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I am stuck again. 290x or 970

Samwell
By Samwell
in Graphics Cards
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Right. A few days ago I thought I had made my mind up to get a 970 G1. But I've seen the 290x matrix for around £240. Is the jump from a 290x (£240) to a 970 (£290) worth the price of upgrading to a 120GB SSD. Is the £50 jump worth it for performance? I'm really stuck and can't make my mind up. BF4, Trine 2, GTA V are by far my most played games. Thanks

CPU: 8320, GPU: 7870 Myst, Motherboard: Asrock 970 extreme3, PSU: XFX Pro 650W, RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz, Case: Zalman Z11

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I'd get the 290x mate.

 

Full 4GB vram, slightly cheaper. Still performs well.

Shot through the heart and you're to blame, 30fps and i'll pirate your game - Bon Jovi

Take me down to the console city where the games are blurry and the frames are thirty - Guns N' Roses

Arguing with religious people is like explaining to your mother that online games can't be paused...

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If the R9 290x is £240 and the GTX 970 is £290 then go for R9 290x.. the performance difference is not worth extra £50. SSD would be much better solution for that extra £50 you save on GPU.

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Get the 290X.

Intel i7 7700K | MSI Z270 Gaming M3 | MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X| Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4 3000Mhz | Samsung EVO 850 250GB | WD Blue 1TB | Corsair CS650M | Thermalright Macho Rev. A | NZXT S340

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The 290X and the 970 are very similar. VERY.

 

If the 290X is cheaper, which I know it is ($400 AUD = Good) you should get it. The 970 also has the VRAM issue which makes the extra 50 not worth it.

 

Mark this as solved on your way out :)

 My Buyer’s Guide!   

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Go R9 290X, for that kind of money difference the extra performance of the 970 isn't worth it.

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I'd go for the 970, though that's because nvidia is bae.

 

 

Go for the 290x, it's pricer/performance is better than the 970.

Specs: CPU - Intel i7 8700K @ 5GHz | GPU - Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming | Motherboard - ASUS Strix Z370-G WIFI AC | RAM - XPG Gammix DDR4-3000MHz 32GB (2x16GB) | Main Drive - Samsung 850 Evo 500GB M.2 | Other Drives - 7TB/3 Drives | CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i Pro | Case - Fractal Design Define C Mini TG | Power Supply - EVGA G3 850W

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as much as i hate CCC, and the heat of a 290X, its the better pick here i feel.

As long as it isn't the reference one, the heat is just a maymay.

Intel i7 7700K | MSI Z270 Gaming M3 | MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X| Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4 3000Mhz | Samsung EVO 850 250GB | WD Blue 1TB | Corsair CS650M | Thermalright Macho Rev. A | NZXT S340

CM Storm Quickfire TK [MX Blues] | Zowie FK1 |  Kingston HyperX Cloud

 

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Why not wait a month or so till 3xx series is out?

 

I have been holding off on 970 ...... 3.5 GB issue also helped me in the wait

 

Some 970 comes with Witcher 3, and some also with Batman Arkham Knight..... so consider that in price comparison as well as per the case

Finally got PS4 Pro

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290x. its so much cheaper in the UK compared to a 970 but performs just as well. just a little more power hungry that's all

Gaming PC: • AMD Ryzen 7 3900x • 16gb Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200mhz • Founders Edition 2080ti • 2x Crucial 1tb nvme ssd • NZXT H1• Logitech G915TKL • Logitech G Pro • Asus ROG XG32VQ • SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless

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970, it overclocks like hell and outperforms the 290x when both are overclocked (unless you get the lightning series cards which is the God of all overclocking cards)

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I think nvidia is the better company right now, with their solid cards and drivers (except for the mishap with the 970) and they seem ahead of AMD at the moment. AMD is falling behind with their CPU/APU's compared to intel, they are behind with graphic cards compared to nvidia, using old cards with new branding etc. Their freesync technology isn't working all that well either.

The 970 may suffer from the 3.5gb memory bug/or "by design", but it's still a great card that performs well. If you know you won't probably even reach more than 3,5gb vram, then it's no problem. But I think that the 290X with its 4GB and raw power for the cheaper price is the way to go for you anyways. Or at least I think that is what I would have done in this case. Had I not kown that there was an issue with the 970, I would DEFINATELY have gone with the 970, without hesitation.

And I am not a fanboy either. I have gone with Radeon for the last few years actually, but recently switched to nvidia and haven't been happier with my GPU's stability.

i7-10700K 5.1Ghz / RTX 4070 Ti / 32GB 3.6Ghz 
- M&M -

 

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I think nvidia is the better company right now, with their solid cards and drivers (except for the mishap with the 970) and they seem ahead of AMD at the moment. AMD is falling behind with their CPU/APU's compared to intel, they are behind with graphic cards compared to nvidia, using old cards with new branding etc. Their freesync technology isn't working all that well either.

The 970 may suffer from the 3.5gb memory bug/or "by design", but it's still a great card that performs well. If you know you won't probably even reach more than 3,5gb vram, then it's no problem. But I think that the 290X with its 4GB and raw power for the cheaper price is the way to go for you anyways. Or at least I think that is what I would have done in this case. Had I not kown that there was an issue with the 970, I would DEFINATELY have gone with the 970, without hesitation.

And I am not a fanboy either. I have gone with Radeon for the last few years actually, but recently switched to nvidia and haven't been happier with my GPU's stability.

