Upgrading to GTX 970 or R9 390.....With a couple twists

Hardware Hub GPU
1

So basically I was gaming on an Asus G750JW for a while and it was working really well for me. Then I got out of the navy, my girlfriend moved in with me, and I wanted to get something that we could both play on at the same time. So I sold my Asus and bought an Xbox One, and I've been doing my PC gaming on a mid-range ($550) HP laptop that basically only runs Source games at a decent framerate. Well eventually we broke up, and I wanted to get a decent PC again, but I haven't had the money....until now. I finally found a decent build on Craigslist and the guy is willing to trade straight across for my Xbox One.

Yes, I am going to test it before trading and verify all of the parts that the guy claims are in it are there, and that it works well.

Here are the specs:
CPU: Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR3 Corsair                    //I'm not sure about the speed
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R v2.0
PSU: Corsair HX Series CMPSU-650HX
COOLING: Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler
CASE: Cooler Master CM 690 II Advance ATX Mid-Tower Case
HD: WD 640GB
DVD/CD Writer

Basically (as the title says) I'm debating between a GTX 970 or R9 390.

I don't care what people have to say about the drivers. I've had both AMD and Nvidia products and I've had issues with both of their drivers.

So here's issue one. I know everyone is going to think I'm stupid for this. Basically, I have to be able to buy it in store, which where I live that means Best Buy. Why? Because I've had things stolen off my front porch a couple times and I really don't want to risk losing a $350 graphics card in order to save $20.

Issue two. If I buy the R9 390 I also need a new PSU. On the box it recommends using a 750W PSU, but the computer only comes with a 650W. So the R9 is $10 cheaper, but then I have to spend another $80 on a 750W PSU. I've read that the GTX 970 can run with a 650W PSU just fine. I'm not really worried about heat because my ventilation will be fine, but I need more power to push the R9.

So basically here's what I have to choose from (these are links if you wanna look):
XFX Radeon R9 390
or
EVGA GTX 970

And then if I go with the R9, I need a new PSU:
Corsair CX750M

I guess the thing that I'm debating the most is if the R9 is worth the extra money. My main concern is if I get the GTX 970 and then DX12 comes out and all of a sudden the R9 is considerably better, then I'm going to be kinda pissed. I've heard that AMD cards are supposed to be getting significant increases in performance, but I haven't really heard anything too exciting in terms of how Nvidia is going to be affected.

With my current situation the R9 will cost me about $70 more than the 970, but is it worth that?

Also, since the i7 950 is kind of old already, would it even be worth putting that expensive of a graphics card in it? Or should I just go with a GTX 960 and call it good? It would be really nice to only have to spend $200 instead of $350, but I'm not sure if the 960 would handle all my games, and in a Dying Light FPS test I've seen it's already starting to fall behind a tiny bit.

I mostly want it for 1080p Ultra gaming. The most graphically intensive games I have currently are probably Skyrim (some mods, but nothing too crazy) and Battlefield 4.

Another thing is I love Nvidia's Shadowplay. I own FRAPS, but from what I've seen FRAPS is a little more resource heavy than Shadowplay. I'm not too experienced with AMD Gaming Evolved because the last time I tried to use it it just bugged out as soon as I opened it.

Any input is appreciated.

Sorry for the long post. I tried to cut out as much as possible.

2

Well first off you don't need a 750W PSU for that GPU. Your PSU is fine and probably better than the one you were gonna replace it with.

The 390 is a good card the 970 is too. Look also at the R9 290 if you can find one for cheap. Same as the 390 essentially. except for VRAM.

For 1080p the 970 is probably a better bet.

3

950's are beasts, 4ghz+ is a walk in the park for them with the right cooler, of which you have and even at 3ghz it shouldnt hold either gpu back.
Just be sure to go over the board carefully & I wouldnt recommend any Windows before 8.1 or 10 as they can have some nasty DPC latency issues with 7 and below.
That EVGA 970 is the go or even this MSI 970:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-4gb-gddr5-pci-express-3-0-graphics-card-multi/7062248.p?id=1219668742658&ref=199&loc=8BacdVP0GFs&acampID=1&siteID=8BacdVP0GFs-CEHl_kTCO9HiGSa6G2gpvQ
But EVGA does have the benefit of a better warranty, and (in my experience anyway) a swifter RMA procedure if it ever should come to that.

4

Looks like I'll be going with the 970 then. I don't really have any choice other than EVGA because of where I have to get it from, but thank you for the quick replies.

5

A 390 will run fine on that PSU, just go for that. More VRAM, it performs the same (and possibly even better in DX12 games looking at the performance of the 390X vs the 980 atm albeit in the only game currently out that uses DX12) and in your case it's cheaper (you don't need a better PSU, as aforementioned it'll run fine on it).

1 Like
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Thank you for the replies. I ended up going with the 970 because I read somewhere that the 390 was bottlenecking with an i7-975 Extreme ( I don't know how true that is, but that was kind of interesting), so since I only have an i7-950 I thought there's not really any point in going with the stronger card since I'm not going to be able to use it to it's full potential anyways.

By the time I got to the store the sale was over so the 970 was only $10 more than the 390, and I figured I'd rather spend the $10 extra and be able to have Shadowplay, plus it came with Metal Gear Solid V, so really overall the 970 was $50 cheaper if you factor in not having to pay $60 for the game later on.

As for future performance, I know the 390 will be better, but my CPU is the limiting factor here (supposedly), and I don't plan on doing any more upgrades until I have enough money to build a completely new computer, probably in a few years when DDR4 is more mainstream, because I'm going to want to replace my CPU and motherboard before upgrading to a better graphics card anyways.

Once again, thank you very much for the suggestions.