i was going to wait for polaris/pascal, but now my gpu is dead - help me upgrade

[Sheninat0r]

my old gtx 670 is dead/dying; artifacts in games, extremely low fps even at low res/minimum settings.

my original plan was to hold out for the death of 28nm, but the latest forecasts (2h 2016) are too far out for me to survive with a broken video card.

im currently debating between the 980ti, 970, or 390. anything lower seems like it would be a sidegrade from the 670, which really surprises me. i'm hesitant on the 980ti because it's still expensive and we're right at the end of a generation, but it seems like the best value of all the cards currently available.

as for the 970 and 390, i'm leaning towards 970 because i'm on 1080p. any suggestions would be welcome.

 

[AtenRa]

One of the best R9 390 as low as $270 AR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131672

Latest review on Techpowerup, lot faster at 1080p than GTX970.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/23.html

 

[Paul98]

I would go with a 390, or look for used card taht will last you till summer

 

[tviceman]

There are very few stock 970's out there so AtenRa's comparison is by and large pointless. OC vs. OC the 970 will usually be faster than the 390 at 1080p and generally consume less power. However there are often price premiums going with a 970 over a 390 so it comes down to whether or not you overclock and think the few extra watts saved is worth it.

If you overclock and don't mind spending an extra $30, go with the 970.
If you don't care about overclocking and want to save as much money as possible, go with the cheapest 390.

EDIT:

Current cheapest 970 + free copy of new Tomb Raider $300: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487136
Current cheapest 390, no free game but $30 total in MIR $290 (before MIR): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131672

If you have no interest in Tomb Raider you can sell it for $30 pretty easily, making the difference between the two cards $20 in price.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Grab a cheap 950 or 270 on sale, throw it in an htpc when you upgrade.

 

[Sheninat0r]

Grab a cheap 950 or 270 on sale, throw it in an htpc when you upgrade.

i really don't want to get anything that's slower than my current card, even if it is just for temporary use. plus i don't have a secondary pc. if i could match the gtx 670 at $150, i would probably go for that.

pretty tempted by the r9 390, that 8gb vram looks nice for tes and gta modding. how bad is the 3.5 problem really?

 

[MustISO]

I've seen GTX 670's going for about $80. That's probably the best thing to do if you want to upgrade to the latest and greatest when they are released.

 

[fourdegrees11]

380x for $220 should do the trick. I would expect the driver support along with vram gives AMD cards a nice advantage vs what old benchmarks of the 670 show?

 

[MrTeal]

i really don't want to get anything that's slower than my current card, even if it is just for temporary use. plus i don't have a secondary pc. if i could match the gtx 670 at $150, i would probably go for that.

pretty tempted by the r9 390, that 8gb vram looks nice for tes and gta modding. how bad is the 3.5 problem really?

The 270 wouldn't really be much slower than your 670. It was about 25% back of it when they launched, but GCN has aged better than Kepler. The 670 at stock is a little (<10%) faster than the 760, while a 270 is 5% or so slower than a 270X. Looking at the chart AtenRa posted, the 270 would be ~5% or so back of the 670.
Considering you can buy a new 270 for $110 AR from Newegg, that would be a better buy than a 2GB 950 if you do go the cheap route.

 

[Madpacket]

I own both cards. MSI Radeon 390 and a Asus Geforce 970.

390 vs 970 is tough... I wouldn't really make performance the deciding factor unless you plan on going crossfire or SLI as it's mostly a wash between them (even with two cards combined).

I would look at other areas and base your decision on that instead.

Drivers? (IMHO AMD has really caught up to Nvidia especially with their Crimson drivers but many still argue Nvidia makes better drivers. Personally I don't see much of a difference these days unless you've got a unique monitor arrangement or are trying to do something bleeding edge etc.)

Freesync vs Gsync? (You're currently only at 1080P right? If you're planning on a monitor upgrade anytime soon ((both cards can handle 1440P pretty well)). Keep in mind Freesync monitors are much cheaper than their Gsync equivalents so that will save you a handful of money if or when you upgrade your monitor.

DirectX 12? - Still too early to tell but if games run anything like Mantle/BF4 I suspect the 390 will outlast and potentially significantly outperform the 970 due to hardware based asynchronous scheduling.

VR? - Are you planning on a VR headset? If so GCN architecture appears to be better suited for lower latency and VR but that's just based off early reports.

CPU: What CPU do you have? Geforce cards run much better with slower CPU's due to better DX11 optimization. If you're rocking an older CPU you may want to get a Geforce 970 unless you're banking on DX12 and VR being a huge thing soon.

Crossfire vs SLI: I think this an overrated topic and I don't really think the 3.5GB of RAM the 970 has is a huge issue when combining both cards . The Maxwell architecture has decent colour compression to make up for lack of VRAM but it may limit the card at 4K resolutions or if you use copious amounts of AA etc. Remember with two 970's you're now saving up to 200W under load so your cooling and power requirements would be much easier with 970's over 390's. Also with DX12 one of the advantages supposedly is being able to pool memory from both cards.

That being said Crossfire generally scales better than Maxwell, has less frametime latency, and the 8GB ensures you won't have to worry about dialing down a few AA knobs (which ironically doesn't matter as much once you increase resolution) or other features. Just keep in mind you'll need a solid 850W power supply to power such a beast where with Geforce cards a 650W would likely be plenty.

Tough choice

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Tried downclocking the 670? core and memory?

