I was initially going to get an msi 970 but I waited for Amd announcement the price for the r9 390 is the same as the 970 which should I buy?
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I was initially going to get an msi 970 but I waited for Amd announcement the price for the r9 390 is the same as the 970 which should I buy?
Well my guess would be a GTX 980 spend that little bit extra
Or a bit more and the 390X, or wait a bit for the 390X price to come down.
No we need to know usage and monitor before we can advise.
It will for gaming currently got a 1080p saving for a 4k monitor
Or quickly get a 290X while they are still around for under £230.
http://www.ebuyer.com/614541-asus-r9...9290x-dc2-4gd5
290x going out of stock quick
At that bargain price, it isn't surprising.Quote:
Originally Posted by TODD90
I have absolutely no need for one, I only just got an R9 285, but I have been really tempted to get one anyway and give the 285 to my son :D
This comment is unhelpful. Some people have a budget and the jump between a 970, currently priced at £240 for the cheapest, a R9 390, currently priced at £255 for the cheapest and the next level up to a GTX 980 at roughly £365 for a the cheapest (I've found) and about £350 for a 390x is a large amount of money for the gain.Quote:
Originally Posted by c12038
I'm in the same boat as the OP. 290X cards are dropping to £220 for cards that were priced some £60-70 higher. The 970 has come down to as low as £230 for the odd bargain, but in the main they start at £250. The difficulty for people such as us who want to spend £200-250 is that this is an odd price point in the market and we struggle to see what the best bang-for-buck is.
There are now 3 cards in contention: Discounted 290X, 970 and the revised R9 390.
All of those cards will do the job at 1080p quite happily. The question is, "Will buying a card do the job when the monitor is upgraded to 4K?" Current reviews and benchmarking suggests that the R9 390 just edges the 970 at that resolution, but there isn't much difference. There are numerous cards and a variety of manufacturers offering products at a range of price points which makes the decision harder.
Therefore I'd ask the OP what his maximum budget is.
Personally, I'm not sure yet as my budget is £200-250. 8gb of Vram on the R9 390 card is getting me thinking that this may be a bonus for 4K gaming in the future. I shall wait a little bit more to see the shake out in the pricing.
I agree with Iranu. Comments like that are frankly unhelpful. Telling someone to just, 'spend more money' is pretty elitist and totally unneccissary.
If you can pick up a cheap 290X, I would say that is absolutely the way to go. If not, we seem to be in one of those unusual rare spots where there is a genuinely obvious benefit to actually waiting a little while. We know the fury cards are yet to come out, which could have some impact on pricing, and with the current price gauging that all sellers do with new cards, we dont know how much the new AMD line will stabilise at, or if there will be any reaction from Nvidia.
At present OP I don't view the 390 / 390X as good buy as think prices will drop soon, they are just higher due to being launched so recently. So would wait for that to occur or buy 290 / 290X .
On HUK people were hoping the 290 / 290X would drop further but it seems as if £210 was about the lowest a 290X went down to and not available now at that price, £180 was for 290. CCL did have the great Tri-X 290 OC Edition for that price yesterday, but sold out with in an hour of being posted.
HardOCP did a clock vs clock comparative of 390X vs 290X and performance was on a par between them, the more RAM did help in 4K apples to apples test. I'd also like to say that the MSI 390X is currently the highest clocked 390X. 1100MHz GPU 6100MHz RAM, this equates to upto 10% higher GPU frequency comparing it to say most 290X or other 390X cards. RAM OC helps performance but not as much as GPU.
Someone has already posted a 390X bios modded to 4GB RAM and a couple of TPU members have flashed it and installed 15.15 CCC drivers. So far no issues reported, it was a reference PCB 390X bios and tested on reference PCB 290X.
People are still reporting unlocks of 290 to 290X on OCN, I would assume if a 290 can unlock to 290X via bios flash it would also take the 390X modded flash.
Bare in mind not all 290 unlock to a 290X.
I have one for sale, purchased 1st June this year, opened 6th June. Was intended for a friends new gaming rig but financial situation has changed for him and therefore not needed. I was gonna keep it but a recent promo on a Sapphire Vapor X 290X meant I couldn't resist buying that! LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by TODD90
Thanks mate good response I think I'm going to get a 970 gtx there's some deals lately and i'll probably save up until gpu's can perform better at 4k
No worries ;) , keep an eye on HUK, via the app you can set alerts.
Recent best deal on GTX 970 was this.
Pretty good card, only bad point 3 slot cooler, which really not needed on 970. The cheapest free Arkham Knight been is £14 via CDkeys.com, so you could say £215 for 970.
If you see a deal on Amazon, whack it through Bespoke Offers and then access Bespoke through Quidco or TopCashBack to gain another discount, last time I got 17% cashback tracked, should payout on the 28th June. Even if it don't payout already bagged 10% discount via Bespoke. The cashback site rates vary at times, currently 10-12.5%.
I'm on HUK everyday religiously waiting for deals
LOL! as they say great minds think alike! ;)
Lol indeed
I would be tempted to go for that deal.. a 970 for under £230?! I was just looking on ebuyer and theres a R9 285 going for £129.99. Some great prices going round at the moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by gupsterg
Personally I'd go for the 390 instead, mostly just for the extra VRAM. Games are already using more than 3.5 today, so if you're looking to keep the card a while I'd suggest getting the card with a bit more space to breath in that department.
From what I've read, the 390 is around £20/30 cheaper than the 970, and gets around 3/4 more FPS in games. However the 970 uses less system power by quite a bit.
The 390 has 8GB, but can't handle 4k so I'm not sure that the 8GB is entirely worth it. In addition to this, the 390 is still in early days so drivers haven't been fully optimized so you may see a larger performance gap between the two cards.
Personally I'd recommend the 390 due to its cheaper price and better performance and the fact that it has 8GB which future proofs the card to some degree.
+ r9 390
Its a good price but the 8gb vram wont be to useful for me since I'm gaming at 1080p currently
I've recently seen deals for 970s at £235 inc p&p, but the R9 390s have not gone below £250. I leaning heavily towards a 970 for 1080p gaming.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHypfTom
That is a great deal for that price, what models? (a bargain regardless, I'm just curious however)Quote:
Originally Posted by iranu
Palit Jetstream (gold one with 2 fans) was at £225 plus about £10 p&p. I think that was Aria. They are doing a Zotac (again the one with 2 fans) for £235 atm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Obie
I should have pulled the trigger on the Palit card but I'm sure there will be similar deals in the next few months.
Nice thanks for the info. Yeah I've been pondering about getting a 970 for efficiency and selling the 290x. But I hear it's good for winter warmth :)Quote:
Originally Posted by iranu
390, similar performance. 8gb of vram.
go for the MSI 970 its a really good card for its price
you can currently get it for £268.79 from Scan.co.uk (in the today only section)
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...
It will be if you play modded games like minecraft etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by TODD90
I'm inclined to go for 380, 8gb, probably better in dx12 (for now) and if you believe kitguru.net review you can OC the nitro version to get 390x performance, so it's gonna be my first amd card ever...
A 970 would be better but like some have said a 290x is a bargain if you can get one.
I just got the R9 390 and am happy with it. I think you can just buy the 390 and overclock it to be as good as the 390x
Dont quote me on that, just what I read somewhere
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by alexw
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-Quote:
Originally Posted by jigger
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...
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.
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
Black friday is around the corner, so you might as well wait and camp for all the deals for any graphics cards
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.