Ability Consumption & Operation Summary

The ability consumption for the R9 390 isn't as bad as I recall. Total system consumption only increased past 13% over the GTX 970, then that's not an consequence at all.

Not only that but with a loftier-stop Core i7-7700K CPU overclocked the unabridged organisation consumed well under 400 watts when gaming. Overclocking the R9 390 did push consumption upwardly to 351 watts, but that'due south nevertheless very manageable. Of grade, when compared to current generation GPUs such as the GTX 1060 and RX 480 the R9 390 does look like a bit of a power hog.

Putting It All Together

With all 22 games now in the purse, it feels like for the well-nigh part the R9 390 and GTX 970 were pretty well neck and neck, frequently trading blows. But which one came out on top overall and by how much? Well let's take a wait shall we...

Out of the box the R9 390 was 7% faster than the GTX 970, producing on average lxxx fps at 1080p and the margin only grew to viii% at 1440p. Overclocked the 390 enjoyed a performance boost of just 5% on average and this was seen at both tested resolutions.

Meanwhile the GTX 970 did much better through overclocking, enjoying on boilerplate a 12% boost in performance. Surprisingly, however even with this massive heave the GTX 970 was only only able to match the 390 with both GPUs overclocked.

With out of the box performance like to that of the RX 470 and GTX 1060, which toll around $170, you lot won't desire to spend that much on a second hand GTX 970 or R9 390.

Shopping shortcuts:

  • GeForce GTX 970 on Amazon
  • Radeon R9 390 on Amazon
  • GeForce GTX 970 on Newegg
  • Radeon R9 390 on Newegg

Given that they are second hand and that means there likely isn't any kind of warranty, and the fact that they do consume more than power I would over again aim for a maximum purchase cost of $150. Information technology might be hard to find these graphics cards for those prices just that's the most I recommend you invest, ideally you want to spend effectually $120 to get a actually good deal.