I NEED HELP! GTX 980 vs R9 390X

[tweakboy]

Oh 980 Ti any time...

gaming @ 4k resolution.... 980 and Titan will pown with 4k gaming. gl

 

[Vampirrella]

When are the next refresh of video cards expected? Im wanting to upgrade my old gtx670 FTW to something more capable of playing upcoming games such as fallout 4 / SW battlefront etc coming this winter.

So far the only options ive seen are the gtx970 and gtx980. But these cards are going on 2 and 1 yrs old now right? Is it better to wait till the next refresh?

 

[Ketchup]

IMO, Nvidia and Intel are in similar spots.
1. They have shifted a lot of their focus to mobile.
2. They don't have enough competition to really push enhances products every quarter.
3. For the products that are in this segment, a lot of the focus has been shifted to power efficiency.

I said that to say this: it is not a bad time to upgrade. Something will come out, and it probably will be a little better than what is out now. But I doubt it will be worth a wait.

 

[IEC]

Right, 20+% is nothing
But not everyone is willing to sacrifice a better gaming experience in the present, just to save a few bucks. I want to enjoy my games NOW, not 6 fricking months from now.

If he really needs a higher level of performance the 980 is still a mediocre choice. In that case he should either get a 980 Ti if he wants single GPU or he should get a 290/X Crossfire setup for not much more than the cost of a single 980...

 

[happy medium]

give a gtx970 a healthy overclock 20% and it will woop the whole AMD lineup including the 650$ Fury x. It might even be faster than a gtx980.

 

[RussianSensation]

Right, 20+% is nothing

Looks like you are failing to read the OP and understanding the context of what the extra performance means in GTA V.

But more so you are failing to acknowledge that GTX970 can also overclock 20%, while R9 290/290X/390 can also overclock 15-20%.

"Sliding the ‘Core Voltage’ slider all the way to the right allows the XFX DD R9 290X to unlock a few additional mV. Like we said earlier, the card has no trouble maintaining 1000MHz in game tests, but now we wanted to check how it overclocks. We maxed out the fans and ended up with a 150MHz GPU overclock, 15 percent over the reference clock."
http://www.fudzilla.com/33629-xfx-radeon-dd-r9-290x-1000m-reviewed?start=8

or

"Our sample was able to hit 1175MHz core and 1400MHz memory"

That's a 17.5% overclock on the XFX R9 290X.

The AMD cards are comparatively poor overclockers as they don't have the TDP headroom that the GTX 980 has.. Also GCN does not scale as well as Maxwell does..I posted several links demonstrating this..

Wrong on both accounts wrt to GTA V.

Again you keep ignoring the data.

The Fury is a dog at overclocking. You're lucky if you get 100MHz extra out of it. Also, a max GTX 980 is either slightly slower, equal or faster than the Fury depending on the game and the resolution.

Ya, compared to a stock Fury.

Shadow of Mordor = Fury leads by 18%
GTA V = Fury leads by 15%
Tomb Raider = Fury leads by 20%
Thief = Fury leads by 29%
Bioshock Infinite = Fury leads by 15%
Witcher 3 = tied
BF Hardline = Fury leads by 14%
Alien Isolation = Fury leads by 4%
Hitman Absolution = Fury leads by 18%
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,13.html

That means at Guru3D, the 980 won a total of 0/9 game tests. It basically takes a max overclocked 980 just to keep up with a stock Fury. If Fury is overclock 100-150mhz to 1150mhz, it's game over for the 980.

Sweclockers confirms the same:

1040mhz Fury beats 980 by 17% at 1440P and by 25% at 4K.

A 290x on the other hand isn't going to be able to catch up with or surpass a Fury unless it's water cooled.

No one is arguing that. R9 290X costs $253 and the Fury costs $550. :hmm:

The OP stated his choice between a 980 or a 390x, and between the two, the 980 is the better option period!

That's also debatable. R9 390X costs $400. The cheapest new 980 is $450.

If you want to convince him to get a cheaper option instead then by all means do so, but you can't fault myself or others for adhering to the OP's choices. It's his money after all, and not ours.

That's fine but your comments of discussing 980's overclocking and ignoring that a card like the 970 or 290X can also overclock 15-20% is misleading the OP. You made it sound like the 980 has this extra 20% of performance while all the others cards basically do not.

You also keep discussing the extra performance in a vacuum. If R9 290X/390 or 970 OC can get 60 fps in GTA V at 1080P or at 1440P with FXAA, what is the extra performance of the 390X/980 going to achieve one? $200 flushed into the toilet, that's what. You don't want to discuss this point.

If I had listened to your terrible advice, I would have gotten the 2GB GTX 770s instead which would have reduced my game enjoyment since it was right around that time that games were starting to easily surpass 2GB of VRAM usage on a regular basis.

Is that a joke? I remember distinctly advising you to get HD7970Ghz/R9 280X in CF instead of 770 2GB. If I suggested 770 2GB, it was specifically to use as a stop-gap solution for 12 months. Believe me, you don't even want to go there. You literally flushed $300 into the toilet with your 770 4GB SLI compared to HD7970Ghz CF but it beats me as it has little to do with the OP's thread.

If I would have listened to your terrible advice, I would have gotten the 7970GHz cards which had broken crossfire, plus also with AMD being constantly late on producing crossfire profiles for new games, or not making the profiles at all.

