which is the better card

[gartersnake184]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202103
Or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127832

 

[mark2603]

Both are very good cards, it's up to your preference
I'd personally go for the 970, it runs cooler, overclocks very good and it's pretty quiet even at full load
Keep in mind that GTX 970 will fully support DirectX 12 features

 

[gartersnake184]

Sorry the first one meant to be a 290x not just a 290

 

[Zaporro]

Remember that GTX970 practically have 3.5GB of RAM (instead of claimed 4GB)

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2504775/gtx-970-vram-issue-memory-allocation.html

It have 3.5GB or 'regular' ram and 0.5GB of slow ram. In result when game uses more than 3.5GB of ram (high resolution screen, hi-res textures) gpu starts to cripple.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2015-vga-charts/compare,3664.html?prod[7347]=on&prod[7280]=on

It seems that in lower resultions GTX970 seems better while in higher R9 290 takes the lead (maybe exactly because of the crippled 0.5GB on GTX970)

R9 200 AMD series cards also support DirectX 12 http://au.ibtimes.com/directx-12-improves-amd-gpu-performance-400-windows-10-1420167

 

[mark2603]

Sorry the first one meant to be a 290x not just a 290

Again they are very similar, it's really a tough choice
I tested both, they both play very nice and I couldn't tell much of a difference unless the game was optimized for Nvidia cards such as Dying Light
I would go for the cheaper one
Edit
If you can just wait for a month until AMD 300 series comes out and prices will most likely drop
That would be the best time to buy

 

[gartersnake184]

Would it be WORTH the upgrade to one of these cards from a 770?

 

[mark2603]

Would it be WORTH the upgrade to one of these cards from a 770?

Depending on what do you want. If you want to play on ultra settings on 1080p or higher, yes