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***The DigitalFoundry Face Off Thread***

I knew they was something up. Least its now known and thanks for DF for showing us this. Standard Benchmarks sites would have made this look very one sided.
 
Man, the 970 handing in sub-20fps performance when actually asked to run 'Hyper' settings in the re-test. :eek:

That card is aging like a bottle of milk left out in the sun.
 
Aretak said:
Man, the 970 handing in sub-20fps performance when actually asked to run 'Hyper' settings in the re-test. :eek:

That card is aging like a bottle of milk left out in the sun.
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It is doing slightly better than the 390 at ultra settings - not just a couple more FPS but also runs smoother if it had the same memory setup as the 390 performance at hyper would be similar.
 
Rroff said:
It is doing slightly better than the 390 at ultra settings - not just a couple more FPS but also runs smoother if it had the same memory setup as the 390 performance at hyper would be similar.
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But it doesn't have the same memory setup. :confused:

It doesn't matter why the 970 is struggling, just that it is. You can't solder a few more RAM chips on there to fix after all. The card looks like a relic at this point and is only going to get worse as newer games continue to come out with large VRAM requirements.

Which is why it's so bizarre to me that lots of people were recommending it over the 390 on here up until about a month ago, when the advice switched to waiting for the 1070/380. Anybody who bought one over the 390 expecting it to be fine for 1080p for years to come on the advice of "experts" on the internet must feel like a real sucker.
 
^^ I'd be more supportive of your negativity towards the 970 if the 390 did well with hyper settings rather than as it does limping along due to having 8GB versus crashing and burning like the 970 while back at the settings which produce more useful performance for both cards and realistically what most people will be running with those cards the 970 still slightly edges it.
 
Rroff said:
^^ I'd be more supportive of your negativity towards the 970 if the 390 did well with hyper settings rather than as it does limping along due to having 8GB versus crashing and burning like the 970 while back at the settings which produce more useful performance for both cards and realistically what most people will be running with those cards the 970 still slightly edges it.
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Ah, so the argument is now that the 970 is the better card if you just adjust the settings until you find some where it outperforms the 390. I see we've at least moved beyond it being the better buy in any situation. :rolleyes:
 
Aretak said:
Ah, so the argument is now that the 970 is the better card if you just adjust the settings until you find some where it outperforms the 390. I see we've at least moved beyond it being the better buy in any situation. :rolleyes:
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I'm not saying that at all - objectively both cards hit about the same max settings where they give useful performance - they just degrade at faster rates beyond that point - it isn't like the 390 is running particularly well at hyper settings there is significant noticeable stutter and more time spent closer to 30fps than 60fps - realistically most people will be turning it down to ultra for the 54fps minimum versus 34fps on hyper - the game is really designed for running at 60+fps.

It doesn't really matter if you are limping along well or limping along badly once you are limping.
 
Rroff said:
I'm not saying that at all - objectively both cards hit about the same max settings where they give useful performance - they just degrade at faster rates beyond that point - it isn't like the 390 is running particularly well at hyper settings there is significant noticeable stutter and more time spent closer to 30fps than 60fps - realistically most people will be turning it down to ultra for the 54fps minimum versus 34fps on hyper - the game is really designed for running at 60+fps.

It doesn't really matter if you are limping along well or limping along badly once you are limping.
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The R9 390 hands in a 49fps average on 'Hyper'. That's "limping along" is it? Seems like perfectly playable performance to me. :confused:

I don't disagree that I personally would rather have a locked 60fps and turn settings down, but others do. Some people prefer to crank everything up and lock at 30fps for example. Some don't mind a variable framerate. The point is that it's nice to have the option of picking your poison, rather than your card crashing down to unplayable performance and making the choice for you.

I don't particularly hate the 970. It was a good card for its time. But it's been obvious for quite a while now that the 390 is the better buy, and it makes me angry that "experts" on here (and elsewhere) have continued to recommend the 970 through sheer brand fanboyism.
 
