Upgrade new graphics card, budget is a little tight

[maxstill]

I'm looking to upgrade from my Asus R9 280x Direct CU II Top to something else right now.
At the moment I have 4 choices kind of in the same pricing range, got very good offers:
-R9 290 260$
-gtx 970 300$
-gtx 690 260$
-HD 7990 300$

On paper the 7990 destroys all the others, but it's a dual gpu and we all know the cons on that, basically its xfire and not that many games like xfire.
The gtx 690 is on par with the 7990 in terms of performance, however the small vram on it seems to be a complaint for many people, though its mostly people bitching about Ubisoft games that use lots of vram to no avail, another big con is the fact that it is essentially SLI.
Yes Watch Dogs and Assasins Creed use a fuck ton of vram and still get shit frames.
On a well optimized game like GTA V the 690 goes to 70 frames average, running everything on max, same with Metal Gear The Phantom Pain where is stays at constant 60.
The GTX 970 is great and all, but at overall performance it is weaker than the ones mentioned above.
So while I have a good idea about what I want, multiple opinions don't hurt, feel free to recommend other choices too, though keep in mind I really can't exceed 300 $.

 

[Signalll]

Prehaps consider a r9 390 ? Newer card and twice the vram of a 970. Newegg has it for $300. Cheers!

 

[jerdle]

The R9 290 starts @ $210...
The 970 @ $270...

Are these local/converted prices?

And with an R9 280X already, none of your upgrades are going to be worth what you'll spend. Wait for the next generation.

 

[maxstill]

yes local converted prices

 

[Signalll]

The R9 290 starts @ $210...
The 970 @ $270...

Are these local/converted prices?

And with an R9 280X already, none of your upgrades are going to be worth what you'll spend. Wait for the next generation.

Agreed...

 

[maxstill]

The R9 290 starts @ $210...
The 970 @ $270...

Are these local/converted prices?

And with an R9 280X already, none of your upgrades are going to be worth what you'll spend. Wait for the next generation.

Agreed...

Honestly I have considered that as well, the problem though is that if i sell my current gpu I can get a solid 100$ at least for it, waiting for the next generation will make my current gpu worthless.
Thats the main reason why I'm looking for a deal now, while my r9 280x is still worth something on the market.
And the wait for a better gen never really gets you anywhere, next year will have better, newer, stronger etc.
As far as prices go they drop with every new so called generation, as for the 390 linked above, it's actually a worst card than the 970, that 8 Gb of vram is just a marketing gimmick, it does not yield any performance whatsoever.
I am aware that this would be more of a sidegrade than a full blown upgrade, but a card like the 970 would give me about 40% more performance than my current 280x, that's a lot , and I doubt the next gen will be so amazing as to actually justify the money, no new NVidia generation has been so overwhelmingly powerful compared to the previous one, same is the case with AMD, my R9 280x is basically a rebranded 7970 so despite the gap in generation is really isn't a marked improvement over the previous one.
Sorry if I sound too mean or overly critique, just stating some facts.
Also thanks for the very fast replies.
Maybe I have slight fault in the way I asked for advice, though I'm pretty sure I was coherent, I asked for advice on choosing between the cards I mentioned, maybe some people which have even tested the cards themselves could be of help, what I wanted was clear recommendations on the same pricing ranges.
Signalll, thank you for actually having a suggestion.

 

[McDuncun]

In that kist it`s no doubt the 970 man, no debate about it!

 

[maxstill]

well according to benchmarks, the 7990 tops it, but I don't know how well it performs since its a dual gpu.

 

[McDuncun]

well according to benchmarks, the 7990 tops it, but I don't know how well it performs since its a dual gpu.

The 7990 is a very good card but it`s older tech so I would not prescribe it... and the CF sometimes has issues on those older cards.