I'm looking to upgrade my 7950, to something a bit more powerful. The problem is I am torn between two gpus. The 970 and the 390 are both within my price range ($350) but pros and cons seem to be equal on both sides.
Important things to note:
I stream, I mod, I use the same gpu for 3-4 years
My system:
mobo: MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
cpu: i7 4790 @ 4.5ghz
gpu: reference 7950 @ 950mhz
psu: xfx pro 850w
ram: 8 gbs
hd: seagate 2tb mechanical drive
While I am a fan of the 970 as well, since you stated you want to keep the same GPU for a few years i would say grab the MSI R9 390 because of the higher VRAM, this will safe guard you against falling short on VRAM if that ever becomes an issue.
Just my $0.02
390, initial testing in dx12 (390x anyway) shows massive gains for AMD. I'm in the same boat but looking at the 980 or 390x.
This is really interesting! I hadn't looked at/watched it yet. Intriguing implications indeed...
Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to @Swiftness90
Part of me says avoid the 970 on principal alone. The other part of me says get the 390 (or preferably save for a 390x) because of the higher VRAM.
If you research some benchmarks you will see the extra $$ for an X model 390 might not be worth it to you (or it may be depends on your point of view) for the amount of additional FPS you get vs a regular 390 that can over clock decently :)
I hear you there. Though, I kind of feel like it might be worth the extra money to get the 390X if @DarkBazerker is going to be using it for 4 years. Who knows, maybe this new info about DX 12 performance will use the extra hardware on the 390X to its advantage and scale well.
Ok so let's give the improvement with DX 12 a value say 10% for the sake of conversation and simplicity. If we go by that "assumption" because at this point thats all it is an assumption, well then wouldn't it also be safe to assume the performance would basically be the same for the 390, 10% as well?
So you would be in the same position as before DX12 just with higher performance, but same difference between both GPU's.....
390/x
I meant that the extra stream processors and texture units MIGHT cause it to scale disproportionately to current performance on DX 11. Pure speculation (and a bit of hope hahaha)
So (to continue your assumption scale and my speculation) while the 390 would get a 10% boost, the 390X might see a 13% boost. But it's all speculation and it really depends on what OP can afford and wants to do.
Like I said extra FPS has a different value for everyone. Some people would pay $100 more for 5 more FPS, most others wouldn't. There is no right or wrong answer as we are all different :)
In you scenario there would be a 3% difference, not enough in my book for the additional cost. And if you overclock the 390 you cut that down.
I definitely get where you're coming from. My gut response is that you could then overclock the 390X and we start all over, haha. Anyway, I guess I'm more of the mindset to pay extra for a bit more performance, especially when the card is going to be in use for that long.
Yeah if I get the 390 I will be overclocking it as to close the gap between the 390x. The 390x doesn't look to be that much faster in and of its self, so why pay the extra 100$. Now the two gpus I have in mind is the msi 390 and a evga 970 that bost up to 1300 (forget the name). I'm pretty sure I could take the 970 up to 1400 or close, but! Would that overclock make up for the lack of memory the 970 has, when faced with modded skyrim. My skyrim already draws close to 3gbs of memory.
if you're already drawing 3GiB of Memory on Skyrim you'd sort of be shooting yourself in the foot by getting the 970. you can overclock the 970 as much as you want. but once the the 970 goes over the 3.5GIB memory, performance goes down the toilet. realistically speaking you won't ever need the 8GIBs that's on the 390. BUT it's nice to have for longevity. if you decide to go multi-monitors in the future, or even games pulling more than 4GIB (Which is rare but can happen later on) you'll be better off with the 390 than the 970.
Although the 970 is great card. Since your hitting 3gb of vram the 390 would be your best bet for sure,
i'd go for good 290x or 390x.
I agree. The 290X is still a good choice. And you can get it for the same price range as the 390. It'd be even better if you picked one with 8GB of VRAM.
Will you ever, EVER use Linux on that computer?
If 'maybe' - then don't buy AMD.
Since you have an ATX rig, heat from a single 290X/390X shouldn't be an issue for you.
Despite that, please consider (if you're considering overclocking):
Also, a performance index:
http://cdn.sweclockers.com/artikel/diagram/10138?key=02e383f1a21cb2ad01b31058be63b7e6