# GTX970 vs R9 390



## rooivalk (Jul 19, 2015)

I want to upgrade gpu since I have plan to buy 1440p monitor soon. 

I think it's going to be GTX970 vs R9 390. In this case I prefer vanilla R9 390 over 970 due to:
- I could get 390 cheaper (almost $70) than 970, both from respectable brands with ok warranty in my area (PowerColor/Sapphire vs MSI/Gigabyte).
- 390 seems to perform equal or a bit better than 970 and even could go toe to toe with 980 in some games.
- Those 8GB VRAM could be useful since modded Skyrim could eat 4GB. I'm afraid Fallout 4 would be worse.
- 390 temp is okay (card temp not my room temp lol) and power consumption is no problem.

But I worry about two things:
1. There are games when AMD perform significantly bad compared to nVidia. Example: Project CARS,  World of Warcraft, and _maybe_ Wolfenstein.


Spoiler












2. HairWorks seem to blocking Radeon performance (see Witcher 3). I prefer to have TressFX or HairWorks enabled, I love it. Maybe it's deliberated, maybe it's not, but it exists. Even if driver update helps, you know AMD is slow in updating their driver.

What worry me the most is those two points exist in *recent games*, and worse, in *the games I like*.
nVidia GameWorks is also more widely adopted than say... TressFX or Mantle(†). I'm afraid case like this will be present more and more in the future. 3 of high profile games (PCARS, Witcher 3, and recalled Batman) using GameWorks seems alarming to me.

So, should I assume this as just one time 'anomaly' and proceed to buy 390 as planned or buy 970 and oc'ed it to cope with deficit in performance, and expect nVidia divine hands will touch more developers? What's your thoughts?


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## jboydgolfer (Jul 19, 2015)

I personally would go 970, for me in the us they are around 30 us cheaper than the 390,and imo,I prefer a card that isn't too new to the market.

I don't say this lightly either,since my last Nvidia gpu was retired around 6 or so years ago,and I've gone amd ever since.

Personally I'd figure out which card has more bang per dollar for you,and go with the winner.


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## rooivalk (Jul 19, 2015)

jboydgolfer said:


> I don't say this lightly either,since my last Nvidia gpu was retired around 6 or so years ago,and I've gone amd ever since.


I'm leaning towards nVidia myself as far as fanboyism goes, but this 390 seems good with exception I mentioned before.


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## ShiBDiB (Jul 19, 2015)

Get a 970 FTW or SC edition.


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## Aquinus (Jul 19, 2015)

I have a R9 390 in the mail. I can let you know what I think of it when it arrives. I think you probably won't be disappointed if you go either way but, if you think you might want to go SLI/CFX in the long term, the 8GB could be nice for future games. I can see arguments for going either way. For what it's worth, I've gone with AMD for GPUs for the last several years (the last switch was from an 8600 GTS to a Radeon 4850 followed by the first then several years later, the second, 6870.)

I would like to think that my purchase will help in some way keep AMD in the game and it's not like the 390 is a bad GPU, it's just old rebranded tech with some more overclocking OOTB and more VRAM that works just as well.


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## buildzoid (Jul 19, 2015)

JazTwoCents did a review on the 390 and he liked it more than any of the 970s he tested.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 19, 2015)

Do you plan to overclock the cards manually?

Yes = 970
No = 390


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## moproblems99 (Jul 19, 2015)

I just bought a 980 and love it.  I really wanted the Fury, but unfortunately it sucked.  If the Fury had any OC potential I would have bought it.  I tossed around the idea of a 970 for a while.  For what its worth, I bought the EVGA SC and for The Witcher 3, I run everything on almost max (except foliage draw and shadows on high, and SSAO instead of HBAO) with hairworks on.  In the limited testing I have done, since I only installed it last night, running around Novigrad I get 63 - 74 fps.  I have not ventured outside of Novigrad though so I am sure it will dip some more.  So I am not sure what the 970 will give but consider it will be less than that and I have not overclocked yet either.  That will come in the next few days while I re-familiarize myself with nVidia.


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## Nordic (Jul 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I have a R9 390 in the mail. I can let you know what I think of it when it arrives. I think you probably won't be disappointed if you go either way but, if you think you might want to go SLI/CFX in the long term, the 8GB could be nice for future games. I can see arguments for going either way. For what it's worth, I've gone with AMD for GPUs for the last several years (the last switch was from an 8600 GTS to a Radeon 4850 followed by the first then several years later, the second, 6870.)
> 
> I would like to think that my purchase will help in some way keep AMD in the game and it's not like the 390 is a bad GPU, it's just old rebranded tech with some more overclocking OOTB and more VRAM that works just as well.


Weren't you really interested in having low multi monitor power consumption? It might of been someone else. If it was though, was it the vram that made your decision?


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## Aquinus (Jul 19, 2015)

james888 said:


> Weren't you really interested in having low multi monitor power consumption? It might of been someone else. If it was though, was it the vram that made your decision?


I've been using the laptop provided by work more often than my tower, so my tower really is only on for personal stuff and gaming so I don't really care as much as I had before when it was on all the time. Considering my wife and daughter use the plasma (max of 350w,) regularly, I suddenly realized that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The VRAM was the contributing factor and that's not because I'm going to use it now. The issue I eventually ran into with my 6870s is that I needed more VRAM. 1GB was great for 1 card but eventually became a problem as it aged when I was two of them. The 390 offers two things: A decent price for what it provides and more feasibility for crossfire as the added VRAM mitigates the very issue I'm having now (6 years later since the first but, I'm not one to upgrade often.)

I have to say, the 8GB does carry a price premium that means nothing now. I just can see the day when I would be wanting those 8GB if Pascal ends up being meh and a second 390 ends up being a cheap upgrade path. I didn't want to force myself into a position where CFX wasn't an option because, in all honesty, I've gotten more benefit than strife out of my 6870s in CFX and I think it's a good option if you should need more performance going forward. Trying to look forward, I might not want that 8GB now, but I might in a year or two and I don't plan on dumping this GPU in 6 months (or maybe even 6 years, if it ends up like my 6870s. )

Side note: Fury and HBM carried too much of a price premium for me to want to jump on-board. I didn't feel it was worth it but, was glad to see that the multi-monitor power consumption problem was resolved from lower power DRAM thanks to HBM.

