Which Card is Better? MSI R9 390 vs MSI GTX 970.

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DrumsXO

DrumsXO

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Aug 19, 2014
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I honestly don't know much about this stuff at all. I've done some research, but it's all pretty confusing to me; VRAM size vs Clock Speed, Bus Width size, etc. :??:

I've been thinking of upgrading from my Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7970 GHz Edition to something newer, and both the MSI R9 390 and the MSI GTX 970 have caught my attention. The 390 has 8GB of VRAM compared to the 970's 4GB, but the 970 has about a 100MHZ higher clock speed. The 8GB of VRAM in the 390 is also 512-Bit vs the 256-Bit in the 970.

Of the two, which is the better choice? I'm trying to think of something that will hold up better, for longer, in the future. Like I said, I don't know much about this stuff, but to me, an extra 4GB of VRAM seems like it would be better than an extra 100MHz of clock speed.

EDIT: Here's some other helpful info.

CPU: i5-4670K @ 3.4GHz
Resolution: 1080p
PSU: 600W
 
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Both are great choices of those respective cards. MSI has balanced the performance and cooling quite well for both the GTX 970 and R9 390.

- At 1080p resolution the GTX 970 has a slight advantage.
- At 1440p resolution the R9 390 has a slight advantage

Most people these days are recommending the R9 390 more than the GTX 970 because of the extra VRAM. That is probably a sound suggestion for the long-term, as both cards are neck-and-neck for base performance.

If you have a bias (like I do) for Nvidia or AMD one way or the other, then honestly get the card you are most comfortable with. Both are fantastic performers in that price bracket and you really couldn't make a poor choice between the two.
 
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I should have mentioned that my monitor is 1080p, so that's what I play at.

My main goal here is to get more FPS at higher qualities out of games like Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Skyrim I can play on Ultra pretty easily, but Fallout 4 I have to drop down because Ultra tanks my FPS. I was thinking the extra 4GB of VRAM would help with that?
 
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I honestly wouldn't even think about the actual specs (apart from the vram, which is worth thinking about).

Benchmarks are the best and most conclusive way to compare 2 GPUs. In every benchmark test that I've seen on YouTube, the R9 390 is better by a few frames per second, than the GTX 970. (Basically, very slightly better performance.)
^ This is + for the R9 390

However, it depends on what power supply you have, because the R9 390 uses almost twice as much power as the GTX 970. So if you have a weaker PSU, go for the GTX 970.
^ This is + for the GTX 970

Also, NVidia are known to provide more stable drivers, and more frequent updates to their drivers, compared to AMD. This is another reason to go for the GTX 970.
^ This is + for the GTX 970

Now, about the VRAM. A lot of people have said that the 4gbs of vram on GPUs is starting to affect performance a little bit. And even if that's incorrect, 8gbs will still future-proof your GPU a bit more.
^ This is + for the R9 390

So there are multiple pros and cons for each GPU.

If you want to link your PSU, I can tell you if you will be able to handle an R9 390 in your PC.
 
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Your CPU is very strong and won't be the culprit for bottlenecking, it can support up to a GTX 980ti. Your PSU is enough wattage for the R9 390, though without knowing the model we can't weigh in on the quailty of the unit.

Honestly it sounds like your rig will support either card just fine. If you're planning on sticking with 1080p resolutions get the GTX 970, if you might want to go up to 1440p in the future grab the R9 390.
 
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My PSU is a Corsair CX600.

I've never given much thought to bumping past 1080p, honestly. That's probably because I've yet to see the difference between 1080p and 1440p, so I don't know if I'd notice much of a difference.
 
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Yeah, that CPU shouldn't have issues. I would suggest a complete uninstall of your vid drivers and a fresh install, and it wouldn't hurt to make sure all your other drivers are up to date as well, especially your sound drivers.
 
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Here are my full rig specs, just in case it helps.

Motherboard: MSI Gaming Z87-G45
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K @ 3.4 GHz
GPU: Sapphire Tech Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 3GB GHz Edition
RAM: 16GB DDR3 (although two sticks are 1066MHz and the other two are 1600MHz; I'm buying two more 1600MHZ sticks soon)
PSU: Corsair CX600
SSD: Samsung 840-Series 250GB
HDD: Seagate 7200 2TB
Sound Card: ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1
Monitor: ASUS 24" LED 1080p
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

At first I thought maybe I should upgrade my CPU (I was thinking AMD), but found a lot of research suggests that the Intel i5 series is "The King of Gaming," and that the 4670K @ 3.4 GHz is still more than adequate. Now I'm thinking I just need a better GPU.

I'm not sure if I'll be upgrading to 1440p anytime soon. The monitors are noticeably larger, and don't exactly have a huge desk...
 
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When you have 2 cards so close in performance, then should always take the safer pick, GTX 970.

More games are optimized better with nVidia cards and nVidia got better drivers. This mean, you´d often see a performance gain on nvidia cards even though they bench a little lower.
To combat the little lower specs, I´d argue that GTX 970 has better 12-15% overclocking potential. which makes it an even better card and usually slightly cheaper too.

Least of all, most gamers love G-sync monitors and you need nvidia card for that.

NB, Take out your slow ramsticks. The 1066MHz will force the other 2 ram sticks down to same Mhz, unless you specifically set it differently up in bios. You won´t need more than 8 GB of ram today anyways for gaming.
 
