabyte makes some pretty awesome non reference cards if it's the windforce i'd get it hands down. Even if it's used r9 290's are fairly new gpu's.

 

[EmeraldCube]

Alright then, I'll go with the r9 290. There is even 2 years of warranty on it, i've talked with the guy who's selling it and the best thing about it is that he lives in my town. Thank you all for your time to answer my question.

 

[EmeraldCube]

As for the r9 290, in my country it's more expensive than gtx 970...385 euros, gtx 970 is 350 euros. I can only get a used gigabyte r9 290 windforce and I really hear awful things about their drivers. The used one cost 240 euros and buying witcher 3 won't be a problem.

Where do you live if you don't mind me asking. I say go for the r9 290, you would get a noticeable improvement over the 960. It's not as good as a 970, but it's close. plus gigabyte makes some pretty awesome non reference cards if it's the windforce i'd get it hands down. Even if it's used r9 290's are fairly new gpu's.

Uuuh there is a problem because the guy with r9 290 will sell the card before I get home and I guess I'll get strix card because of the free game. I'll be upgrading in 2 years then...if I had r9 290 I wouldn't have to upgrade 3 years atelast 🙁 Oh yea and I live in Serbia....bad country and tech is extremely expensive 🙁

 

[sora]

Alright then, I'll go with the r9 290. There is even 2 years of warranty on it, i've talked with the guy who's selling it and the best thing about it is that he lives in my town. Thank you all for your time to answer my question.

The R9 290 is a great card for the price and it is definitely a great card! Make sure it is in good condition before you buy it though.

 

[fudgecakes99]

As for the r9 290, in my country it's more expensive than gtx 970...385 euros, gtx 970 is 350 euros. I can only get a used gigabyte r9 290 windforce and I really hear awful things about their drivers. The used one cost 240 euros and buying witcher 3 won't be a problem.

Where do you live if you don't mind me asking. I say go for the r9 290, you would get a noticeable improvement over the 960. It's not as good as a 970, but it's close. plus gigabyte makes some pretty awesome non reference cards if it's the windforce i'd get it hands down. Even if it's used r9 290's are fairly new gpu's.

Uuuh there is a problem because the guy with r9 290 will sell the card before I get home and I guess I'll get strix card because of the free game. I'll be upgrading in 2 years then...if I had r9 290 I wouldn't have to upgrade 3 years atelast 🙁 Oh yea and I live in Serbia....bad country and tech is extremely expensive 🙁

Darn that sucks. but the strix isn't a bad card. Regarding v-ram cooling, it's not as important as long as you don't intend to overclock the card. Mosfet chip cooling etc. is something you'd want to worry about if you plan on doing some extreme overclocking and if you go water cooling theirs plenty of water blocks to choose from. Gl with the build.

 

[EmeraldCube]

As for the r9 290, in my country it's more expensive than gtx 970...385 euros, gtx 970 is 350 euros. I can only get a used gigabyte r9 290 windforce and I really hear awful things about their drivers. The used one cost 240 euros and buying witcher 3 won't be a problem.

Where do you live if you don't mind me asking. I say go for the r9 290, you would get a noticeable improvement over the 960. It's not as good as a 970, but it's close. plus gigabyte makes some pretty awesome non reference cards if it's the windforce i'd get it hands down. Even if it's used r9 290's are fairly new gpu's.

Uuuh there is a problem because the guy with r9 290 will sell the card before I get home and I guess I'll get strix card because of the free game. I'll be upgrading in 2 years then...if I had r9 290 I wouldn't have to upgrade 3 years atelast 🙁 Oh yea and I live in Serbia....bad country and tech is extremely expensive 🙁

Darn that sucks. but the strix isn't a bad card. Regarding v-ram cooling, it's not as important as long as you don't intend to overclock the card. Mosfet chip cooling etc. is something you'd want to worry about if you plan on doing some extreme overclocking and if you go water cooling theirs plenty of water blocks to choose from. Gl with the build.

Does the msi's 4g have vram cooling? I don't want liquid in my pc and i don't have the money for it. I'll be upgrading to another gpu in 2 years since i can't get r9 290. I really plan to do big overclocks since 960 is a weak gpu and I want to have a nice playable fps. I don't want to buy gtx 970 because of it's vram for the future and i don't want to buy r9 390 because it won't be strong enough to use all 8 gb of vram. i'll be waiting for the generation after pascal and just go for it. My 4690k won't be a problem and I got a good chip so I will be able to overclock the hell out of it. I have v650 as my power supply so psu won't be a problem.

 

[EmeraldCube]

Aaaaa damn, I'll need nvlink in order to use even pascal....aaaa my dreams are getting crushed xD. So nvlink is like a new port to use my new gpu. Aaaah guess I'll go with 970.

 

[fudgecakes99]

Aaaaa damn, I'll need nvlink in order to use even pascal....aaaa my dreams are getting crushed xD. So nvlink is like a new port to use my new gpu. Aaaah guess I'll go with 970.