Also, as newtekie said:


newtekie1 said:


> Do you plan to overclock the cards manually?
> 
> Yes = 970
> No = 390


I've gotten lazy and am less gung-ho about overclocking than I used to be. When I'm not testing stuff and messing with it, I want it to run at near max without me screwing with it. Plus, CFX can get screwy when you overclock. Both my 6870s alone can do 1Ghz but together don't want to do more than 965Mhz.


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## haswrong (Jul 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I've been using the laptop provided by work more often than my tower, so my tower really is only on for personal stuff and gaming so I don't really care as much as I had before when it was on all the time. Considering my wife and daughter use the plasma (max of 350w,) regularly, I suddenly realized that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The VRAM was the contributing factor and that's not because I'm going to use it now. The issue I eventually ran into with my 6870s is that I needed more VRAM. 1GB was great for 1 card but eventually became a problem as it aged when I was two of them. The 390 offers two things: A decent price for what it provides and more feasibility for crossfire as the added VRAM mitigates the very issue I'm having now (6 years later since the first but, I'm not one to upgrade often.)
> 
> I have to say, the 8GB does carry a price premium that means nothing now. I just can see the day when I would be wanting those 8GB if Pascal ends up being meh and a second 390 ends up being a cheap upgrade path. I didn't want to force myself into a position where CFX wasn't an option because, in all honesty, I've gotten more benefit than strife out of my 6870s in CFX and I think it's a good option if you should need more performance going forward. Trying to look forward, I might not want that 8GB now, but I might in a year or two and I don't plan on dumping this GPU in 6 months (or maybe even 6 years, if it ends up like my 6870s. )
> 
> Side note: Fury and HBM carried too much of a price premium for me to want to jump on-board. I didn't feel it was worth it but, was glad to see that the multi-monitor thing was resolved from lower power DRAM.


ok, please tell me if it installs without any hickups.. im hearing some peeps having trouble registering the hardware within boot sequence and somebody had trouble installing drivers while windows update was enabled, since it grabbed some online version originally intended for 290(x), so there was a black screen as a result and only the offline method helped.


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## Aquinus (Jul 19, 2015)

haswrong said:


> ok, please tell me if it installs without any hickups.. im hearing some peeps having trouble registering the hardware within boot sequence and somebody had trouble installing drivers while windows update was enabled, since it grabbed some online version originally intended for 290(x), so there was a black screen as a result and only the offline method helped.


Sure thing but, I already have the latest drivers installed. Just to be safe, I do plan on removing the drivers before putting the new GPU in but, if something goes wrong I'm sure you'll see me ranting and raving about it in the coming days. I have a lot of tolerance for GPU drivers being strange to install except when I want to play with new hardware.


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## NC37 (Jul 19, 2015)

I'm probably going 390 just for future proofing. 4GB vs 8GB. Sure people say you'd never need that much, but that is the same bs they said about 1GB VRAM, 512MB VRAM, 256MB...etc. Its an age old story. With consoles in the 8GB area, ports to PC will likely push 8GB too. Especially looking at titles like Star Citizen. Heck I think ARK right now is pushing past 4GB with some of it's textures. At least from what I've heard talking to others and seeing what is playable for who. ~1GB seems to deliver medium, high ~2-3GB, and Epic being ~4GB.

Also, kinda irked how quickly nVidia dumps support for their GPUs. Drivers are usually nice but, once new card is out, the old ones don't seem to exist for them. Then there is also the factor of nVidia nerfing the x60 performance for multiple gens now. 960 is the latest casualty and the worst of them all.


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## Lionheart (Jul 19, 2015)

970 has the overclocking potential if you care about that & lower power consumption, but I still choose the 390


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## SASBehrooz (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> What worry me the most is those two points exist in *recent games*, and worse, in *the games I like*.



My Choice will be GTX 970. many games optimized well with nVidia cards And nVidia got better drivers and the stuff like that. games on 970 is smoother than 390 because of frame-times. 
GTX 970 has better overclocking potential (12 - 15% ).


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## rooivalk (Jul 19, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> I just bought a 980 and love it.


I'm initially want to settle in 980 but unfortunately the price sucks around here.



NC37 said:


> I'm probably going 390 just for future proofing. 4GB vs 8GB. Sure people say you'd never need that much, but that is the same bs they said about 1GB VRAM, 512MB VRAM, 256MB...etc. Its an age old story. With consoles in the 8GB area, ports to PC will likely push 8GB too. Especially looking at titles like Star Citizen. Heck I think ARK right now is pushing past 4GB with some of it's textures. At least from what I've heard talking to others and seeing what is playable for who. ~1GB seems to deliver medium, high ~2-3GB, and Epic being ~4GB.


Yea, that's what I don't like with 970. If it comes with 5-6GB VRAM, it'll be easier decision for me.
Despite properly optimized games like Witcher 3 showing that it's only need ~2GB VRAM, there're a lot of unoptimized games and there's modding. I like texture a lot and it's killing VRAM fast.

But what about nVidia optimized games? VRAM won't help and there are more nVidia optimized games than AMD ones.
Should I care about them?


NC37 said:


> Also, kinda irked how quickly nVidia dumps support for their GPUs. Drivers are usually nice but, once new card is out, the old ones don't seem to exist for them. Then there is also the factor of nVidia nerfing the x60 performance for multiple gens now. 960 is the latest casualty and the worst of them all.


I thought it just about 780Ti in Project CARS? any link I could read?



SASBehrooz said:


> My Choice will be GTX 970. many games optimized well with nVidia cards And nVidia got better drivers and the stuff like that. *games on 970 is smoother than 390 because of frame-times.*
> GTX 970 has better overclocking potential (12 - 15% ).


