r9 390 vs gtx 970 question

[aasim1111]

I am looking at purchasing a new gpu between the two. They both are very similar in benchmarks and price. M y analysis done on both cards tells me the following: R9 390 is 8gb ram for future proofing but its downside is its more power hungry, more heavy and more heat is generated. On the other side the gtx 970 is better in power consumption and less heat but its only 4gb and technically 3.5gb The thing that is annoying me the most is that the gtx 970 comes with a free game. I don't know if its is worth it or not. Give me suggestions and share your experiences on what to do.

 

[Vellinious]

If I were to be buying a GPU today it would be the 8GB 290X. It's right at the same price point as the 390 and 970, but will outperform both of them.

As for the 390 and 970, at stock clocks the 390 will outperform the 970 in every resolution. If you overclock, however, the 970 will pull ahead (most of the time) in 1080 and even some of the time in 1440, because they just have a LOT more overclocking head room than the Hawaii refresh. But even overclocked a LOT, the 970 still won't keep up with a mildly overclocked 290X.

They're all very good cards. But if you're a plug and play kinda guy.....the AMD cards are probably going to be more your thing. The 970s are great cards and perform admirably at stock clocks, but....need a lot of tweaking, bios mods, etc, to perform VERY well.

This from a guy that owns 970s.... = )

G'luck

 

[Aquinus]

Both are good GPUs. The benefit of the 970 is if you need more power it can overclock like a bat out of hell however, as games use more and more VRAM, no amount of overclocking will help you when you run out of video memory.

If you're planning on upgrading in a year or two, the 970 might be a better option. If you're planning on having it for a while or buying a second down the road to do SLI or CFX, you'll be wanting that 390 for the 8GB of VRAM. The 390 also more gracefully handles higher resolutions than the 970 whereas the 970 seems to have an advantage at 1080p and under.

Lastly, the 390 on paper has more TMUs which might indicate that the 390 has a lot of untapped capability when it comes to handling more texturing as more VRAM gets used. A lot of people are saying, "the 390 won't even be playable if you use that much VRAM," but I think there is a unique dynamic with these cards where they seem to suffer on pixel-level operations like AA but seem to excel at texturing and raw compute. So depending on what you're looking for, either could be a good option.

I personally thought the 390 has more to offer and I don't tend to replace GPUs often so for me, the option seemed pretty obvious.

 

[Durvelle27]

I'd go 390 or even 8GB 290X as they can be gotten pretty cheap now a days

 

[Armagg3don]

GTX970 all the way.
OC, less power ungry, more efficient architecture.

The 8GB of rebrand 390 are just marketing because before the card can use that amount of memory, the GPU would drown.

 

[GhostRyder]

I am looking at purchasing a new gpu between the two. They both are very similar in benchmarks and price. M y analysis done on both cards tells me the following: R9 390 is 8gb ram for future proofing but its downside is its more power hungry, more heavy and more heat is generated. On the other side the gtx 970 is better in power consumption and less heat but its only 4gb and technically 3.5gb The thing that is annoying me the most is that the gtx 970 comes with a free game. I don't know if its is worth it or not. Give me suggestions and share your experiences on what to do.

390 is overall the better card on sheer performance but the GTX 970 is a bit more efficient. FWIW I would go the R9 390 hands down as even with the more power consumption they run quite cool with the aftermarket variants and even stay pretty quiet while delivering better results as time goes on.
This is a pretty good representation.

From what he has said and I have seen, the R9 390 at 1175 will outperform the GTX 970 at 1450mhz. After that its luck of the draw whether the R9 390 will hit 1200mhz+ or the GTX 970 will hit 1500mhz+ (Which at that point no matter what way its still very minute amount of difference as overclocking has diminishing results after a certain point). If your not planning to overclock, the R9 390 starts higher in performance overall and ends up at the end being the better card but even with OC it is still the better card overall considering they get to be pretty equal yet one has significantly more useable (Or full speed) VRAM.

