Which GPU ? 390 Or 970

fs123 · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:27

Geeman1979 said:
5 years warranty, not too shabby.

The card will be long dead performance wise in 3 years since it'll be 5 years old

Geeman1979 · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:28

fs123 said:
The card will be long dead performance wise in 3 years since it'll be 5 years old

So will the 390

Mensy · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:29

Il be keeping it for myself unless its poor like the last one was ha

Mensy · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:32

This has made quite a debate hasnt it ha. Lets get onto the different manu. Is power color decent how about zotac ?

TheRealDeal · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:32

Geeman1979 said:
Neither card are future proof. By the time the 970 runs out of puff so will the 390, the Vram won't help jack if you don't have the grunt to push it.

Games only need to push over 4gb which some get close to already. Who knows what's coming with dx12 and improvements. Look at mantle and BF4 with the extra memory needed. 8gb is piece of mind and that memory config on the gtx970 might run into trouble with dx12 where the game devs will be taking more control over the gpu.

TheRealDeal · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:33

Mensy said:
This has made quite a debate hasnt it ha. Lets get onto the different manu. Is power color decent how about zotac ?

The powercolor pcs cooler is great. I can vouch for it as i have it on my 290. No idea about there rma system though.

Geeman1979 · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:37

TheRealDeal said:
Games only need to push over 4gb which some get close to already. Who knows what's coming with dx12 and improvements. Look at mantle and BF4 with the extra memory needed. 8gb is piece of mind and that memory config might run into trouble with dx12 and the game devs taking more responsibility.

When DX12 games are ready available then i'll evaluate, all I see is hearsay and speculation. As for the Vram debate, time will tell.

TheRealDeal · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:41

Geeman1979 said:
When DX12 games are ready available then i'll evaluate, all I see is hearsay and speculation. As for the Vram debate, time will tell.

Yea it is but i think when buying a card you have to look at the potential risk over your investment, especially if keeping the card a decent amount of time. I am probably more guarded these days compared to when i used to change cards more often due to not gaming as much. The 390 seems to me to have no real if's and but's when comparing to the gtx970.

fs123 · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:45

Geeman1979 said:
So will the 390

2x390 with 8gb will probably still be useable though.

Geeman1979 · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:47

TheRealDeal said:
Yea it is but i think when buying a card you have to look at the potential risk over your investment. Especially if keeping the card a decent amount of time. The 390 seems to me to have no real if's and but's when comparing to the gtx970.

No risk about it, when one runs out of steam to push acceptable frames so will the other. No amount of ram can help it.

Geeman1979 · 18 Oct 2015 at 22:58

fs123 said:
2x390 with 8gb will probably still be useable though.

Not something that interests me personally, as you then open a whole new can of worms, Heat/Noise/Power, driver problems etc!

Been there and done that.

~>Dg<~ · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:00

Geeman1979 said:
Neither card are future proof. By the time the 970 runs out of puff so will the 390, the extra Vram won't help jack if you don't have the grunt to push it.

this 10000000000000000000

so many fall for the vram troll. they been doing this with gpus for like 20 years now

mato · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:10

Doesn't GTAV use like 4GB though on max at 1080p?

TheRealDeal · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:16

~>Dg<~ said:
this 10000000000000000000

so many fall for the vram troll. they been doing this with gpus for like 20 years now

Yea and we have 7970 v gtx680. Both had similar grunt ones still a pretty decent card with 3gb vram. We have 290x v 780 and yea vram again with a few games. 7990 v gtx690. There are more where people say it doesn't matter but it clearly does when not switching card every other month.

I mean even on the same brand vram can matter 6950 1gb v 2gb and on the NVidia side only a few years back those with gtx570 2.5gb cards were still OK when the 1.25gb was not. Heck I seen a 2.5gb model go for stupid money in comparison on the bay due to this with people after it for sli.

Mensy · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:20

I dont wanna switch cards for at least a 2-3 years. Couldnt justify the cost if i was switching every year

faceman123 · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:24

TheRealDeal said:
Yea and we have 7970 v gtx680. Both had similar grunt ones still a pretty decent card with 3gb vram. We have 290x v 780 and yea vram again with a few games. 7990 v gtx690. There are more where people say it doesn't matter but it clearly does when not switching card every other month.

I mean even on the same brand vram can matter 6950 1gb v 2gb and on the NVidia side only a few years back those with gtx570 2.5gb cards were still OK when the 1.25gb was not. Heck I seen a 2.5gb model go for stupid money in comparison on the bay due to this and people after it for sli.

I guess you shot my argument down. I agree with the examples given above. Seems VRAM does make a difference

Geeman1979 · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:29

TheRealDeal said:
Yea and we have 7970 v gtx680. Both had similar grunt ones still a pretty decent card with 3gb vram. We have 290x v 780 and yea vram again with a few games. 7990 v gtx690. There are more where people say it doesn't matter but it clearly does when not switching card every other month.

I mean even on the same brand vram can matter 6950 1gb v 2gb and on the NVidia side only a few years back those with gtx570 2.5gb cards were still OK when the 1.25gb was not. Heck I seen a 2.5gb model go for stupid money in comparison on the bay due to this and people after it for sli.

What you chatting about changing cards every other month, who needs to do that and why :rolleyes:

As for all those cards you've quoted, they mean nothing without current figures to back them up for comparisons. If the difference between the cards are single figures then they're neither here nor there. They'll also be game dependant.

TheRealDeal · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:47

Geeman1979 said:
What you chatting about changing cards every other month, who needs to do that and why

As for all those cards you've quoted, they mean nothing without current figures to back them up for comparisons. If the difference between the cards are single figures then they're neither here nor there. They'll also be game dependant.

I was exaggerating about the every other month but even then it's true for some. On my phone now so not hunting for numbers but I thought this was pretty common knowledge.

tommybhoy · 18 Oct 2015 at 23:57

If the gpu wasn't to last for 3 years, I'd say either, both are cracking cards, BUT, history dictates 56/70's, 67/80's and 780/Ti's all got ditched because of vram with games like BF3/Wolfenstein/Watch Dogs/GTAV and it wasn't to do with grunt, they all hit the wall-hard...

The 390 will not run out of vram before the 970, that you can be guaranteed.

As soon as the 970 is replaced, I will be upgrading, I have that much faith in Nvidia making me.

Geeman1979 · 19 Oct 2015 at 00:02

TheRealDeal said:
I was exaggerating about the every other month but even then it's true for some. On my phone now so not hunting for numbers but I thought this was pretty common knowledge.

All those cards you've mentioned won't be far off each other, not enough for where one's playable and the others not, that's the point. Also, wasn't the 780 up against the vanilla 290 and not the X?

Either way the 780's still tearing through games at 1080p to this day, so both the 780's and 290's have weathered well.