Any review link for that? interesting.


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## droopyRO (Jul 19, 2015)

Stick to 1080p if you want 60 fps with those cards in all games with ultra settings.


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## Xzibit (Jul 19, 2015)

droopyRO said:


> Stick to 1080p if you want 60 fps with those cards in all games with ultra settings.



A lot will be game/port dependent. Not all games will do 60fps on ultra with either on 1080p let alone his plan moved to 1440p.


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## alwayssts (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> Any review link for that? interesting.



http://techreport.com/blog/28624/reconsidering-the-overall-index-in-our-radeon-r9-fury-review

It's another thing to consider, but I personally do not drink the be-all, end-all metric kool-aid of some crusaders.  Just like fps hitches from certain inherent spec limitations (or driver issues), there can be latency hiccups (that may or may not eventually be fixed), or some may not encounter at all that skew results from what may often be just as fine of a general over-all experience (or at least certainly better than presented) because when combined as an average, even if 99% to eliminate outliers, skew results.  It was nice, for instance, to see TR finally acknowledge this (I really like Scott's work, and he has very noticeably and purposely toned down the rhetoric as of late, but there was a time not long ago he used his considerable clout to preach, just like the nvidia green and intel blue PCP's Shrout that this was the The One True Way to analyze performance).

They are by all accounts going to be really, really close.  IMHO, the decision should be made primarily on differentiation that matters to you, most of which you already seem aware.  970s are often smaller, draw less power, support hdmi 2.0, and have nvidia perks and/or slightly better refinement (to capitalize on the special function units) for certain games.  The 390 may perform ever-so-slightly better on a raw level because of more compute while offering a better upgrade path because of the larger buffer.

It's pretty much the same old story it has always been (imho).  Usually AMD offers more pure hardware per dollar, and here it rings true as well, but with it comes some jank.  Nvidia is often more refined with better dev support, but you generally pay for every frame per second, often with overclocking (or butchering the framebuffer) built into their value equation.   AMD has always been the choice for those willing to tinker and/or wait for them to fix their issues.  Nvidia seems much more plug and play.  I don't want to make it sound like there are miles apart between these two skus, because there isn't, but imho personal mentality and approach to hardware should be something people are keenly aware when making a choice...because I find them fundamentally different.  As a pure hardware geek (that likes the flexibility of amd's units), has long-used video cards for pure video (which ati has generally had the upper hand) and one that used to hard volt mod/extreme cool, I generally have always appreciated the perks of choosing ATi/AMD.  This time I went nvidia.  There's nothing wrong with it, perse', but I do find it awfully boring (and also their hdmi support generally has been, and now under W10 is a-new fubar).  Also, yeah..3.5GB.


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## droopyRO (Jul 19, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> A lot will be game/port dependent. Not all games will do 60fps on ultra with either on 1080p let alone his plan moved to 1440p.


I cant talk about the future, i have a 1440p monitor and a GTX970 games like Witcher 3 or Dragon Age Inquisition do about 40 fps on Ultra settings without AA, both of them hit 60 fps if i switch to 1080p using the same IQ settings. So if the OP wants 1440p he either gets a Fury/GTX980/980Ti or has to deal with some lowered details to get 60 fps.


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## rooivalk (Jul 19, 2015)

Nah, I'm okay with 35-40fps, hopefully with minimal AA.


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## SonicZap (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> 1. There are games when AMD perform significantly bad compared to nVidia. Example: Project CARS, World of Warcraft, and _maybe_ Wolfenstein.


These are rarely a serious issue. As you can see in the Project CARS graph you posted, the R9 390 still gets 52.7 FPS, which is playable. IIRC it's a similar case with WoW; while AMD cards have lower performance than their Nvidia competitors, they still deliver playable performance.



rooivalk said:


> 2. HairWorks seem to blocking Radeon performance (see Witcher 3). I prefer to have TressFX or HairWorks enabled, I love it. Maybe it's deliberated, maybe it's not, but it exists. Even if driver update helps, you know AMD is slow in updating their driver.


The issue with HairWorks in Witcher 3 is massive amounts of tesselation. You can limit the tesselation in Catalyst Control Center to 16x and the FPS drop will be far less dramatic, while there'll be almost no visual difference. If you want to, you can limit it even lower, but at 8x the lower tesselation quality starts getting noticeable IMO.



rooivalk said:


> nVidia GameWorks is also more widely adopted than say... TressFX or Mantle(†). I'm afraid case like this will be present more and more in the future. 3 of high profile games (PCARS, Witcher 3, and recalled Batman) using GameWorks seems alarming to me.


GameWorks is indeed alarming. Then again, AMD has hardware in all 3 consoles, which likely restricts usage of GameWorks. If it started hurting performance too much on AMD hardware, developers wouldn't use it that much. So far GameWorks hasn't hurt that much, AMD has managed to make most GameWorks titles run well with driver updates.


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## Aquinus (Jul 19, 2015)

Well everyone, my timing was amazing because the VRAM on my primary 6870 just kicked the bucket out of the blue. Elite Dangerous crashed hard and when I restarted I was greeted by this:

   

I guess this is my 6870's way of telling me to replace it. Good thing I have two of them. Too bad it's the newer one that failed...

Side note: My reference 6870 with Hynix DRAM still is rock solid but, the TwinFrozr had Elpida DRAM. It kind of confirms my thought that Hynix is probably the better DRAM vendor.

Edit: Pulled the TwinFrozr out and kept the reference card in and everything was just peachy. It's weird as Elite Dangerous seems to run better without the second GPU in most cases now (less stutters, more GPU load,) so perhaps VRAM failing was a secondary source of my inconsistent performance.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> I'm initially want to settle in 980 but unfortunately the price sucks around here.



It was merely a point of reference for Witcher 3 performance with hairworks.  I think the 390 and 390X are foolish at the moment.  They don't have the horsepower to use those 8GB of VRAM.  However, that could all change with DX12 if you want to XFire them.  I more than likely won't return to XFire/SLI.  Just too many quirks for me.