Nice red herring. HD7970Ghz CF would have cost $0 but you couldn't comprehend on how to set up a program to mine coins. Some people did so they purchased 2-3 HD7970Ghz and then with the $ mined from them bought NV cards if they really wanted to. Besides, your comment completely ignored the entire period when HD7970/7970 CF wiped the floor with your GTX580s for 1.5 years before you even got your 770s. You have failed to mentioned how you gamed on an inferior setup for more than a year until 770s even showed up. Oops. You are not fooling anyone. Even if AMD had dropped R9 290X for $299 a piece when 770 4GB was selling for $450, you would have bought an NV solution. :awe:

If I had listened to your terrible advice, I would have gotten 290x crossfire instead of GTX 980s after returning my GTX 970s, and I would have had to wait 2 fricking months for AMD to release a crossfire profile for the Witcher 3 that actually works, when NVidia had a working SLI profile on day one....and not to mention inferior performance where I would have to disable hairworks!

LOL! Wrong again. I never told you to return GTX970s. You are the one that decided to waste more $ on 980s. Also, amusing to see how at no point you bring up the money situation at all. 980s cost $1100 when 970 memory fiascao came out and at that point R9 290X CF were already down to just $600-650, as well as R9 295X2 was hovering around $650-700.

The funny thing is your 980 SLI is no better than GTX970 SLI so again, your own purchasing advise resulted in hundreds of dollars wasted for no particular reason. Again, this has nothing to do with 290X/390/970 vs. 980.

And you can't comprehend that cheaper isn't always better. You strike me as the type that constantly buys cheap stuff which breaks after a few months, and then you go back and buy more cheap stuff and continue the endless cycle.

Ya, ok bud. You have no idea what you are talking about. Everything in my PC is still working as good as when it was new but it's interesting when you start losing an argument badly you start to justify how spending $150-200 extra on a GTX980 over 970/290X/390 is actually somehow great advice by bringing my PC parts into the discussion. :hmm:

In fact, I dare you to say what part in my PC is not a quality component. I am not talking about specs as of course my PC chipset has outdated features but quality wise what exactly is wrong with a 2500K, Asus P67, SeaSonic Platinum 1000W PSU, X-Fi Platinum sound card? You are entering the twilight zone.

I on the other hand prefer quality. I want a good experience, and I don't want to regret my purchases down the road just because I managed to save a few bucks..

I love how you throw the word quality when it has nothing to do with the $$$ a product costs. Does a GTX770 or 980 has higher quality components than a GTX960/7970/R9 290X? When you say quality, what you really mean is "I spent more $$$ so it automatically = higher quality." That's one of the weakest arguments I come across online.

If you wanted a great experience, you would have purchased GTX980Ti SLi already. You literally are a walking textbook of how not to buy GPUs. Just look at your sig and stay clear of those products and the gamer will do well. Your GPU history is a perfect example of how to waste $$$ without getting much for it = GTX580 3GB SLI (waste of $), 770 4GB SLI (massive waste of $), 980 SLI (huge waste of $). It's like you purposely pick the worst GPU solutions money can buy and now you are projecting this terrible advice of throwing $$ into the wind for 15% more performance full well knowing that 16nm HBM2 GPUs are coming in 2016. :sneaky:

 

[RussianSensation]

If the OP had specified he wanted a bang for the buck solution, I would have told him to get a GTX 970 and overclock it to the max. But he restricted his choices between a GTX 980 and a R9 390x..

Good to know that if someone joins AT to ask for advice, you will blindly recommend them the product and not think outside the box. You seem to have the hardest time in the world grasping the concept of price/performance.

Are you telling me that the 980 Ti can gain 35 to 45% extra performance from overclocking? Are you nuts?

That's not what I said at all. 980Ti actually makes sense because it pounds 980 into the ground, has 50% more VRAM and the halo status. 980 has none of those yet tacks on a $150-200 premium over cards like 290X/970/390.

If you say what's a couple of bucks, why not recommend the OP 980TI?

You are quick to tell someone to literally spend $150-200 for what 15% more performance but then ignore how for $200 more 980Ti smashes 980 by 35-40%? Your viewpoint is inconsistent because on one hand you say "what's another $150-200" but then ignore how the 980 sits in no man's land.

The 980 Ti gains the same performance as the GTX 980, which is an extra 20 to 25% from overclocking. Ryan said in his review of the GTX 980 Ti:

Ya, way to ignore that 980Ti itself is much faster than the 980 to start with. See that's your problem - you are quick to recommend $150-200 extra for the 980 over cards like the 290X for 15% more perfomrance and keep throwing statements "what's another couple hundred bucks" but then why not go all out for the 980Ti?

980 G1 trades blows with 980 SLi in The Witcher 3, and is 48% faster against a single 980.

Gigabyte G1 980 is 59% faster than a 980 in GTA V.

In Tomb Raider, G1 is 54% faster than a 980.

In SoM, G1 is 48% faster.

I'm actually starting to wonder if you actually read any reviews of aftermarket models.:|

I actually did but looks like you didn't. It seems you have no idea as to how much faster a GTX980Ti is against the 980.

I think in your mind you are either trying to justify your 980 SLI purchase or just ignoring how much faster the 980Ti really is because you keep assigning extra overclocking performance to the 980 but not to the 980Ti.

And you're giving the OP advice that he never even asked for.. He said his choices were the GTX 980 or the 390x, not the 290x, 390, or GTX 970...

Good, because I think outside the box. You just recommend the obvious, which isn't necessarily good advice in this case.

Again, anyone that believes in the concept of future proofing is a fool to begin with..

