GTX970 Which card is better ?

[SergeantAki]

Hey Guys
A couple of days ago my graphics card died (Radeon HD7870 -Asus-with 2 gigs of vram). Now i need a new one for lets say 380 Euros maximum. I think that a GTX970 fits my purpose perfectly (price point, budget, good performance while gaming at 1080p (no 4K planned for the future)). So i searched for this card and found 2 interesting ones:
 
-Asus Nvidia GeForce Strix GTX970
 
-Gigabyte VGA Nvidia GTX970
 
My question is which of these two would you buy (not considering the price difference) ?
Are there any significant differences ?
 
I dont know if my system specs are relevant but here they are anyways:
Intel Core I7-3770 4x 2.4Ghz
16GB DDR3 RAM
Asus P8Z77-V LE Motherboard
600W Power supply
Win 7
2TB hard drive
(256GB SSD planned)
 
Thanks for your work and Greetings from Germany

[Guest]

Neither

I'd buy a 390

if you must, Gigabytes card is faster.

I personally hate gigabyte though.

[JebKerman]

probably the gigabyte of those 2, but what about EVGA and MSI, where do they fit in?

[Fictionvl]

Get a an r9 390 instead, it performes slightly better than the 970, I would recommend an XFX or power color card

If you insist on the 970, get the gigabyte one

[afyeung]

-SNIP-

How come people always recommend the 390 to people who want to get a 970? Pros of the 970 are: Gameworks, gamestream, physx, shadowplay, and the fact that it will run at least 10c cooler than an average 390. I would get an asus strix 970. Asus makes quality Nvidia GPUs, it should run very cool and have no problems overclocking. And Asus has great customer support.

[theereal]

Gigabyte, but performance wise there really Isnt a HUGE difference

[SergeantAki]

Yeah i dont really insist on a 970 but many people told me -who didnt like AMD.....- that this card would be really good.

Do you think the 390 with 8 gigs is a better value for the money ? ^^

[theereal]

How come people always recommend the 390 to people who want to get a 970? Pros of the 970 are: Gameworks, gamestream, physx, shadowplay, and the fact that it will run at least 10c cooler than an average 390. I would get an asus strix 970. Asus makes quality Nvidia GPUs, it should run very cool and have no problems overclocking. And Asus has great customer support.

Yeah It's kinda wierd, If he was asking which Is better or which should I get but hes clearly getting a 970...

[theereal]

Yeah i dont really insist on a 970 but many people told me -who didnt like AMD.....- that this card would be really good.

Do you think the 390 with 8 gigs is a better value for the money ? ^^

At 1080p they are the same, at 1440p, the 390 will give you about 3-5 more FPS. At 4K they both suck cause they arent powerful enough. However the 390 Is more futureproof beacuse of the 8GB of Vram.

[SeanAngelo]

Hey Guys

A couple of days ago my graphics card died (Radeon HD7870 -Asus-with 2 gigs of vram). Now i need a new one for lets say 380 Euros maximum. I think that a GTX970 fits my purpose perfectly (price point, budget, good performance while gaming at 1080p (no 4K planned for the future)). So i searched for this card and found 2 interesting ones:

 

-Asus Nvidia GeForce Strix GTX970

 

-Gigabyte VGA Nvidia GTX970

 

My question is which of these two would you buy (not considering the price difference) ?

Are there any significant differences ?

 

I dont know if my system specs are relevant but here they are anyways:

Intel Core I7-3770 4x 2.4Ghz

16GB DDR3 RAM

Asus P8Z77-V LE Motherboard

600W Power supply

Win 7

2TB hard drive

(256GB SSD planned)

 

Thanks for your work and Greetings from Germany

R9 390 is better for the money atm....

[afyeung]

Yeah i dont really insist on a 970 but many people told me -who didnt like AMD.....- that this card would be really good.

Do you think the 390 with 8 gigs is a better value for the money ? ^^

The 390 has a lot more raw horsepower. But raw horse power does not mean everything when it comes to gaming. For now Nvidia has control over the entire PC gaming market. If you don't want all those services then get a 390. Some games the 970 will do a lot better, because those games are gimped so much on the AMD side.

