390 vs 970 1440p recommendation

N

nightanole

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 16, 2003
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So i have a 770gtx and about $200 burning a hole in my pocket. I have one of those qnix 2560 x 1440 monitors. Games are mostly diablo 3, x-com enemy, and unreal engine titles. Future titles will be at least xcom2 this winter.

Logic says unreal and blizzard like nvidia, however that 390 with 8 gig of ram and frame pacing looks mighty good too.
 
If I were you, I would buy a used 970 on the forums. You can try here, guru, anand, overclock.net etc etc. but that is just me.

You can even buy a b-stock evga 970 for 250 bucks direct from evga with warranty or go ebay. Can't go wrong.

However, I openly say that I am biased towards NVidia so I don't quite have experience with a 390 myself. 8 gigs at 1440p is not something that I would consider useful either.
 
KickAssCop said:
If I were you, I would buy a used 970 on the forums. You can try here, guru, anand, overclock.net etc etc. but that is just me.

You can even buy a b-stock evga 970 for 250 bucks direct from evga with warranty or go ebay. Can't go wrong.

However, I openly say that I am biased towards NVidia so I don't quite have experience with a 390 myself. 8 gigs at 1440p is not something that I would consider useful either.
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The issue is that 3.5GB of vram might not be enough at that resolution. GTA V uses 3.5GB for me at 1080p.
 
I play GTA5 on a 6GB 980ti @ 1440p , and with my settings cranked (not totally cranked), I use up ~5GB of VRAM. I think Anti Aliasing is what pushes it to 5GB.
 
I'm running out of processing power on my 970 before hitting the vram wall at 1440p. That might not be the case when I get SLI working (grr at having to swap/sell one of my cards, EVGA FAIL) but so far I haven't had any problems running the appropriate settings for a 970 at 1440p with vram.
 
KGBinUSA said:
The issue is that 3.5GB of vram might not be enough at that resolution. GTA V uses 3.5GB for me at 1080p.
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GTAV Seems to be an example of a game that was well ported and uses a lot of memory. If that keeps happening in the near future 3.5 really could be a stretch.

Historically I'm gpu unbiased, but in 2015 I prefer the card with better open source driver support because it's right.
 
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The 8GB on the 390 is a joke for single card, you don't have the power to even need anywhere near that much ram.

You'll get by at 1440p with either but don't expect to touch AA much if you do.
 
Sodapopjones said:
The 8GB on the 390 is a joke for single card, you don't have the power to even need anywhere near that much ram.

You'll get by at 1440p with either but don't expect to touch AA much if you do.
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Yes but the 3.5gb option can still be too little. I rather have too much than not enough. Heck, I'd get a 290 or 290x and pocket $80.
 
Rvenger said:
Yes but the 3.5gb option can still be too little. I rather have too much than not enough. Heck, I'd get a 290 or 290x and pocket $80.
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As much as I would agree with this, especially playing GTA V, having had a GTX 770->gtx 970 -> gtx 980 and playing at 1080 and testing some 1440, get the 970 (for now) over the 390. the pro's outweigh the cons in this situation. however! Rvenger is 100% spot on getting a 290 or 290x and pocket your extra change.
 
DracoNB said:
w/o AA they are the same FPS:
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We already know AMD does poorly with AA/AF enabled. I'm assuming he wants to buy a card where you can get improved graphics along with performance. Not just a space heater.
 
PRIME1 said:
We already know AMD does poorly with AA/AF enabled. I'm assuming he wants to buy a card where you can get improved graphics along with performance. Not just a space heater.
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Wow you really fail, the first picture I showed had AA enabled and the 390 was faster. 2nd was with it disabled and the 970 was able to match the 390.

Can you figure out which one does poorly with AA enabled now?
 
Honestly, as somebody previously stated I would just get the 290x or 290 with a good aftermarket cooler.
 
GTA V with 3.5GB VRAM is pushing it with 1440p. You won't be able to max all the settings as it wants more than 3.5GB but the card won't be able to give you 60FPS with everything maxed out anyway. It really is on the border line. If you ever plan to up your resolution or go SLI/Xfire then skip the 970 and get the 390.

I would go as far to say as skip the 970 based on the principle alone of the crap they pulled with the VRAM. It's a great card and good for 1080p.
 
If you are going to consider SLI or Xfire of any sort, you may as well go for 980ti in that case.

SLI 970's have similar performance to a 980ti, costs about the same, which makes 980ti a much better choice due to the bigger VRAM and you can use MFAA with 980ti, which ups the performance a bit more if you use MSAA, which SLI 970 currently do not have.

If you can only afford up to a 390 though, I'd agree, 290x is a better buy since 390 is incapable of using that much VRAM unless you crossfire them.
 
