R9 390 vs GTX 970

[PublicNuisance]

I am going to be hopefully able to upgrade my GPU in the next month or so from my R9 280X and am looking at either the GTX 970 or the R9 390. If this was Windows I would go with the R9 390 hands down. I prefer AMD's concepts such as Tress FX, Mantle, their support of Vulkan, OpenCL, and the fact they have better bang for my buck usually. I despise Nvidia's busines practices also along with their walled garden approach where they only make or buy tech that benefits their cards. That being said what hardware reviews I have found for Linux and my own personal experience suggest that Nvidia drivers cream AMD on Linux and even a GTX 950 can hang on with a Fury X so the GTX 970 should be my obvious choice. Do I have this about right or can anybody add anything to my thought process I have misssed ?

[Kano]

It would be good to wait at least till Pascal is out to compare the performance and most likely older cards will be cheaper. Same for Polaris if an AMD fan wants something new.

[juno]

Honestly, I don't often recommend to wait (as you could then as well wait forever), but I expect Polaris 10 to hit that exact performance level with much better power efficiency (also consider noise). Nvidia should offer a comparable product with the GP106 chip. But don't expect the prices to drop for the new products, however, you might find a good deal for the old ones when the release comes closer. As you already plan to purchase next month, you might be able to hang on for another one or two (Polaris is announced for mid-year).

The 970 is a deceptive product and should never bought and never ever be recommended, imho. It has a painfully crippled chip and was advertised fraudulently. The handicap already hits hard in newer games and will even get worse in the future. But I also gotta be honest, as you (only?) consider playing on Linux, though, you might not be able to notice the downsides, as Linux gaming is far from comparable to Windows at this time. If you don't ever use Windows and don't want to let morality in your decision, you might as well go for the 970.

You should also not expect massive performance improvements for OpenGL games compared to the current catalyst driver. It's not AMD here to blame, but as a consumer it doesn't really matter. You just don't get that high framerates you should be getting if you go for Linux gaming with AMD.

Might I ask what your specific use case is and what card you are using currently?
What games do you intend to play, what monitor are you using? Do you have GPGPU tasks (rendering, mining, ...)?

[PublicNuisance]

Honestly, I don't often recommend to wait (as you could then as well wait forever), but I expect Polaris 10 to hit that exact performance level with much better power efficiency (also consider noise). Nvidia should offer a comparable product with the GP106 chip. But don't expect the prices to drop for the new products, however, you might find a good deal for the old ones when the release comes closer. As you already plan to purchase next month, you might be able to hang on for another one or two (Polaris is announced for mid-year).

The 970 is a deceptive product and should never bought and never ever be recommended, imho. It has a painfully crippled chip and was advertised fraudulently. The handicap already hits hard in newer games and will even get worse in the future. But I also gotta be honest, as you (only?) consider playing on Linux, though, you might not be able to notice the downsides, as Linux gaming is far from comparable to Windows at this time. If you don't ever use Windows and don't want to let morality in your decision, you might as well go for the 970.

You should also not expect massive performance improvements for OpenGL games compared to the current catalyst driver. It's not AMD here to blame, but as a consumer it doesn't really matter. You just don't get that high framerates you should be getting if you go for Linux gaming with AMD.

Might I ask what your specific use case is and what card you are using currently?
What games do you intend to play, what monitor are you using? Do you have GPGPU tasks (rendering, mining, ...)?

I intend to use the card strictly for gaming. Games I can't max out at the moment with my 280X I plan on playing are Shadow of Mordor, Victor Vran, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, Saints Row IV, Borderlands the Presequel and Sunset. Ideally I would be moving over to Linux for good but i've yet to be able to promise that as I have many games I have yet to beat on Windows that are not available on Linux.

[Kano]

I only played Saints Row IV from your list and this one seems to be pretty much optimized for Nvidia. But even with Nvidia you lose speed compared to Windows (it adds a new CPU limit for highend cards). I would just use Windows for games that run too slow, there won't be all games for Linux therefore you most likely keep it anyway. Next gen hardware will support HEVC Main 12 too (currently limited to 8 bit for Linux). So just wait a bit for a better upgrade. This is used for 4k TV stations - currently not that much, but with more TVs available it should increase.

[juno]

I intend to use the card strictly for gaming. [...]

That's too much for me to be able to recommend that AMD without remorse. If you really want to play those (and upcoming ports (I don't expect them to get any better anytime soon)) on Linux, you should go for Nvidia.

as I have many games I have yet to beat on Windows that are not available on Linux

But TBH, if you consider using Windows for some games you could as well be pragmatic, keep your Linux system free of the garbage and use Windows for your games without drawbacks. Just my 2 cents

[chithanh]

The GTX 970 has a RAM configuration (3.5 GB + 0.5 GB) which may hurt in modern games or at high resolutions.


(Source: ComputerBase)

This is only going to get worse. Games graphics memory usage has ballooned since the start of the current console generation.

[juno]

Explanation of the graph, if not familiar:
Vertical axis shows the frametimes in milliseconds (labelling is wrong). Horizontal axis shows the frame numbers. -> The first frame is rendered in ~17 ms on a GTX 980. You want to have an optimal linear graph here, which is impossible but the frametimes should go smoothly. The peaks are posion and cause stuttering. The frametime method shows the drawbacks of the 970 while FPS diagrams or even worse FPS numbers can't visualise that.
Example: imagine 58 frames rendered in 16ms each and 2 frames rendered in 36ms each, you have 60 frames rendered in 1 second (60 FPS) but the output hangs twice for 36 ms (which would be 27 FPS). -> stuttering/lag, no smooth gameplay.
This diagram points out what I explained before. But remember the frametimes on Linux are always worse compared to Windows. So it might not be that big deal for you at all

[PublicNuisance]

I ended up going with the R9 390. I will beat my Windows games that I couldn't max out with it while I save up for a full revamp of my Linux system this summer unless AMD's Linux drivers imprve. It needs a new CPU as well, this X3 is already holding it back.