430$ graphics card?

[Alec10121]

I will build my first computer very soon and I need a better alternative to an r9 390x. I want to have a graphics card that is about 400$ and not more than 30$ over.

[Zayzo]

Nothing. Unless you buy used. 

[Prysin]

there is no better alternative at that price...

 

Why is the 390X not good enough?

 

just buy this one.http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-100381ocl

 

its quiet, will overclock okay in most cases and imo it looks good too

[lani100]

I will build my first computer very soon and I need a better alternative to an r9 390x. I want to have a graphics card that is about 400$ and not more than 30$ over.

GTX970 but I would save up and get a GTX980

[OAcesync]

390X is best you get in the price range

[Vegetable]

390x smashes anything Nvidia in that range, but if you must go team green: http://galaxstore.net/GALAX-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970-HOF-4GB_p_37.html

[Prysin]

GTX970 but I would save up and get a GTX980

GTX 970 wont beat a 390X unless you OC the living shit out of it

[lani100]

GTX 970 wont beat a 390X unless you OC the living shit out of it

People can have other reasons to not go for a 390x please understand that.

Also in some games my 970 beats my 290x so yeah...

[Morgan MLGman]

GTX 970 wont beat a 390X unless you OC the living shit out of it

It won't beat the 390X even then. Hell, it doesn't even beat a R9 390 ^^ It's worse at stock than a non-x 390 and about the same after OC cause it can be overclocked higher (provided you've got a good chip) it's basically GTX970>390>390X...

It's coming from a GTX 970 owner.

[manikyath]

the green VS red is still very much game dependant in a lot of cases, as well as specific features and downsides on both sides.

 

EDIT: benchmarks to back up my arguments, because thats how it should be done: 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-390x-r9-380-r7-370,4178-6.html

[Elfuego]

I will build my first computer very soon and I need a better alternative to an r9 390x. I want to have a graphics card that is about 400$ and not more than 30$ over.

 

If one existed we would tell you; but if you want nvidia save up for a 980...

[EllieThePurpleFuzzy]

and here is where a GTX 975 would be perfect?.

 

only other option i could think of around the 430$ mark that wont go into 980 Territory that could beat a 390X would just be something along the lines of a HD 7990/Crossfire 2 Used 290's.

but even then i would not recommend ethier of those two.

 

390X/390 or 970 it seems to be.

[ANewFace]

390X is your only option. Unless you want to pick up a lightly used 980 off eBay

[OAcesync]

People can have other reasons to not go for a 390x please understand that.

Also in some games my 970 beats my 290x so yeah...

970 can't beat a 390 so yeah...obviously a 390X is gonna beat it even when 970 is OC

[lani100]

970 can't beat a 390 so yeah...obviously a 390X is gonna beat it even when 970 is OC

 Did I say it did? but there are rare cases a 970 does.

[OAcesync]

 Did I say it did? but there are rare cases a 970 does.

Well you said a 290X can be beaten insinuating it's the same with a 390X but that's not a proper comparison when a refresh 290(390) is toe to toe now with a 970.

[lani100]

Well you said a 290X can be beaten insinuating it's the same with a 390X but that's not a proper comparison when a refresh 290(390) is toe to toe now with a 970.

But you still don't get the point of OP he wants an alternative and all you guys keep yelling is get a 390x.

Anyways I've done my word you fight it out.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Used 980 can probably get into that range.

The 390x is the best in that range but to be honest is stupid and never should be bought when the 390 is a full 100 dollars cheaper.

[Prysin]

People can have other reasons to not go for a 390x please understand that.

Also in some games my 970 beats my 290x so yeah...

290X =/= 390X

 

390X is 10-15% faster then 290X on average. Draws less power and has better color compression

 

Depending on which 290X you have, it will thermal throttle due to inadequate cooling...

[i_build_nanosuits]

It won't beat the 390X even then. Hell, it doesn't even beat a R9 390 ^^ It's worse at stock than a non-x 390 and about the same after OC cause it can be overclocked higher (provided you've got a good chip) it's basically GTX970>390>390X...

It's coming from a GTX 970 owner.

Defenetly, BUT...as someone else said: there might be some other VERY good reasons to still pick the GTX970 over an R9 390/390X

 

1- You might NOT want a card that will pull 300W from the wall and heat up your entire room in no time flat

2- You might NOT want a card that has very bad DX11 drivers requiring ton of CPU overhead.

3- You might NOT want a card that does not support gameworks, physX, shadowplay, DSR and VXGI and other cool technologies built into maxwell.

4- You might NOT want a card that is last gen technologies across the board.

5- You might NOT want a card that will take weeks before a driver update get released to fix problems and add CFX support to your latest favorite game.

 

All i'm saying, is that there are reasons why the cost to performance might be lower on team red, sometimes it's worth it to sacrifice a little bit on performance to have better features, better support and just a cooler/quiter card overall. (BTW i would still pick an R9 390X over a GTX 970...but probably not an R9 390)

[Morgan MLGman]

Defenetly, BUT...as someone else said: there might be some other VERY good reasons to still pick the GTX970 over an R9 390/390X

 

1- You might NOT want a card that will pull 300W from the wall and heat up your entire room in no time flat

2- You might NOT want a card that has very bad DX11 drivers requiring ton of CPU overhead.

3- You might NOT want a card that does not support gameworks, physX, shadowplay, DSR and VXGI and other cool technologies built into maxwell.

4- You might NOT want a card that is last gen technologies across the board.

5- You might NOT want a card that will take weeks before a driver update get released to fix problems and add CFX support to your latest favorite game.