Also, don't believe the hoopla about nVidia having better drivers.  I suppose you could say historically speaking they are a notch above but they are pretty close.


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## Aquinus (Jul 19, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> They don't have the horsepower to use those 8GB of VRAM.


Well, the GPU does have a lot of texture pumping capability but, I got a 390 thinking the 8GB would be nice if I were to CFX it down the road with newer games. Even with DX12, I seriously doubt you'll be able to simply add VRAM and that there will be a ton of data that still needs to be shared by both GPUs. I think the 8GB is more of a longevity thing, not a performance thing. With my 6870s (before one died,) it was simply too much compute for 1GB and 8GB instead of 4GB kind of mitigates that problem long term as I'm not one to upgrade often.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Well, the GPU does have a lot of texture pumping capability but, I got a 390 thinking the 8GB would be nice if I were to CFX it down the road with newer games. Even with DX12, I seriously doubt you'll be able to simply add VRAM and that there will be a ton of data that still needs to be shared by both GPUs. I think the 8GB is more of a longevity thing, not a performance thing. With my 6870s (before one died,) it was simply too much compute for 1GB and 8GB instead of 4GB kind of mitigates that problem long term as I'm not one to upgrade often.



I just upgraded from my 6850s so I feel you.  I think the 390/X will be great for XFire.  I just don't see their value as single cards.  If they didn't pour so much heat out I would have considered them.  My room is usually at 28C all day long, so the last thing I need is a 600Watt heater in there too.  The power consumption doesn't bother me, it's just heat the comes with it.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 19, 2015)

If you want my opinion, I would get the R9 390 over the gtx 970.  The performance at stock is better and even overclocked according to reviews at around 1150 MHz it's matching around its heavy over clocked performance.  The 8gb is overkill that's for sure unless you run cfx with them, but it's nice to have if nothing more.

So in short my opinion is the 390.  Or you can also look for a 290X which may end up being cheaper if you can find them.


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## SASBehrooz (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> Any review link for that? interesting.



Better I Say nVidia vs AMD.
In some games Frame-times are the same orthe difference is not much. but nvidia cards are better in total. i`ve never seen that AMD`s card was better than nvidia in frame-times.
in some cases in below links, AMD FCAT have too much difference versus nvidia.
i didnt found any specific link for 390 or 390X.

GTX 980 Ti
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_980_ti_review,27.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_980_ti_review,31.html

Fury X
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_review,28.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_review,32.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gta_v_pc_graphics_performance_review,7.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dying_light_vga_graphics_performance_review,5.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,27.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,33.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,29.html


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## Sempron Guy (Jul 19, 2015)

^to bad, OP is talking about the 390 not the Fury X

Digital Foundry did a benchmark video, frametimes can be seen as well. Both cards are trading punches at 1080p. At 1440p and above however, it's definitely the 390s ballpark.

1080p









1440p


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## rooivalk (Jul 19, 2015)

SonicZap said:


> These are rarely a serious issue. As you can see in the Project CARS graph you posted, the R9 390 still gets 52.7 FPS, which is playable. IIRC it's a similar case with WoW; while AMD cards have lower performance than their Nvidia competitors, they still deliver playable performance.





SonicZap said:


> The issue with HairWorks in Witcher 3 is massive amounts of tesselation. You can limit the tesselation in Catalyst Control Center to 16x and the FPS drop will be far less dramatic, while there'll be almost no visual difference. If you want to, you can limit it even lower, but at 8x the lower tesselation quality starts getting noticeable IMO.


I read about that, but it doesn't change the fact that at the same setting AMD performs significantly worse (about ~20% more penalty?) than nVidia in Witcher 3 (whether the culprit is nVidia themselves or not). Am I miss something?

My question (which many seem to miss), will case like those two happens more in *upcoming *games? You gave compelling argument about console things though.



Aquinus said:


> Well everyone, my timing was amazing because the VRAM on my primary 6870 just kicked the bucket out of the blue.


Are you lucky or unlucky? 



moproblems99 said:


> Also, don't believe the hoopla about nVidia having better drivers.  I suppose you could say historically speaking they are a notch above but they are pretty close.


I'm not saying nVidia driver is better, but AMD isn't famous for fast updates. Isn't fun to wait say... months for the best experience in a game.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> I'm not saying nVidia driver is better, but AMD isn't famous for fast updates. Isn't fun to wait say... months for the best experience in a game.



If you don't have XFire, you have nothing to worry about.  Look at the last bunch of nV drivers that have been having issues.  You have two choices:  1.  Get the one that is cheaper, or 2.  Get the one that performs better with the games you play.  You aren't going to be able to plan for the future too much as far as GameWorks goes, just too many questions.


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## rooivalk (Jul 19, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> If you don't have XFire, you have nothing to worry about.  Look at the last bunch of nV drivers that have been having issues.  You have two choices:  1.  Get the one that is cheaper, or 2.  Get the one that performs better with the games you play.  You aren't going to be able to plan for the future too much as far as GameWorks goes, just too many questions.


Yea, the consensus so far seems saying that GameWorks only affecting relatively small portion of the whole picture and most of you seems insist to look for what a GPU can do for current games than possibility for upcoming ones.
For that reason, I'm still inclined toward 390 (mainly due to price in my local shop and VRAM). 
Perhaps I would swallow the bitterpill of GameWorks block or those frame time things, hopefully I won't encounter or at least feel it.

I'm still open to input/advice though. I'm going to buy it in the next week or two anyway.


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## Aquinus (Jul 19, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> Yea, the consensus so far seems saying that GameWorks only affecting relatively small portion of the whole picture and most of you seems insist to look for what a GPU can do for current games than possibility for upcoming ones.
> For that reason, I'm still inclined toward 390 (mainly due to price in my local shop and VRAM).
> Perhaps I would swallow the bitterpill of GameWorks block or those frame time things, hopefully I won't encounter or at least feel it.
> 
> I'm still open to input/advice though. I'm going to buy it in the next week or two anyway.


