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can of worm's: 390 or 970?

You need to consider that AMD are slower in the driver department and they tend to increase a cards performance through drivers gradually. We are now at a point where from the benches I've seen on newer drivers the 390 tends to outperform the 970.
The majority are silent (zero spin) until load and then if you go with a good model like the Sapphire Nitro it stays quiet and temps are fine as long as you have adequate airflow.
Another negative for the 970 is the amount of complaints regarding coil whine.

This is on old 15.5 drivers, I suppose it's not included in the newer tests because the performance here is not as good as it is now, you can surmise from how neck and neck the 390 and 970 are in this older review and how the 980 and 390x compare in the older review compared to how they are in the newer driver review that if they had a 390 available for newer testing it would have pulled further ahead from the 970 at 1440 and matched/passed it at 1080. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/R9_390_PCS_Plus/30.html
 
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fs123 said:
If you have had no problems with the Catalyst drivers then it's a bit unfair to trash AMD drivers just because the Crimson launch didn't go smoothly. The majority of games ran better for me with only the Witcher 3 taking a performance hit in crossfire in Crimson 15.11. This was subsequently fixed in 15.11.1.
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I have had problems with both, Catalyst was causing me stability issues a couple of times with the need to use driver uninstall software to get rid of the issues. One of the problems with amd drivers is the lack of them. If nvidia break somthing within a day or so another driver fixes it. With amd it can be weeks. Again this is just my experience. The catalyst certainly at the moment are more stable for me and a friend with a 290. Dont get me wrong neither are perfect i have cursed nvidia at times for breaking somthing with a bad driver but they are very quick at fixing it. Amd not so much. Still as i said very good card that performs well just needs better driver support imo.
 
Driver problems manifest regardless red/green, only ever noticed one team shutting down their forum for ~4/5 months because they couldn't fix a major problem.:p

On topic, 1440p no brainer you go with the one that's vram heavy, it's never going to run out of vram where as the 4Gb one is running out@1080p at times never mind 1440p.
 
EdwardTeach said:
I have a 2560x1440 monitor, but I probably do at least half my gaming with the PC connected to a 1080 TV so performance at both resolutions is relevant.

I am attracted by the fact that some of the 970 won't even activate their fans until the get past a heat threshold, conversely I am concerned about the hear/ noise of the 390.

I am thinking this may be a stop gap, as I may well sell and upgrade when the next generation nvidia cards are released. So if there is any difference in depreciation then that would be a factor as well.
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390 all the way.

Remember if your going to be using a 144HZ monitor now, or in the future, Maxwell (970, 980, 980ti etc) all have to burn far more power than what it says in the reviews, making the difference between the two rather small, efficiency wise.

Also you get double the VRAM, and much better DX12 hardware support with async etc, no contest really. Oh, and it's cheaper!
 
both will do the job as well as each other but if it were me buying then i would go with the 390, never going use all that ram so better too much than not enough i say
 
Yeah, to cover all bases I'd probably suggest the 390 as well. Games like Shadow of Mordor can use a lot of vram, iirc. Mods can be another video memory tax.
 
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Dave2150 said:
Remember if your going to be using a 144HZ monitor now, or in the future, Maxwell (970, 980, 980ti etc) all have to burn far more power than what it says in the reviews, making the difference between the two rather small, efficiency wise.
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erm, no they don't... I have a wattmeter on mine and if I'm running a single 980ti at 144hz it uses about the same as reviews even with quite a hefty OC

reviewers do their tests with Vsync off, so what monitor they use for testing is irrelevant
 
The question no one seems to have asked..
G-Sync or FreeSync? That pretty much answers the 390/970 question.
If the answer is neither, then 390.
 
Dave2150 said:
390 all the way.

Remember if your going to be using a 144HZ monitor now, or in the future, Maxwell (970, 980, 980ti etc) all have to burn far more power than what it says in the reviews, making the difference between the two rather small, efficiency wise.

Also you get double the VRAM, and much better DX12 hardware support with async etc, no contest really. Oh, and it's cheaper!
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Its only a small issue on the desktop to have 144hz set, if you drop to 120hz power use and idle clocks drop to 135mhz. Once in a game 144hz kicks in automatically.
 
Thats a good shout if you intend on using a G-sync etc monitor. Choose wisely now. Personally i have jumped on the G-sync wagon with the Dell S2716DG and it simply is the biggest upgrade i have made in along time. From what i read there are a few nasty implementations of Freesync but not any G-sync but i guess that just the way nvidia tie manufacturers down.

I have my monitor drop to 60Hz when on desktop mode and my 980 idles at 135mhz core 324mhz ram.

I personally cannot recommend G-sync enough, I have not experience of freesync so cannot comment but im guessing a good Freesync is as good as g-sync however im sure some one in the know can comment on that. But its a serious consideration as G-syncc was a BIG upgrade in terms of the way games look and feel.
 
People also need to consider the cost difference between a Freesync and a G-Sync monitor too,so it needs to factor into the TOTAL budget,since you could probably go for a higher tier AMD card for a similar budget,which complicates things,even if the G-Sync tech might be considered "better",but then I have not kept up to date with the latest FreeSync and G-sync monitor releases.

Regarding power consumption,mate is running a Powercolor R9 390 with an overclocked FX6350 off a Antec TruePower new 550W.

At least how I see it,I would go for a GTX970 if using a small form factor PC,but an R9 390 if I was going for a normal sized rig.
 
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pds said:
Another consideration is power consumption, AMD cards use a lot more juice.
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The only reason this could become an issue is a poor / low power psu. However i have found that the 390 is not as bad as people make out. its certainly warmer than a 970 but in terms of power consumption i run mine on a 650 watt psu with no issues.
 
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