 

[Armagg3don]

"A bit more efficient"??

I'll leave this here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-amd-radeon-r9-390-8gb-review

 

[Vellinious]

390 is overall the better card on sheer performance but the GTX 970 is a bit more efficient. FWIW I would go the R9 390 hands down as even with the more power consumption they run quite cool with the aftermarket variants and even stay pretty quiet while delivering better results as time goes on.
This is a pretty good representation.

From what he has said and I have seen, the R9 390 at 1175 will outperform the GTX 970 at 1450mhz. After that its luck of the draw whether the R9 390 will hit 1200mhz+ or the GTX 970 will hit 1500mhz+ (Which at that point no matter what way its still very minute amount of difference as overclocking has diminishing results after a certain point). If your not planning to overclock, the R9 390 starts higher in performance overall and ends up at the end being the better card but even with OC it is still the better card overall considering they get to be pretty equal yet one has significantly more useable (Or full speed) VRAM.

I haven't seen a 970 yet that couldn't hit at least 1500...and with a bios mod, considerably higher than that.

Neither the 390 nor the 970 is just that great in that price bracket, given the fact that you can buy an 8GB 290X that'll out perform them both. /shrug

 

[GhostRyder]

"A bit more efficient"??

I'll leave this here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-amd-radeon-r9-390-8gb-review

First of all, the site you just showed basically puts the 390 performance well above the GTX 970 so the only thing you show is that for some reason their power numbers are not what this site even shows in gaming...

181 vs 253 is a rough 72 watt difference depending on cards/clocks/etc. Either way the point is its not enough that your going to notice it especially since most gamers buy a 500-600watt PSU which even on your site shows its going to work. Plus the fact is one is giving you much more VRAM at the end which adds to its value in longevity especially considering how close together they sit performance wise.

I haven't seen a 970 yet that couldn't hit at least 1500...and with a bios mod, considerably higher than that.

Neither the 390 nor the 970 is just that great in that price bracket, given the fact that you can buy an 8GB 290X that'll out perform them both. /shrug

...I have seen plenty including on this forum so I dunno. GTX 980's do 1500mhz easily but 970's (While over time have gotten more consistent) seem to stagger at around 1400mhz which separate into some that exceed 1500 and some that will hit the 1400 range. Maxwell does not really respond to voltage so its really just luck of the draw if they will hit it as better cards do not realty show much of a difference over reference (Except in the cases of card companies binning the chips out). As for the 8gb R9 290X, well the only one I see for sale on newegg has it at $350 so that's a bit more than a 390 which with the tighter ram timings and speed end up matching pretty close.

 

[The N]

i'd go with 390, due to more Vram, although no game can consume more than 4GB at 1080p, most games usually requires and consume around 3GB and among them very few game jump to 3.5GB. the drawback is no optimization in games. less software support from AMd.

While NVIDIA 970 is great Card for the Money, highly efficient, Greater Ocing, and on the top of that excellent software support, completely optimized for Gaming.

 

[Armagg3don]

Sorry but the 390 can achieve peak consumption much higher than 253w.

I refer not only to the stress caused by synthetic tests, but also for highly demanding games like Crysis 3.
It is in these situations where peak power of 390 (as well as other GCN) is triggered.
Why do you think that manufacturers like MSI, XFX and Sapphire recommend a power supply of at least 750W for this card?

 

[Vellinious]

The 970s, with a custom bios mod, to make them run like they SHOULD have right out of the box, will pull near 300 watts pretty easy.

The Maxwell architecture runs decent at low power...which is what NVIDIA wanted, so they gimped them all pretty hard straight away. I haven't seen a Maxwell card yet, that wouldn't benefit by a GREAT deal, by running a custom bios.

