Used 970 or 780?

[Didge3]

Hi I know this is a common question and quite boring but I'm just making myself more and more confused trawling the internet...

I desperately need to upgrade my GPU (currently a 650 Ti BOOST) as I've finally upgraded my monitor from an old Dell 19" 1440 x 900 to a Dell 24" 2560x1440. The 650Ti would happily play GTA 5 (which is probably the most demanding game I play) at 1440x900 on High settings with most of the settings near max at around 30-40fps, nothing desirable but certainly playable.

I knew 1440 would be too much for my 650 so I haven't even attempted it since getting the monitor a few weeks ago so now I need a new card, I'm on a fairly tight budget and have around £200-250 to spend on a used card. 

Now I'm struggling between a 970 or a 780 (not a Ti), both are pretty much exactly the same price on the used market and most sources point that the 970 is better and with wanting to play at 1440 the extra VRAM will help but then I went to checkout a video on LLT of the 970 and it came out lower than the 780 in pretty much every test??!  So now I'm super confused, I don't really massively care about the power consumption of the 780 as my PSU has more than enough overhead to handle it and heat is well managed in my case so also not a problem, I just want the best performance for my money, as far as I can tell it seems the main pro of the 970 is the extra .5GB of RAM but the 780 does seem to perform slightly better, well according to the LLT 970 review, elsewhere will have you believe the 970 is the better performer. 

Anyone shed any light?

 

Thanks

[The Official Czex]

Neither. 390.

 

/thread

[Starelementpoke]

Neither. 390.

But can you find it cheap enough used? 290x if not.

[Clear17Mud]

970 is better and... you basically just bought what I want...

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-P2416D-Monitor-23-8-Inch-Screen/dp/B00ZFFN656/ref=sr_1_16?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1449644469&sr=1-16&keywords=2560x1440+monitor&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A3547805011%7C3547806011

and upgraded from my current resolution...

 

and a r9 290(x)

so basically its the same performance and the same monitor..

[Didge3]

No offence but I don't want to go team red  :rolleyes:

 

and yup that's the monitor 

[don_svetlio]

290X is 15% faster than both
R9 390 is 5% faster than both
r9 290 is the same as both but has 4GB of VRAM

[don_svetlio]

No offence but I don't want to go team red  :rolleyes:

Kepler is abandoned and 970 is gimped. IF you can live with that okay

[Aytex]

No offence but I don't want to go team red  :rolleyes:

we're here to give you the best bang for your buck deals, if you want to spend more money for shittier preformance go ahead m8

no one's holding ya back

 

go for the 970 though

[Mjvdk]

290X is 15% faster than both

R9 390 is 5% faster than both

r9 290 is the same as both but has 4GB of VRAM

He said he doesn't want to.  That doesn't mean he wants you to try to talk him into it.

[AresKrieger]

970

[The Official Czex]

No offence but I don't want to go team red  :rolleyes:

 

and yup that's the monitor 

 

Have it your way.

[Clear17Mud]

He said he doesn't want to.  That doesn't mean he wants you to try to talk him into it.

im sure they posted before the post above was loaded...

[Didge3]

Admittedly I last owned an AMD card when it was still ATi, a Radeon 4670 I believe back when I was about 16 and had no idea what I was doing... Are they even still called Radeon's? I'd have to do my research as honestly I have no idea what AMD have been doing since the ATi name was dropped...

[Clear17Mud]

@Didge3 yeah its radeon r9 300 series (or r7/r5 and last gen was 200 series)

[don_svetlio]

Admittedly I last owned an AMD card when it was still ATi, a Radeon 4670 I believe back when I was about 16 and had no idea what I was doing... Are they even still called Radeon's? I'd have to do my research as honestly I have no idea what AMD have been doing since the ATi name was dropped...

Radeon R9 300 series is currently the name

[theereal]

290X is 15% faster than both

R9 390 is 5% faster than both

r9 290 is the same as both but has 4GB of VRAM

290 Isnt as strong as the 970

[Didge3]

Well good to hear they've stuck with some of the naming system.... A 290x is easily in budget, a 390 isn't. I'll have to do my research to see if its a serious contender. All you guys have done is give me more to be confused about!  :huh:

[don_svetlio]

Well good to hear they've stuck with some of the naming system.... A 290x is easily in budget, a 390 isn't. I'll have to do my research to see if its a serious contender. All you guys have done is give me more to be confused about!  :huh:

290X is 15% faster than a 970 AND 780 - Ask @Morgan MLGman - he went from a 970 to a 290X

[don_svetlio]

290 Isnt as strong as the 970

those drivers are ancient

[Morgan MLGman]

290X is 15% faster than a 970 AND 780 - Ask @Morgan MLGman - he went from a 970 to a 290X

to the OP: (I copied that from my yesterday's post)

"Remember two things when looking at 290X vs 390X or 290 vs 390 comparisons.

1. Very often there are reference 290X's that thermally throttle used in the benchmarks cause that's what AMD sends to those reviewers and those are low on clock speeds, nobody uses those, so the score isn't valid since the 390X has to be non-reference

2. You need to look for very recent benchmarks comparing those cards cause most of them were done when the 390X was released, and AMD held back driver updates for the 200 series for around a month so the 300 series looks like more than a rebadge and the performance difference is greater when the cards were tested/benchmarked/reviewed/compared, which in reality isn't true cause the drivers are good now for both"

I personally switched from a GTX 970 to a R9 290X, and I can tell you, the 290X is faster and has no VRAM issues at that. Just remember to get a non-reference version, preferably Sapphire Tri-X/Vapor-X, PowerColor, Club3D, if those are not available, there's also MSI Gaming and XFX

[don_svetlio]

to the OP: (I copied that from my yesterday's post)

"Remember two things when looking at 290X vs 390X or 290 vs 390 comparisons.

1. Very often there are reference 290X's that thermally throttle used in the benchmarks cause that's what AMD sends to those reviewers and those are low on clock speeds, nobody uses those, so the score isn't valid since the 390X has to be non-reference

2. You need to look for very recent benchmarks comparing those cards cause most of them were done when the 390X was released, and AMD held back driver updates for the 200 series for around a month so the 300 series looks like more than a rebadge and the performance difference is greater when the cards were tested/benchmarked/reviewed/compared, which in reality isn't true cause the drivers are good now for both"

I personally switched from a GTX 970 to a R9 290X, and I can tell you, the 290X is faster and has no VRAM issues at that. Just remember to get a non-reference version, preferably Sapphire Tri-X/Vapor-X, PowerColor, Club3D, if those are not available, there's also MSI Gaming and XFX

Thanks for responding so quickly

@Didge3 - this might be invaluable to your pick

[Didge3]

Right thanks for the info. Driver issues is something I'm going to have to look into to find more recent tests comparing these cards.... This is the offending video that started me all off though

 

We should all know and trust the LLT benchmarking tests right? So skip past Linus' ramblings to like 3/4 through the video and look at the benchmarks that have me confused, the 780 comes out on top (admittedly by not much of a margin) than the 970 and the 290x, so where does this leave me? If we drop the AMD possibility for a second is the 970 still better than a 780 despite this video?

[theereal]

those drivers are ancient

[Morgan MLGman]

-snip-

Over a year old video. That particular time is when the AMD drivers improved most. Look for benchmarks that are up to 1 month old.

[Morgan MLGman]

snip

Still too old. Up to one month old only are valid.