That's how I felt too. It's too bad I don't have a 970 or know someone with one. It would interesting to compare them in the same machine. I suspect OOTB, it will be just as good but, will probably show its colors when newer games get more demanding. Part of me does make me wonder if the 970s performance is because of driver configs out of the box but, I'm not sure how true that is. It wouldn't surprise me though. I've always been happy with the quality the video output all of my latest AMD/ATi graphics cards (even going back as early as the x800 GT and 2600 XT (GDDR*4* baby! That was short lived. )

Side note: When I get my 390, is there anything you would like me to figure out about it that might help your decision? Any questions that an owner could answer? I should have it before you decide to make the purchase.

FWIW, I ordered an MSI 390 GAMING.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 20, 2015)

I don't think you will be disappointed with 390.  For that matter, I don't think you will be disappointed with either.  If the 390 is cheaper, more of a bonus.  As others have said, you can force Tesselation to a lower value in CCC.


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## vega22 (Jul 20, 2015)

having seen my 290x make a 970 look poor the 390x is a no brainer imo dude 

get a good cooler or get it wet and you will love it


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## Cvrk (Jul 20, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> I want to upgrade gpu since I have plan to buy 1440p monitor soon.What worry me the most is those two points exist in *recent games*, and worse, in *the games I like*.
> So, should I assume


Assume nothing.
If it was me, R9 without blinking an eye,for the same exact reason as you. I go for what i need.The games that_ i like_ work best on amd. So again assume nothing and do not look at what will be, look at only what it is now and what you like. The present for you is pay the 100$+ and get the 980. Yes, not the 970!
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/g...dia-gtx-970-graphics-card-comparison-3586205/
That's just one simple review. Do not base everything on it. Sure read 100 more reviews. It has to be a solid decision


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## SASBehrooz (Jul 20, 2015)

Sempron Guy said:


> ^to bad, OP is talking about the 390 not the Fury X



dont play with words.
the problem is with amd cards , no matter what. in some cases, yes they dont have difference at all. but in *most *games...
i dont trust those link you put. i watched one of those videos ( GTX 980 , GTX 970 , R9 290 and R9 290X ) where they wrote i7 4970k !!! so..
most of AMD cards (+ the best card Fury X ) has issue with frame-times. and we all know it. i was reading too much reviews about graphic cards almost a year when i was getting one of these 780 ti , R9 290x , R9 290 and 780.so i found that *in total *nvidia cards was better in frame-times. after that i got R9 290. i had it for 6 month and when maxwell came, i bought 970. *Honestly* in my experience with 970 was better in games like Farcry 4, AC unity and evil within than 290 (frame droping , hanging).


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## SonicZap (Jul 20, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> My question (which many seem to miss), will case like those two happens more in *upcoming *games? You gave compelling argument about console things though.


That's impossible to say, but if you look at say Witcher 3, it's obvious that the special effects can hurt current Nvidia graphics cards too (take a look at Kepler's aka GTX 780/780 Ti in Witcher 3; GCN Radeons actually beat them there). If you buy a Maxwell GTX 970 card now and then next year Pascal will have a differently balanced config, future GameWorks effects might very well tax Pascal less at the expense of hurting Maxwell more, just like the case is with HairWorks and Kepler.

That being said, the GTX 970 and R9 390 are very close, so you should be fine with either. If power consumption matters and/or you are overclocking the hardware to max, then the GTX 970 wins. Otherwise, I'd get the R9 390 if it's cheaper.


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## Sempron Guy (Jul 23, 2015)

SASBehrooz said:


> dont play with words.
> the problem is with amd cards , no matter what. in some cases, yes they dont have difference at all. but in *most *games...
> i dont trust those link you put. i watched one of those videos ( GTX 980 , GTX 970 , R9 290 and R9 290X ) where they wrote i7 4970k !!! so..
> most of AMD cards (+ the best card Fury X ) has issue with frame-times. and we all know it. i was reading too much reviews about graphic cards almost a year when i was getting one of these 780 ti , R9 290x , R9 290 and 780.so i found that *in total *nvidia cards was better in frame-times. after that i got R9 290. i had it for 6 month and when maxwell came, i bought 970. *Honestly* in my experience with 970 was better in games like Farcry 4, AC unity and evil within than 290 (frame droping , hanging).



there's a difference actually. The Fury line is a new architecture overall, you can expect a few hitches in frame times but that is something AMD can fix with drivers. The R9-390 series is an enhanced version of the year and a half old R9-290 series. Their drivers has matured already. You'll be in denial to say that AMD never got to fix those insane frametimes in some games. It was during the R9-290 era where frametimes became the spotlight and soon reviewers began to adapt it in their reviews. Try reading a few of the R9-390 reviews.  And I don't get your point about the vid I posted?????


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jul 23, 2015)

SASBehrooz said:


> My Choice will be GTX 970. many games optimized well with nVidia cards And nVidia got better drivers and the stuff like that. games on 970 is smoother than 390 because of frame-times.
> GTX 970 has better overclocking potential (12 - 15% ).


Lately the drivers thing isn't really true. Its been problem city for NVIDIA drivers on kepler and Maxwell GPUs.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 23, 2015)

SASBehrooz said:


> dont play with words.
> the problem is with amd cards , no matter what. in some cases, yes they dont have difference at all. but in *most *games...
> i dont trust those link you put. i watched one of those videos ( GTX 980 , GTX 970 , R9 290 and R9 290X ) where they wrote i7 4970k !!! so..
> most of AMD cards (+ the best card Fury X ) has issue with frame-times. and we all know it. i was reading too much reviews about graphic cards almost a year when i was getting one of these 780 ti , R9 290x , R9 290 and 780.so i found that *in total *nvidia cards was better in frame-times. after that i got R9 290. i had it for 6 month and when maxwell came, i bought 970. *Honestly* in my experience with 970 was better in games like Farcry 4, AC unity and evil within than 290 (frame droping , hanging).