If you're not into bios modding, the 390 is probably the best option. If you don't mind flashing a bios, the 8GB 290X flashed to the settings in the 390X is the best option. And if you're into water cooling and overclocking the hold crap out of your GPU, then the 970 becomes the best option.

End thread /lulz

 

[GhostRyder]

Sorry but the 390 can achieve peak consumption much higher than 253w.

I refer not only to the stress caused by synthetic tests, but also for highly demanding games like Crysis 3.
It is in these situations where peak power of 390 (as well as other GCN) is triggered.
Why do you think that manufacturers like MSI, XFX and Sapphire recommend a power supply of at least 750W for this card?

Ok dude, you need to read what the test implies..................

Ill leave this here:

• Peak: Metro: Last Light at 1920x1080, representing a typical gaming power draw. Highest single reading during the test.

• Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high no-game power-consumption that can typically be reached only with stress-testing applications. We report the highest single reading after a short startup period. Initial bursts during startup are not included, as they are too short to be relevant.

Wizzard tests many games and picked Metro Last light for a reason as the test factor for gaming power load. He also tests Crysis 3 in the suite (Which both games use cards to their limits and are decently optimized games).

Cards many times (And this case is no exception) have limits purposely put in place to stop furmark which is designed to basically stress levels of a card you would not see. Why do you think on maximum the GTX 970's power consumption drops compared to peak? That's because the card has a fail safe that drops the card from hitting excessive levels of usage under furmark and other stress testers while the R9 390 clearly does not have that same limit (Or at least as much, cannot remember which). There are tests showing the GTX 970 hitting the range of 200-250watts under load in cherry picked scenarios (Usually involving programs designed to tax cards) but they are not levels the normal (Or even crazy) user would likely see.

Last manufacturers overkill PSU requirements based on TDP instead of actual numbers (Mostly since they wish to avoid those who use PSU's with poor quality or imbalanced rails from killing their machines). Even the ridiculous levels showed in your early post show below 500watts meaning any normal 500-550watt would handle it. I have friends with two R9 290's running on Gold rated 750watt PSU's...

Also this has gone on long enough, not going to hijack a thread any longer since the point is proven on power consumption and performance difference. If you wish to continue this further make a thread instead...

 

[Flow]

Op, performance will be roughly the same overall between both cards. So which driver type do you prefer? Some hate CCC, others love it.
Same for nvidia drivers. While the 390 certainly can use the 8GB ram, there are no games yet that use it nor is it likely in the near future.
On the other hand, you never know ofcourse. Some games are already screaming for the full 4GB video ram. (not that those games wont run fine with less ram).

Since I'm happy with amd/ati cards for many years already, and overall satisfied with the catalyst drivers, it was an easy choice for me. But same would be true if I owned nvidia cards for many years, then I probably went for the 970.
Having said all that, I'm happy with my msi 390, which performs to my liking. Heat is no issue, runs slightly cooler than my previous 7970Ghz, 6950 unlocked and 4890. Which btw all had custom cooling devices.
Power usage is big though, runs fine on my quality 700w psu, but if yours is weaker it could be a reason to go for the 970 which needs a lower wattage psu. All depending on your overclocking settings ofcourse.

 

[Xzibit]

Op, performance will be roughly the same overall between both cards. So which driver type do you prefer? Some hate CCC, others love it.
Same for nvidia drivers. While the 390 certainly can use the 8GB ram, there are no games yet that use it nor is it likely in the near future.
On the other hand, you never know ofcourse. Some games are already screaming for the full 4GB video ram. (not that those games wont run fine with less ram).

Nvidia driver will be locked into the GeForce Experience package next month. Unless your willing to wait quarterly for non GFE drivers. You'll also have to deal with the issues it can cause with each update as a package not just the driver. You can get a better picture of the issues from viewing the GFE forums.

AMD will be changing CCC to Crimson at the end of the month. Have to wait and see how that turns out.

 

[Pill Monster]

If I were to be buying a GPU today it would be the 8GB 290X. It's right at the same price point as the 390 and 970, but will outperform both of them.