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I believe RAM operates at the highest common speed. Therefore, your 2 sticks at 1066mhz will make your 2 sticks at 1600mhz work at the slower speed of 1066mhz.

I genuinely think that you are slowing your PC down with that extra 8gb of RAM at 1066mhz. Take those out, and just stay with 8gb of 1600mhz until you upgrade your RAM. See if you get an improvement. I know it seems illogical, but as games don't use more than 8gb anyway, the extra 8gb is just dead-weight, and causing all of your RAM to run slower. (Unless you use tonnes of applications all the time. Then the 16gbs will be helpful)
 
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Something that confuses me is how cards actually work. Specifically, how Core Clock and Memory Size factor into FPS in large-scale games such as Fallout 4.

In my mind, the extra 4GB of VRAM on the R9 390 would definitely help me maintain 60 FPS on Ultra in Fallout 4. But, for all I know that's not true. Also, for all I know, the 4GB of VRAM on the GTX 970 could also do the exact same thing...
 
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I had read that somewhere, which is why I plan to grab two more sticks of 1600MHz soon. What I never thought of is how much slower my PC might run with the two 1066MHz sticks in there. So, thanks for that! I'll take them out.
 
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It would only help if you were swapping out more data than the 4gb card could handle, which at 1080p isn't going to happen much, if any. The clocks affect how fast the cards can swap out the data (screens/fps) and the vram deals with how big the chunks of data are that it can handle per swap (cycle). So, again, unless you are swapping/cycling data chunks bigger than the 4gb can handle, having 8gb won't make any difference that you could see on screen.
 
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I already mentioned that he should take out the slow ram sticks.

@DrumsXO
Not sure if you know, but VRAM and normal ram are completely different rams, and shouldn´t be compared.
Vram is videoram in your video card. Normal ram, are the sticks that handles the data the cpu calculates.
More Vram is good - since only the highend video cards features 8-12 GB VRAM and at 4k gaming, you may need more than 8 GB.

Normal Ram, you never need more than 8 GB currently and I don´t see it becoming a bottleneck the next couple of years either.
 
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I know there's a difference between RAM and VRAM, lol.

In doing a bit more research on 1440p monitors, I've found that there's some decent choices in 25" size, which would work for my desk. So, maybe I'll be upgrading in the near future. I won't be going 4K any time soon though, since the best choices there are 28" and up. There's no way I can afford a 4K monitor, a new desk, and a 4K-capable GPU in anywhere even close to the near future.

Perhaps I need to approach this from a new angle...

If I want to stay at 1080p, then I don't need the R9 390; the GTX 970 will be more than sufficient.
If I want to play at 1440p, then I could need the R9 390; the GTX 970 will be inferior in this case.

Is that a sound way of looking at this decision?
 
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I upgraded from Crossfire 7950 GPUs to SLI GTX 970. I was in the same boat as you, couldn't decide between the 390 or 970. I ended up going with the 970 because I saw a GPU comparison test on Fallout 4, the reason for my upgrade. The 970 was consistently better at 1080p and was locked at 60FPS while the 390 was fluctuating between 50-60 FPS.
However, I've had nothing but trouble with my Nvidia drivers. I can't access "Manage 3D Settings" in Nvidia Control panel, it just crashes. I've never had such a problem before with AMD. If the drivers were to work properly, then the 970 would be better for 1080p gaming, but they're just not working properly and it's causing more aggravation than satisfaction.
 
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Alright. Thanks for all your help! You, and everyone else!

I guess I need to sit down and decide if I want to upgrade to 1440p or not before I buy a new GPU. Perhaps I'll take a trip to Best Buy and see if they have any 1440p monitors that I can compare to their 1080p models to see if I notice a difference. Although, without being able to run any games on them, it'd be hard to truly put it to the test this way... 🙁



See, that's another thing I've been thinking a lot about. Personally, I don't have a preference for either one over the other, but I've never used anything other than AMD. Before building this PC of mine, I'd never used one for gaming before. I was a console player, and my PC ran off the motherboard's built-in graphics, lol.

That said, my time with AMD (nearly three years now) has been practically trouble-free. I did have an issue with GTA V when it first came out, but AMD solved that quickly with new drivers. Other than that, I've never had any issues that I could narrow down to being caused by my AMD card, or its drivers.

I know a lot of people prefer one over the other, but that's the same way people prefer the Playstation over the Xbox; it's all personal preference. There's no denying that most games do seem to be specifically optimized for NVIDIA rather than AMD though, so that's something that's lingering in the back of my mind as well...
 
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For what it's worth, until I upgraded to a 980ti recently my last 3 cards were AMD (including Crossfire in the last build), so I'm by no means an Nvidia fanboy. However, facts are that as AMD has lost market share, their driver support has suffered as well and they aren't putting money into dev's pockets at the rate Nvidia is. So, I've gone from almost always suggesting AMD at price points lower than 500.00 to suggesting Nvidia whenever the price/performance is even close.
 
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I´d still pick the GTX 970. It´s a little cheaper, and with a supereasy overclock, you´ll have the even better performance than GTX 980.
http://techgage.com/article/taking-it-to-the-limit-overclocking-nvidias-geforce-gtx-970-980/


 
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