Sapphire 390 vs MSI 970. Reliability vs FPS

[NuclearPeace]

By the time that the 390 would actually need to have a frame buffer larger than 4GB, you are already looking at some severely unplayable settings. I'm talking about 4K with high levels of multisample AA.

 

I don't hear anyone with a 290 or a 290x complain about the lack of VRAM, even when they are in watercooled Crossfire rigs. Its time to accept that the 8GB frame bufers on the 390x and the 390 was done mostly because of marketing.

[Guest Gabbs]

I prefer the 970 over the 390. Mainly because of the driver and game support it has.

On paper the 390 seems better, but I've had too many problems with AMD GPU drivers in the past, games being optimized for Nvidia, etc, that makes me come to the conclusion that today, the 970 is a better choice.

[App4that]

By the time that the 390 would actually need to have a frame buffer larger than 4GB, you are already looking at some severely unplayable settings. I'm talking about 4K with high levels of multisample AA.

I don't hear anyone with a 290 or a 290x complain about the lack of VRAM, even when they are in watercooled Crossfire rigs. Its time to accept that the 8GB frame bufers on the 390x and the 390 was done mostly because of marketing.

What a refreshing post. I play Fallout 4 in 1440 with my 290 with over 20 mods going and never have a memory issue. I rarely go over the 3.5g of high speed VRAM the 970 carries. In my opinion AMD and Sapphire stripped all the things away that made the Sapphire 290 great, duct taped some VRAM on the side, and called it a refresh. The 390 is a paper dragon. And you can quote me on that.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

What a refreshing post. I play Fallout 4 in 1440 with my 290 with over 20 mods going and never have a memory issue. I rarely go over the 3.5g of high speed VRAM the 970 carries. In my opinion AMD and Sapphire stripped all the things away that made the Sapphire 290 great, duct taped some VRAM on the side, and called it a refresh. The 390 is a paper dragon. And you can quote me on that.

 

You forgot the different power management micro architecture. 

[App4that]

You forgot the different power management micro architecture.

No, that's there. But surprisingly the 290 is more efficient at idle over the 390. At full load though the 390 is much better at keeping cool because of the better efficiency, a good 10 degree difference. The VRMs stay 20c cooler on the Vaporx though, but that's a Vaporx thing not a 290/390 thing.

Give me stability over all that though. I'd much rather worry about my fan placement over not wanting to game because of stuttering and dropped fps. So I still pick the 290 over the 390.

[don_svetlio]

So using the built-in oc feature in the msi mobo, I will get better performance with the 970? The it just comes down to more memory or faster speeds right?

Edit: keep in ind that I'm using a single 1080p monitor and might do some kind of recording or streaming.

Not really. Nvidia have few cores at high clocks

AMD have double the cores at lower clocks

RAW performance is what matters, not clockspeed.

1MHz on the 390 is the same as 1.4MHz on the 970

[App4that]

Not really. Nvidia have few cores at high clocks

AMD have double the cores at lower clocks

RAW performance is what matters, not clockspeed.

1MHz on the 390 is the same as 1.4MHz on the 970

That's exactly right "raw" performance. Which is why I call the 390 out for being a paper dragon. It has raw performance, not refined performance. A 390 is like driving a car that just spins the tires if you hit the gas. No control, and no way of using the power it has.

[don_svetlio]

That's exactly right "raw" performance. Which is why I call the 390 out for being a paper dragon. It has raw performance, not refined performance. A 390 is like driving a car that just spins the tires if you hit the gas. No control, and no way of using the power it has.

Need I remind you that DX12 favors AMD's GCN 1.1 cards by a LOT?

Every reviewer thus far shows that in games the 390 performs 5% better on average.

[App4that]

Need I remind you that DX12 favors AMD's GCN 1.1 cards by a LOT?

Every reviewer thus far shows that in games the 390 performs 5% better on average.

And I'll remind you that DC12 is not relevant yet. Anything can happen from now until it's more common to see DX12 than DX11. Maybe Radeon pulls their head out of their butt and does more than change UI's and strap VRAM on its GPUs and call it a day. Actually if that was the case I'd still own the 390 LOL.

