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290 or 970?

Scramz said:
I have moved from a 290 Tri-x to a MSI 970 and I am glad I made the switch.

Don't get me wrong, the 290 TriX is a fantastic card, very cool and silent in comparison to other R9's.

Personal I have found that the 970 is much much cooler, and I found it was quieter than the already quiet Trix.

Plus I love the DSR feature, the quality of image is very noticeable on a 1080p monitor.

As for performance, I was lucky enough to win the silicon lottery with my 970 as I am stable gaming at 1620/8050 with no added volts. Max temps are peaking at 63c with gaming with 4k DSR and the fans are not peaking 50% and are still dead silent.

For me the move cost me £50, and for the less heat and DSR a lone it was worth it. Then again I am one of them guys who would rather spend around £50 each gen release the have the newer tech than wait 2/3 years and folk out £300-/+.
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This man says it all.

Another ex 290 owner here and switched to the 970. It's slient, cool and overclocks extremely well. Gaming with memory at 8200 and core hitting 1600 it performs well to boot. Faster than my 290

Nvidia software is a delight to use, everything just works.

That said if your going to run vsync at 60fps then both cards would be fine.
 
MOOGLEYS said:
I have a 970, 980 and 290 and tbh in game at 1440p 60Hz I cannot tell them apart.

Shadow of Mordor actually runs better on the AMD cards even though it is an NVIDIA sponsored game.
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Interesting. From what I have read so far it seems to be the case that spending more on a 970 would be a waste of money (assuming the 290 drops to £200).
 
Lol power draw shocker, oc'ed 290X is a disgrace@477W, oc'ed 780ti is much better@493W.:D

EYAXiqo.png

Maxwel moved the goalposts, everything else before it not so much but it's been an AMD negative for the past 3 years or so.

lovelyhead said:
Interesting. From what I have read so far it seems to be the case that spending more on a 970 would be a waste of money (assuming the 290 drops to £200).
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SC reward code=~£55@auction=£165 290 NEW(after fees)
 
lovelyhead said:
Assuming the r290 gets a price drop to £200 in the next week or two what would you rather go with and why?
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If i was in to benchmarking i'd grab a 970, if i was just gaming i'd grab a 290 as it's cheaper for similar performance.

Unless you want features from either side (G-Sync,Physx,Trueaduio,Mantle etc) then there really isn't much point in spending more than you need to.

It's nice that you get a few decent games too with the 290's, and the 970 is a good choice if you want to dual card at a later date as you won't require as big a PSU to handle it.

Whats your current system spec btw? Oh and whats your monitor and you plan on upgrading to something that uses G-Sync or 3d?
 
4737Joker said:
If i was in to benchmarking i'd grab a 970, if i was just gaming i'd grab a 290 as it's cheaper for similar performance.

Unless you want features from either side (G-Sync,Physx,Trueaduio,Mantle etc) then there really isn't much point in spending more than you need to.

It's nice that you get a few decent games too with the 290's, and the 970 is a good choice if you want to dual card at a later date as you won't require as big a PSU to handle it.

Whats your current system spec btw? Oh and whats your monitor and you plan on upgrading to something that uses G-Sync or 3d?
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If you're into benchmarking you'd get a 970, for gaming youd get a 290? I think you got things mixed up mate.
 
Bare in mind also that the current crop of drivers for the 970 aren't very optimized so performance could increase further too.
 
I have owned maby cards from the virge s3 to 3dfx to powervr to nvidia and ati. Yes I'm an nvidia fan boy but only because ati made me this way. I would never buy an ati card again unless something drastic happened.

Try and find a deal on a 970 and be happy imo.
 
The Running Man said:
I have owned maby cards from the virge s3 to 3dfx to powervr to nvidia and ati. Yes I'm an nvidia fan boy but only because ati made me this way. I would never buy an ati card again unless something drastic happened.

Try and find a deal on a 970 and be happy imo.
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OP wasnt made a nvidia fan by Ati like you claim to be.

Maybe he would appreciate objective facts and unbiased advice?
 
At £200 ish, the 290 would be the best choice, no contest. Why pay 30% more for (possibly) 5% extra performance? Although I'd be surprised if the 290 receives such a significant price drop.
 
Rangerjr1 said:
If you're into benchmarking you'd get a 970, for gaming youd get a 290? I think you got things mixed up mate.
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I'd grab a 970 for benchmarking because they are new and it's nice to benchmark new hardware.

People have been benchmarking 290's for nearly a year now and pretty much know what they can do.

And of course if i was only gaming i'd suggest a 290 over a 970 as there isn't enough of a performance gap for it to matter, you get free games and it's cheaper.
 
ICEx21 said:
If you have a I7 is Mantle even an issue? Also how many games actually implement Trueaudio?
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Mantle makes the biggest difference on lower end cpu's, however it can still make a nice difference on high ends cpus too. It makes a big difference on any cpu when you use more than one gpu.

TrueAudio is currently available in two games, Thief and Lichdom. More info about TrueAudio and Lichdom can be found here.
 
Zethor said:
At £200 ish, the 290 would be the best choice, no contest. Why pay 30% more for (possibly) 5% extra performance? Although I'd be surprised if the 290 receives such a significant price drop.
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Gibbo seems to be suggesting that he thinks there is a good chance of him being able to get AMD down to £200.
 
AMDMatt said:
Mantle makes the biggest difference on lower end cpu's, however it can still make a nice difference on high ends cpus too. It makes a big difference on any cpu when you use more than one gpu.

TrueAudio is currently available in two games, Thief and Lichdom. More info about TrueAudio and Lichdom can be found here.
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Ah thank you sir!
 
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