GeForce GTX 970 VS Radeon R9 290x 8gb

[Medition]

Hey all,

Holidays are over, theres still money in the pocket and its time for a new Desktop. My current desktop is about 5 years old and im planning to move it elsewhere and building a new pc for myself at home. I havnt really made a whole build together, but i have been looking around a bit and ive been trying to decide what GPU i want. I hear a lot of good things about the GTX970, yet someone i know got himself a Radeon R9 290x (8GB). I wonder if its worth getting the Radeon card as it is more expansive compared to the GTX970, and benchmark sites dont show too much difference between them.

My gaming desktop has 2 screens which in keeping (both 1080p) and i was wondering if the 8gb would be nice to have, if having things open on both screens (I often have WoW open when doing stuff/playing other games). I mainly use the PC for playing games and i wont be rendering / streaming. Could anyone here give me some advice on this? Thanks in advantage

(My total budget would be around 1250 ish, I wont need a new PC case)

[Jtbrig7390]

Hey all,

Holidays are over, theres still money in the pocket and its time for a new Desktop. My current desktop is about 5 years old and im planning to move it elsewhere and building a new pc for myself at home. I havnt really made a whole build together, but i have been looking around a bit and ive been trying to decide what GPU i want. I hear a lot of good things about the GTX970, yet someone i know got himself a Radeon R9 290x (8GB). I wonder if its worth getting the Radeon card as it is more expansive compared to the GTX970, and benchmark sites dont show too much difference between them.

My gaming desktop has 2 screens which in keeping (both 1080p) and i was wondering if the 8gb would be nice to have, if having things open on both screens (I often have WoW open when doing stuff/playing other games). I mainly use the PC for playing games and i wont be rendering / streaming. Could anyone here give me some advice on this? Thanks in advantage

(My total budget would be around 1250 ish, I wont need a new PC case)

The GTX970 rates higher in both performance and price per $ it seems.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gp...9+290X&id=2697

[Stormspark]

No, the 970 beats the 290x in peformance (not by a whole lot, but it does beat it) while using 40% less power. The 980 absolutely destroys it.

AMD does not have anything that can even begin to compete with the 970/980 or the 750/750ti. I'm hoping that they get their act together and that the R9-390x turns out to be both better performing and use less power. If they don't, they're done in the high end video card area at least for the next couple of years.

Right now, the only segment AMD can compete in with video cards is midrange. R9-270 and 280. Those are both reasonably priced and better performing than their Nvidia counterparts, while not using a ton more power.

The Rx 300 series is supposedly on the way. Time will tell if it can compete with Maxwell though. Right now AMD cannot compete with Maxwell at all. They have to get performance AND power consumption in line in order to correct this.

[Medition]

Thanks for the quick responses. Is there an eta on the Rx 300 series? (Weeks or months). It might be best to wait to build a system then.

[Arkura]

Be logical about it. You play any other games then wow? If you dont take the cheapest card. I just bought a 970 and im very happy with my result. Besides for wow it does t take so much of your GPU compared to your CPU. Also I could stream in 1080p on a gtx 760 so your gonna be golden with a 970 for years.
And 8 gb of memory on a gpu is an absolute overkill unless you plan on playing like 400 games at once, lets face it you wont be doing that :P

Put most of your money in your cpu, buy a good cooler for it and you will have a kickass gaming rig with a 970 card. If by any chance you would feel the need for an upgrade later down the road. Just buy another one and run them in sli

[Medition]

Im quite intrested to play Farcry 4 and the new Assassins creed. But i doubt i would simultaneously run that with wow on the background My current pc lasted for about 4-5 years (Hence time for an upgrade) Looking at the benchmarks some posts back im feeling more for the GTX 970 atm. The 980 would be a bit out of my price range for a build.

SLI would be a good option to consider aswell. The GTX970 doesnt seem too heavy on power usage. If getting a decent PSU at the start, adding another card in a few years could be a good option.

[Stormspark]

Im quite intrested to play Farcry 4 and the new Assassins creed. But i doubt i would simultaneously run that with wow on the background My current pc lasted for about 4-5 years (Hence time for an upgrade) Looking at the benchmarks some posts back im feeling more for the GTX 970 atm. The 980 would be a bit out of my price range for a build.

SLI would be a good option to consider aswell. The GTX970 doesnt seem too heavy on power usage. If getting a decent PSU at the start, adding another card in a few years could be a good option.

All Maxwell cards are VERY light on power usage compared to everything previous. Even the 980 tops out at 165 watts. In comparison, the 780ti (which pulls a little bit ahead of the 980 at 1080p, but loses at 1440p and higher) uses 250 watts, and the R9-290x (which is slower than the 980 and 780ti across the board) uses 300.

Nvidia has done some AMAZING work with efficiency in Maxwell. And they haven't even put out the Titan-class Maxwell cards yet. The 980 is its generation's equivalent to the Kepler 680. And yet it comes very close to the 780ti in performance. The Titan 2, or 980ti, or whatever they call it will be a good 20-30% faster than the 980 when it comes out.