I been using a MSI 770GTX 4Gb card for 4 or 5 months and it's been fast at what I play which is World or Tanks at max settings in 1080p.. but I decided to pick up the Sapphire Tri X 290x New Edition because of the sale newegg had and the first thing I noticed was how much better the game looked and details I been missing out on, performance is not just about speed if the IQ just is not there,, now I don't know the different in IQ between the 770GTX and 970GTX but it's a lot between it and the 290x as AMD looks much better in World of Tanks..

also the card runs at 65c Prime
 
fanboy said:
I been using a MSI 770GTX 4Gb card for 4 or 5 months and it's been fast at what I play which is World or Tanks at max settings in 1080p.. but I decided to pick up the Sapphire Tri X 290x New Edition because of the sale newegg had and the first thing I noticed was how much better the game looked and details I been missing out on, performance is not just about speed if the IQ just is not there,, now I don't know the different in IQ between the 770GTX and 970GTX but it's a lot between it and the 290x as AMD looks much better in World of Tanks..

also the card runs at 65c Prime
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Placebo much? :rolleyes:

Did you change settings?
 
Might want to consider a 290X as they are very close to the same specs as the 390 stuff but reduced price now that the 390 stuff is out.
 
Where are all these magic 290X deals? All i find is ex miners on ebay for $250+, or well over $300 new. With a 390 at a price point of $330 full retail im not seeing a deal.
 
The only OC vs OC comparison of 970 vs 390 I can find:

https://youtu.be/k9cKZiJw6Pk?t=8m22s

1442MHz on the 970, and 1200MHz on the 390. YMMV of course. But overall, the 390 is faster.

A 290X deal is certainly the best bang for the buck though. But the sweet XFX 290X deal has expired, so you'd have to wait for another one or go used.

970 has value if you think the higher power usage of the 390 is too much (warmer room, higher energy bill). But for performance, forget about it. Not even considering that historically AMD products age better than Nvidia, a card with 224-bit 3.5GB + 32-bit 512MB is not going to out last a 512-bit 8GB card. The 390 will not be able to use all 8GB you say? So what. A game only needs to use more than 3.5GB to begin to hinder the 970 and more than 4GB to cripple it.

Games are only going to use more memory at 1440 as time goes on. The 970 only makes sense if you're a a short-term gambler who plans to go AMD 400 series or Pascal ASAP and you are willing to bet that you won't hit a bottleneck when those come out in ?? months. Roll that dice.
 
390 is a rebadge of the 290 and 390x is a rebadge of the 390x. Save some money and get a 290/x (depending on how much power/cost you want to incur). If you think you'll really be missing the VRAM, go for the 8gb 290x. You can even grab a second 8gb 290x. If you really want the 390x moniker, people have had success flashing the 290/x bios to 390/x over on overclock.
 
nightanole said:
Where are all these magic 290X deals? All i find is ex miners on ebay for $250+, or well over $300 new. With a 390 at a price point of $330 full retail im not seeing a deal.
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They pop up perodically between the 290x and 290 on newegg between Friday-Sunday before 12am PST, then they switch off on Monday-Thursday, currently the best ones are the 290 deals being in the $240 range after rebate. There was a Tri-X 290X deal for $259 a couple of weeks ago....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131668&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-131-668-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150701&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-150-701-_-Product

Here's one for $229 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131569&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-131-569-_-Product
 
PRIME1 said:
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-2977-RX

GTX 970 for $249

Keeps up just fine with a 390x, but with less heat/noise/power consumption/etc.

/thread
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You say /thread, but you linked a RX card. Refurb/b-stock cards only have 1 year warranty. Why not spend a little more for the full 3 year warranty that most other cards have because brand new? Or buy a used card that will include transferable 3 year warranty.
 
Kaisei said:
You say /thread, but you linked a RX card. Refurb/b-stock cards only have 1 year warranty. Why not spend a little more for the full 3 year warranty that most other cards have because brand new? Or buy a used card that will include transferable 3 year warranty.
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Because he appears to just be a paid nvidia poster, all of his posts are pro nvidia and he lies / takes things out of context all the time in order to make AMD look bad and Nvidia look good. He'll ignore any counter arguments or when you call him out on it and continue to post his Pro Nvidia agenda everywhere.
 
Kaisei said:
You say /thread, but you linked a RX card. Refurb/b-stock cards only have 1 year warranty. Why not spend a little more for the full 3 year warranty that most other cards have because brand new? Or buy a used card that will include transferable 3 year warranty.
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Several people were suggesting used cards with no warranty.
 
PRIME1 said:
Several people were suggesting used cards with no warranty.
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MSI 290x or 970, whichever OP prefers. Cool, powerful, relatively quiet, transferable warranty with no receipt necessary. Warranty should still have around 2 years left given the manufacturing date.
 
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DSF767 said:
Might want to consider a 290X as they are very close to the same specs as the 390 stuff but reduced price now that the 390 stuff is out.
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The 290x has more shaders.. if your going to buy a 290x new then do your homework as afew have more under the hood to offer you.. I bought the Sapphire Tri X 290X New Edition because it is latest design just like the 390/390x as I have seen some owners of this card getting 1200mhz oc and matching MSi 290X Lighting cards over at overclockers.

Now my computer sets beside me like 2 foot away with an open side panel and I have yet to feel the heat that Prime is talking about because of that massive 10mm Tri X cooler keeps it a 65c.
 
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