Upgrading To GTX 970 Worth It?

[Morgan MLGman]

Did you even bother to look at the clock speeds he got out of those cards? He couldn't get his 970 stable beyond 1440 MHz, which is shite btw. Yes, a heavily overclocked 390 will beat a potato of a 970. That doesn't prove anything. It is evidence that they are very close -- the difference between a slight overclock and a massive overclock is enough to put one of them ahead.

 

I should probably just have a copy-paste of this every time someone without any critical analysis skills brings up this video. That's daily, btw, which you'd know if you paid attention.

Stock vs stock the R9 390 wins. Not every single person wants to overclock. AND if even highly overclocked 970 can only MATCH the overclocked 390 it doesn't prove that you should get the 970. Dude everything shows that the 390 is better and you're saying otherwise without any facts behind it.

I OWN A GTX 970. It's not like I'm an AMD fanboy. I own a MSI GTX 970 Gaming 100 ME Limited Edition graphics card. And right now, I'd swap it for the 390 anytime if I could.

[othertomperson]

Stock vs stock the R9 390 wins. Not every single person wants to overclock. AND if even highly overclocked 970 can only MATCH the overclocked 390 it doesn't prove that you should get the 970. Dude everything shows that the 390 is better and you're saying otherwise without any facts behind it.

I OWN A GTX 970. It's not like I'm an AMD fanboy. I own a MSI GTX 970 Gaming 100 ME Limited Edition graphics card. And right now, I'd swap it for the 390 anytime if I could.

 

A decently overclocked 970 can match the 980 and 390X. I know you own a 970. You're just assuming that the grass is greener. If I swapped out your 970 for a 390 and didn't tell you it is extremely  unlikely that you would tell the difference from the gaming experience. You might notice your room being warmer but that's it.

 

Look at what you just said. An overclocked 970 can match an overclocked 390. YES. BECAUSE THEY ARE SIMILAR. Unless you get a potato like Jay did then 970 will usually overclock futher (the 390 is already aggressively clocked out of the box, which is why it appears to do slightly better at "stock".)

 

I'm glad you've stopped pretending that you have inside knowledge about the impact of Directx 12 on games that are still in development though.

[Morgan MLGman]

A decently overclocked 970 can match the 980 and 390X. I know you own a 970. You're just assuming that the grass is greener. If I swapped out your 970 for a 390 and didn't tell you it is extremely  unlikely that you would tell the difference from the gaming experience. You might notice your room being warmer but that's it.

 

Look at what you just said. An overclocked 970 can match an overclocked 390. YES. BECAUSE THEY ARE SIMILAR. Unless you get a potato like Jay did then 970 will usually overclock futher (the 390 is already aggressively clocked out of the box, which is why it appears to do slightly better at "stock".)

 

I'm glad you've stopped pretending that you have inside knowledge about the impact of Directx 12 on games that are still in development though.

You're a tough guy to talk to, gotta admit it. Anyhow, all I said about DX12 is from tech websites I read on a daily basis, they're pretty reliable so there's no reason it should all be false.

Anyway, why do you say that an overclocked 970 can match a 980? I have my OC'd to 1530mhz core stable with no voltage added, only power limit is at 110%, don't think it's equal to a 980.

Assuming his 970 overclocked "badly", and it lost to the overclocked 390, and following basic logic, it should be around equal after higher OC provided you get a good chip.

Still. Stock 390 > stock 970, overclocked 390 = overclocked 970, 8GB of VRAM > 3,5GB of VRAM, both same price. With this in mind and using logic, what's better?

[SkilledRebuilds]

I replaced my Dying 290x (OC'd to 1150Mhz), and saw VERY VERY similar results in ALL games, with my GTX 970 @ 1404Mhz (GpuBoost2.0)

 

Both 1080p/1440p, generally within margin of error, and without looking, you'd NOT know which GPU was powering what you were seeing, its that close.

 

Load temps - Around (Give or take 1-2*c variability) 76*c for the 290x, 64*c for my GTX 970.

CPU temps /w 290x @ load while Gaming = 62-64*c

CPU temps /w 970 @ load while Gaming = 60-61*c

 

Noticed I was playing a lot of Nvidia titles the last two years (and in future no doubt), and wanted Shadowplay as well,...hence GTX 970.

Both cards are great!

 

/Oh, Never ONCE, hit a GTX970 VRAM related issue, not at 1440p or even using DSR, no stutter, s'all good.

[othertomperson]

You're a tough guy to talk to, gotta admit it. Anyhow, all I said about DX12 is from tech websites I read on a daily basis, they're pretty reliable so there's no reason it should all be false.

Anyway, why do you say that an overclocked 970 can match a 980? I have my OC'd to 1530mhz core stable.

Still. Stock 390 > stock 970, overclocked 390 = overclocked 970, 8GB of VRAM > 3,5GB of VRAM, both same price. With this in mind and using logic, what's better?

 

Again with  the 3.5GB rubbish. On a single card I doubt you've ever played a game that wanted more than that which is probably why you're still parroting this misinformation, but even at 4K when a couple of games very definitely use more than 3.5GB vram there is no performance hit. nothing. nada. This card has no problem using more than 3.5GB vram.

 

So accepting that the card has 4GB would I take a 390 because of its 8GB? No, that's absurd. 4GB is fine for 4K, no one should care about it having 8GB. What I would probably do if I were shopping for this tier of GPU now is buy a 290 and overclock it since that's all a 390 is and that would be cheaper than either.

 

I say that a 970 can match a 980 when overclocked because the differences between the two cards are small. It's not difficult to make up the difference with overclocking, the same way you can make a 980 Ti match a Titan X.

