970gtx or R9 290

oaksmokedbacon · 21 Nov 2014 at 22:51

Hi all

I apologise to start as I'm no doubt covering old ground here however some much needed guidance is needed. I've already used some of the great build suggestions to build my PC of which my spec is as the bottom - big thanks to TheReaperGuy for the post in another thread as it runs like a dream!

The two graphics cards in the title are the standard i'd like to go for. I've always had faith in Nvidia cards from the past (my old ti500 in the noughties was superb) however reading up the R9 290 is a good alternative not to mention a chunk cheaper thank the GTX 970. I have however heard that AMD cards suffer from "throttling" on an Intel based PC... is this true?? Any guidance from those in the know would go down a treat.

thank you all in advance for helping relieve the suffering of gaming on the Intel 4600HD on-board

Gigabyte Z97X-SLI with Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K
TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit
Crucial MX100 128GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD
SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black
Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black
Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler
Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM

shankly1985 · 21 Nov 2014 at 22:55

Both are very even on performance so, if I was you I would go with what one you think will give you the most from it... For example

Do you play a lot PhysX games? Nvidia
Do you play more Mantle games? AMD

Is Gsync something you want right now? Nvidia
Is FreeSync you want AMD

1 game with Nvidia pick from 3
4 Game come with 290 AMD

altrewin · 21 Nov 2014 at 23:03

R9 290 is best bang for buck, but a 970 will run a fair bit cooler and use less power. I'm personally rather happy with my 290 now, although the RMA process for my original one was a bit of a pain (kept having black screens). Guess it's luck of the draw

old gamer · 22 Nov 2014 at 00:06

ive recently used both and theres nothing in it performance wise, well none you would notice

arc@css · 22 Nov 2014 at 00:11

Pretty much a coin flip.

oaksmokedbacon · 22 Nov 2014 at 01:04

Thanks for the replies all...

Your going to have excuse my naivety here, but what is PhysX and Mantle?

I think its a toss of a coin as said above and do you mind spending the extra bucks type thoughts. thanks for the help.

DmitryD · 22 Nov 2014 at 01:14

NVIDIA all the way - they got upper hand with Maxwell.

Freddie1980 · 22 Nov 2014 at 07:21

oaksmokedbacon said:
Thanks for the replies all...

Your going to have excuse my naivety here, but what is PhysX and Mantle?

I think its a toss of a coin as said above and do you mind spending the extra bucks type thoughts. thanks for the help.

Tbh neither of those from features would swing it for me, if a game I was playing supported physx or mantle then so be it but for me its all about price/performance in which case the 290 has a slight edge especially when you add in the value of the 'free' games all of which are top titles (just avoid the stock blower style cooler, MSI gaming and the XfX are probably the best AMD 290's to get).

Ian Evey · 22 Nov 2014 at 14:28

oaksmokedbacon said:
Thanks for the replies all...

Your going to have excuse my naivety here, but what is PhysX and Mantle?

I think its a toss of a coin as said above and do you mind spending the extra bucks type thoughts. thanks for the help.

There is an official mantle thread in this graphics card section that could explain it better than any of us could in 1 post.

Physx is basically more effects in a game, Like smoke, sparks, Fire etc, Most games have these effects in a small way but physx is supposed to add more realism to the effects at a lower cost to your fps.

Rusty0611 · 22 Nov 2014 at 14:53

970 if I was buying today

Geeman1979 · 22 Nov 2014 at 15:23

The 970 is what I'd go with.

Nexus18 · 22 Nov 2014 at 15:36

290:

best bang per buck

mantle - get better performance and games generally feel quite a bit smoother, although it largely depends on your cpu so for my rig, it is a MASSIVE benefit (BF 4, hardline, PVZ and any upcoming frostbite engine games + Sniper elite 3, PVZ, thief etc. and the upcoming resident evil game will support it with a few other games in the future)

4 free games to choose from and if you want even better bang per buck, you could always sell them for £40+

I think with freesync, you will have a greater choice of monitors

970:

less power consumption and more power efficient so runs cooler and less heat (if you intend on getting 2+ GPU's then 970s will be better)

phsyx (batman games and iirc witcher will be the main ones where it really shows, essentially just finer graphics with some nice tweaks i.e. smoke looks more realistic although it can kill FPS....)

1 free game (should get about £20 if you decide to sell it)

gsync is available now but the monitors are pretty pricey (especially for TN panels....) and only about 2/3 to choose from atm

~>Dg<~ · 22 Nov 2014 at 15:51

new games from dragon age actually perform better on nvidia

if you on a budget 290 check power supply.

970 for everything else. also with better driver will pull ahead even more.

Neil79 · 22 Nov 2014 at 15:54

Nvidia 970 GTX : Adaptive Vsync in Driver Control Panel
AMD : Dynamic Vsync in a third party tool which doesn't always work and fiddly

Nvidia : High overclocks
AMD : Average overclocks depending on manufacture ( MSI etc )

opethdisciple · 22 Nov 2014 at 16:06

100% confirmed Dx12 support for the 970. Faster. More of the AAA titles are influenced by Gameworks which uses Nvidia tech. Personally is a flat out win for the 970, unless your on a budget and want a cheaper card.

shankly1985 · 22 Nov 2014 at 16:08

opethdisciple said:
100% confirmed Dx12 support for the 970. Faster. More of the AAA titles are influenced by Gameworks which uses Nvidia tech. Personally is a flat out win for the 970, unless your on a budget and want a cheaper card.

290 is also 100% dx12 support just as much 970 is.

opethdisciple · 22 Nov 2014 at 16:10

shankly1985 said:
290 is also 100% dx12 support just as much 970 is.

It most likely is. But has this been confirmed by Microsoft or AMD? The 900 series has been confirmed by Microsoft.

shankly1985 · 22 Nov 2014 at 16:13

opethdisciple said:
It most likely is. But has this been confirmed by Microsoft or AMD? The 900 series has been confirmed by Microsoft.

Amd it even lists 290 has full support DX12 on there site.

You have link to Microsoft?

Nexus18 · 22 Nov 2014 at 16:25

DX 12 is a good selling point but meh! Windows 10 isn't out till September 2015 iirc? I don't know about others but I also always give new OS's a few months, maybe even a year due to lack of driver/software support.

Plus just like dx 9, 10, 11 etc. it will take a while for dx 12 games to come out at which point the end user will probably get a new GPU.

Neil79 said:
Nvidia 970 GTX : Adaptive Vsync in Driver Control Panel
AMD : Dynamic Vsync in a third party tool which doesn't always work and fiddly

Regarding vsync stuff, I have found these two methods to be very good:

- limit FPS to 59 (1 below refresh rate) and turn vsync on in game

OR

- use borderless window mode, that way you get windows native vsync + triple buffering

opethdisciple · 22 Nov 2014 at 16:34

shankly1985 said:
Amd it even lists 290 has full support DX12 on there site.

You have link to Microsoft?

a lot of material out there. Cant find the exact article I read it one was a while back now but these are from Nvidia.

1 & 2.

The problem here is the waters ate quite muddy.

There is DX11.3 and DX12 in the works. The big difference, being that DX12 will provide low level access whilst 11.3 will offer the same features with out the low level access.

Here is a Microsoft blog.