More reason why recommending GTX980 for $450 or R9 390X for $400 is simply bad advice when cards like R9 290X sell for $253 and GTX970/390 go for $290-300. Better save $150-200 towards a next generation GPU that will have 8GB HBM2, better features, guaranteed driver support from NV, better DX12 performance, etc. Your closed-box advice of 980 vs. 390X ignores all of these possibilities. When several members called you out on it, you instead started defending 980 and pushing its overclocking abilities.

That's akin to saying someone that only plays their games at 1080p should buy a GTX 980 Ti, because it's more "future proof" for the games of tomorrow... One should always buy hardware based on current needs..

Makes your advice for a 980 for GTA V over cards like 290X/970/390 even worse. You are just digging a bigger hole for why the 980 is even more of a waste of $ for the OP.

Sorry but that's complete nonsense. The only reason why the gap narrows between the GTX 980 and the 290x at higher resolutions, is because the latter has more bandwidth.. It's the same reason why the gap between the 980 Ti and the Fury X also diminishes as the resolution increases.

It doesn't matter what the technical reasons are as that's not the purpose of the thread. 980's performance falls apart more against the Fury/FuryX/980Ti as the resolution goes up. That means for future games and more demanding games, 980 will be struggling to provide any significant performance advantage unless the game engine is very skewed in favor of Maxwell or seriously penalizes 3.5GB of VRAM on the 970. But, if a gamer buys a $253 290X or a $290 970 or a $300 390, he doesn't have to worry about any of that because he put aside $150-200 not wasted on a 980 towards a 16nm HBM2 GPU. That's the textbook upgrade strategy for not wasting $ for hore performance the 980 offers.

It has nothing to do with future proofing....which is really a retarded concept to begin with.

Understanding price/performance and how it relates to upgrading to minize the total cost of ownership while getting as much performance as possible to satisfy one's gaming needs has everything to do with future-proofing and upgrading wisely. If someone cannot afford GTX980Ti/980Ti SLI (or similar), that means price is a factor which means for most PC gamers not buying the best card(s), price + performance and price/performance is a key metric. Nearly 80% of HardOCP's forum members agree.

If cheaper GPUs achieve the performance required and the next tier of GPU isn't any more future-proof for next gen games, it's a waste of $ if the price premium is massive. In this case, that's the exact situation the $450 980 finds itself in. It's a pointless videocard for its price. It's not fast enough like the 980Ti OC is but it has a $150-200 premium over cards it barely beats. That's a textbook definition of a card that sits in no man's land.

You assume the OP is like you, in that he's willing to put up with a diminished experience in the present, for some supposed better experience in the future from saving a few bucks in the here and now..

I don't assume anything because 980 offers no better experience in GTA V that's worth discussing over the choices presented. As myself and others clearly pointed out to you, that level of GPU is the 980Ti. If there were 4 PCs in the room with a GTX970 OC, 390 OC, 290X OC and 980 OC playing GTA V, you would not be able to tell the difference. With a 980Ti you would as it has the extra horsepower to turn on more filters or produce rock stable 60 fps minimums in cases where the others cards cannot.

If you're willing to wait long enough, there's always going to be something cheaper and better coming around the corner. Nobody disputes that.

It has nothing to do with waiting. You think spending $150-200 for 15% more performance is good but ignore how the 980Ti smashes the 980 by 40-60% in games and has 50% more VRAM for the same $200 more. If you cannot see the bias in your own GPU purchases and advice about experience, no one here will help you see it. All the data is there but you still ignore it. If GTX980 was $450 and R9 290X was $99, Fury X was $199, I still bet any $ you'd buy the 980 for yourself. The irony here, is even if you would never buy an AMD card, you completely ignored the awesome GTX970.

But not everyone is willing to sacrifice a better gaming experience in the present, just to save a few bucks. I want to enjoy my games NOW, not 6 fricking months from now.

But you are already doing it since you only have 980 SLI instead of 980Ti SLI. That means everyone in this thread is already accepting sacrifices. At this point, it's about finding the right balance of price/performance. In your case, it's setting an arbitrary budget and buying whatever fastest NV cards fit it. In other words if your budget is $1100 and you are only getting 11% more performance for 67% higher price, you'd still buy 980 SLI over 970 SLI, but then when 980Ti SLI crushes 980 SLI, suddenly the extra performance doesn't matter? It's hard to take your advice on the 980 seriously since you have 0 concept of price/performance but also 0 concept of absolute performance. It actually makes a lot of sense how you constantly keep buying GPUs that make no sense but unfortunately this line of thinking is passed on as advice in this thread.

GTX 980 OC can be as much as 25% faster than a stock model, 1500MHz on the core, and 8GHz on the memory..

That's nice and $506 buys R9 290X CF which is 62% faster than a GTX980 for $56 more.

But since you don't ever buy AMD cards, you can't comprehend things like this instead discussing how a max overclocked 980 is somehow worth it over a 970/290X/390. If you really cared to get the fastest performance possible and you are recommending a $450 GTX980, why are you not suggesting spending just another $56 more on 290X CF?

Oh look, AT just happens to have tested R9 295X2 against GTX980 in GTA V:

64% faster for $56 more.

See, you can't make up your mind on what's important. You constantly state in this thread that spending just a bit more $ for a far superior experience is worth it but yet 980 offers little of that against a 970/290X/390 in GTA V. Yet, you ignore 970 SLI and especially $506 R9 290X CF that wipe the floor with the 980. You also state what's a couple bucks but yet ignore the GTX980Ti? Yet, you have 0 problems advocating a $450 980 -- a card that is a horrible price/performance product and a horrible performance solution in its price bracket. In other words, at $450, the 980 is = "no man's land GPU".

