390 or 970

rc3ilynt

Limp Gawd
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Sep 3, 2014
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So my brother's birthday is coming up and he's been gaming on his laptop for awhile so I decided since he just started college a couple of months ago and has a massive steam collection, its time to build him a real PC so I can't cringe at the thought of him playing the witcher 3 on his 2 year old ASUS ROG laptop. I put together a decent system using spare parts I have but the video card, a 7970 seems to artifact pretty hard. It's already out of warranty so there isn't anything I can do about that.

That said, I'm looking at either a nvidia based 970 or the ati based 390. I don't believe the system will be cpu bottlenecked as it will be using a 3770k which is still decent by todays standards. I've had experience with the 970 before I sold it for a fairly well priced Titan Black(not much of an upgrade) and had no complaints. The thing is, the 390 seems to be in a similar price range and comes with 8GB of video ram. I've never owned a 390 but reading up on it, it seems to be on par with a 970. Anyone who has used one, will the 8GB make a difference in the long run?
 
you forgot a very important thing, resolution, in my opinion its kinda easy: 1080P/1200P? GTX 970. 1440/1600P R9 390...
 
For the same price I'd take the R9 390 all day at every resolution. I think that AMD has won that price range when it comes to performance. You can't tell those cards apart from each other until higher resolutions. Then the AMD takes over and runs away with it's 8GB of VRAM.

Now back to the 7970. Is it overheating? Could be something as simple as applying new thermal paste to the core.
 
you forgot a very important thing, resolution, in my opinion its kinda easy: 1080P/1200P? GTX 970. 1440/1600P R9 390...

Oh I forgot about that. It's going to be 1440p at 110hz(its a Korean oc monitor).
 
For the same price I'd take the R9 390 all day at every resolution. I think that AMD has won that price range when it comes to performance. You can't tell those cards apart from each other until higher resolutions. Then the AMD takes over and runs away with it's 8GB of VRAM.

Now back to the 7970. Is it overheating? Could be something as simple as applying new thermal paste to the core.

It's not the thermal paste. It's most likely from years of overvolting when it had a waterblock on it. The link doesn't seem to work for me.
 
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It's not the thermal paste. It's most likely from years of overvolting when it had a waterblock on it. The link doesn't seem to work for me.

Should be to the GTA 5 test results from the PowerColor card review on the front page. Link works for me though.
 
I just picked up an asus strix 390 for $329.00 ($309.00 after mail in rebate). I'm very happy with it. 1080 with VSR works great.
 
Should be to the GTA 5 test results from the PowerColor card review on the front page. Link works for me though.
It works now that I am on PC. It didn't work on my phone for some reason.

I just picked up an asus strix 390 for $329.00 ($309.00 after mail in rebate). I'm very happy with it. 1080 with VSR works great.
I was looking at the MSI model but at that price I should look at the ASUS and others.

Remember that you can now downsample and that tips the scale right back to the 390, i would say 970 if you need SFF mainly.
Seems like a majority here think the 390 is the way to go.
 
Oh I forgot about that. It's going to be 1440p at 110hz(its a Korean oc monitor).

Go with the 390 then. Both are fine at that resolution right now, but I feel confident that a 390 will last longer at that resolution as far a future performance goes. But, if you want to save a few bucks just get a 290. It'll be plenty for quite a while.
 
Go with the 390 then. Both are fine at that resolution right now, but I feel confident that a 390 will last longer at that resolution as far a future performance goes. But, if you want to save a few bucks just get a 290. It'll be plenty for quite a while.

Other than the model with the stock blower fan, I've found nothing to be a great deal. There are many used ones out there at a great price but I'd rather just go to Microcenter down the block and pick something up there. That said, I appreciate all your help guys. Going to pick up one of the 390s. The consensus of the internet is either the Sapphire or the MSI. I don't think I can go wrong with either.
 
I bought I used 295x2 for $450, and a r9 fury x for $560. Something to consider. Get a good one with a warranty and your set
 
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