[BigDay]

evga ftw+ acx 2.0+ gtx 970

EVGA 04G-P4-3978-KR

(evga's most powerful 970)

 

or

 

msi r9 390

[KemoKa]

Yeah i dont really insist on a 970 but many people told me -who didnt like AMD.....- that this card would be really good.

Do you think the 390 with 8 gigs is a better value for the money ? ^^

Watch what happens down the road. The 390 has significantly more horsepower in compute performance (a 290X has about as much as a 980Ti) and when that gets taken advantage of with DX12, the 390 is gonna leave the 970 in the dust.

[Atmos]

How come people always recommend the 390 to people who want to get a 970? Pros of the 970 are: Gameworks, gamestream, physx, shadowplay, and the fact that it will run at least 10c cooler than an average 390. I would get an asus strix 970. Asus makes quality Nvidia GPUs, it should run very cool and have no problems overclocking. And Asus has great customer support.

 

• Gameworks is a legitimate reason, ok. It shouldn't be, developers should stop being lazy and just code the shit themselves, but w/e
• Gamestream, there are a plethora of other game streaming programs you can use, their dedicated software is only viable if you say, have a sheild. But since OP doesn't appear to, it's an invalid point.
• Physx isn't used much at all today. And as long as you have something like an i5 to calc it out, there's no issue.
• Shadowplay.... Have you ever heard of plays.tv? Well, its just about as light weight as shadowplay, and does EVERYTHING, and MORE that shadow play does. So this point too is invalid.
• Temp, alright. Fair enough, this is a valid point. 10c isn't a big difference, and in pretty much every case will make 0 change to the rest of the system, but hey. It at least is true and not so counter-able

People recommend the 390, because it is a better card for your money. It costs the same, performs better across the board, and has more than double the vram, meaning you NEVER have to worry about it again...

 

 

@OP If you must have a 970, the gigabyte is the better of the two there. If you can though, give the 390 a shot. It is just all around a far better card for your money.

[Nasty]

How come people always recommend the 390 to people who want to get a 970? Pros of the 970 are: Gameworks, gamestream, physx, shadowplay, and the fact that it will run at least 10c cooler than an average 390. I would get an asus strix 970. Asus makes quality Nvidia GPUs, it should run very cool and have no problems overclocking. And Asus has great customer support.

My point bro, I asked the same question "Which GTX 970 is better", responses like,  "Screw that card, get the 390 its a lot better" and "970 now is beaten by the 390 so get that". It annoys me when people ask a question about something like this and people just say get the 390. Anyway you get my point.

[Nasty]

Hey Guys

A couple of days ago my graphics card died (Radeon HD7870 -Asus-with 2 gigs of vram). Now i need a new one for lets say 380 Euros maximum. I think that a GTX970 fits my purpose perfectly (price point, budget, good performance while gaming at 1080p (no 4K planned for the future)). So i searched for this card and found 2 interesting ones:

 

-Asus Nvidia GeForce Strix GTX970

 

-Gigabyte VGA Nvidia GTX970

 

My question is which of these two would you buy (not considering the price difference) ?

Are there any significant differences ?

 

I dont know if my system specs are relevant but here they are anyways:

Intel Core I7-3770 4x 2.4Ghz

16GB DDR3 RAM

Asus P8Z77-V LE Motherboard

600W Power supply

Win 7

2TB hard drive

(256GB SSD planned)

 

Thanks for your work and Greetings from Germany

I would get the G1 Gaming Edition of the 970 from Gigabyte. I ordered it Wednesday night @ around 9:00PM and got 5-7 business days shipping, It came today(2 days later, kinda wierd). So I have yet to actually put it in. I literally just carried it into my house, and it looks awesome. MANY people recommended the R9 390, and they actually got me convinced, although I took a look at my favorites features of NVIDIA cards... ShadowPlay, NVIDIA Experience. Don't let others change your choice of graphics card unless you don't really care what card you get.

