MSI GTX 970 vs MSI R9 390X

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Yeah I would say if you're getting it that much cheaper then the 970 is the way to go. They're all good cards, but if you're getting a 970 for that much less you're making a good choice.
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Onus

Onus

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Jan 27, 2006
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I'd take the GTX970, hands down. Its performance/watt is much higher. It will run cooler and quieter, needing a lot less power. Unless you have a 4K monitor, I don't think the slightly stronger performance of the 390X is at all worthwhile; I know I would not buy one.
 
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VedranMik

VedranMik

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Who cares about such a small differance between power consumption, you won't exactly save a lot of money on power if you buy Nvidia.
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2015/06/17155133395l.jpg
Temps on MSI model are nothing too high.
Performance wise, it's at the 980's heels in some games, I'd go for the 390x right now, I was thinking of 970, but I might go with 390x myself.

See if Nvidia will do anything about 970 prices, but I'm very sceptical about that, they most likely won't drop it not even a little bit.

 
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Onus

Onus

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A temperature graph says nothing about power use, nor anything about how much heat is being emitted into your case, only the temperature of the GPU chip itself.
The power draw chart from the same article shows an almost 180W difference; that's a LOT of heat going somewhere (and fan noise to cool it).
 
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VedranMik

VedranMik

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Onus does have a point here, it's up to you to either get a stronger, power hungry card over a bit weaker card with less 4/4.5GB less VRAM(Which can help in some games, at QHD and UHD)

My advice is to either get a 970 now or wait for Fury/Fury X/Nano, Nano shouldn't be any more expensive than 390x and should have the same performance at a much lower power consumption and size.

 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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thats the first 390x review i have seen take it the disclosure has lifted

3 slots though the gtx970 only needs 2

but 8gb of memory

havent seen any in stock prices yet in the uk

looks like a little improvement over a 290x but with 8gb of memory

not enough to make people immediately say get a 390x not a gtx970 or gtx980

guess i need to read a few more reviews though
 
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LetsPlayThisBro

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I think a lot of this depends on your budget, I mean personally the best value in GPU right now is the 980TI but most gamers aren't ready to throw down 650-ish on a GPU.

AMD really missed an opportunity to increase their market share. People who just bought a 960-970-980 card aren't going to dump them in favor of the 390x, and even if the Fury card does motivate some of those 900-class card owners to sell that will only flood the used card market with Nvidia product, so someone with a 200 dollar card budget might be able to pick up a used 970 and save a few bucks vs the 390x or Fury.

AMD is in the unenviable position of always playing catchup to Nvidia, Nvidia comes out with a 900-class card, then a year later AMD comes out with their 900-class card. Always after people have invested in the Nvidia model do the discounted AMD equivalents come out and seemingly always with a power/heat tradeoff.

EDIT: ok now that I'm done with that rant, if those are my only choices, the 970 would be my choice, but if you can hold out and save up a few more dollars a 980 would be best if only because since the 980TI came out the price on the 980 has gone down a bit making it a little bit of a stretch beyond the 970 budget but not unreasonably so.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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found a uk retailer with pre order at £380

so can get a gtx980 for £380 also

so comes down to 8gb of memory against all a gtx980 has to offer

i only just got a gtx970 and as already pointed out the 390x just isnt going to make me change that card

so guess we need some fury and fury x reviews

but guess price wise those are going to be in 980ti or titan bracket
 
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HCSn

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I'm not sure where you live, but the GTX 970 is not the same price as the 390X in the US. There's about a $100 difference there. It's about the same price as the R9 390. Personally I would go with the R9 390 if you have a 600w+ power supply. Its numbers look pretty good so far and you won't need more than 8GB of vram for a long, long time.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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from what little i have found nano is more likely to throttle

probably due to its tiny size

maybe watercooled nano is next for AMD ?

 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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nice find thank you

and showing in stock as well

and if i take the msi cards as a comparison that £348 390x puts it £32 under the msi gtx980

that makes it a little more interesting


 
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HCSn

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The 970 is significantly cheaper than the 390X in that link. That said, the 390X looks like a very good card, and if that's what you want and you have the cash, I don't think you will be disappointed.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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i am not comparing the 390x to a 970 though

to me the gtx980 is the comparable card not the 970

 
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LetsPlayThisBro

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I've seen benchmarks that say the 390x performs a few frames slower than the 980 in some games, and slightly better than the 980 in other games. And when I say slightly I mean about 3-5fps difference in 4k.

Think of what this is saying though about the card efficiency, an 8gb 390x is just barely matching or just barely beating a 4gb 980 and at the cost of additional heat/power to do so. Yes, there is an economics question here which is where the whole thing becomes subjective.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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i already got the 970 so not changing it now

but think card against card and price

its the 390 against the gtx970

and the 390x against the gtx980

so in my opinion you were comparing 2 cards that werent a straight price/performance battle

 
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HCSn

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The very title of this thread is "GTX 970 vs R9 390X", so we are in fact comparing them.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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whilst i realise that

you dont compare an apple to an orange

 
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HCSn

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My thoughts exactly...

OP says there's not much of a price difference, but 90 pounds is pretty big. The 390 is the same price, and looks to slightly outperform the 970. But if the OP wants a 390X and has the dough to pay for it and the power supply to support it, it's still a good choice although I would go for the 390.
 
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LetsPlayThisBro

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It depends on the main considerations are though, is it your vitamin C content in your diet? In this case, are these two cards against each other purely on a dollars to performance metric or is power draw and heat dissipation a consideration?

He specifically asked which is the better buy, so I presume dollars is the main thing but are we talking total allowed budget or best value? I already gave my answer, I'd go for the 970 even if it were a few bucks more expensive. But I play a lot of games that are geared to Nvidia cards, Tomb Raider is a game geared to AMD cards.

So really we'd have to know which games we're talking about here as well.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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yep to me thats also a big price difference

thats why i said a fair price/performance comparison is 390 vs 970

if they want to spend the extra they should be looking at a gtx980 against a 390x

 
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