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R9 290, 290x or GTX 970?

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I'm planning to build with an i5 4690k with 8 gb of ddr3 ram on an MSI Z97-GAMING mobo. I was wondering which card should i get for moderate video editing and intense gaming at 1080p and i was about to get the 970, but i researched about it and was bothered by the 3.5+.5 vram insted of a 4 as advertised. Should I worry about this? And which card would give me the most perfrmance for my money?

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It still is a better card, the 970.

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I would go with the GTX 970.

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970

Never would've guessed what you would choose. :)

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I'm planning to build with an i5 4690k with 8 gb of ddr3 ram on an MSI Z97-GAMING mobo. I was wondering which card should i get for moderate video editing and intense gaming at 1080p and i was about to get the 970, but i researched about it and was bothered by the 3.5+.5 vram insted of a 4 as advertised. Should I worry about this? And which card would give me the most perfrmance for my money?

Although there are some "issues" with the 970 on the VRAM, its still more than enough (in a way) for gaming @ 1080p. Not a lot of games uses more than 3.5GB (There are a few but not many).

 

If you are talking about performance / money ratio, I personally think the r9 290 / 290x would be the best (sweet spot) for the ratio.

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Never would've guessed what you would choose. :)

I've had experience with a 290X along with my current card sub-ambient and stock cooling and I like the 970 more.

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I've had experience with a 290X Lightning along with my current card sub-ambient and stock cooling and I like the 970 more.

10330278.jpg (500×375)

Main PC: 4690k, LMG Edition G1 Gaming GTX 980, 16GB Hyper X Fury, Asus Z97-A, EVGA G2 850W, Crucial MX100 128GB, WD Red 1TB 2.5", Dark Rock 3

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I'm on a tight budget, so I'm wondering if the 970, 290 or 290x would be worth it for a 1200 CAD to 1300 CAD build. I chose an r9 280 before these cards but wondered if any of these cards would be worth extending my budget a little. the total cost of my build right now is 920 CAD including the OS, but excluding a case and obviously the graphics card.

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At 1080p the GTX 970 performs the best. The Vram limitation is not an issue, you should see it as a 3.5GB ram card instead of 4. No biggie, it still performs best at that res.

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Save your money and get a 290.

Its more than enough for 1080p gaming and its a great price/performance card.

If you want to spend a bit more do get the 970 however.

I understand with a semi-budget build you really can't be too picky with things like noise, but one factor (not from a cost in energy standpoint) to consider is tdp. The 290 consumes as much as two of the 970s and that means it will run hotter as well unless it has more cooling. More cooling minus more fans (which while cheap still cost money) mean more noise. For me when I was choosing between the two I noticed one of two things with other friends I have that build computers around the 290. They either suffered from what I would consider unacceptable thermal performance, were using massive amount of non-including cooling (which ofc is an option if your case supports it), or had insanely loud computers (many times a few at once...). For me the thermal/audible trade off I was losing with the 290 wasn't worth it (esp at overclock) with the potential savings over the 970. It won my choice build.

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Don`t know about the 290x but 970 is amazing. I was blown away with the performance. The 3.5gb has not been an issue for me at 1080p

I use i5-3470, 8GB kingston, SSD + 2x hdd, GTX 970

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43429026.jpg

Doge-LOL.jpg                      8a33dcd7c53ad3b6233f92bb290c56ff.jpg

Main PC: 4690k, LMG Edition G1 Gaming GTX 980, 16GB Hyper X Fury, Asus Z97-A, EVGA G2 850W, Crucial MX100 128GB, WD Red 1TB 2.5", Dark Rock 3

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I'm on a tight budget, so I'm wondering if the 970, 290 or 290x would be worth it for a 1200 CAD to 1300 CAD build. I chose an r9 280 before these cards but wondered if any of these cards would be worth extending my budget a little. the total cost of my build right now is 920 CAD including the OS, but excluding a case and obviously the graphics card.

for a single 1080p monitor you really dont need anything more than a 290, buy a 290 save some money and ull still be doing awesome in games. The 290 and the 290x are not so different in performance

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price:performance, the 290 cannot be beaten. If you want a little more power I would go with the 290x. Compared to those two, the 970 is pretty overpriced for the performance boost it offers.

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For 1080p I'd say the 290 just because it's significantly cheaper and still overkill.

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In the general price range the 970 is the best performing card at 1080p. Weather you would rather keep some extra cash and drop down to the R9 290.
assuming your in the US a Power Color PCS+ (Well regarded R9 290 overclocks well) is $259.99 -$30 for an end price of $229.99
the cheapest non rear exhaust 970(Gigabyte Windforce) is going to run you 349.99 - 20 after rebate and a 8% promocode for an end price $303.11

 

In my opinion don't go looking at the 290x spend $20 more and get the 970. 

 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1068?vs=1355

 

If you budget conscious and have somethign that $70 would be nice for I would go with the 290. if your willing to spend the extra the 970 you will get you some extra performance just not enough to make it better for FPS per $

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290X any day of the week.

 

vram limitation on the GTX970, can also become an issue on 1080p, in high texture games like shadow of morder.

Or heavy modded skyrim.

 

So yeah, 290X my vote.

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Every one will say 970 and give no reason some will be an AMD fanboy and say 290x because Vram but in all honesty if anyone says that there a fanboy. I like the 970 more because it is quiter less power less noise and can overclock higher making it more supreme that the 290x. People say all this crap about the vram but I play on a 970 1440p 2xmsaa and it doesn't get past 3gb of vram. Gtx 970 also comes with WITCHER 3 AND BATMAN ARKAM KNIGHT. Also if you get games when they launch AMD drivers tend to be crashy. Just my 2 cents.

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So.. is this a guide or a tutorial?

 

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