You can't tell Nano that it's not wise to judge the performance GPUs on a newly released game because drivers aren't out yet, then point to DX12 that's not even used.

[afyeung]

After looking a bit I found a sapphire 390 and a msi gtx 970 both at a very similar price and was wondering would which would be better? I am not going for like a million fps but reliability. I am going to be playing mostly CS:GO and maybe sometimes record/stream. I want this card to be able to get decent fps in games in 3 years time. I also have a mobo with build in overclocking so wouldn't mind pushing that card a bit.

Thanks, Bulky

Both cards will still be able to hold up in CS:GO basically forever. GTX 970 will plummet in terms of performance a little while after Pascal comes out. 390 will be able to hold out for maybe a little longer since it's far more technologically advanced than the 970. Much larger memory bus, much more cores, much more ram. 

[don_svetlio]

And I'll remind you that DC12 is not relevant yet. Anything can happen from now until it's more common to see DX12 than DX11. Maybe Radeon pulls their head out of their butt and does more than change UI's and strap VRAM on its GPUs and call it a day. Actually if that was the case I'd still own the 390 LOL.

You can't tell Nano that it's not wise to judge the performance GPUs on a newly released game because drivers aren't out yet, then point to DX12 that's not even used.

Nvidia released FOUR drivers for Ashes and the 390 is still next to the 980 and beating it. Explain?

[afyeung]

And I'll remind you that DC12 is not relevant yet. Anything can happen from now until it's more common to see DX12 than DX11. Maybe Radeon pulls their head out of their butt and does more than change UI's and strap VRAM on its GPUs and call it a day. Actually if that was the case I'd still own the 390 LOL.

You can't tell Nano that it's not wise to judge the performance GPUs on a newly released game because drivers aren't out yet, then point to DX12 that's not even used.

The 390 is a great card. When you overclock it you get near the memory bandwidth of the Fury X which is HUGE. So whatever performance gain fiji has with dx12 greneda should see it too

[afyeung]

Nvidia released FOUR drivers for Ashes and the 390 is still next to the 980 and beating it. Explain?

honestly that's not a supprise. the 390 has more cores, supposedly built for dx12 hardware, and a much larger memory bus. 

[App4that]

Nvidia released FOUR drivers for Ashes and the 390 is still next to the 980 and beating it. Explain?

Well, first the only reason anyone cares about Ashes like they do is for benchmarks. And I have had my fill of seeing benchmarks used to judge the performance of GPUs because all it says is the fps. Play the game, use both GPUs. Tell me you wouldn't find it completely immersion breaking to have fps drops and stuttering on a constant bases. Watch Digital Foundry's videos, every test they perform with a 300 series Radeon GPU shows fps drop not present in even the 200 series cards. Explain that.

[afyeung]

By the time that the 390 would actually need to have a frame buffer larger than 4GB, you are already looking at some severely unplayable settings. I'm talking about 4K with high levels of multisample AA.

 

I don't hear anyone with a 290 or a 290x complain about the lack of VRAM, even when they are in watercooled Crossfire rigs. Its time to accept that the 8GB frame bufers on the 390x and the 390 was done mostly because of marketing.

This is simply untrue. I run bioshock infinite with texture mods at 1440p and get 100fps every time. The problem with my 290 is the mod required well over 6GB to function properly. However, now my 390x can actually handle it. Remember, textures alone take almost no performance hit to run. 

[don_svetlio]

Well, first the only reason anyone cares about Ashes like they do is for benchmarks. And I have had my fill of seeing benchmarks used to judge the performance of GPUs because all it says is the fps. Play the game, use both GPUs. Tell me you wouldn't find it completely immersion breaking to have fps drops and stuttering on a constant bases. Watch Digital Foundry's videos, every test they perform with a 300 series Radeon GPU shows fps drop not present in even the 200 series cards. Explain that.

