Which graphics card is better

[Tarkan]

4gb gtx 970 vs 8gb r9 390

 

[xapoc]

r9 390

also it was discussed here a lot

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2688178/gtx-970-390.html

 

[Mister-E]

I'm looking into the same things, and the biggest difference is the vram, which mostly has to do with the resolution you play at, if you don't go beyond 1920x1080p (60hz) then the 970 is fine, uses less power, generates less heat. The 390 is used for higher resolutions and/or multiple screens. At least that's what I found.

 

[c4s2k3]

Like most anything else, the term "better" depends on your situation. The R9 390 has more RAM and should outperform the GTX 970 in most situations in terms of raw processing/rendering power. That comes at the cost of an additional 130 watts TDP. If you are just upgrading your GPU and you only have a 500-700 watt power supply, the 970 might be a more logical choice. It all depends on what you want to accomplish, and whatever you constraints (like budget) may be.

 

[geofelt]

Take your pick.
They are both in the same performance tier on tom's hierarchy list:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

Ignore specs such as vram unless you are comparing the same chip.

VRAM has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, and by the game. There may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
And differences between games.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.
A more current set of tests shows the same results:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1114-vram-comparison-test/page5.html

And... no game maker wants to limit their market by
requiring huge amounts of vram. The vram you see will be appropriate to the particular card.

You will need about 500w to run a GTX970, about 75w more for a R9-390.

 

[Tarkan]

I have a 600w psu currently running a gtx 960 but want to get better card my price range is around both these cards which is around £250-270