 First off in most games they do just fine as most of the issues they have involve games using Nvidias Gameworks...Second the driver support has been just fine with only a few hiccups in getting CFX profiles out fast. Third if anything I have been hearing loads of problems from Nvidia drivers lately (no problems from me, just reading forums posts as my mobile NVidia GPU has been fine) so that argument is not valid.  Fourth if we are comparing overclocking results, then this review has an interesting point(This is one review not a dominant force, I am just showing this one for reference because of its point and how it compares the cards) in showing the difference in overclocking versus the two and how much of a difference it really makes. Last when it comes to frame times it is pretty even at this point, with very few exceptions they both have excellent frame times in games and the charts I have been seeing on reviews lately put them both in the same ballpark (Again with few exceptions).

Really when it comes to the drivers, the only slow thing from AMD recently has just been getting all the CFX support out (Which has been off an on fast, random games get a profile instantly while others take an extra week or two).  I have not had an AMD driver crash in a very long time nor have I had a problem that was caused by drivers probably in a year (I actually cannot remember the last time I had an issue with driver on both sides).


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## PCGamerDR (Jul 23, 2015)

I just bought myself an r9 290 for 290usd, ordered it last week got confirmation that it would be delivered today. Will retire my gtx550ti it has served me well.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NUKISTW/?tag=tec06d-20


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2015)

If I recall correctly, the 970 has more pixel pumping power than the 390 but the 390 has more texture pumping power than the 970 does. Review also seem to indicate that the 390 excels are higher resolutions where the 970 tends to do better at lower resolutions in comparison. Consider the 390 has 160 TMUs and the 970 has 104, this makes sense. Also at higher resolutions, you're reading more from the frame buffer to display each frame which will slightly benefit from the higher bandwidth memory on the 390. However, the boost clocks on the 970 makes the ROPs a bit more power on the 970, so we're talking about two different cards that excel at different kinds of workloads.

I don't think either card is bad, I just think that the 390 offers a little more for the price. It's just important to remember that they both have their perks and disadvantages.

With that said, I should come home to a 390 this evening.


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## RealNeil (Jul 23, 2015)

PCGamerDR said:


> I just bought myself an r9 290 for 290usd, ordered it last week got confirmation that it would be delivered today. Will retire my gtx550ti it has served me well.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NUKISTW/?tag=tec06d-20



One thing about the Fury and R9-390X release is that R9-290X cards are dropping in price. I just bought three Sapphire R9-290X Tri-X cards for $600. $200 each was a steal, and I think that they'll deliver for a few years to come.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 23, 2015)

RealNeil said:


> One thing about the Fury and R9-390X release is that R9-290X cards are dropping in price. I just bought three Sapphire R9-290X Tri-X cards for $600. $200 each was a steal, and I think that they'll deliver for a few years to come.



Interesting, every time I looked at them the price seemed to go up.  They were over $300 last I looked.  I was going to pick one up.


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## RealNeil (Jul 23, 2015)

Got them from a friend who upgraded to three EVGA GTX-980Ti SuperClock cards.


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## moproblems99 (Jul 23, 2015)

RealNeil said:


> Got them from a friend who upgraded to three EVGA GTX-980Ti SuperClock cards.



That makes sense.  Pretty good deal.  I've always wondered how much of an impact the third card made.  Haven't looked at any reviews in a long while.


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## RealNeil (Jul 23, 2015)

He said it was good, but he has X99 builds. Mine is a 4790K so probably two cards will be the max that I run.
The third one I can pair with my MSI 290X Gaming in the 4690K box.

once I build the X99 system that I have planned, I may try the three together, but I have two dual GPU cards for it already.


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## PCGamerDR (Jul 23, 2015)

RealNeil said:


> One thing about the Fury and R9-390X release is that R9-290X cards are dropping in price. I just bought three Sapphire R9-290X Tri-X cards for $600. $200 each was a steal, and I think that they'll deliver for a few years to come.
> 
> View attachment 66776



GGizi


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2015)

Guess what came. 


 

I'll be putting the pictures in another thread, most likely, but I'll make sure to make a note here about where that is when I put them up. With that said, I'm shutting the machine down and uninstalling catalyst for the jump! 



Spoiler



I already opened the box and the card is big and solid. Much bigger than the 6870s but not a problem nonetheless. More coming soon!


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## RealNeil (Jul 23, 2015)

Damn nice GPU you got. 8GB of memory will be relevant soon in gaming.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2015)

RealNeil said:


> Damn nice GPU you got. 8GB of memory will be relevant soon in gaming.


Machine is booted with latest drivers installed. First impression is that idle power consumption means nothing. I'm down 50 watts from having two 6870s, so I'm saving power at idle (It's so funny, it's almost a joke!)

I'm pulling in my pictures and I'm about to start up a new thread.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jul 23, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Guess what came.
> View attachment 66780
> 
> I'll be putting the pictures in another thread, most likely, but I'll make sure to make a note here about where that is when I put them up. With that said, I'm shutting the machine down and uninstalling catalyst for the jump!
> ...



That is going to be a sweet upgrade!


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## Aquinus (Jul 24, 2015)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> That is going to be a sweet upgrade!


It feels sweet and I haven't even put it to the test yet. I threw up some picture over here:
MSI R9 390 8GB GAMING came in!


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## SASBehrooz (Jul 24, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Really when it comes to the drivers, the only slow thing from AMD recently has just been getting all the CFX support out (Which has been off an on fast, random games get a profile instantly while others take an extra week or two). I have not had an AMD driver crash in a very long time nor have I had a problem that was caused by drivers probably in a year (I actually cannot remember the last time I had an issue with driver on both sides).



well about AMD drivers in my experience : when i had sapphire r9 290 trix , i had blackscreen issue with all drivers except 14.4. glitching in desktop and then i had to increase core voltage to +15 mv to fix that. i had to down clock the core to stock. at last i just RMA that after contacting to sapphire support which they couldnt fix the problem. after that i bought 970 with no driver issues. just google it " R9 290 & 290X black screen ".