Otherwise can't go wrong with the 970 or 390, they cost and perform about the same, so I'd lean 390 because it has 8GB memory, might be of some use one day.

970 could be more silent, case fans might have to spin faster with a 390 at 100% load.

 

[tential]

One of the best R9 390 as low as $270 AR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131672

Latest review on Techpowerup, lot faster at 1080p than GTX970.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/23.html

Woah...
Anyone find it odd TPU didn't have a R9 390 on their review suite for THIS long? If so, it wuold have shown the R9 390 as CLEARLY the king card to buy. The card is within 3% of a GTX 980. Yes, I understand the GTX 980 is reference and can be OCed, but it costs more too.

For reference, here is what it looked like on TPU's prior GPU review which was in November on the 26th.

The 390x is on par with the GTX 980 here.
Just looks like the AMD cards are slowly inching up the charts.

My 290 is a GTX 970, but cheaper, and if I upgrade to the R9 390, I'll get a GTX 980 caliber card...

I seriously feel bad for anyone who buys midrange Nvidia chips and isn't a Day 1 gamer. You're getting screwed for your money.

Even the conclusion of this review is SUSPECT
"Trades blows with the GTX 970"

No it doesn't... it's clearly faster.

It's as fast as my R9 290 now though...

 

[dogen1]

i really don't want to get anything that's slower than my current card, even if it is just for temporary use. plus i don't have a secondary pc. if i could match the gtx 670 at $150, i would probably go for that.

pretty tempted by the r9 390, that 8gb vram looks nice for tes and gta modding. how bad is the 3.5 problem really?

I've found my 950 is actually faster than my friend's 670. And he had his 670 overclocked as much as possible. My card is overclocked too, but I didn't put much time into it.

edit - Nvm, it's only faster in some games, not across the board. Makes sense.

 

[AtenRa]

I've found my 950 is actually faster than my friend's 670. And he had his 670 overclocked as much as possible.

What game ??? GameWorks ??? :sneaky:

 

[dogen1]

What game ??? GameWorks ??? :sneaky:

I edited my post. And iirc the 670 is very close to a 760 in performance. Actually I might have to redact my original post entirely. It gets close to the 760 and matches it sometimes, but I'm not sure about the 670, no 950 review compares them.

 

[3DVagabond]

[H] recently did an O/C v O/C review of the 390 Strix v the MSI GTX 970 gaming. Both stock and max manual O/C. Even in their nVidia biased test suite they were basically even. So the, "but the 970 can O/C to the moon and back" is just hype.

So is the power draw difference once you O/C them

 

[3DVagabond]

I edited my post. And iirc the 670 is very close to a 760 in performance. If you look up 950 reviews you'll see the 950 outperforming the 760 slightly pretty often, just not always.

IIRC the 670 was slightly faster.

 

[dogen1]

IIRC the 670 was slightly faster.

Ah well, ok. I was wrong anyway. The 760 is a bit faster usually, and the 670 is probably a bit more. At least the 950 overclocks really well, so I think it's an alright card still.

 

[AtenRa]

I edited my post. And iirc the 670 is very close to a 760 in performance. Actually I might have to redact my original post entirely. It gets close to the 760 and matches it sometimes, but I'm not sure about the 670, no 950 review compares them.

Hell you are right, and GTX670 was close to if not faster than HD7950 back in 2012. Today even HD7870 (R9 270X) is faster

 

[3DVagabond]

Hell you are right, and GTX670 was close to if not faster than HD7950 back in 2012. Today even HD7870 (R9 270X) is faster

At least that's what we were led to believe.

 

[Techhog]

So is the power draw difference once you O/C them

I'm sorry, but this comparison really shouldn't be used. The MSI Gaming GTX 970 uses significantly more power than any other model, and even more than some GTX 980s.

(Note: the MSI card had a 100MHz higher stock speed and a 50MHz higher overclock, but the difference is too large for it to just be that)

 

[AtenRa]

At least that's what we were led to believe.

Well if things go the same way, then R9 380X one year from now could be faster than GTX970.

 

[Madpacket]

[H] recently did an O/C v O/C review of the 390 Strix v the MSI GTX 970 gaming. Both stock and max manual O/C. Even in their nVidia biased test suite they were basically even. So the, "but the 970 can O/C to the moon and back" is just hype.

So is the power draw difference once you O/C them

This isn't typical and not really a good indicator of power draw under load of the differences between a 970 and 390. Most Geforce 970's have 2x6 pin connectors, this one had a 6+8 connector allowing the card to draw the extra watts.

 

[Sheninat0r]

well shoot. i just measured my case and i have only about 10" of video card clearance; my pump and reservoir are in the way of any long cards. i guess i forgot how (relatively) short the 670 was... from what i can tell the 970 is 10.5" and the 390 is 11", which means they both won't fit. do i have any option now besides jumping down to 960 or 380x or something?

i could also re-do the loop if it's really necessary, but i just did a rebuild two months ago

 

[tential]

well shoot. i just measured my case and i have only about 10" of video card clearance; my pump and reservoir are in the way of any long cards. i guess i forgot how (relatively) short the 670 was... from what i can tell the 970 is 10.5" and the 390 is 11", which means they both won't fit. do i have any option now besides jumping down to 960 or 380x or something?

i could also re-do the loop if it's really necessary, but i just did a rebuild two months ago

I can't imagine this happening in a good case?
Or am I clueless?