Sapphire/MSI r9 390 Gaming vs. MSI 970 GTX Gaming

[silvrbckgorilla]

I have narrowed choice between these two.

They cost the same. I play at 1080p.

I don't plan to OC.

 

My specs are:

 

i5-4460

8GB RAM

SSD + HDD

600W Fortron 80+

 

NVIDIA

 

+more games are nvidia frendly

+supposedly better drivers

+less power consumption

 

-3.5GB VRAM

-a bit less powerful

 

AMD

 

+8GB VRAM

+A bit more powerful

 

-A lot more power consumption

-Worse drivers supposedly

 

Also, I have option between MSI Gaming and Sapphire Nitro. Sapphire is 7% cheaper. Which is better choice? 7% price difference is almost not important.

 

 

Please help me decide. I'm ordering it in 8 hours.

 

Thanks

 

 

PS. 

Sorry if I spammed this forums with this topic, but I'm definitely making a decision in 8 hours.

[Sam Z Man]

Sapphire 390

[Bananasplit_00]

GTX 970, get the G1 gaming because you can OC it a bunch and NVIDIA has as you said better drivers and the 3.5GB ram dosent really afect 1080p gaming

[smeek14]

390

[Briggsy]

The only Con regarding the 390 is power consumption, but that won't amount to any real change to you electricity bill, maybe a dollar a month at most.

 

I would go for the Sapphire 390 personally, although the MSI 390/x cards are incredibly well built.

[Monarch]

GTX 970, get the G1 gaming because you can OC it a bunch and NVIDIA has as you said better drivers and the 3.5GB ram dosent really afect 1080p gaming

 

The issue with 970 G1 cards is that they now come with Hynix memory, which overclocks like crap compared to Samsung's.

[Bananasplit_00]

The issue with 970 G1 cards is that they now come with Hynix memory, which overclocks like crap compared to Samsung's.

thwy do? shit i wasent awere of this...

[Sam Z Man]

The issue with 970 G1 cards is that they now come with Hynix memory, which overclocks like crap compared to Samsung's.

Wow so now almost all the 970's have shit memory.

[Nielips]

You want this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-010-GX

[arronleeds]

The issue with 970 G1 cards is that they now come with Hynix memory, which overclocks like crap compared to Samsung's.

That's incorrect since it was Samsung who had the memory issue from the beginning, my 970 has Hynix and it ocs really well. It's the silicone that matters.

My bad my bad, seems that Hynix can't do 8000mhz on the memory, lucky me.

[Nena Trinity]

390 for sure!

[MEC-777]

390.

[Alurit]

GTX 970, get the G1 gaming because you can OC it a bunch and NVIDIA has as you said better drivers and the 3.5GB ram dosent really afect 1080p gaming

he said he doesn't plan to oc, without oc the 970 is weaker a little bit or trades blows at least

[Bananasplit_00]

he said he doesn't plan to oc, without oc the 970 is weaker a little bit or trades blows at least

well then i missed that part

[Nielips]

Also is his PSU even good enough to use the 390??

[silvrbckgorilla]

Also is his PSU even good enough to use the 390??

 

I have sent mail to the vendor and they said it's ok.

 

600W Fortron Hyper 80+

[silvrbckgorilla]

Just went on sapphire's website and it says that recommended PSU is 750W. What the ....?

 

For now R9 was a favorite, because I saw some games like dying light, codAW and others can use more than 3,5GB of VRAM, but 750W as recommended is crazy. I mean I could SLI 970gtx at that power

[Nielips]

Just went on sapphire's website and it says that recommended PSU is 750W. What the ....?

 

For now R9 was a favorite, because I saw some games like dying light, codAW and others can use more than 3,5GB of VRAM, but 750W as recommended is crazy. I mean I could SLI 970gtx at that power

Good job I mentioned that isn't it, I did wonder why all these people were telling you to go for the 390, clearly they know not what they are on about.

[silvrbckgorilla]

 

Good job I mentioned that isn't it, I did wonder why all these people were telling you to go for the 390, clearly they know not what they are on about.

 

 

Maybe I could pull it off with my low power consuming system (i5 non K etc), but as far as I know it would be tight squeeze right? Linus mentioned in one of his techquickies that it's optimal to have some headroom.

 

However, how big of a deal is that 3.5GB VRAM? I'm buying GPU for next 5 or so years. Could it be problem down the road? I plan to stick to 1080p

 

(I'm also aware that I'm terribly optimistic thinking my GPU will handle stuff for 5 years, but I'm running my hd 4670 512mb for 7th year now )

[vembutech]

My vote for Sapphire 390

[Prysin]

GTX 970, get the G1 gaming because you can OC it a bunch and NVIDIA has as you said better drivers and the 3.5GB ram dosent really afect 1080p gaming

Their current most recent drivers are terrible. Meaning they too, just like AMD, are nothing special. Nvidia themselves just illustrated that their driver team isn't superior in any way. Malfunctioning drivers is worse then badly running ones, especially when you need several fixes to fix the broken stuff.

 

390 requires no OC to be better. And you can OC the 390 too. Honestly though, i havent seen any good reports on 390 OC yet, so how well it OC isn't fully exploited yet, mostly because not a damn soul bothers to buy it and buys the not so OC friendly 290X instead.

[Bananasplit_00]

Their current most recent drivers are terrible. Meaning they too, just like AMD, are nothing special. Nvidia themselves just illustrated that their driver team isn't superior in any way. Malfunctioning drivers is worse then badly running ones, especially when you need several fixes to fix the broken stuff.

 

390 requires no OC to be better. And you can OC the 390 too. Honestly though, i havent seen any good reports on 390 OC yet, so how well it OC isn't fully exploited yet, mostly because not a damn soul bothers to buy it and buys the not so OC friendly 290X instead.

lol they are? then that mipght be part of the reson my GTA-V sudenly got shit

[Prysin]

lol they are? then that mipght be part of the reson my GTA-V sudenly got shit

yeh 2 of their latest drivers completely tanked. Several people made threads on these very forums about it. Apparently they HAVE made a hotfix for it now. However that is the second or third hotfix that the newer drivers were suppost to fix anyway.

[TheConverter]

 

 

 

 

Maybe I could pull it off with my low power consuming system (i5 non K etc), but as far as I know it would be tight squeeze right? Linus mentioned in one of his techquickies that it's optimal to have some headroom.

 

However, how big of a deal is that 3.5GB VRAM? I'm buying GPU for next 5 or so years. Could it be problem down the road? I plan to stick to 1080p

 

(I'm also aware that I'm terribly optimistic thinking my GPU will handle stuff for 5 years, but I'm running my hd 4670 512mb for 7th year now )

 

 

5 year is a lot, 8GB will be standard next year with HBM V2.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Where are you guys finding decent 390 benchmarks? I saw Techspot's, but I can't trust them when they're saying the R9 390 smokes the GTX 970 on Witcher 3 at 1080p with Hairworks on. No way this can be true with all the whining AMD did about Hairworks. I haven't to see a second source that can back that up after all I heard about Hairworks crippling AMD cards.