GTX 960 or R9 390..... Read first

[DannyRyu]

I know the R9 390 is good and all but I already have a GTX 960 4GB. and I can get another one. and maybe actually utilize the 4 GB Capacity of VRAM. 

on the other hand the R9 390 has 8 gb of VRAM so I'm asking would a GTX 960 4GB SLI beat a R9 390?

I can get another GTX 960 4gb for about 32,000 yen which is about 300$ USD but a new R9 390 would cost around 50,000 yen which is about 420$ USD

what do you think? can't find any benchmarks for GTX 960 4gb SLI

 

[astranger200]

sli the 960s in my oppinion

[Mew]

960 sli would be much faster than a single 390 in games where sli does well. If you can, try to sell your 960 and get a 980ti instead for better, more consistent performance. 

[don_svetlio]

Beat it? Probably - worth it? No - the 960 doesn't support DX12 properly, the VRAM is still half the amount and you're looking at SLI issues.

[Sir Asvald]

I know the R9 390 is good and all but I already have a GTX 960 4GB. and I can get another one. and maybe actually utilize the 4 GB Capacity of VRAM. 

on the other hand the R9 390 has 8 gb of VRAM so I'm asking would a GTX 960 4GB SLI beat a R9 390?

I can get another GTX 960 4gb for about 32,000 yen which is about 300$ USD but a new R9 390 would cost around 50,000 yen which is about 420$ USD

what do you think? can't find any benchmarks for GTX 960 4gb SLI

The 960 can't even fully use the 2GB because of it's low bus Width of only 128 bit. It's also pointless of having 2 mid-range cards in SLI. 

 

And no, the R9 390 will stomp the 960. You could get an R9 380 4GB for $230

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGF0VGC/?tag=pcpapi-20

[ShadowCaptain]

Beat it? Probably - worth it? No - the 960 doesn't support DX12 properly, the VRAM is still half the amount and you're looking at SLI issues.

 

yeah this, SLI 960s might beat the 390 sometimes, but only in games that support SLI or scale well in SLI, (plus other issues like heat etc)

 

 

A single 960 is like half a 980, which is sort of on par with a 390 with, so the 960s in SLI will lose out if the game does not scale perfectly in SLI

[DannyRyu]

Beat it? Probably - worth it? No - the 960 doesn't support DX12 properly, the VRAM is still half the amount and you're looking at SLI issues.

1080p I forgot to add I don't need the VRAM. and we don't really know how Nvidia plays with DX 12 yet not much solid information on it.

[don_svetlio]

yeah this, SLI 960s might beat the 390 sometimes, but only in games that support SLI or scale well in SLI, (plus other issues like heat etc)

 

 

A single 960 is like have a 980, so is sort of on par with a 390

The last part makes 0 sense

[don_svetlio]

1080p I forgot to add I don't need the VRAM. and we don't really know how Nvidia plays with DX 12 yet not much solid information on it.

A guy posted last night that a 970 can't cope with his 1080p running into a RAM bottleneck in 6 games. As for DX12 - we have 3 different games showing the same thing - AMD gaining 30% whereas Nvidia gaining 5% at best - only the 980 Ti and Titan X can do DX12 properly

[ShadowCaptain]

The last part makes 0 sense

 

yeah I know I went back and edited it

[DannyRyu]

A guy posted last night that a 970 can't cope with his 1080p running into a RAM bottleneck in 6 games. As for DX12 - we have 3 different games showing the same thing - AMD gaining 30% whereas Nvidia gaining 5% at best - only the 980 Ti and Titan X can do DX12 properly

GTX 960 doesn't have the 3.5 GB issue.

also just remembered about the 128 bit bus. I can never utilize the 4GB

R9 390 it is

[don_svetlio]

GTX 960 doesn't have the 3.5 GB issue.

if 3.5GB is an issue - 4GB of bandwidth-bottlenecked VRAM is going to be the same

[DannyRyu]

if 3.5GB is an issue - 4GB of bandwidth-bottlenecked VRAM is going to be the same

what? I said it doesn't have the 3.5 GB issue and the 128 bit bus is pretty shitty compared to the 512 bit bus on r9 390. :3 

[don_svetlio]

what? I said it doesn't have the 3.5 GB issue and the 128 bit bus is pretty shitty compared to the 512 bit bus on r9 390. :3 

The actual bandwidth on the 960 is considerably lower than the 970 (about 85% lower) and even then the 970 still has a bandwidth-bottleneck hence why increasing memory clock improves performance by a decent amount - the opposite is true with say a Tahiti-based card that has overkill bandwidth and thus increasing the memory clock yields minimal benefits. In order to properly use the 4GB you'd need a good 8-9GHz effective memory clock and even then you'd still be using it at a slower speed than optimal. Nvidia are the kings of going small ._.

[WaterproofBeanie]

GTX 960 doesn't have the 3.5 GB issue.

also just remembered about the 128 bit bus. I can never utilize the 4GB

R9 390 it is

OK, so this is a friend's anecdotal evidence and might be a bit sketchy. But my friend, who has a 4 gb 960, is able to utilise over 3gb of its VRAM. Unfortunately, the use tops out at around 3.3-3.5 gigabytes of its VRAM. So, at least in some part, the 128 bit bus limitations are fine for 2gb, and perhaps even 4gb with maxwell's colour compression technology. It is possible it shares the 970s vram issue, but is little known because it is virtually never sold in comparison.

[DannyRyu]

OK, so this is a friend's anecdotal evidence and might be a bit sketchy. But my friend, who has a 4 gb 960, is able to utilise over 3gb of its VRAM. Unfortunately, the use tops out at around 3.3-3.5 gigabytes of its VRAM. So, at least in some part, the 128 bit bus limitations are fine for 2gb, and perhaps even 4gb with maxwell's colour compression technology. It is possible it shares the 970s vram issue, but is little known because it is virtually never sold in comparison.

doesn't share the issue with VRAM I can load a full 4GB stress test without any major loss of performance.

[WaterproofBeanie]

doesn't share the issue with VRAM I can load a full 4GB stress test without any major loss of performance.

Fair enough, haven't actually seen the card in question. Just going off what he says.

[xAcid9]

If you can cope with SLI caveats(possible microstutters, bad scaling/profile)  then go for it. It will be slightly faster than 390 generally.