GTX 970 vs R9 390

[King Oriax]

Now that the R9 390 has been out a while and people have benchmarked it heavily, which card do you think is better? I know the specs of the 390 are higher in almost everything (if not everything) but it is a rebranded card, and it does run hotter and require a good deal more power. But which do you think is better? Both cards seem to range from $330-360 in price so they sit at around the same price. Is the 390 the superior card if you have the ability to cool/power it? Or is the quite cool 970 still the best mid-price card?

[doctorraichu]

It depends on your personal taste and what's important to you.

[Doge_Such_Wow]

390 cuz of the vram

 

970 is still a good card. i prefer it because its quieter

[MattTheMayor]

i would choose 390 if i go 1440p or higher res because it will benefit more than the 3.5 gb (and the slow slow .5 gb) on the 970. although if i go 1080p i would stick with the 970 just for cooler, and quieter performance

[DimasRMDO]

Well the R9 390 has the VRAM advantage, but it consumes more power too.

The GTX 970 is the other way around, has less VRAM but consume less power.

 

For specs, R9 390 is mostly better, but for gaming they both perform good, kinda compete. Some games perform good in R9 390, some are good in GTX 970.

Up to you actually.

[sms1202]

R9 390 for the win !!!!!!!!!!

[TheKDub]

970.

[gl3nnn]

390 performs better than the 970. If you have a high wattage PSU it shouldn't be a problem, your electricity bill won't pop because of the additional 75w - 100w consumption

[Unlikelyjoker]

If you have a good PSU 390 would be ideal for what your after.

[R_Golden]

There's honestly no reason to not go for the 390 if they are the same price imo.

[othertomperson]

i would choose 390 if i go 1440p or higher res because it will benefit more than the 3.5 gb (and the slow slow .5 gb) on the 970. although if i go 1080p i would stick with the 970 just for cooler, and quieter performance

 

4K doesn't benefit from the difference, what makes you think 1440p would? o.0

 

Also does no one use a 780 Ti any more? Or did we just start pretending that card never existed the moment we heard about vram-gate?

 

 

There's honestly no reason to not go for the 390 if they are the same price imo.

 

Overclocked 970 > overclocked 290

[david cassar]

Depends on resolution. At 1080p the gtx 970 is better. At 1440p they are about the same. While at 4k the 390 pulls ahead.
Also take into account that the gtx 970 consumes less power, has much higher overclocking headroom (since a 390 is an overclocked 290) and can be found cheaper.

[IateMApoo]

8 GB of VRAM nuff said.

[DarkSmith2]

if you pay the power bill on your own, like cool hardware and consider a 2card setup as upgrade possibility, or want to Overclock your GPU

then GTX970

[Sintezza]

depends a bit from game to game and resolution.

Some games run better on Nvidia other run better on AMD.

 

I would go for the 390, according to most benchmarks i have seen.

[GrimNeo]

Now that the R9 390 has been out a while and people have benchmarked it heavily, which card do you think is better? I know the specs of the 390 are higher in almost everything (if not everything) but it is a rebranded card, and it does run hotter and require a good deal more power. But which do you think is better? Both cards seem to range from $330-360 in price so they sit at around the same price. Is the 390 the superior card if you have the ability to cool/power it? Or is the quite cool 970 still the best mid-price card?

What resolution?

[ThomasD]

8 GB of VRAM nuff said.

By the time you will be using that much VRAM the rest of the card will be outdated.

 

They should have made the 390 with 4 GB of VRAM and priced it at $300.

[byalexandr]

The 390 is just a 290 with updated drivers to give it more performance as well as added VRAM. But the 970 only has 3.5GB VRAM (I'm not even going to count that last .5GB because it's so slow).

[DarkSmith2]

By the time you will be using that much VRAM the rest of the card will be outdated.

 

They should have made the 390 with 4 GB of VRAM and priced it at $300.

they should just price it $250 right now.

[IateMApoo]

By the time you will be using that much VRAM the rest of the card will be outdated.

 

They should have made the 390 with 4 GB of VRAM and priced it at $300.

So as will 970, but its 3.5 GB will struggle even sooner.

[DarkSmith2]

if they would be so much games... that the 3,5GB could struggle with. I wouldnt sit here bored reading this forum all day long.

They will be about maximum 5games per year even worth playing.

 

The GTX780Ti doesnt struggle with it 3GB VRAM why should there be games struggling with  3.5GB?

Answer is: there wont. Unless you play on a 4k resolution or pick that one single title once every 2 years that sucks up an unusual big amount of vram.

[KarateHottie93]

390 by far. I hate to talk about futureproofing but that 3.5 gigs of vram will be very outdated soon. I'm already feeling it with my 780 Ti's. The other thing is that while nVidia has better support, they tend to drop it fast when they release a new card...like how my 780 Ti's got obsoleted in drivers less than a year after they came out by the lower end 970 because nVidia wanted people to buy it instead of getting a 780 Ti off eBay.

The way AMD is adding that framerate cap feature everyone is going nuts over to the 200 series...nVidia would NEVER do that.

[ThomasD]

they should just price it $250 right now.

I don't think that would keep them in business very long.

 

But they'd sure sell a lot of them!

[othertomperson]

8 GB of VRAM nuff said.

 

Let's see how much vram Shadow of Mordor needs at 5K.

 

In this game at this resolution you aren't even hitting 5GB vram, why on Earth you'd choose a card based on it having 8GB is an absolute mystery.

[DarkSmith2]

well i think the 3,5GB VRAM of the gtx970 is and will be enough for 1080p/1440p. Fun fact: 70% of all gamers are playing on these resolutions. (Over 50% on 1080p though)

But yea im planning to run this for the next 3years. Until maybe Volta gets released. And im sure im fine with it.

A R9 390 wouldnt make anything better, would be more expansive in the long run and wouldnt give me more performance.