If you were interested in the OP getting the best performance after being so eager to suggest the 980 is worth $150-200 over 970/290X cards, then why aren't you also advising the OP to consider other options such as 970 SLI, 290X CF or 980TI SLI?

 

[Silverforce11]

Basically any website that doesn't agree with your preformed opinions is a "shill website."

I can find many sites that show maxwell OC doesn't scale too buddy. If you want to cherry pick and play that shill game go for it.

But as an owner of multiple generations of GCN already I know for a FACT that it scales just fine, ever since an OC 7950 pwns an OC 680 (for nearly half the price), even on [H] they found exactly that!

So for you to say GCN doesn't scale with OC is revisionist, making up bull.

 

[RussianSensation]

give a gtx970 a healthy overclock 20% and it will woop the whole AMD lineup including the 650$ Fury x. It might even be faster than a gtx980.

OP stated:

I want to play GTA V almost maxxed, 60fps!

^ For $253, the XFX R9 290X will get him what he wants at 1080P. There is no GTX970 that costs $253 US, and none that also have lifetime warranty.

Furthermore, if the OP ever decides to play any other games outside of GTA V, your original statement of 970 whopping the entire AMD line-up wouldn't apply either.

For long-term, the 290X is also a safer bet:

1. Lifetime warranty
2. True 4GB of VRAM
3. GCN is in all the consoles, most likely the next Nintendo console and AMD's preliminary performance in DX12 is good. That alone makes it a safer choice than the 3.5GB GTX970 for a wide variety of games unless you think most games will be UE4 or GW titles in 2016-2018?

Either way, if the OP prefers NV, $300 GTX970 is a solid card and I would easily recommend it for GTA V at 1080P, a far better choice than a $450 980. 970/390/290X, any of these are great buys for 1080P.

 

[Headfoot]

Top choices:
1. XFX 290x DD - $253, will max out GTAV at 1080p (minus ultra grass outside). 10-20% OC potential
2. TIED : R9 390 (5-15% OC potential) at ~$300 and ~$300 GTX 970 (10-25% OC potential). About equal performance @ stock. If you got here, choose based on which has the better game bundle.
3. 980 Ti if you want to increase budget dramatically but also get a solid 50% boost in performance over the 290x/390/970 level. 10-25% OC potential.

 

[kawi6rr]

I don't know guys, I am so confused!

Read RussianSensations post he gives the best advise. I would personally go with the 390 either Saphire, MSI, or Asus.

 

[vissarix]

The OP wanted to know whether to choose a 390x or a 980 for GTA V. I told him to pick the 980 based on:

1) The 980 is faster than the 390x in this particular game at stock clocks.

2) When overclocked, the 980 can achieve a 20% boost that will put it well beyond the 390x, and somewhere between the Fury and the 980 Ti.

And you keep assuming that everyone is a penny pincher RS. Not everyone cares about bang for the buck. Some people just want the fastest hardware they can afford, and the best experience...



You always seem to want to bring up my purchasing history in every discussion I got 3 years usage out of my GTX 580 SLI, and I think I only kept my 770 4G SLI for a year before I upgraded again. I upgrade whenever it is convenient to me, and that's that.. There's nothing more to be said.

If you want to hold on to your hardware for 3 or 4 years, then go ahead. I don't care what you do with your money or what you spend it on.



Flawed reasoning, because you assume that the GTX 980 will be at stock clocks. Very few people buy stock clocked GTX 980s with reference coolers.

Aftermarket models with much better coolers can see a GTX 980 hit 1430MHz with automatic boost, making it considerably faster than the stock model. And this is before manual overclocking.

Also, future proofing is a ridiculous concept. Nobody knows what the future will hold. The only guarantee is that the next generation of cards will be faster than the current one.



The 980, like all the other 28nm cards don't handle 4K well, so using 4K to simulate next gen games is senseless..

Your just wasting your time with these folks, arguing with them is like banging your head against the wall...they are just a bunch of fanboys which spams the forum with the same bs over an over again with their reliable sources from some afghanis reviewers

i found it entertaining reading their pathetic excuses and wet dreams, and the funny thing is that they do it without earning a single cent...kudos.

Infraction issued for derailing thread and callout, banned for one day.
-- stahlhart

 

[Mr Evil]

I think Sneil has been scared off by all the card-waving. Just pick one and buy it; they will both run the game fine, and you will have fun playing it.

 

[Techhog]

give a gtx970 a healthy overclock 20% and it will woop the whole AMD lineup including the 650$ Fury x. It might even be faster than a gtx980.

One game at one resolution to rule the world.

Really, I'm shocked that this is a serious post. Or maybe just disappointed.

 

[tweakboy]

Get a 460 GTX and up to 980 Ti later on in life. Both of them are powerful cards,, its hard to tell sometimes.. gl

 

[RussianSensation]

Read RussianSensations post he gives the best advise. I would personally go with the 390 either Saphire, MSI, or Asus.

Thanks! :$

Gigabyte Windforce 390 is now $270 on Newegg. MSI Gaming 390X is $370 after 7% off coupon and $30 MIR.

The cheapest GTX980 I could find on Newegg is $470. At these prices, the 980 makes no sense whatsoever compared to the 970/390/390X. And since GTX980Ti can be found for $610, and a max overclocked 980Ti destroys a max overclocked 980 by 35-40% in games, comes with 50% more VRAM, the 980 also makes no sense against NV's own 980Ti. 980 continues to be the definition of a card that sits in 'no man's land'. It's as if NV priced it horribly on purpose to get gamers to move up to the 980Ti.