GhostRyder said:


> Fourth if we are comparing overclocking results, then this review has an interesting point(This is one review not a dominant force, I am just showing this one for reference because of its point and how it compares the cards) in showing the difference in overclocking versus the two and how much of a difference it really makes



about the overclocking :
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/33.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/28.html



GhostRyder said:


> Last when it comes to frame times it is pretty even at this point, with very few exceptions they both have excellent frame times in games and the charts I have been seeing on reviews lately put them both in the same ballpark (Again with few exceptions).



well , this is a few
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,31.html

but, this is not
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dying_light_vga_graphics_performance_review,5.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,27.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_980_ti_review,31.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_review,32.html


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## SASBehrooz (Jul 24, 2015)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> Lately the drivers thing isn't really true



a huge problem that i had with amd was black screen when i had r9 290.  just google it " R9 290 & 290X black screen.
give me one link of nvidia`s huge *driver* issue that it makes people RMA their cards...


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## Xzibit (Jul 24, 2015)

*The Damage Report*
*Is FCAT more accurate than Fraps for frame time measurements?*



			
				Scott Wasson said:
			
		

> In fact, the ideal combination of game testing tools would be: 1) in-engine frame time recordings that reflect the game's simulation time combined with 2) a software API from the GPU makers that reflects the flip time for frames at the display. (The API would eliminate the need for fussy video capture hardware.) I might add: 3) a per-frame identification key that would let us track when the frames produced in the game engine are actually hitting the display, so we can correlate directly.



You also have Ryan from PCPerspective agreeing with him.


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## Aquinus (Jul 24, 2015)

FWIW, my 390 runs Elite Dangerous at full graphics at 5760x1080 flawlessly. It don't even need full clocks to run it. Not to say that I've tested much beyond that yet but I'm definitely satisfied with the performance so far. No issues, just put it in and ran with it. Although I do have to say, it's a big card. I had to somehow work with the card into the case with only 5cm between the card and the hard drives. It was a *very* close fit and it's not like the Antec 1200 is exactly small.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jul 24, 2015)

SASBehrooz said:


> a huge problem that i had with amd was black screen when i had r9 290.  just google it " R9 290 & 290X black screen.
> give me one link of nvidia`s huge *driver* issue that it makes people RMA their cards...


There's been a history of that. There was one diver release a while back 2nd Gen Fermi or first Gen kepler that killed cards due to heat because it messed up fan functionality.

Both camps have their share of releasing a batch of garbage drivers.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 24, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> That makes sense.  Pretty good deal.  I've always wondered how much of an impact the third card made.  Haven't looked at any reviews in a long while.


I have three, it makes a limited impact but its helpful at 4k in some games.  Really game dependent especially if you move to 4 (Which I stopped because 4 way support is so minimal) so I normally have to choose the games I want to run in the 4 card mode but most I do run at least gain benefits from the 3rd card at 4K.



SASBehrooz said:


> well about AMD drivers in my experience : when i had sapphire r9 290 trix , i had blackscreen issue with all drivers except 14.4. glitching in desktop and then i had to increase core voltage to +15 mv to fix that. i had to down clock the core to stock. at last i just RMA that after contacting to sapphire support which they couldnt fix the problem. after that i bought 970 with no driver issues. just google it " R9 290 & 290X black screen ".
> 
> 
> about the overclocking :
> ...


 The black screen issue was *memory related* not driver related.  If it was I would have had the same problem because I have 3 R9 290X cards...You even just stated you made it stable by increasing the voltage or dropping it to stock...  If it was anything other than a hardware issue, then we *all* who had the cards should have experienced it and I nor a lot of people I knew ever did.

Next your overclocking results showed the 390X from this site hitting 1170...ok?  Its all card dependent same as on any card which was not my point but ok...

Last if your talking about the FCAT results for a *New Generation Card on a Newer architecture barely released* instead of the card series were talking of...Well either way the charts your showing barely show any difference between them so whats the point.  They are not spiking around, they are staying for the most part within ~2ms of each other at levels even on the review stating there is no stuttering.



Aquinus said:


> FWIW, my 390 runs Elite Dangerous at full graphics at 5760x1080 flawlessly. It don't even need full clocks to run it. Not to say that I've tested much beyond that yet but I'm definitely satisfied with the performance so far. No issues, just put it in and ran with it. Although I do have to say, it's a big card. I had to somehow work with the card into the case with only 5cm between the card and the hard drives. It was a *very* close fit and it's not like the Antec 1200 is exactly small.


 Cool, have not tried 3 monitor surround in awhile since I moved to 4K.  Might have to try again, how's yours for overclocking?


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## X800 (Jul 24, 2015)

After reading this tread I did order too a MSI R9 390 8GB GAMING. I have allways had Ati cards with no issues so was thinking of a Gtx 970 but I played it safe . Both cards are awesome.


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## 64K (Jul 27, 2015)

Looks like the new cards are putting some downward pressure on pricing for older GPUs. An EVGA 970 SC can be had for $310 on Newegg after rebate + free game.. A Sapphire 290x Tri-X can be had for $260 after rebate + free game.


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## SASBehrooz (Jul 27, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> The black screen issue was *memory related* not driver related. If it was I would have had the same problem because I have 3 R9 290X cards...You even just stated you made it stable by increasing the voltage or dropping it to stock... If it was anything other than a hardware issue, then we *all* who had the cards should have experienced it and I nor a lot of people I knew ever did.



so how my R9 290 was working with 14.4 without 0 black screen when i couldnt update my CCC to latest versions?


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## GhostRyder (Jul 27, 2015)

SASBehrooz said:


> so how my R9 290 was working with 14.4 without 0 black screen when i couldnt update my CCC to latest versions?


 I could use the same argument to ask why I never experienced this problem and why it was *random* among some users.  If it was driver related, we *all* would have been having black screen issues and such on our cards regardless of brand, clocks, etc.