 

All i'm saying, is that there are reasons why the cost to performance might be lower on team red, sometimes it's worth it to sacrifice a little bit on performance to have better features, better support and just a cooler/quiter card overall. (BTW i would still pick an R9 390X over a GTX 970...but probably not an R9 390)

I'm not sure, it seems like the R9 390 was slightly ahead of the 970 at stock and after OC, however the OC the dude got out of his 970 was pretty low (around 1430 core, mine gets to 1530 stable), but I do have an old 600W PSU from Chieftec and with an OC'd 8350 it's simply not enough for the R9 390 so it's not worth swapping

Another thing is that I've read that since the AMD cards are technically better in terms of raw performance than their Nvidia counterparts and that seems to be about right for the 390 and 970 case, under DX12 it should get more performance boost over the 970, but all we can do is wait for more games to come and more benchmarks to come ;-;

[i_build_nanosuits]

I'm not sure, it seems like the R9 390 was slightly ahead of the 970 at stock and after OC, however the OC the dude got out of his 970 was pretty low (around 1430 core, mine gets to 1530 stable), but I do have an old 600W PSU from Chieftec and with an OC'd 8350 it's simply not enough for the R9 390 so it's not worth swapping

Another thing is that I've read that since the AMD cards are technically better in terms of raw performance than their Nvidia counterparts and that seems to be about right for the 390 and 970 case, under DX12 it should get more performance boost over the 970, but all we can do is wait for more games to come and more benchmarks to come ;-;

yes for DX12 performance we will have to wait for the games to release and for nvidia and AMD to release proper DX12 ready drivers...nvidia said it out loud they havnt worked on DX12 GPU drivers yet...so they too might get a good performance boost when they start checking the code path and optimising for DX12 rendering.

Not denying the fact that the R9 390 seems to be a stronger GPU technicaly, but as i mentionned already this comes at a (IMHO) hefty cost (not money, but a lot of other drawbacks linked to it being older technologies)

 

Also DX11 drivers for AMD as proven many times do require a lot more CPU overhead so if you're not driving a swift and powerful CPU to go along you aint gonna get such good results (Your AMD FX CPU for example i'm sure perform better with the GTX970 than it would with an R9 390)

[Morgan MLGman]

yes for DX12 performance we will have to wait for the games to release and for nvidia and AMD to release proper DX12 ready drivers...nvidia said it out loud they havnt worked on DX12 GPU drivers yet...so they too might get a good performance boost when they start checking the code path and optimising for DX12 rendering.

Not denying the fact that the R9 390 seems to be a stronger GPU technicaly, but as i mentionned already this comes at a (IMHO) hefty cost (not money, but a lot of other drawbacks linked to it being older technologies)

 

Also DX11 drivers for AMD as proven many times do require a lot more CPU overhead so if you're not driving a swift and powerful CPU to go along you aint gonna get such good results (Your AMD FX CPU for example i'm sure perform better with the GTX970 than it would with an R9 390)

Good to hear that, I've always disliked AMD GPUs for just unreasonable stuff they did... For example releasing the R9 290X which with reference cooling was overheating without any overclocks added to it, it was just too hot for the reference cooler design, isn't that a little stupid for a serious company? Also after GTX970 release it proved to be better than the R9 290X which cost about the same or even more sometimes. They just didn't seem to be able to compete with Nvidia, that's why my last 4 GPUs were Nvidia starting from 9800GT then 260, 660 and now 970

What's weird about the Ashes of Singularity benchmarks is that Nvidia was working with the developers of the game for over a year, and released a special driver update for this particular release so the benchmarks would go better and from what I've seen they didn't go well for them, but that's obviously only a one game that isn't even released yet so we can't say anything certain about those.

[Alec10121]

Defenetly, BUT...as someone else said: there might be some other VERY good reasons to still pick the GTX970 over an R9 390/390X

 

1- You might NOT want a card that will pull 300W from the wall and heat up your entire room in no time flat

2- You might NOT want a card that has very bad DX11 drivers requiring ton of CPU overhead.

3- You might NOT want a card that does not support gameworks, physX, shadowplay, DSR and VXGI and other cool technologies built into maxwell.

4- You might NOT want a card that is last gen technologies across the board.

5- You might NOT want a card that will take weeks before a driver update get released to fix problems and add CFX support to your latest favorite game.

 

All i'm saying, is that there are reasons why the cost to performance might be lower on team red, sometimes it's worth it to sacrifice a little bit on performance to have better features, better support and just a cooler/quiter card overall. (BTW i would still pick an R9 390X over a GTX 970...but probably not an R9 390)

Would the MSI GTX 970 windforce handle most games medium to max 1080p 60fps? Or is the 390x the one that would come closer to that. In YOUR opinion, would the pros and cons of the GTX 970 make it better, or would the 390x still come out on top?

[i_build_nanosuits]

Would the MSI GTX 970 windforce handle most games medium to max 1080p 60fps? Or is the 390x the one that would come closer to that. In YOUR opinion, would the pros and cons of the GTX 970 make it better, or would the 390x still come out on top?

yes any GTX 970 can handle 1080p gaming on ultra settings 60FPS in most modern games, and so does the R9 390/390X...as i said personally i would pick a GTX970 over an R9 390, but i would choose an R9 390X with a good cooling solution over any GTX970 because the R9 390X is significantly faster than the GTX970 and it outperform it in every games out there, but the R9 390 is trading blows with the GTX 970 depending on the game and driver optimization so to me those perform similar and nvidia has a better feature set and lower power consumption= lower heat output = less noise.

 

So as far as i'm concerned R9 390<GTX970<R9 390X

 

Others may have different opinions, which is fine too.

AMD tend to perform better as you increase the resolution though, so for 1440p i would be tempted by the R9 390...more VRAM and perform better at that resolution.