Still, R9 280X 3GB is wiping the floor with NV's GTX670/770 and is also beating 780, 780Ti, OG Titan and
GTX970. This is a historical moment as we have a 2017 modern game where R9 280X is outperforming 2 "generations" of Kepler cards and a next generation Maxwell card.
Things get even worse at 1440p where R9 280X is still playable. R9 290 1Ghz is barely slower than an Asus Strix GTX980.
Shockingly (or not), for those on this forum and other technical forums who were forward thinking and predicted that 3.5GB of segmented memory would destroy the GTX970 over their life-cycle, we are now seeing this come to fruition front and center in a AAA game (that's not including other titles like Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Shadow of Mordor, etc.)
R9 390 8GB ~ 74 fps
GTX980 4GB ~ 67 fps
R9 290 4GB ~ 64 fps
vs.
GTX970 3.5GB ~ 36 fps
Among steam gamers, a whopping 4.7% still game on a GTX970, 3.59% have a GTX960, 3.35% have a GTX750Ti, 1.59% have a GTX760, 1.13% have a GTX950. That means 14.36% of current Steam users would have been better off buying an R9 290/390/290X instead of GTX970, R9 380/380X/280X instead of the GTX950/960 (I actually pushed as hard as possible for a $250 R9 290 that certain vocals on our forums bashed for its power usage at all costs while still recommending GTX960 ...yawn), R9 270/270X over GTX750Ti, and HD7950/7950V2 3GB over GTX760/670.
GTX1070 is barely outperforming the R9 390/390X in this title. Pathetic showing from Pascal.
@ 1440p, R9 280X
3GB is 36-38% faster than GTX960
4GB, 42% faster than GTX970
3.5GB, and an astounding 2.09X faster than GTX1060
3GB. Just more proof that AMD's modern drivers manages VRAM better than NV in games. We've seen this over and over in GameGPU testing.
Fun fact, the R9 290 you bashed over its life-cycle in nearly every pro-GTX960 thread you were present in is 74% faster than GTX960 4GB at 1440p.
In conclusion, we now have 3 full generations of history that shows AMD cards age WAY better and are a better buy for most gamers who keep using their GPUs over 2-4 years. It's shocking in hind-sight to see that R9 290 cost $250 and R9 290X cost $280-325 when GTX980 cost $500-550!
HD7950/7950 V2 > GTX760/GTX670
HD7970/7970Ghz > GTX680/770
R9 290 > 780/OG Titan
R9 390 > 970
R9 290X > 780Ti/OG Titan
R9 390X > 980
The only 2 things that saved 980Ti from the same embarrassment is lack of VRAM and overclocking on the Fury X.
Fingers crossed that AMD has something good in 2017 with Vega so I can dump my 1070s and safely move on to Vega architecture that has next generation features in mind and won't fall apart in 2018-2019 games.
For all the negativity regarding the ultra high-end 980Ti vs. Fury X segment in the last 1.5 years that frankly less than 3% of all PC gamers care about, the more eye-opening fact that most PC gamers should pay attention to is how poorly NV cards age over time. AMD has been
consistently outperforming NV in all performance tiers from $100-$450 over the 2-5 year life-cycle of GPU ownership. And even if we consider "flagship" GTX680/780/780Ti/OG Titan/980 cards, they all aged horribly. Since 2011, the ONLY great modern card NV made on the high-end was the GTX980Ti [it's too early to judge the GTX1080 since it's not even 1 year old.]
I am glad my spare rigs have HD7970Ghz/R9 390 in them, instead of GTX670/680/GTX970 that I could have purchased instead.
*** It's also amusing to see PC "experts" claim that current consoles are underpowered and that Sony/MS should have went with NV for XB1/PS4 when the mid-range R9 270/HD7850 level GPU in the PS4 is now approaching and beat GTX770. If MS chose NV for Scorpio, we would have probably gotten some crappy GTX1050Ti for the same price AMD is going to give Scorpio a Polaris at minimum. The longevity of AMD's GCN architectures and amazing driver support for those cards is another reason they will stand a greater chance winning PS5/XB2 designs. NV seems to be more concerned selling cards that are fast in the first 18-24 months and after that, they move on to the next generation. Buying their cards is like a lease!
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