As for the 390 and 970, at stock clocks the 390 will outperform the 970 in every resolution. If you overclock, however, the 970 will pull ahead (most of the time) in 1080 and even some of the time in 1440, because they just have a LOT more overclocking head room than the Hawaii refresh. But even overclocked a LOT, the 970 still won't keep up with a mildly overclocked 290X.

They're all very good cards. But if you're a plug and play kinda guy.....the AMD cards are probably going to be more your thing. The 970s are great cards and perform admirably at stock clocks, but....need a lot of tweaking, bios mods, etc, to perform VERY well.

This from a guy that owns 970s.... = )

G'luck

If we're talking price point, the 290 is better value. A 290 VaporX costss less and outperforms any 290X when overclocked.
The 290X don't have a lot of headroom..... usual story with AMD's flagship cards......

 

[Vellinious]

If we're talking price point, the 290 is better value. A 290 VaporX costss less and outperforms any 290X when overclocked.
The 290X don't have a lot of headroom..... usual story with AMD's flagship cards......

Uh, no...if you overclock a 290X and overclock a 290, the 290 isn't going to outperform a 290X. Sorry.... I haven't been able to find a 290 / 390 yet, that could keep up with my 970s, but the 290Xs are beating my cards...not by a large margin, but beating them.

Granted, I have some exceptional 970s....but saying that a 290 will outperform a 290X is just foolish. lol

 

[Aquinus]

The 8GB of rebrand 390 are just marketing because before the card can use that amount of memory, the GPU would drown.

Prove it. I'm skeptical of that claim as there really aren't any games or benchmarks that push VRAM that far.

Lastly, the 390 on paper has more TMUs which might indicate that the 390 has a lot of untapped capability when it comes to handling more texturing as more VRAM gets used. A lot of people are saying, "the 390 won't even be playable if you use that much VRAM," but I think there is a unique dynamic with these cards where they seem to suffer on pixel-level operations like AA but seem to excel at texturing and raw compute.

For the record, the 970 has 104 TMUs, where the 390 has 160, that's 50% more. The texturing rate of the 390 demolishes the 970 so don't underestimate the 390s ability to use that VRAM if you don't have any proof that it can't. It seems fairly obvious that AMD's high end cards are struggling with only 64 ROPs and honestly need more but, that only has to do with pixel level operations, such as rasterization and MSAA (multi-sample anti-aliasing, and it's no secret that AMD has been weak in the AA department and this is the reason I think.)

 

[aasim1111]

If I were to be buying a GPU today it would be the 8GB 290X. It's right at the same price point as the 390 and 970, but will outperform both of them.

As for the 390 and 970, at stock clocks the 390 will outperform the 970 in every resolution. If you overclock, however, the 970 will pull ahead (most of the time) in 1080 and even some of the time in 1440, because they just have a LOT more overclocking head room than the Hawaii refresh. But even overclocked a LOT, the 970 still won't keep up with a mildly overclocked 290X.

They're all very good cards. But if you're a plug and play kinda guy.....the AMD cards are probably going to be more your thing. The 970s are great cards and perform admirably at stock clocks, but....need a lot of tweaking, bios mods, etc, to perform VERY well.

This from a guy that owns 970s.... = )

G'luck

very good advice. I will look into 290x. I appreciate

 

[Armagg3don]

Ok dude, you need to read what the test implies..................

For that situation it is that I said this:

"I refer not only to the stress caused by synthetic tests, but also for highly demanding games like Crysis 3."

Metro Last Light is far from representing more stress scenario for a graphics card.

You can check the cap that I put up.

 

[Pill Monster]

Uh, no...if you overclock a 290X and overclock a 290, the 290 isn't going to outperform a 290X. Sorry.... I haven't been able to find a 290 / 390 yet, that could keep up with my 970s, but the 290Xs are beating my cards...not by a large margin, but beating them.