390 is the better card but if the price difference is too high it's not worth the premium.

 

[EmeraldCube]

Aaaaa damn, I'll need nvlink in order to use even pascal....aaaa my dreams are getting crushed xD. So nvlink is like a new port to use my new gpu. Aaaah guess I'll go with 970.

390 is the better card but if the price difference is too high it's not worth the premium.

390 costs 60 euros more than gtx 970 and I won't die because of 3 fps difference. I'll hope that it's vram issue will be solved by drivers. Btw I prefer nvidia because of it's drivers, dsr and more beautiful picture for less performance cost.

 

[fudgecakes99]

Aaaaa damn, I'll need nvlink in order to use even pascal....aaaa my dreams are getting crushed xD. So nvlink is like a new port to use my new gpu. Aaaah guess I'll go with 970.

390 is the better card but if the price difference is too high it's not worth the premium.

390 costs 60 euros more than gtx 970 and I won't die because of 3 fps difference. I'll hope that it's vram issue will be solved by drivers. Btw I prefer nvidia because of it's drivers, dsr and more beautiful picture for less performance cost.

it's all subjective nvidia has dsr amd has vsr. Either one would be more taxing on the gpu if i understand it right it's a bit like msaa or super sampling where you make the card re impose multiple frames at high resolutions to give the effect of the pixel density of a 4k resolution on a 1080p screen.

At 1080p the 960's 3.5 gigs of vram is nothing to worry about. Theirs never going to be a driver update to fix that, it's stuck at that resolution because of some missing l2 cache. The other .5 gigs of vram are not useable in games, which isn't that much of a problem at 1080p you'll be hard pressed to max out it's vram at those resolutions, just when you get into higher resolutions you'd want more vram like the 390's 8gigs. At 1080p 970 and 390 are fairly close in performance.

 

[EmeraldCube]

Aaaaa damn, I'll need nvlink in order to use even pascal....aaaa my dreams are getting crushed xD. So nvlink is like a new port to use my new gpu. Aaaah guess I'll go with 970.

390 is the better card but if the price difference is too high it's not worth the premium.

390 costs 60 euros more than gtx 970 and I won't die because of 3 fps difference. I'll hope that it's vram issue will be solved by drivers. Btw I prefer nvidia because of it's drivers, dsr and more beautiful picture for less performance cost.

it's all subjective nvidia has dsr amd has vsr. Either one would be more taxing on the gpu if i understand it right it's a bit like msaa or super sampling where you make the card re impose multiple frames at high resolutions to give the effect of the pixel density of a 4k resolution on a 1080p screen.

At 1080p the 960's 3.5 gigs of vram is nothing to worry about. Theirs never going to be a driver update to fix that, it's stuck at that resolution because of some missing l2 cache. The other .5 gigs of vram are not useable in games, which isn't that much of a problem at 1080p you'll be hard pressed to max out it's vram at those resolutions, just when you get into higher resolutions you'd want more vram like the 390's 8gigs. At 1080p 970 and 390 are fairly close in performance.

I never heard of vsr...thank you for bringing that up. I saw some people playing gta 5 at like around 40 fps and using 3.7 GB and more and the other guy going over the limit of 4gb on shadow of mordor and getting 40-50 fps. They might have done something about their drivers, better optimization. I know that problem can't be removed. I might get another 970 in the future and I have v650 power supply, 80+ gold. It's enough for two 970's with a slightly overclocked cpu.

 

[fudgecakes99]

If the premium for a 390 is 60 bucks you have to weigh in a few things. Is the frame rate difference worth it. 390 will outperform most games as compared to a 390. But it's not by a huge margin. It will not outperform a 970 in nvidia optimized games. The 390 will also run a bit hotter and use more power. Where i live the price of the 970 and 390 are identical. So i'd say go with the 390, but i don't believe a 390 will justify a 60 dollar premium for the minor improvements it may offer. I say go 970 that 3.5 gigs of vram isn't as much as 8 gigs but at 1080p it won't matter. If you do higher resolutions then think about going 390.

 

[EmeraldCube]

If the premium for a 390 is 60 bucks you have to weigh in a few things. Is the frame rate difference worth it. 390 will outperform most games as compared to a 390. But it's not by a huge margin. It will not outperform a 970 in nvidia optimized games. The 390 will also run a bit hotter and use more power. Where i live the price of the 970 and 390 are identical. So i'd say go with the 390, but i don't believe a 390 will justify a 60 dollar premium for the minor improvements it may offer. I say go 970 that 3.5 gigs of vram isn't as much as 8 gigs but at 1080p it won't matter. If you do higher resolutions then think about going 390.

So I just found asus's DC2 r9 390 for about 5 euros more and I will play games with vsr since it's even better than dsr. I won't crossfire it in the future because there is no need for it because of it's 8 gb of vram and by the time this gpu gets out of date I might even have to change m cpu so I'd say that's a good deal. Thank you so much for telling me about vsr, I would have never known anthing about it if you hadn't tell me. You just saved me time and money.

