max_headroom

I agree about AMD but they have improved a bit. I hated their gpus so much because they just burned themselves to death and had utter chitty drivers. One time I bought an ATI gpu and the driver that came in the CD was the SAME as what was on their website. LOL! This was about a year's time window. That's absolutely ridiculous. My X1950XTX melted itself to death and artifacts was a regular thing. My 9800 BSOD all the time. I had to put a box fan on the side of my PC to keep it cool. I did buy a 390 a few months ago. It was a decent card. Tons of ram, it can't use. The gpu was pegged at 100% all the time. Stuttering was unacceptable. Drivers were chit too. GTAV, a game that was out for almost a year, still had issues. The game would lock up at 30fps, every time you launch it. You had to go into the settings to change vsync every time. The gpu mad radar was all screwed up. To correct it, you had to bump up MSAA, which of course destroys your fps. AMD gpus have come a long way. Just not long enough. As for their cpus, it's quite a tragic story. I LOVED AMD cpus during the Athlon XP days. They completely blew Intel out of the water. I loved my Barton chip. Unfortunately, Intel created their CORE architecture and blew AMD out of the water. It just kept getting better and better every year while AMD just got lazier and lazier. I remember AMD cpus were also great on servers. Sadly AMD never innovated on the cpu market. If Zen is a flop and Polaris (sources say it's only a mid level technology) then AMD might as well pack up and close shop. I never experienced any problems with the latest drivers on all my Nvidia gpus.

4690K was only about $40 more expensive than the 8350 at the time I purchased mine. However, the 4690K, specially when over clocked, completely, utterly, and ruthlessly destroys the 8350. No questions about it. Even ghetto dwellers who plunk down $60 for Call of Duty 32 for their XBox one can afford that $40. Synthetic benchmarks are for those with synthetic brains.

I wouldn't call you 90%. However when a manufacturer gives someone something free, the reviewer is almost compelled to give it positive ratings. It isn't unheard of that some of your Youtube "tech heads" get a chitload of free stuff in exchange for a positive review. I'm not a Youtube reviewer. I actually bought both cards with my own money and returned what I didn't think was worth my dime. To me that's as close to being unbiased. Would I select the "lesser" brand just for the sole purpose of loyalty? LOL! Yes, make an ultra rich company more money while I get stuck with the inferior product. Yeah, that makes sense! LOL!

In my neck of the woods a Sapphire 380X 4gb nitro is $250. A Zotac GTX 970 is $280. + free The Division. I don't know if the 380X comes with the game Hitman. I know the 390 did when I bought it.

A 970 will kick the chit out of a 380X. Minimum frame rates is quite important. The higher, the less likely the gpu stutters.

You want noise? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlQokQsbKlc

I would take whatever Jay says with a grain of salt. He's more red than green. The 750ti is a "cool" card. Turning up the fan with anything higher than 50% is just a waste of electricity and begging for noise.

I don't know if you can even buy a 290X. They're pretty much sold out. Unless you go to the used market. The 380X is a better card than the 960. It's also about $75 more than the 960. For R9 380X money, spend the extra $50 and get yourself a GTX 970 with a free copy of the Division. A far better card than anything you listed. If you go the 290X route, make sure your PSU can handle it. It's a very hot and power hungry card. You don't want to turn your room into a furnace.

I've proven it over and over again with a reputable source called Anandtech. Unlike you, they're not on AMD's payroll. We've done this song and dance before and frankly you're a terrible dancer. I'll leave it to the OP to do their own research.

I wouldn't drop a dime on any AMD cpu. Spend the little extra and get a good i5. They can over clock easily and you reach i7 performance that nothing from AMD can touch. Since you asked, I would go with a 960 over a 380. 960 > 380 (specially OC it). The 960 also has a higher minimum frame rate which means less stuttering. 8350 + 380 = PC case is an oven.

Do what I did, buy both competing cards from opposing manufacturers. Evaluate them side by side and return the one that impresses you less.

It never happened to me. Could it happen? Quite possibly. So did you answer his initial request of which Nvidia gpu to buy, or are you going to resume trying to sell him something he did not ask for?

My response is in complete context of the thread. I'm also not giving unsolicited responses.

Thank you for proving my previous statement

Now you're sounding arrogant and condescending as if you know everything.