MSI 970 GTX vs MSI Radeon R9 390

[jigger]

Been pondering the same question 390 or 970? amd card (from powercolor) draws 282W according to guru3d vs 150W nvidia's card.
I'm doing miniITX build and this power demand is almost too much. (altough I probably would get away with 600w, but is it worth it for 8GB vram?
I will buy 4k monitor next year, but those cards are not powerful enough for 4k gaming right? Real quandary...

I would check those numbers. Nvidia say the reference card has an "TDP" of 150 watts but Nvidia lie. In the real world a GTX970 can pull 200 watts, although I'm not sure why anyone would care about power use at this end of the market. Unless you are looking at kilowatts of difference or trying use passive cooling its really not going to worth thinking about.

[alexw]

I would check those numbers. Nvidia say the reference card has an "TDP" of 150 watts but Nvidia lie. In the real world a GTX970 can pull 200 watts, although I'm not sure why anyone would care about power use at this end of the market. Unless you are looking at kilowatts of difference or trying use passive cooling its really not going to worth thinking about.

Well I know that 970 can eat more than says on the tin, but still roughly 80w less than 390. My concern is not the electric bill but ability of my psu (I have limited choice in miniITX case)- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w-...less-op-sfx-l-

I'll be safe with 970, but close to the edge with 390, especially when I start overclocking
I dont want 600w - 80mm fan and 30quid more kind of turn me off...

[jigger]

You would probably need about 14-17 amps to power most overclocked GTX970's while gaming, and about 20-24 for the R9 390's.

• Silent running 120mm fan with intelligent semi-fanless operation
• Support SFX-L form factor and ATX via included bracket
• High efficiency with 80 PLUS Gold certification
• 100% modular cables
• All cables made with flexible flat arrays
• 500W continuous power output at 40? operating temperature rated for 24/7 operation
• Class-leading single +12V rail with 40A
• Strict ±3% voltage regulation and low ripple & noise
• Support dual PCI-E 8/6pin connectors
• Active PFC

Looking at the spec that would leave more than enough power for an overclocked Intel quad core system with all the whistles and bells and any single GPU card.

Completely depends on the quality of the PSU, but if it can get near to the spec on the label it should have no problem. If the older 450watt model is anything to go by the 500watt version should run just about any graphics card.

[alexw]

Thanks jigger, I need those reassurances, some people say you need 600w or more, but they can't explain why,recommended wattages are mostly bul****.
If the system under stress draws 420w and i have 500w PSU , thats plenty left right? Especially with gold rated psu.. I've read the silverstone review, the only concern is bit of ripple
Now I need some deal on 390
Edit:
Further reading on the 390 and Digital Foundry got: Peak System Power Draw r9 390 447W r9 390 OC - 486W
In combination with our 4.6GHz CPU OC, pushing clocks to 1150MHz with the R9 390 caused the system to hit 560W
oops
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...390-8gb-review

[Thesman106]

Black friday is around the corner, so you might as well wait and camp for all the deals for any graphics cards

[Maverick PvP]

I had the same decision to make and I went with the R9 390. -- It's just better and more future proof with the higher vram and dx12. I'm really not a fan of AMD, higher energy cost, more heat, not the best drivers and most game devs use the nvidia platform... Nonetheless, I bought it. It's the better card.