How is it (e.x issues/bugs/bsods/user friendly) ? I'm thinking buying sapphire r9 290 vapor-x is one of the best and cheapest options in my country right now 340€ compared to 970 GTX which is +400€.
All I know is on my AMD machine (965BE, 7850) if I install their AMD gaming evolved I end up blue screening like crazy. The actual drivers themselves seem OK though. On my NVidia machine (3570k, 670) I haven't noticed any issues though.
Both AMD and Nvidia's Windows drivers are great and stable. Only way you'd ever see any issues is because of incorrectly BIOS options or a bad overclock. The Catalyst Control Center itself has a very simple user interface and is pretty useful. Hope you enjoy your new card