 

[TXBPNT]

My MSI R9 390X at 1175/1625.+50mv/+0mv core/AUX voltage.+50% power limit.
CPU is core i7 2600k at 4.4 Ghz
Heaven

Firestrike (almost 14.5k graphic score)

Ambient temp is 30*C.My case is Cooler Master Elite 431.This case has very poor air flow.5 HDDs block the frontal airflow,messy cables block bottom airflow.The Corsair H80i GT AIO cooler occupies the rear and 1 of the top exhaust fan position which leave me 1 top fan for exhausting.I have to take the side panel off.Max core temp is 74*C,max VRM temp is 75*C :thumbsup:

 

[Carfax83]

But more so you are failing to acknowledge that GTX970 can also overclock 20%, while R9 290/290X/390 can also overclock 15-20%.

Obviously they can overclock as well, and if you want to recommend these parts I have no problem with it. It's the OP himself that stipulated a 390x or a GTX 980, not I..

"Sliding the ‘Core Voltage’ slider all the way to the right allows the XFX DD R9 290X to unlock a few additional mV. Like we said earlier, the card has no trouble maintaining 1000MHz in game tests, but now we wanted to check how it overclocks. We maxed out the fans and ended up with a 150MHz GPU overclock, 15 percent over the reference clock."
http://www.fudzilla.com/33629-xfx-radeon-dd-r9-290x-1000m-reviewed?start=8

Yes, and you fail to acknowledge that a 15% overclock resulted in a LESS than 15% performance gain. Not only does Maxwell have a higher overclocking ceiling, it also scales pretty damn linearly performance wise.

And let's not forget power usage. Hawaii's power usage goes through the roof with overclocking..

Wrong on both accounts wrt to GTA V.

Again you keep ignoring the data.

Maybe I didn't make this clear to you before, but nobody gives a DAMN about reference clocked GTX 980s or 970s.

So putting up a graph that uses reference clocks does nothing to reinforce your argument.

The GTX 970 and 980 have very low stock clocks compared to what they are actually capable of achieving because NVidia wanted to target a low TDP. With the Radeons however, they are close to already being maxed out TDP wise, and overclocking them dramatically increases their power usage for very little performance gain.

Ya, compared to a stock Fury.

Shadow of Mordor = Fury leads by 18%
GTA V = Fury leads by 15%
Tomb Raider = Fury leads by 20%
Thief = Fury leads by 29%
Bioshock Infinite = Fury leads by 15%
Witcher 3 = tied
BF Hardline = Fury leads by 14%
Alien Isolation = Fury leads by 4%
Hitman Absolution = Fury leads by 18%
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_fury_strix_review,13.html

That means at Guru3D, the 980 won a total of 0/9 game tests. It basically takes a max overclocked 980 just to keep up with a stock Fury. If Fury is overclock 100-150mhz to 1150mhz, it's game over for the 980.

What an intellectually dishonest post. You keep using reference clocked GTX 980s as though it's even relevant.

A GTX 980 at 1500/8000 is approximately 20-25% faster than it is at stock clocks. So going by your chart, an overclocked GTX 980 would be faster than a stock Fury in every single one of those games, except for Thief and possibly Tomb Raider..

And for a lot less money than a Fury as well!

Sweclockers confirms the same:

1040mhz Fury beats 980 by 17% at 1440P and by 25% at 4K.

LMAO, you can't even understand the irony of this post. Here you are defending what is quite possibly, the WORST bang for the buck video card out there....and using intellectually dishonest means (comparing stock clocked GTX 980) to do so..

You've reached a new low man. You can no longer pretend you aren't biased anymore.

And btw, the Fury gains a measly 3% from overclocking according to that link..

No one is arguing that. R9 290X costs $253 and the Fury costs $550. :hmm:

And a good GTX 980 can be found for under $500, but once it's overclocked it will sail past the Fury.

That's also debatable. R9 390X costs $400. The cheapest new 980 is $450.

GTX 980 uses less power, has higher overclocking ceiling, and comes with useful features like MFAA which can increase performance even more in games that use MSAA like GTA V.

That's fine but your comments of discussing 980's overclocking and ignoring that a card like the 970 or 290X can also overclock 15-20% is misleading the OP. You made it sound like the 980 has this extra 20% of performance while all the others cards basically do not.

You came to that conclusion yourself, because I never said the other cards could not overclock. The 290x/390/390x does not overclock as well as the GTX 980, and they don't gain as much performance from overclocking.

The GTX 970 overclocks very well, but it does not scale as well as the GTX 980 from overclocking due to being crippled.. Remember the GTX 970 is not a full GM204 core..

You also keep discussing the extra performance in a vacuum. If R9 290X/390 or 970 OC can get 60 fps in GTA V at 1080P or at 1440P with FXAA, what is the extra performance of the 390X/980 going to achieve one? $200 flushed into the toilet, that's what. You don't want to discuss this point.

The OP said nearly maxed settings, so presumably he'd want to use MSAA and not FXAA.

Is that a joke? I remember distinctly advising you to get HD7970Ghz/R9 280X in CF instead of 770 2GB. If I suggested 770 2GB, it was specifically to use as a stop-gap solution for 12 months. Believe me, you don't even want to go there. You literally flushed $300 into the toilet with your 770 4GB SLI compared to HD7970Ghz CF but it beats me as it has little to do with the OP's thread.

7970GHz CF at that time was broken, and the GTX 770 4GB SLI was outperforming it in most games as compute shaders hadn't take off yet..