 

 

 

I replaced my Dying 290x (OC'd to 1150Mhz), and saw VERY VERY similar results in ALL games, with my GTX 970 @ 1404Mhz (GpuBoost2.0)

 

Both 1080p/1440p, generally within margin of error, and without looking, you'd NOT know which GPU was powering what you were seeing, its that close.

 

Load temps - Around (Give or take 1-2*c variability) 76*c for the 290x, 64*c for my GTX 970.

CPU temps /w 290x @ load while Gaming = 62-64*c

CPU temps /w 970 @ load while Gaming = 60-61*c

 

Noticed I was playing a lot of Nvidia titles the last two years (and in future no doubt), and wanted Shadowplay as well,...hence GTX 970.

Both cards are great!

 

/Oh, Never ONCE, hit a GTX970 VRAM related issue, not at 1440p or even using DSR, no stutter, s'all good.

 

 

Yeah the 290X and the 970 were always very similar. For me I ended up with 970s because the local prices of the 290X took far too long to fall from ~£400. Could have bought a 980 for that.

 

I do want to point out though that GPUboost 2.0 for you is almost matching the maximum overclock Jayztwocents got out of his 970. Just in case there was any doubt about how much of a dud card he was using.

[Morgan MLGman]

Again with  the 3.5GB rubbish. On a single card I doubt you've ever played a game that wanted more than that which is probably why you're still parroting this misinformation, but even at 4K when a couple of games very definitely use more than 3.5GB vram there is no performance hit. nothing. nada. This card has no problem using more than 3.5GB vram.

 

I say that a 970 can match a 980 when overclocked because the differences between the two cards are small. It's not difficult to make up the difference with overclocking, the same way you can make a 980 Ti match a Titan X.

It's true I did use more than 3.5 GB of VRAM in two games, one was Shadow of Mordor, the other I do not recall. Irrelevant, yeah I didn't notice any FPS drops when using 3300MB or 3950MB but still many people did.

Anyway you didn't answer my question: Why would you choose the 970?

Stock 390 > stock 970, overclocked 390 = overclocked 970, 8GB of VRAM > 4GB of VRAM, both same price.

Even assuming that the DX12 won't improve performance from the 390 it's still worth to get it over the 970, even though I believe there will be a bigger performance boost ofer the 970.

[othertomperson]

It's true I did use more than 3.5 GB of VRAM in two games, one was Shadow of Mordor, the other I do not recall. Irrelevant, yeah I didn't notice any FPS drops when using 3300MB or 3950MB but still many people did.

Anyway you didn't answer my question: Why would you choose the 970?

Stock 390 > stock 970, overclocked 390 = overclocked 970, 8GB of VRAM > 4GB of VRAM, both same price.

Even assuming that the DX12 won't improve performance from the 390 it's still worth to get it over the 970, even though I believe there will be a bigger performance boost ofer the 970.

 

Will you stop putting words in my mouth? I said the cards were identical. You are the one insisting there is a massive difference between them. I've already said that the card that makes the most sense to get is a 290 (or 290X) if you can and overclock them yourself.

 

If I must choose between the 970 and 390 I would get a well binned 970 because there is a better chance of it overclocking to something like 1500 MHz and so able to compete with a 980 and 390X.

[Morgan MLGman]

Will you stop putting words in my mouth? I said the cards were identical. You are the one insisting there is a massive difference between them. I've already said that the card that makes the most sense to get is a 290 (or 290X) if you can and overclock them yourself.

No I didn't mean you said it, I meant that why an average customer with that budget would pick the 970 over the 390 if it has more advantages? Just seems illogical. The only reason could be the nvidia exclusive features that very few people benefit from. But then again AMD has their own features that they're also good in their own way.

[othertomperson]

No I didn't mean you said it, I meant that why an average customer with that budget would pick the 970 over the 390 if it has more advantages? Just seems illogical. The only reason could be the nvidia exclusive features that very few people benefit from. But then again AMD has their own features that they're also good in their own way.

 

Two cards cost the same and perform the same. They may as well flip a coin for all I care.

[Morgan MLGman]

Two cards cost the same and perform the same. They may as well flip a coin for all I care.

Well still, people have to pick something. I would pick the R9 390 cause it's better @ stock and has more VRAM, also there's a possibility of it performing better than the 970 under soon-to-be DX12 games. I use logic for my opinions and you can't deny it's here with this choice. So to make it short, I recommend the R9 390.

[othertomperson]

Well still, people have to pick something. I would pick the R9 390 cause it's better @ stock and has more VRAM, also there's a possibility of it performing better than the 970 under soon-to-be DX12 games. I use logic for my opinions and you can't deny it's here with this choice. So to make it short, I recommend the R9 390.

 

Too late to make this short, you've gone on for two pages.

 

For the third time, no one should care about the 390's vram. It has no impact at the resolution that one or even two of these cards is capable of playing at. As far as I can see they only put 8GB on it so they could claim that it wasn't a direct renaming of the 290. Which backfired because now people won't buy the Fury X because it "only" has 4GB.

 

And no one should be basing any decisions on Directx 12 until we have any idea what impact it is going to have. There is more to gaming performance than compute performance and it seems beyond silly to assume that Directx 12 is going to change this. If not, the price of used Kepler is going to rocket.

 

The thing is you say I can't deny your "logic" but I've spent most of the last hour doing just that. There is no logic, just a tonne of very flawed assumptions.

[Morgan MLGman]

@othertomperson there is still no reason to go for the 970. Why shouldn't you get more VRAM for the same money even for the sake of getting more for paying the same? That's an argument itself if according to you they're equal just in case you get a higher res monitor or the games start using more of it in 2-3 years. It might not matter but there's a chance it might matter. The R9 390 is still better at stock speeds, you can't deny that. That's another reason itself.