MSI 970 GTX vs MSI Radeon R9 390

[TODD90]

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?

[c12038]

Well my guess would be a GTX 980 spend that little bit extra

[kalniel]

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.

[TODD90]

It will for gaming currently got a 1080p saving for a 4k monitor

[DanceswithUnix]

Or quickly get a 290X while they are still around for under £230.

http://www.ebuyer.com/614541-asus-r9...9290x-dc2-4gd5

[TODD90]

290x going out of stock quick

[DanceswithUnix]

290x going out of stock quick

At that bargain price, it isn't surprising.

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

[iranu]

Well my guess would be a GTX 980 spend that little bit extra

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.

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.

[Biscuit]

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.

[gupsterg]

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.

290x going out of stock quick

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! LOL

[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

[gupsterg]

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%.

[TODD90]

I'm on HUK everyday religiously waiting for deals

[gupsterg]

LOL! as they say great minds think alike!

[TODD90]

Lol indeed

[The Hand]

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 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.