Nice red herring. HD7970Ghz CF would have cost $0 but you couldn't comprehend on how to set up a program to mine coins. Some people did so they purchased 2-3 HD7970Ghz and then with the $ mined from them bought NV cards if they really wanted to.

I don't buy GPUs to mine fricking bitcoins, I buy them to play GAMES!

I make enough money from my real life job..

Besides, your comment completely ignored the entire period when HD7970/7970 CF wiped the floor with your GTX580s for 1.5 years before you even got your 770s. You have failed to mentioned how you gamed on an inferior setup for more than a year until 770s even showed up. Oops. You are not fooling anyone. Even if AMD had dropped R9 290X for $299 a piece when 770 4GB was selling for $450, you would have bought an NV solution. :awe:

There's a thing called overclocking. I had my 580s at 900/2000 and at that speed, they were fast enough to max out every game I had with acceptable performance.

LOL! Wrong again. I never told you to return GTX970s. You are the one that decided to waste more $ on 980s. Also, amusing to see how at no point you bring up the money situation at all. 980s cost $1100 when 970 memory fiascao came out and at that point R9 290X CF were already down to just $600-650, as well as R9 295X2 was hovering around $650-700.

Reading comprehension fail. I never said you told me to return my GTX 970s. I did that on my own.

What I did say is that you tried to get me to buy 290/290x CF and use that as a stopgap solution until Titan X or Fiji came out.. I'm glad I didn't listen to you

As cheap as Hawaii was at that point, I would have gotten an inferior gaming experience with them as they use much more power than the GTX 980s for less performance, and AMD is very slow compared to NVidia when it comes to producing CF profiles.

Like I said, it took them two months to make a CF profile for the Witcher 3, and I don't even think they came out with a CF profile for Far Cry 4.

The funny thing is your 980 SLI is no better than GTX970 SLI so again, your own purchasing advise resulted in hundreds of dollars wasted for no particular reason. Again, this has nothing to do with 290X/390/970 vs. 980.

LOL you can believe whatever you want. I own the hardware myself, so I can say with far greater authority than you that the GTX 980 is a much better card than the GTX 970 for above 1080p gaming....and I game at 1440p.

I would only recommend GTX 970s for people that play at 1080p, because as you go up in resolution, the GTX 970s crippled memory bus becomes an issue. The GTX 970 has a 224 bit bus compared to the GTX 980s full 256 bit bus.

Ya, ok bud. You have no idea what you are talking about. Everything in my PC is still working as good as when it was new

Yeah they would be since they don't get much use due to you being a console gamer :biggrin:

If you wanted a great experience, you would have purchased GTX980Ti SLi already.

If I was gaming at 4K, then I would. But the GTX 980 SLI is perfect for 1440p..

Your GPU history is a perfect example of how to waste $$$ without getting much for it = GTX580 3GB SLI (waste of $), 770 4GB SLI (massive waste of $), 980 SLI (huge waste of $). It's like you purposely pick the worst GPU solutions money can buy and now you are projecting this terrible advice of throwing $$ into the wind for 15% more performance full well knowing that 16nm HBM2 GPUs are coming in 2016. :sneaky:

I got nearly 3 years use out of my GTX 580s, and I sold them for $530 so I don't think they were a waste.

I had my GTX 770s for a year, and I sold them for $520. They performed well while I had them, but nobody could have predicted that the game industry would come to use compute shaders so aggressively.

Now I have two EVGA GTX 980 FTWs. Right now they are still selling for over $500 brand new, so next year I will sell them for 475 each or thereabouts and get most of my money back before I jump to Pascal.

So you act as though I'm losing money left and right, but I've managed to get back more than half of my initial investment every time that I've upgraded :awe:

 

[Carfax83]

Good to know that if someone joins AT to ask for advice, you will blindly recommend them the product and not think outside the box. You seem to have the hardest time in the world grasping the concept of price/performance.

Not my money, so it's not my concern unless they specifically ask for a price/performance recommendation. It's touching though that you care so much about other peoples' money :sneaky:

That's not what I said at all. 980Ti actually makes sense because it pounds 980 into the ground, has 50% more VRAM and the halo status. 980 has none of those yet tacks on a $150-200 premium over cards like 290X/970/390.

Got to love the quotation system, which captures everything we type:

Any extra tangible performance will only come in the form of a 980Ti OC as it has another 35-45% performance that will actually allow turning on more AA filters and grass quality to Ultra

And the GTX 980 Ti is about 25 to 30% faster than the GTX 980 on average, which is hardly "pounding the 980 into the ground." Pounding into the ground would be more like 40 to 50% faster..

If you say what's a couple of bucks, why not recommend the OP 980TI?

Um, because he never asked for that

You are quick to tell someone to literally spend $150-200 for what 15% more performance but then ignore how for $200 more 980Ti smashes 980 by 35-40%? Your viewpoint is inconsistent because on one hand you say "what's another $150-200" but then ignore how the 980 sits in no man's land.

Performance is only one metric. Power usage, features etcetera count for almost as much..

For example, the GTX 980 can use MFAA, which boosts it's performance even more relative to the Radeons in games that use MSAA like GTA V.

So whatever the GTX 980 is getting in those benchmarks, you will want to add about 5 to 10 more FPS if the OP wants to use MSAA..

You claim I don't think out of the box, but you are a textbook case of not being able to see beyond graphs.. You don't look at the overall experience, you're strictly a numbers guy.....which is ultimately myopic and very boring.

