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which card

  • msi gtx 970 gaming

    Votes: 2 12.5%
  • gigabyte g1 gtx 970

    Votes: 2 12.5%
  • gtx 980

    Votes: 8 50.0%
  • msi r9 390 gaming

    Votes: 4 25.0%
  • msi r9 390x gaming

    Votes: 4 25.0%

gtx 970/980 or r9 390/390x

895 views 14 replies 5 participants last post by  Klocek001 
#1 ·
so i want a new video card but im stuck. im getting a 1440p monitor or an ultra wide 29" and im stuck between one of these cards
On one hard i want to water cool my gpu and the other i want future proof my system until hbm2 comes out. i wish the 390's were getting full cover blocks that would make my decision easy.
So what do i do get a 390/x and just air cool until new gpus or get a 970 or 980 and water cool it then upgrade which will adds $110 dollars
i plan on giving whatever card i get to my girlfriend when the new cards come out
 
#2 ·
I'd get whichever is the cheaper. You could use 290x blocks on the 390 as last I checked it was the same PCB layout. Also, I'd feel waterblocking a card that you intend to replace regardless when new tech comes out would be a waste of money.
 
#4 ·
Have you tried to see if used 290 / x are available. They should come a lot cheaper and should be a good placeholder card.
 
#5 ·
The performance winner here is 980, no questions about that. It's also the most expensive one. Just pick the one that offers the best performance in the game that you play. Why spend another $110 on watercooling the 980 if you can get the 980ti, 980 will never outperform an aftermarket 980ti (not talking about that reference one).
That's true about 290s, it'll make a neat placeholder. But at 1440p it's gonna struggle in the latest titles. 980 will give you pretty much solid 60fps at 1440p, but you're gonna have to sacrifice some ultra settings for high.
 
#6 ·
If you are going to buy a 16/14nm FINFET GPU with HBM2 in late 2016 then the smarter option is to get a R9 390 and overclock it. clock for clock R9 390 is 3-5% slower than R9 390X. You save around USD 170 by going for R9 390 instead of GTX 980. You can use that saved money towards a GP104 with HBM2. R9 390 is generally faster than GTX 970 at 1440p and whats more it has 8 GB VRAM compared to GTX 970's 3.5 GB VRAM. That keeps you safe till HBM2 based FINFET GPUs arrive.
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#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by raghu78 View Post

If you are going to buy a 16/14nm FINFET GPU with HBM2 in late 2016 then the smarter option is to get a R9 390 and overclock it.
why? We're probably still ~12 months from the launch of Pascal/R9 4xx. I'd suggest getting the fastest out of all these 4 cards to get as good gaming performance for that long period of time. 980 is the fastest @stock + Maxwell overclocks better than Fiji. IDK why people think AMD cards are more futureproof, probably brainwashed by AMD's DX12 draw calls graphs.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klocek001 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by raghu78 View Post

If you are going to buy a 16/14nm FINFET GPU with HBM2 in late 2016 then the smarter option is to get a R9 390 and overclock it.
why? We're probably still ~12 months from the launch of Pascal/R9 4xx. I'd suggest getting the fastest out of all these 4 cards to get as good gaming performance for that long period of time. 980 is the fastest @stock + Maxwell overclocks better than Fiji. IDK why people think AMD cards are more futureproof, probably brainwashed by AMD's DX12 draw calls graphs.
Can you explain how it overclocks better ??
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by huzzug View Post

Can you explain how it overclocks better ??
It gets bigger % MHz bump on average. I've owned three r9 290 trix cards, spare me any threads and reviews. Two of them needed more than +60mV for stable 1100MHz (+75mV was the worst one). That's 15% OC from 950MHz reference 290 clock. My 980 G1 was running 14% OC out of the box (1391MHz) compared to reference 980, plus you're bound to hit at least ~1450MHz on stock vcore, an average can do 1500 or more. With +87mV (max for maxwell cards) people hit around 1550-1600. That's 25-30% OC on an already faster card than 390X. Unless 390X's can hit 1200MHz on stock vcore there's really no comparison.
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klocek001 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by huzzug View Post

Can you explain how it overclocks better ??
It gets bigger % MHz bump on average. I've owned three r9 290 trix cards, spare me any threads and reviews. Two of them needed more than +60mV for stable 1100MHz (+75mV was the worst one). That's 15% OC from 950MHz reference 290 clock. My 980 G1 was running 14% faster out of the box (1391MHz) compared to reference 980, plus you're bound to hit at least ~1450MHz on stock vcore, an average can do 1500 or more. With +87mV (max for maxwell cards) people hit around 1550-1600. That's 25-30% OC on an already faster card than 390X. Unless 390X's can hit 1200MHz on stock vcore there's really no comparison.
But what about performance ? Did performance scale with frequency ? As far as I'm aware, 390 / 290 / x all scale well with frequency.
 
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