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Gaming graphics card for £200~

Mayh3M said:
Some strange advice being given here. You are gaming at 1080p so that's the resolution to consider:

1. 3.5/4GB are both more than enough for 90% of games for this year and possibly the next.
2. AMD cards scale better at higher resolutions but at 1080p, the 970 is comparable with, if not better than, the R9 290X. See here: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1355?vs=1056
3. Nvidia have superior drivers and support to AMD, whether that's worth a premium is entirely on you.
4. The 970 is better than the 290 at 1080p in almost every game.
5. The reduction in noise/power/heat output is not insignificant.
6. The 970 will have FULL support for DX12.
Click to expand...

1. It's a relevant issue, maybe not very important but it's there.
2. It's been mentioned that the 970 is a bit faster (5-10%). Does that justify a 30-40% price increase and going over the budget?
3. So you say.
4. See 2.
5. Noise? The latest coolers are silent. As for power and heat, they've been mentioned several times.
6. Which means absolutely nothing at this point in time.
 
Zethor said:
1. It's a relevant issue, maybe not very important but it's there.
2. It's been mentioned that the 970 is a bit faster (5-10%). Does that justify a 30-40% price increase and going over the budget?
3. So you say.
4. See 2.
5. Noise? The latest coolers are silent. As for power and heat, they've been mentioned several times.
6. Which means absolutely nothing at this point in time.
Click to expand...

It was said that the 290 is on par with the 970. That can't be true if even the 290X doesn't perform better than the 970 at 1080p.

Price is not solely based on performance numbers. If that was the case AMD would have the 70%+ market share in discrete GPUs, not the other way around. Its about the overall package, of which drivers, power requirements, noise and heat output are a part of. If you can't acknowledge that on the whole Nvidia's drivers are better than AMD's, both in terms of quality and regularity, then I won't argue with you. I don't care to debate this since, all things considered, its pretty self-explanatory.

OP I suggest you look at more benchmarks/reviews and decide whether the 970 price increase is worth it for you.
 
is £70 worth 4 or 5 fps? between a 290 and a gtx970

imo no. I have a powercolor pcs+ 290 and it runs everything i have at maxed out settings.

Gpu idle at 29 degrees
Gpu load 70 maximum (shadow of mordor for a few hours)

depends on the game though as some games the gpu temp under load only goes as high as 60.

I have a superflower 550w psu and everythings fine. I also heard, but i realise this could just be supersition and lies :D , that the image vibrancy, colour and such is better on an AMD card but that could just be hearsay! hehe
 
Surfer said:
is £70 worth 4 or 5 fps? between a 290 and a gtx970

imo no. I have a powercolor pcs+ 290 and it runs everything i have at maxed out settings.

Gpu idle at 29 degrees
Gpu load 70 maximum (shadow of mordor for a few hours)

depends on the game though as some games the gpu temp under load only goes as high as 60.

I have a superflower 550w psu and everythings fine. I also heard, but i realise this could just be supersition and lies :D , that the image vibrancy, colour and such is better on an AMD card but that could just be hearsay! hehe
Click to expand...

In fairness the 290s can be found for some seriously compelling prices. But some games will see up to a 10 FPS difference. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1355?vs=1068
 
Surfer said:
edit nevermind you ninja-ed in the link :p

isnt that comparing to a reference 290 what about a non-reference card comparison ie one of the top end 290s
Click to expand...

Haha. :p True looks like a reference but keep in mind the 970s overclock like a boss. I know first hand how good the 970s are at 1080p and only upgraded to a 980 because I'm getting a higher res monitor real soon. I'm sure the R9 290 is great at 1080p though, and with the +0.5GB and much lower price it is the better buy if you're really price conscious. Although OP did say he would be prepared to pay for the 970.
 
In game you'll see little difference between the 290 and 970 so the main thing is the features and drivers you prefer. In my opinion an equivalent make of card will run hotter on the 290 buts that's just because they factually release more heat that needs to be dissipated. It's up to the op if he thinks the 970 is worth the extra but they're both awesome GPUs.
 
RanxZy said:
In game you'll see little difference between the 290 and 970 so the main thing is the features and drivers you prefer. In my opinion an equivalent make of card will run hotter on the 290 buts that's just because they factually release more heat that needs to be dissipated. It's up to the op if he thinks the 970 is worth the extra but they're both awesome GPUs.
Click to expand...
While I do agree in principle, this is the way I see the situation...

I use to recommend the 970 over the 290 EVERYTIME since its launch, but ever since the memory and potential stuttering issue came to light, I find myself in a difficult position to recommend the 970 (especially since they are 40-50% more expensive at £275-£340, when they use to be £240-£300), purely because although the general impression is that the 970 would only get stuttering issue when vram usage exceeding 3.5GB, I recall seeing some users mentioned getting stutterings despite not hit that vram usage as well.

It has been suggested that the stuttering issue may not be caused entirely by vram usage exceed 3.5GB, but could be down to the weird memory accessing interface of the 970, and the luck of whether the 970 GPU was cut down from a proper working chip or a chip that doesn't make the grade for the 980 (hint could be the reason why we have the issue of one 970 user arguing against another with one saying his 970 is working perfectly fine while the other is saying he's having problem). Though there's no clear conclusion of what really causes the stuttering. And then there's the many reports of the coil whine issues as well.

It's fine for people to pay the extra if they feel that Nvidia is more reliable or better quality, but unfortunately, I just can't see the 970 being one of Nvidia's reliable and better quality products...
 
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As a previous 970 owner I can say from experience that it's a great card at 1080p. I'm not saying all but some people did jump on the bandwagon and try and push unrealistic settings on a single 970 and be surprised they saw it suffer. I admit that with SLI and more demanding resolutions things can change and would offer alternatives, but in this case you find little genuine people complaining about performance from a 970 with relatively high but not insane settings at 1080p.

As I say the 290 is an awesome card too so the op can't really go wrong IMO.
 
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Fair enough, if the op goes for a 290 it'll still be a smashing card for the needs and even better vfm.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, the 290 has won the battle.

Looking on the website though there isn't just the one 290 card... so I am not sure which one I should be choosing?
 
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