980 G1 trades blows with 980 SLi in The Witcher 3, and is 48% faster against a single 980.

See, this is why you give such horrible advice. You don't play PC games (nor do you understand how programming can affect performance), and you don't own the Witcher 3.

Well I do, so I can actually shed some light on this graph. First off, the GTX 980 SLI is CPU bottlenecked in this particular graph because the game uses a single thread for rendering.

Secondly, the settings the reviewer uses aren't the most graphically taxing settings. He's not using HBAO+, and he's not using HW. With those two features enabled, the GTX 980 SLI would be significantly faster than the 980 Ti.. Like this:

Gigabyte G1 980 is 59% faster than a 980 in GTA V.

Comparing overclocked to stock.. Intellectually dishonest.

Stock to stock, the 980 Ti is 27% faster than the 980..

In Tomb Raider, G1 is 54% faster than a 980.

Yeah, the GTX 980 can't possibly be overclocked at all. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother conversing with you..

But these numbers look vastly inflated to me..

I actually did but looks like you didn't. It seems you have no idea as to how much faster a GTX980Ti is against the 980.

No I do have an idea. It's you that can't seem to grasp that the GTX 980 Ti in those graphs was FACTORY OVERCLOCKED, and you were comparing it to a stock GTX 980.. :whiste:

Anyway, Guru3d has some seriously inflated numbers. Computerbase.de did some GTA V benchmarking in the Nano review, and this is what they got:

This is in line with what I'd expect, as the GTX 980 Ti is about 25 to 30% faster than the GTX 980 at reference clocks.

So I don't know how Guru3d is managing to get those numbers..

I think in your mind you are either trying to justify your 980 SLI purchase or just ignoring how much faster the 980Ti really is because you keep assigning extra overclocking performance to the 980 but not to the 980Ti.

The 980 Ti is fast, but it's not that much faster. I don't know how Guru3d got such high numbers, as they aren't mirrored on other review sites. Here's Anandtech:

Good, because I think outside the box. You just recommend the obvious, which isn't necessarily good advice in this case.

You think outside the box, but can't see past graphs and benchmarks.

More reason why recommending GTX980 for $450 or R9 390X for $400 is simply bad advice when cards like R9 290X sell for $253 and GTX970/390 go for $290-300. Better save $150-200 towards a next generation GPU that will have 8GB HBM2, better features, guaranteed driver support from NV, better DX12 performance, etc. Your closed-box advice of 980 vs. 390X ignores all of these possibilities. When several members called you out on it, you instead started defending 980 and pushing its overclocking abilities.

That's for the OP to decide as it's his money. Maybe he wants the best performance he can afford NOW, and does not want to wait 6 months.

It doesn't matter what the technical reasons are as that's not the purpose of the thread. 980's performance falls apart more against the Fury/FuryX/980Ti as the resolution goes up.

More proof that you're not a PC gamer at all, as you think resolution is indicative of "future performance."

FYI, future games are likely to be shader bottlenecked (like they are today), so bandwidth isn't going to be a major concern unless you're playing at very high resolutions or want to use copious amounts of MSAA.

Understanding price/performance and how it relates to upgrading to minize the total cost of ownership while getting as much performance as possible to satisfy one's gaming needs has everything to do with future-proofing and upgrading wisely. If someone cannot afford GTX980Ti/980Ti SLI (or similar), that means price is a factor which means for most PC gamers not buying the best card(s), price + performance and price/performance is a key metric. Nearly 80% of HardOCP's forum members agree.

I agree with this completely, but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing since:

1) The OP never stated his budget or that he was primarily concerned about price/performance ratio.

2) The OP limited himself to only two choices..

You're projecting your own ideology onto the OP by automatically assuming he's a price/performance hawk like you.. But the truth is, you have no idea what his motivations are.

If cheaper GPUs achieve the performance required and the next tier of GPU isn't any more future-proof for next gen games, it's a waste of $ if the price premium is massive. In this case, that's the exact situation the $450 980 finds itself in. It's a pointless videocard for its price. It's not fast enough like the 980Ti OC is but it has a $150-200 premium over cards it barely beats. That's a textbook definition of a card that sits in no man's land.

If you look at the numbers, then yes, you could arrive at this conclusion easily. But if you look at the overall package, then the GTX 980 is a much more polished product than the Radeons.

GTX 980 uses less power, has MFAA, overclocks very well, scales well, has a higher DX12 specification, can utilize hardware PhysX, has excellent driver support etcetera...

I don't assume anything because 980 offers no better experience in GTA V that's worth discussing over the choices presented. As myself and others clearly pointed out to you, that level of GPU is the 980Ti. If there were 4 PCs in the room with a GTX970 OC, 390 OC, 290X OC and 980 OC playing GTA V, you would not be able to tell the difference. With a 980Ti you would as it has the extra horsepower to turn on more filters or produce rock stable 60 fps minimums in cases where the others cards cannot.

No current card can max out GTA V and get 60 FPS, and GTA V is CPU bottlenecked anyway, so no GPU can really stretch it's legs to the fullest.

Also, you never take into account MFAA. You keep ignoring this, but it's an extra 5 to 10 FPS in games that use MSAA.

It has nothing to do with waiting. You think spending $150-200 for 15% more performance is good but ignore how the 980Ti smashes the 980 by 40-60% in games and has 50% more VRAM for the same $200 more. If you cannot see the bias in your own GPU purchases and advice about experience, no one here will help you see it. All the data is there but you still ignore it.

The GTX 980 Ti is NOT 40 to 60% faster than the 980. That is absurd..