Aretak said:
The R9 390 hands in a 49fps average on 'Hyper'. That's "limping along" is it? Seems like perfectly playable performance to me. :confused:
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From the video it doesn't look particularly playable sure the average framerate is borderline playable but seems to be a fair bit of stutter, etc. in areas. Sure I concede that some people might accept that but for most people it wouldn't be ideal and doesn't really perform well enough to justify the level of negativity "aging like a bottle of milk left out in the sun" towards the 970 in comparison.

I have a 970 as well as the 780 and it still does perfectly fine in most games even at 1440p with the settings at ultra - sure I wouldn't recommend one to anyone these days but it certainly isn't doing that badly really - although the 780 actually outperforms it even OC'd v OC'd in the games I actively put any time into playing any more.

Aretak said:
I don't particularly hate the 970. It was a good card for its time. But it's been obvious for quite a while now that the 390 is the better buy, and it makes me angry that "experts" on here (and elsewhere) have continued to recommend the 970 through sheer brand fanboyism.
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As I said once you turn the settings down to those which realistically give the level of performance most people would be looking for - both cards are still performing fairly similarly your anger seems a bit misplaced to me over the odd situation where 8GB might be mildly useful (even then it is a bit back and forth with the cards both having games they are stronger or weaker at than the other).

EDIT: It is funny the level of stick the 970 gets - although I don't disagree and think nVidia got off way too lightly over the memory fiasco - I acquired this card because the previous owner wanted rid of it on point of principle over the 3.5GB thing and the retailer wouldn't accept a refund on it (and actually swapped to a 390).
 
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Are people forgetting mGPU setups? maybe a single 390 doesnt have the grunt for the hyper settings as a stand alone card but those 8gigs of vram are sure gonna help in a mgpu setup as long as crossfire is actually working in that game. I dont think the 970 will show the same gain in sli due to vram limitations.
 
Phixsator said:
Are people forgetting mGPU setups? maybe a single 390 doesnt have the grunt for the hyper settings as a stand alone card but those 8gigs of vram are sure gonna help in a mgpu setup as long as crossfire is actually working in that game. I dont think the 970 will show the same gain in sli due to vram limitations.
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Fair point, that is one thing I do like about the 390 8GB - way too many times in the past I've had cards that the core performance would still be good enough in mGPU but the VRAM amount lets it down like the 470 SLI setup I had (there were some one off Fermi cards with more VRAM but they were expensive and rare).

That said mGPU support of late has been dropping off a cliff - it doesn't look like Mirrors Edge Catalyst is going to get it.
 
Kudos to Digital Foundry for re-testing this.

While it is a fair point that neither card can run the Hyper pre-set at ideal performance, most games have some granularity in terms of the graphics options available. Yes, the R9 390 cannot maintain a target 60fps with the full Hyper pre-set, but that doesn't mean a mixture of Hyper and Ultra settings can't be used to achieve that.

There are a number of games where I cannot get satisfactory performance at the highest pre-set, but I have yet to find any games where I cannot set the highest texture quality available while lowering some other options.

Conversely the GTX970 may be able to run some Hyper settings that don't demand so much video memory. Who knows, there may be some settings which favour Maxwell over the GCN architecture, and the card will be able to run them fast enough. We have options!
 
I really wish benchmarkers would include more strategy games in their tests. I so often look at the results and think "man, I'd barely play 2-3 out of the games they tested, how's that going to help me decide?" Then again, I guess we're a dying breed anyway (RIP RTS's 2016).
 
Deus Ex Mankind Divided: GTX 1060 vs RX 480 Gameplay Frame-Rate Test
It's a win for AMD card users here, with a clear frame-rate lead for set routes across Deus Ex's city hubs. Cut-scenes and benchmarks also show the RX 480 (8GB) pull ahead of the GTX 1060 (6GB model) - though the two show broadly level performance during shootouts.

 
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