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

wut abut async shaderz? Taking a gamble that Nvidia will find a work around even though it is already a weaker card?  :unsure: Out of the two go gigabyte if you must. The reason why everyone is suggesting the 390 is because we care and want to suggest a better option.

[KemoKa]

How come people always recommend the 390 to people who want to get a 970? Pros of the 970 are: Gameworks, gamestream, physx, shadowplay, and the fact that it will run at least 10c cooler than an average 390.

Most of those are moot points except for the last one, and even that one doesn't matter that much, seeing as Hawaii GPUs are cleared to run constantly at 90-95°C their entire lifespans without dying. Most reference Hawaii cards are still alive, save those used for Scrypt coin mining.

[SergeantAki]

Thanks to all of you guys :-) Appreciate your time

Yeah after i did some research on my own i decided that the 390 ist the one to go !

Does anyone have personal experiences with the 390 ?

[JebKerman]

Thanks to all of you guys :-) Appreciate your time

Yeah after i did some research on my own i decided that the 390 ist the one to go !

Does anyone have personal experiences with the 390 ?

no, but just avoid ASUS and Gigabyte AMD cards, and get Sapphire or MSI if you can.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Yeah i dont really insist on a 970 but many people told me -who didnt like AMD.....- that this card would be really good.

Do you think the 390 with 8 gigs is a better value for the money ? ^^

Depends... Is it cheaper than the 970?

[TheCaptain53]

Judging by preliminary DX12 benchmarks, it looks like AMD is the way to go. The compute performance of the AMD cards are mad, which makes a big difference regarding performance in DX12.

I would definitely consider and R9 390. If you must have a GTX 970, for whatever reason, the Gigabyte is a pretty good shout. Also take a look at the EVGA and MSI cards.

If you were building in a small form factor PC, then I'd say GTX 970 all the way. It consumes way less power and in a confined space will make a BIG difference.

[afyeung]

Watch what happens down the road. The 390 has significantly more horsepower in compute performance (a 290X has about as much as a 980Ti) and when that gets taken advantage of with DX12, the 390 is gonna leave the 970 in the dust.

As of now 100% of games use dx11. And dx12 doesn't magically increase performance in games. The 290x is about on par with the 980 at stock speeds in the only dx12 benchmark we have. I love my 290 and it performs above a gtx 980 when I turn off Nvidia gimpworks. But it doesn't change the fact that a ton of games use gimpworks and the 970 is better for that. Not to mention that Nvidia controls the PC game industry in the first place and I doubt they would let dx12 cripple their cards in the games the sponsor. 

[afyeung]

Most of those are moot points except for the last one, and even that one doesn't matter that much, seeing as Hawaii GPUs are cleared to run constantly at 90-95°C their entire lifespans without dying. Most reference Hawaii cards are still alive, save those used for Scrypt coin mining.

Yeah. My overclocked R9 290 runs almost 90c under load. It heats up the rest of my system which is a big drawback. But I'm planning to get a second 290x so I don't need to overclock anymore. 

[ybriK]

How come people always recommend the 390 to people who want to get a 970? Pros of the 970 are: Gameworks, gamestream, physx, shadowplay, and the fact that it will run at least 10c cooler than an average 390. I would get an asus strix 970. Asus makes quality Nvidia GPUs, it should run very cool and have no problems overclocking. And Asus has great customer support.

Gameworks - From my experience this isn't a pro, I lost 10-20 FPS for just better hair physics... hair physics... hair physics.... hair physics....

PhysX - Not a pro but a feature similar to Gameworks, only a pro if the user's games support it.

ShadowPlay - Only a pro if the user requires it.

 

10c Cooler - Not from what I can find.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_970_SC_ACX_Cooler/29.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/R9_390_PCS_Plus/34.html

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/86927-sapphire-r9-390-nitro/?page=11

http://lanoc.org/images/reviews/2015/msi_r9_390_gaming_8g/graph21.png

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sapphire-nitro-r9-390-8g-d5,4245.html#11

 

On topic: 390 performs better but if you're really inclined to the 970 get either EVGA, ZOTAC or GALAX for high overclocks out of the box.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2620/geforce-gtx-970.html