Just because you post a few graphs, does not mean they are true..

But you are already doing it since you only have 980 SLI instead of 980Ti SLI. That means everyone in this thread is already accepting sacrifices. At this point, it's about finding the right balance of price/performance. In your case, it's setting an arbitrary budget and buying whatever fastest NV cards fit it. In other words if your budget is $1100 and you are only getting 11% more performance for 67% higher price, you'd still buy 980 SLI over 970 SLI, but then when 980Ti SLI crushes 980 SLI, suddenly the extra performance doesn't matter? It's hard to take your advice on the 980 seriously since you have 0 concept of price/performance but also 0 concept of absolute performance. It actually makes a lot of sense how you constantly keep buying GPUs that make no sense but unfortunately this line of thinking is passed on as advice in this thread.

When I traded in my 970s for these 980s, neither the Titan X or the 980 Ti was on the market. But even if they were, I would not have gotten them.

A single 980 Ti can not max out the Witcher 3 at 1440p, and neither can a Titan X whilst getting 60 FPS. Only two GTX 980s can do that.

So contrary to what you believe, GTX 980 SLI is actually the best bang for the buck solution for my particular gaming needs, as they give me locked 60 FPS at 1440p in the Witcher 3 at max settings.

That's nice and $506 buys R9 290X CF which is 62% faster than a GTX980 for $56 more.

Whilst making my computer room hot as hell :sneaky:

But since you don't ever buy AMD cards, you can't comprehend things like this instead discussing how a max overclocked 980 is somehow worth it over a 970/290X/390. If you really cared to get the fastest performance possible and you are recommending a $450 GTX980, why are you not suggesting spending just another $56 more on 290X CF?

Who says I don't ever buy AMD cards? I've owned AMD cards before, so I don't know what you are talking about.

I'll buy AMD if they have better TDP/performance ratio than NVidia.....which they don't.

Oh look, AT just happens to have tested R9 295X2 against GTX980 in GTA V:

And how much heat is going to be dumped into my computer room from getting a 295x2?

Yet, you ignore 970 SLI and especially $506 R9 290X CF that wipe the floor with the 980. You also state what's a couple bucks but yet ignore the GTX980Ti? Yet, you have 0 problems advocating a $450 980 -- a card that is a horrible price/performance product and a horrible performance solution in its price bracket. In other words, at $450, the 980 is = "no man's land GPU".

I'm not ignoring anything, I'm just respecting the OP's wishes. I don't care what the OP does with his money, so I'm not going to try to get him to buy what I think he should buy unlike you.....unless he asks for my opinion.

If you were interested in the OP getting the best performance after being so eager to suggest the 980 is worth $150-200 over 970/290X cards, then why aren't you also advising the OP to consider other options such as 970 SLI, 290X CF or 980TI SLI?

Simple, because he never asked for it.

 

[Carfax83]

I can find many sites that show maxwell OC doesn't scale too buddy.

Go ahead, I want to see them..

But as an owner of multiple generations of GCN already I know for a FACT that it scales just fine, ever since an OC 7950 pwns an OC 680 (for nearly half the price), even on [H] they found exactly that!

I'll admit that the early GCN cards scaled well, but as AMD continued to add more and more shaders and complexity to their designs, the scaling just went down..

Look at the Fury and the Fury X. Not only are they horrible overclockers, but they don't scale worth a damn either.

 

[flopper]

Go ahead, I want to see them..



I'll admit that the early GCN cards scaled well, but as AMD continued to add more and more shaders and complexity to their designs, the scaling just went down..

Look at the Fury and the Fury X. Not only are they horrible overclockers, but they don't scale worth a damn either.

AMD Built GCN for dx12.
amd choose a flexible design allowing compute to shine with async shaders.

 

[vissarix]

My MSI R9 390X at 1175/1625.+50mv/+0mv core/AUX voltage.+50% power limit.
CPU is core i7 2600k at 4.4 Ghz
Heaven

Firestrike (almost 14.5k graphic score)

Ambient temp is 30*C.My case is Cooler Master Elite 431.This case has very poor air flow.5 HDDs block the frontal airflow,messy cables block bottom airflow.The Corsair H80i GT AIO cooler occupies the rear and 1 of the top exhaust fan position which leave me 1 top fan for exhausting.I have to take the side panel off.Max core temp is 74*C,max VRM temp is 75*C :thumbsup:

thats what you get when you listen to biased opinions over here...the gtx 980 oc gets 16k on firestrike..thats 1.5k more..not just a little difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFGISxi_H9k

 

[guskline]

What should I choose ?

R9 390X or GTX 980 ?



I want to play GTA V almost maxxed, 60fps!

Snell, if you are still reading this thread, would you please post the rest of your specs to help us in assisting you?

The AMD 390X has improved on the basic Hawaii card. Also, what monitor and resolution are you using?

 

[tential]

thats what you get when you listen to biased opinions over here...the gtx 980 oc gets 16k on firestrike..thats 1.5k more..not just a little difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFGISxi_H9k

I play games, not benchmarks, could you please reference a gaming suite to show a bonus?

As we all already know here on this forum, a massive gain in a benchmark may translate to very little gains in real world performance.

 

[TXBPNT]

thats what you get when you listen to biased opinions over here...the gtx 980 oc gets 16k on firestrike..thats 1.5k more..not just a little difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFGISxi_H9k

I chose the MSI 390X instead of GTX 980 knowing the latter will be better in synthetic benchmark because I don't like nvidia's shady business practice and I want to support the underdog.