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GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 390

phil-k

phil-k

phil-k

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Joined
1 Jul 2011
Posts
1,756
I am looking for a replacement graphics card for my GTX 580 and have been looking at the GTX 970 4096GB or AMD Radeon R9 390 8192GB, there seem to be quite a few variations of each but I am looking at about paying £250-£275.

I will be using it at 1080 resolution and would like the graphics to be as high a quality as possible, so which of these two models would be best and does the extra memory on the AMD make much difference, also are there any particular variations which are best or to stay away from.

My system at the moment is i5-2500K / Asus P8Z68-V / 8GB Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey

Thanks
 
390 is the better card. It has a slight edge performance wise, more, better VRAM and will highly likely be the much better card for DX12.

At 1080p either card should allow you to max the balls out of any game, but I would go with the 390.

You get far more for your money with the 390. IMO it's AMD's best product.
 
I replaced a GTX 580 with a GTX 970 and it was a big upgrade, but unless you particularly want to stick with Nvidia I agree with the others who have recommended the 390.
 
Thanks for all the advice, I like the look of the Radeon R9 Nitro 390 8192MB GDDR5, should I be ok with my Asus P8Z68-V m/b and would I have to update the bios, has anyone had any problems with one of these cards or similar with this m/b
 
Don't make the mistake of looking purely at the numbers, you need to remember that AMD divers have a track history of not utilizing the hardware due to driver support.

So take a look at actual benchmark and gaming performance results instead of just figures which will blatantly lead to choosing AMD even if they aren't the better choice.
 
390 all the way its not really even debatable the hardware is more optimized for future use of dx12 has the same or greater performance of the 970 and much more vram when cod is using more than 3.5 gigs i dont know how anyone can go for the 970 over the 390 unless its for a gsync monitor or something like that.
 
I have owned a 970 i now have a 980 and thr Mrs has a R9 390, i would 100% recommend the 390. It definately has more pole than the 970 its @1080 as good as my 980 tbh give or take a frame or two. The amd drivers are a total pain in the arse compared to nvidia. I own both cards so completely unbiast but nvidia piddle all over amd when it comes to drivers even with the crimson update. But once you get past the faf of drivers the 390 has more go than a 970 and with the 970 having performance issues with the 3.5gb saga when going over 1080 i genuinely belive the 8gb 390 will be better down the line. Ok it wont use 8gb but at 1080p in The new cod my 980 used 3.91gb vram but my mrs 390 uses 5.60 gb of vram. Ok the game is not optimised but what game is so the extra will come in handy even if its only 5/6gb.

390 all the way as long as you understand you may need to uninstall reinstall drivers now and then.

970 if you just want to fit and forget. I loved my 970 and love my 980 even more you cant go wrong with either.

Oh forgot to add the 390 kicks out quite a lot more heat than the 970.
 
Some games that can use more than 4GB even a 1080P are GTA5, Assassin Creed Syndicate , Shadow of Mordor and Black Ops 3. The VRAM goes up if you use VSR/DSR and higher levels of AA.
Chances are more games will use the extra VRAM of the 390 in the future so it's a no brainer going for that over a 3.5+0.5 GB 970.

As for drivers I haven't had any major problems apart from crossfire not working properly when some new games come out. Single gpu mode has always been fine.
 
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I have had issues with the drivers, there is a thread i started kicking around here some where. But its not bad enough i would never have a amd card and gopefully crimson will become better with time too. However Nvidia destroys amd for drivers and ease of use of software. But im still seriously impressed with our 390 (first amd card for 6-7 years) i agree that games do use more vram than 4gb @1080p but my 980 in the same gaming using 3.9gb still gets more fps than our 390 using over 5gb at the same res and settings. So im not sure at this moment it time if having 4gb is going to cause a performance drop vs 8gb but having more can only future proof yourself a little bit more. Plus it gives you the option to xfire later if that your thing. Personally i dont go xfire or sli i like to just have one decent card.

Any way 390 is still my vote over the 970 but both are great cars +-1-2%
 
To be honest you can ignore all the stuff about one being better than the other for directX 12 as by the time games arrive to really utilise it, both cards will be old tech.
On the memory front, at 1080p neither card will have any issues, they will run out of grunt before memory becomes a problem in 99% of titles. Drivers for each side are generally fine, again for 99% of users. Tech wise the 390 is slightly older being two generations old compared to the 970 being only one generation.

Having said all of that, I would still go with the 390 as it is slightly faster in general, although not massively so.
 
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bru said:
To be honest you can ignore all the stuff about one being better than the other for directX 12 as by the time games arrive to really utilise it, both cards will be old tech.
On the memory front, at 100 neither card will have any issues, they will run out of grunt before memory becomes a problem in 99% of titles. Drivers for each side are generally fine, again for 99% of users. Tech wise the 390 is slightly older being two generations old compared to the 970 being only one generation.

Having said all of that, I would still go with the 390 as it is slightly faster in general, although not massively so.
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