Drivers as you pointed out. DF do their testes before a driver comes out most of the times. Look at battlefront, a 390 is beating a 980. Explain.

[App4that]

This is simply untrue. I run bioshock infinite with texture mods at 1440p and get 100fps every time. The problem with my 290 is the mod required well over 6GB to function properly. However, now my 390x can actually handle it. Remember, textures alone take almost no performance hit to run.

What's the most common display used? 1440? Everything knocks Bioshock out of the park.

Try GTA V, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, or any game CPU demanding game.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

No, that's there. But surprisingly the 290 is more efficient at idle over the 390. At full load though the 390 is much better at keeping cool because of the better efficiency, a good 10 degree difference. The VRMs stay 20c cooler on the Vaporx though, but that's a Vaporx thing not a 290/390 thing.

Give me stability over all that though. I'd much rather worry about my fan placement over not wanting to game because of stuttering and dropped fps. So I still pick the 290 over the 390.

 

No questions asked. I'd take the the Vapor X/Lightning 290x over my 390x any day. But they're not available anymore. And I got my 390x for the price of a 970. Though, I'll never pick a standard version 290x over my 390x.

[afyeung]

Well, first the only reason anyone cares about Ashes like they do is for benchmarks. And I have had my fill of seeing benchmarks used to judge the performance of GPUs because all it says is the fps. Play the game, use both GPUs. Tell me you wouldn't find it completely immersion breaking to have fps drops and stuttering on a constant bases. Watch Digital Foundry's videos, every test they perform with a 300 series Radeon GPU shows fps drop not present in even the 200 series cards. Explain that.

He's having fine performance with the 390 at 1440p ultra. Makes me want to rebuy the game. I trust this guy. He has a 980Ti SLI system and used the 290 under water for a while.

[App4that]

Drivers as you pointed out. DF do their testes before a driver comes out most of the times. Look at battlefront, a 390 is beating a 980. Explain.

In FPS, did you read the topic's title? Or too busy defending Radeon LOL? Play the game, tell me the shuttering and fps drops aren't a problem.

[afyeung]

What's the most common display used? 1440? Everything knocks Bioshock out of the park.

Try GTA V, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, or any game CPU demanding game.

Yes. BioShock is a really easy game to run. But it's using the VRAM because of the textures. Textures can take up tons of vram too. And in GTA 5 I can easily exceed 4gb and still have playable settings. 

[App4that]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDoXj_J-4mY

He's having fine performance with the 390 at 1440p ultra. Makes me want to rebuy the game. I trust this guy. He has a 980Ti SLI system and used the 290 under water for a while.

Bad move, I have way too much time playing Fallout 4 to fall for that shit. I can make Fallout 4 look like it plays great too, and I also know the 390 falls on its face if you leave the areas of the game where it doesn't have issues. It's night and day how much better the 290 plays Fallout 4 over the 390. The 290 requires almost half the VRAM used as well, while having the game play and look better.

[afyeung]

In FPS, did you read the topic's title? Or too busy defending Radeon LOL? Play the game, tell me the shuttering and fps drops aren't a problem.

Nobody to defend here honestly. Look at the video I showed you. This guy is using 980Ti SLI in his system. That's the Bill Gates of PC gaming. And he says the 390 makes a very playable experience on its own. I love my 390x. Whatever issues you had were unfortunately specific to yourself. I don't know too many people who say the 290 is better than the 390. Except the 290 is a better overclocker than the 390 when given the chance since the 390 has a tdp limit

[Jahramika]

[afyeung]

Bad move, I have way too much time playing Fallout 4 to fall for that shit. I can make Fallout 4 look like it plays great too, and I also know the 390 falls on its face if you leave the areas of the game where it doesn't have issues. It's night and day how much better the 290 plays Fallout 4 over the 390. The 290 requires almost half the VRAM used as well, while having the game play and look better.

Honestly Fallout 4 is not a good game to benchmark given it has performance issues across the board. I still think the 390 offers a great experience. Not as good as the 970 in JC3 for now. And maybe not Fallout 4, which sucks for everybody, but it's a great card.