Granted, I have some exceptional 970s....but saying that a 290 will outperform a 290X is just foolish. lol

Read my post again, I didn't say "an overclocked 290X"

A 290 VaporX costs less and outperforms any 290X when overclocked.

An overclocked 290 is faster than a stock 290X, and with both overclocked there's about 5-8fps between them. I haven't heard of many people who went and bought a 290X just to overclock it, kinda defeats the purpose of overclocking.

 

[GreiverBlade]

well on the vRAM amount account i would add ... unlike a 970 if you have a very demanding game that can go above 3.5gb .... a 290/390 4 or 8gb will not cripple the performances, but that's a case to case

tho imho that 3.5gb+0.5gb case should have never happened, i like both camp and all cards they do, except the 970 which is a pure shame for me, ofc you can be fine most of the time specially at 1080p but still there is a risk that it could happen.

and on the account of the need more watts :it means nothing on you yearly electricity bill! (the "with AMD you need a nuclear reactor in your backyard and be a billionaire to pay the cost added by those HUGE amount of power they need to achieve the same as nvidia" is a cliché )

PS: AMD cards perform a tad better under DX12 but it's not a real argument for the moment.

before my 980 i had a 290 that OC'ed like a champ with a mere 650w PSU and a 4.5ghz 4690K (1150/1500 stable tho i kept it at 1100/1450)

 

[Vellinious]

Read my post again, I didn't say "an overclocked 290X"

A 290 VaporX costs less and outperforms any 290X when overclocked.

An overclocked 290 is faster than a stock 290X, and with both overclocked there's about 5-8fps between them. I haven't heard of many people who went and bought a 290X just to overclock it, kinda defeats the purpose of overclocking.

Why wouldn't you overclock a GPU? If you're going to overclock a lesser GPU to get the performance of the GPU at the next level up, why wouldn't you do the same thing for the one that's already ON that next level up?

Woah....logic

 

[GhostRyder]

For that situation it is that I said this:

"I refer not only to the stress caused by synthetic tests, but also for highly demanding games like Crysis 3."

Metro Last Light is far from representing more stress scenario for a graphics card.

You can check the cap that I put up.

Yet you picked the synthetic only test to counter my argument for this site...Second Crysis 3 is not going to cause significant wattage differences anyways as both games are very demanding so saying Crysis 3 is going to use significantly more is false (Including saying Furmark shows something that it does not, there is a reason Nvidia and AMD put a limiter on allowing Furmark to test its cards...).

and on the account of the need more watts :it means nothing on you yearly electricity bill! (the "with AMD you need a nuclear reactor in your backyard and be a billionaire to pay the cost added by those HUGE amount of power they need to achieve the same as nvidia" is a cliché )

PS: AMD cards perform a tad better under DX12 but it's not a real argument for the moment.

What's this???? Logic???? Preposterous!

Nvidia driver will be locked into the GeForce Experience package next month. Unless your willing to wait quarterly for non GFE drivers. You'll also have to deal with the issues it can cause with each update as a package not just the driver. You can get a better picture of the issues from viewing the GFE forums.

AMD will be changing CCC to Crimson at the end of the month. Have to wait and see how that turns out.

True, that is a good point but to be fair most updates are generally SLI profiles or bug fixes (Unless something happens due to a quick fix that needs addressing) so I am split on how bad that will be once it happens. Interested in Crimson though and how its going to run differently overall.

 

[Pill Monster]

Why wouldn't you overclock a GPU? If you're going to overclock a lesser GPU to get the performance of the GPU at the next level up, why wouldn't you do the same thing for the one that's already ON that next level up?

Woah....logic

We seem to be having a major communication breakdown for some reason and I'm pretty sure it's not on my end.




Performance comparison typical with both overclocked. Do you still contend the 290X is a great buy over a 290 when it has 5FPS advantage?