 

[fudgecakes99]

If the premium for a 390 is 60 bucks you have to weigh in a few things. Is the frame rate difference worth it. 390 will outperform most games as compared to a 390. But it's not by a huge margin. It will not outperform a 970 in nvidia optimized games. The 390 will also run a bit hotter and use more power. Where i live the price of the 970 and 390 are identical. So i'd say go with the 390, but i don't believe a 390 will justify a 60 dollar premium for the minor improvements it may offer. I say go 970 that 3.5 gigs of vram isn't as much as 8 gigs but at 1080p it won't matter. If you do higher resolutions then think about going 390.

So I just found asus's DC2 r9 390 for about 5 euros more and I will play games with vsr since it's even better than dsr. I won't crossfire it in the future because there is no need for it because of it's 8 gb of vram and by the time this gpu gets out of date I might even have to change m cpu so I'd say that's a good deal. Thank you so much for telling me about vsr, I would have never known anthing about it if you hadn't tell me. You just saved me time and money.

well you might have to crossfire, it would actually be better to do so because both cards share a pool of 8gigs of vram. And you'd essentially be getting 1.5-1.7+ times the graphics power of just one card. But i wouldn't do that until later in it's life cycle or the cards are supper cheap. Vsr is essentially just msaa or super sampling. All cards support it's nothing super special but if you can get an r9 for only 5 euro more that's a premium i'd pay. Gl with the cards.

 

[EmeraldCube]

If the premium for a 390 is 60 bucks you have to weigh in a few things. Is the frame rate difference worth it. 390 will outperform most games as compared to a 390. But it's not by a huge margin. It will not outperform a 970 in nvidia optimized games. The 390 will also run a bit hotter and use more power. Where i live the price of the 970 and 390 are identical. So i'd say go with the 390, but i don't believe a 390 will justify a 60 dollar premium for the minor improvements it may offer. I say go 970 that 3.5 gigs of vram isn't as much as 8 gigs but at 1080p it won't matter. If you do higher resolutions then think about going 390.

So I just found asus's DC2 r9 390 for about 5 euros more and I will play games with vsr since it's even better than dsr. I won't crossfire it in the future because there is no need for it because of it's 8 gb of vram and by the time this gpu gets out of date I might even have to change m cpu so I'd say that's a good deal. Thank you so much for telling me about vsr, I would have never known anthing about it if you hadn't tell me. You just saved me time and money.

well you might have to crossfire, it would actually be better to do so because both cards share a pool of 8gigs of vram. And you'd essentially be getting 1.5-1.7+ times the graphics power of just one card. But i wouldn't do that until later in it's life cycle or the cards are supper cheap. Vsr is essentially just msaa or super sampling. All cards support it's nothing super special but if you can get an r9 for only 5 euro more that's a premium i'd pay. Gl with the cards.

Oh yeah...forgot to ask one more thing. What about minimum fps. Does gtx 970 pull ahead or is r9 390 better or is there any noticable difference. I saw a lot of tests and they were showing basically almost no difference and then when I came to gamer's nexus and saw gtx 970 pulling ahead by a lot, especially on witcher 3. R9 390 had low 13 fps while gtx 970 had 38. I don't know which one to buy now. Was that driver related because it's been benchmarked on 18th of june. If the minimums are close to both of these cards than I'll go with 390. If the minimums are like ones on gamer's nexus....970 is my choice then.

 

[fudgecakes99]

i don't know what credibility gamer nexus has but.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDQzlKDYq4 digital foundry they usually have some pretty good indepth analysis of frames across cards. The 390 i wanna say is about exactly the same as a 970 in the witcher. Though the game is more skewed towards nvidia on a ccount of hairfx or hair phsyx. Whichever its called. Their are dips and drops on both cards but their within the margin of error you can't expect to get the exact same dips and exact same frames consistently. To an extent yes, but in demanding games like the witcher frames will be dropped on both cards.
But in every other game they test the 390 does generally by a margin outperform the 970. Especially in far cry 4. If you skim through the rest of the tests in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udXCusTnRsY
Here's another review.
I'd skim through it to the actual statistics.
Which you can check back with the digital foundry video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9cKZiJw6Pk
This guy who's also fairly knowledgeable in the subject also concurs the general consensus that 390 does outperform the 970.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1019-radeon-r9-390x-390-380/page6.html
Here's another graph stating the exact opposite of what gamer's nexus did on the 18th of june coincidentally.

If you look at reviews you can get a general idea of performance or what to expect. Granted mileage between cards may vary, a lot of reviews are pointing in favor of the 390. Which isn't to say you won't get a super awesome overclockable 970. It's just not something you should shoot for when looking at graphics cards. Statistically i say 390. Though the choice is yours.