780ti or 970?

[Guille_arg]

I have this configuration
*Intel I7 4790k 4.0Ghz
*Asus ROG Maximus Impact z97 mITX
*Gskill Trident X 16gb DRR3 2400Mhz
*SSD Samsung EVO 250gb
*Sshd Seagate 2tb
*EVGA Hadron Air / EVGA 500w Gold

Will runs better with a 780ti or a 970? They cost almost the same price. But I can't decide which are the best choice!

 

[mrluckypants96]

They were about equal originally, but NVidia killed the performance of the Kepler cards when the Maxwell cards launched. The best option at that price would be an R9 390 like this one: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card (100382NTOC-2L) - PCPartPicker

It's faster than either NV card, has more RAM for VRAM heavy and/or future games, and you don't have to worry about it being gimped after Pascal/Polaris launches.

 

[waderunner]

With that 500w PSU, I'd definitely go with a 970.

 

[Daniel_Chang]

With that 500w PSU, I'd definitely go with a 970.

This is a misconception. Any of those cards will run fine on a quality 500W PSU. The average person grossly overestimates their system's power draw. If he had the R9 390, he could MAYBE push 400W under full load.

 

[mrluckypants96]

This is a misconception. Any of those cards will run fine on a quality 500W PSU. The average person grossly overestimates their system's power draw. If he had the R9 390, he could MAYBE push 400W under full load.

A misconception perpetuated by overly cautious internet power draw calculators.

 

[Adidas4275]

so a cheap 500w is a no go.... but a good one... with out a 3930k OCed or something

 

[Daniel_Chang]

so a cheap 500w is a no go.... but a good one... with out a 3930k OCed or something

Basically, the reason why Nvidia and AMD recommend high wattage PSUs is due to the way that different vendors treat the 12V rail, which is used to power both the CPU and GPU in modern systems. Here's two examples:

EVGA G2-550
Rated at 550W @ 50°C. However, can output up to 549.6W over the 12V rail. This means that it has the flexibility to handle a powerful CPU/GPU.

And then there's this piece of garbage:
LOGISYS Computer PS550E12 550W ATX12V Power Supply - Newegg.com
This thing is advertised as being able to handle 300W over the 12V rails (though I doubt it could handle that).

Both of those PSUs are rated as 550W, but the way that they handle the 12V rail is completely different. Assuming that both do exactly as advertised, the Logisys can handle an i7 + GTX 970 with minimal overclocking. The EVGA could handle the 970, 780ti, and R9 390 with a fair amount of overclocking.

That's what I mean about a quality power supply. The reason companies recommend more wattage than you need is because so many people cheap out on a PSU and get garbage like that Logisys.

 

[PontiacGTX]

if it is using a quality 500w psu the best choice is a r9 390...

 

[Dayaks]

if it is using a quality 500w psu the best choice is a r9 390...

Honestly it's 20 watts... That's pretty much negligible (shouldn't be a factor.)

I'd go with whichever card is cheaper and has the more applicable bundle. Probably be the 390.

 

[PontiacGTX]

Honestly it's 20 watts... That's pretty much negligible (shouldn't be a factor.)

I'd go with whichever card is cheaper and has the more applicable bundle. Probably be the 390.

that highly dependent on the game but in average some games use less power than other like DX12 games use more hardware in parrallel(Asynchronous compute)