NVidia GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 380?

[Headfoot]

I wouldn't upgrade to Win10 just yet. Visit the link on my signature to see what horrors lie in win10. Its a privacy nightmare and if you plan on doing any serious work on your computer or store any sort of private data, I suggest you stick to windows 7.

mountain out a molehill. You can turn it off

 

[RussianSensation]

Very good points Ocre. If I was gaming like how I did at one point, GTX 960 over the R9 290 because the R9 290 doesn't offer me any benefit in the types of games I play. Now it does though.

This a very short-sighted thinking. Anyone who took finance, financial management/budgeting/forecasting, accounting and understands the concept of value and cost of ownership will attest to the idea that sometimes paying slightly more costs LESS long term. In other words, the short term savings end up biting the consumer long-term thus negating any initial savings. This applies outside of videocards of course.

As I already mentioned if a gamer sits down and thinks about his/her 5-year-term upgrade strategy, if someone is willing to pay close to $170-180 for a 380/960 2GB, at that point a savvy consumer who can project GPU demanding games to come out will see that hunting down an after-market 290/290X/970 deal pays off because any of those = 960 SLI.

Given how long it took NV to increase performance from 660 to 760 to 960, it is clear to anyone objective that 960, and by definition the 380 are overpriced for budget gaming and going with those cards will actually result in another $200+ Pascal x60 series card that might just barely outperform a 290X/970 OC, and that also means giving up 50-70% of performance in modern titles all that time until the next upgrade.

XFX 290X has lifetime warranty, comes to $260 after rebate on Newegg.com. It also happens to be one of the quietest cards.

Buying a 960 2GB is instantly buying an outdated gaming card but 960 GB approaches $200 with little to show from a performance standpoint for a card prices that high today. This means when 960 is outdated, this card for just a bit more will allow a gamer to wait out the initial expensive periods of 16nm HBM2 cards subside as we move to the 2nd half of Pascal gen. I will bet NV will once again use mid-range 670-680-970-980 successor as a high end marketed product which means no end in sight to their bi-furcating a generation strategy. With iGPU destroying the sub-$100 dGPU market, AMD and NV will continue to feel more pressure to split generations into parts and/or raise prices and/or raise prices/mm2.

If a gamer is just interest in budget gaming, 750Ti for $80-90 is more than good enough. At current prices, with B-Stock 970's going for $250 and 290X for $260, a $180 960/380 sits in no man's land as a gaming card:

What I find the most frightening on AT forums is certain members reluctant to recommend that a gamer spend $60-80 more for 60-70% more performance with lifetime warranty and yet the same people will use cunning marketing metrics like GPU perf/watt (instead of looking at total system perf/watt rating)/electricity costs to justify how it's viable to lose 60-70% more performance to save $10 a year. Yet, same individuals has no problem paying close to double the price of a 290/290X for just 20-25% faster 980.

The traditional mathematically guaranteed price/performance metric and decades long proven GPU upgrading strategies have been displaced by NV's marketing like perf/watt that in practice means it'll take 5-10 years to break even on the cost of electricity. But I guess NV loves it when people upgrade every 1-2 gens for minor performance differences moving from their x60 series cards vs. someone just paying a bit more upfront and enjoying awesome performance on day 1. And on the NV side, $250 970 smashes the 960 4GB as well for value.

 

[RussianSensation]

Here is another deal that's miles better than any 960/380 card.

XFX R9 290 for $220, with lifetime warranty with 30-day registration from purchase date.

An after-market R9 290 is 43% faster at Normal 1080P quality, 45% faster at High 1080P quality than a GTX960/380. For someone with a $200 gaming card budget, spending just a bit more on this card is a no brainer.

 

[happy medium]

I am not much of a gamer but build numerous systems as a small business so felt I should get more updated as it has been a while. I did want decent mid-range video whether I pushed the hardware or not

WAit a few days for the gtx950 and jump on it if its around 150$. That should be perfect for your needs and 2x faster than your current card. You don't need a 250 watt r290 hotbox in your builds.