Different versions of catalyst throughout the releasing were changing the way the software was working with said cards in lower clock states among other things which is why some versions reacted differently to the problem...


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## jboydgolfer (Jul 27, 2015)

it was SO much easier to Answer the question when asked, However now that I'M in the same position as ManofThem , Im having trouble pulling the trigger (more so than on Regular component purchases). I have gotten to these two cards...I REALLY wish Etailers had a "Do Over" Clause  They're SO close in Price...and they are Both attractive cards.God help me.


**EDITED**
This little beauty is on Amazon for $340USD Asus Strix 390...Me thinks I found
a winner.





No#1




No#2


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## KnightHawk (Jul 29, 2015)

Get a r9 390. You won't regret it. Jayztwocents did a head-to-head comparison on both of them, and he said that the 390 is better in both price and performance. Here is a link to the video: 







Also, AMD gives you all 8gb of the vram at full speed, unlike NVIDIA (ahem, ahem, gtx 970)


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## Noirgheos (Aug 1, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> FWIW, my 390 runs Elite Dangerous at full graphics at 5760x1080 flawlessly. It don't even need full clocks to run it. Not to say that I've tested much beyond that yet but I'm definitely satisfied with the performance so far. No issues, just put it in and ran with it. Although I do have to say, it's a big card. I had to somehow work with the card into the case with only 5cm between the card and the hard drives. It was a *very* close fit and it's not like the Antec 1200 is exactly small.



Hey, I'd just like to ask something. I have the choice between the MSI 390 or the MSI 390X. The 390X is $140 more, but even the minor FPS difference can mean the difference between below 60FPS or above 60FPS. Do you think it's worth it to pay more?


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## moproblems99 (Aug 1, 2015)

That's a pretty subjective question.  If the card $140 less is unable to play the games you want to your satisfaction, and plopping down the extra $140 makes the games you want to play more enjoyable, then I would say yes.  Its precisely what I did - was the benefit worth it, I think so.  Is there a slight tinge of regret, sort of but that is only because I just dropped another $500 on a USP Compact.


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## Noirgheos (Aug 1, 2015)

moproblems99 said:


> That's a pretty subjective question.  If the card $140 less is unable to play the games you want to your satisfaction, and plopping down the extra $140 makes the games you want to play more enjoyable, then I would say yes.  Its precisely what I did - was the benefit worth it, I think so.  Is there a slight tinge of regret, sort of but that is only because I just dropped another $500 on a USP Compact.



Do you think I'd be able to OC the 390 to 390X levels? It's just that if I get the 390, that would allow me to get a new SSD. If I get the 390X, that's that.


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## Icarus (Aug 9, 2015)

I've owed both a bunch of 970's and a 390, and I'll stick with my 390 for now by far


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## Aquinus (Aug 9, 2015)

Noirgheos said:


> Do you think I'd be able to OC the 390 to 390X levels? It's just that if I get the 390, that would allow me to get a new SSD. If I get the 390X, that's that.


I doubt you'll get it to the same levels as a 390X however, it's not like the 390X is a huge jump either. I got the 390 because it was a good price point for what it was. I've been playing Skyrim and Elite: Dangerous at full graphics in eyefinity/surround and most of the time it's running at 60FPS. Once I'm done with my current games I can say how Farcry 4 plays since that probably next on my list of games to get. Either that or The Witcher 3. One of these days, there will be enough textures to utilize more of the 8GB of these cards but right now, it's a little overkill. My current games don't tend to see more than 3GB of VRAM, however that might change with a newer game. I haven't been keeping up because my 6870s weren't exactly capable of keeping up with the 1GB of VRAM on them, so I didn't get much new besides Elite Dangerous.

Personally, for about the same price point, I think the 390 offers a lot more than the 970. In all seriousness, the 390 is nice out of the box. I overclock it because I want to but, most of the time it doesn't need it.


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## Nordic (Aug 9, 2015)

Todays gpu's are so overkill for most games at 1080p. I got my 970 for performance/watt so I could run it 24/7 at 100% load. It runs every game so well I don't even care about overclocking.


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## Frag_Maniac (Aug 9, 2015)

KnightHawk said:


> Get a r9 390. You won't regret it. Jayztwocents did a head-to-head comparison on both of them, and he said that the 390 is better in both price and performance.
> Also, AMD gives you all 8gb of the vram at full speed, unlike NVIDIA (ahem, ahem, gtx 970)



Yeah I've seen that, and it changed my perception of the $300-$350 price point, but it also makes me think AMD should have made a cheaper 4GB version. Reason being, in reality 4GB is enough for 1080-1440, and the 8GB is not what's holding it back at 4k, it's lack of raw power. They could have made a killing on cheaper 4GB models, but instead they make you pay for the 8GB so it's near same price as a 970. At the very least they should have made it 6GB, but 8GB is overkill for a card of that power.


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## AsRock (Aug 10, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I doubt you'll get it to the same levels as a 390X however, it's not like the 390X is a huge jump either. I got the 390 because it was a good price point for what it was. I've been playing Skyrim and Elite: Dangerous at full graphics in eyefinity/surround and most of the time it's running at 60FPS. Once I'm done with my current games I can say how Farcry 4 plays since that probably next on my list of games to get. Either that or The Witcher 3. One of these days, there will be enough textures to utilize more of the 8GB of these cards but right now, it's a little overkill. My current games don't tend to see more than 3GB of VRAM, however that might change with a newer game. I haven't been keeping up because my 6870s weren't exactly capable of keeping up with the 1GB of VRAM on them, so I didn't get much new besides Elite Dangerous.
> 
> Personally, for about the same price point, I think the 390 offers a lot more than the 970. In all seriousness, the 390 is nice out of the box. I overclock it because I want to but, most of the time it doesn't need it.




Well my 290X under clocked to 715\1250 runs 3200x1800 around 40fps so you should not have a issue with that.


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