Me too. I switched because of the devs ususingameworks :P

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In this case forgoing the 970 for a few fps lesser + an SSD upgrade is more worth it to me...

i5 2400 | ASUS RTX 4090 TUF OC | Seasonic 1200W Prime Gold | WD Green 120gb | WD Blue 1tb | some ram | a random case

 

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I'd get the 290x mate.

 

Full 4GB vram, slightly cheaper. Still performs well.

 

And have more CPU overhead due to AMD's DX11 driver and lousy driver support in general. R9 290X is a better GPU than GTX 970, but due to bad driver support it usually loses to the 970.

i7 9700K @ 5 GHz, ASUS DUAL RTX 3070 (OC), Gigabyte Z390 Gaming SLI, 2x8 HyperX Predator 3200 MHz

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I think nvidia is the better company right now, with their solid cards and drivers (except for the mishap with the 970) and they seem ahead of AMD at the moment. AMD is falling behind with their CPU/APU's compared to intel, they are behind with graphic cards compared to nvidia, using old cards with new branding etc. Their freesync technology isn't working all that well either.

The 970 may suffer from the 3.5gb memory bug/or "by design", but it's still a great card that performs well. If you know you won't probably even reach more than 3,5gb vram, then it's no problem. But I think that the 290X with its 4GB and raw power for the cheaper price is the way to go for you anyways. Or at least I think that is what I would have done in this case. Had I not kown that there was an issue with the 970, I would DEFINATELY have gone with the 970, without hesitation.

And I am not a fanboy either. I have gone with Radeon for the last few years actually, but recently switched to nvidia and haven't been happier with my GPU's stability.

HowHow r they behind nvidia?

ThEy still have the fastest GGraphics card on the market, 295x2...

Lets all ripperoni in pepperoni

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And have more CPU overhead due to AMD's DX11 driver and lousy driver support in general. R9 290X is a better GPU than GTX 970, but due to bad driver support it usually loses to the 970.

Oh do shut up.

 

AMD's drivers are nowhere near as bad as imbiciles like you make them out to be. I've only had 1 AMD driver issue, with a HD6870 a couple years ago. Before that i had multiple issues with the Nvidia driver for my 8800GT.

 

People have mixed experiences, and both Nvidia & AMD have issues at times with drivers.

Shot through the heart and you're to blame, 30fps and i'll pirate your game - Bon Jovi

Take me down to the console city where the games are blurry and the frames are thirty - Guns N' Roses

Arguing with religious people is like explaining to your mother that online games can't be paused...

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Oh do shut up.

 

AMD's drivers are nowhere near as bad as imbiciles like you make them out to be. I've only had 1 AMD driver issue, with a HD6870 a couple years ago. Before that i had multiple issues with the Nvidia driver for my 8800GT.

 

People have mixed experiences, but their drivers are alright atm.

 

Right. That's why AMD always loses in benchmarks in almost all games, even GE titles. Then people blame Nvidia and Gameworks. And that's why there are threads like these:

 

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=398858

http://www.overclock.net/t/1528559/directx-driver-overhead-and-why-mantle-is-a-selling-point-bunch-of-benchmarks

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/amd-high-overhead-drivers-on-dx11.209726/

i7 9700K @ 5 GHz, ASUS DUAL RTX 3070 (OC), Gigabyte Z390 Gaming SLI, 2x8 HyperX Predator 3200 MHz

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Right. That's why AMD always loses in benchmarks in almost all games, even GE titles. Then people blame Nvidia and Gameworks. And that's why there are threads like these:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=398858

http://www.overclock.net/t/1528559/directx-driver-overhead-and-why-mantle-is-a-selling-point-bunch-of-benchmarks

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/amd-high-overhead-drivers-on-dx11.209726/

Yeah I kinda agree with him. Amd's drivers aren't bad, but they're not the best. THeir lack of optimization and Dev support is the reason why they are trailing behind nvidia at the moment, event though on paper they should be on par (970 and 290x)

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Yeah I kinda agree with him. Amd's drivers aren't bad, but they're not the best. THeir lack of optimization and Dev support is the reason why they are trailing behind nvidia at the moment, event though on paper they should be on par (970 and 290x)

 

Aren't bad? Look at this crap:

 

bf4_mp_cpu_4670k.png

 

20 fps less with AMD's DX11 driver compared to Nvidia's. Obviously 290X is capable of producing 80, but is bottlenecked by AMD's driver. I have a 290X and this is true.

i7 9700K @ 5 GHz, ASUS DUAL RTX 3070 (OC), Gigabyte Z390 Gaming SLI, 2x8 HyperX Predator 3200 MHz

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Aren't bad? Look at this crap:

 

bf4_mp_cpu_4670k.png

 

20 fps less with AMD's DX11 driver compared to Nvidia's. Obviously 290X is capable of producing 80, but is bottlenecked by AMD's driver. I have a 290X and this is true.

Mantle > DirectX 11?

Shot through the heart and you're to blame, 30fps and i'll pirate your game - Bon Jovi

Take me down to the console city where the games are blurry and the frames are thirty - Guns N' Roses

Arguing with religious people is like explaining to your mother that online games can't be paused...

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Mantle > DirectX 11?

 

Mantle > AMD's DX 11

Mantle = Nvidia's DX11

Nvidia's DX11 > AMD's DX11

i7 9700K @ 5 GHz, ASUS DUAL RTX 3070 (OC), Gigabyte Z390 Gaming SLI, 2x8 HyperX Predator 3200 MHz

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