Compare any two graphics cards:
GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 290
IntroThe GeForce GTX 970 comes with a GPU core speed of 1050 MHz, and the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM runs at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1664 Stream Processors, 104 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290, which has a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2560 Stream Processors, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.
Display Graphs
BenchmarksThese are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score
Zcash Mining Hash Rate
Ethereum Mining Hash Rate
Power Usage and Theoretical BenchmarksPower Consumption (Max TDP)
Memory BandwidthTheoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 overall. (explain)
Texel RateThe Radeon R9 290 will be a bit (more or less 17%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)
Pixel RateIf running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)
Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit. Price Comparison
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though. Specifications
Display Specifications
Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions. Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second. Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
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Comments
7 Responses to “GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 290”Still not sure which card to choose from! My PSU can handle both fine! But I do like the lower wattage the 970 uses and the slightly higher performance over the 290. But the R9 290 is $70 less in price for basically the same performance. So I am just not sure what to choose! I do like AMD's picture quality better! But Nvidia is much better with Anti-Aliasing, And the Nvidia Drivers are much much less buggy. But the AMD card has much faster memory bandwidth that will perform much better at higher resolution! (CONFUSED)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If Nvidia would just price the 970 right I would not have this problem! So I will more than likely save my money and buy the R9 290.
I came here for answers and I'm just as confused as you Blair.
Any chance of comparing the R9 290 with the EVGA variants like the SSC or FTW & FTW+?
I gave myself a headache after 3 weeks of research and finally bought the SSC.
I'd like to know if I got screwed
i went with the r9 290 (asus dcuII) and have had nothing but troubles with it. constant freezes and black screens and reboots. i'll be returning it and exchanging it with the 970. its one thing you won't read in reviews, but do some googling about 290 issues.
Just to put your minds at rest, I have an R9 290 and it is perfectly stable and very powerful. One key thing you need to make sure is that your power supply is good enough though, because the R9 290 is a power hungry monster unfortunately. A friend has the black screen issues and it was simply that his PSU was not up to the job.
Put simply the 970 is *marginally* (and I mean it's so close it's ridiculous) better than the R9 290, but at the lower price point I would get the cheaper R9 290. If the 970 comes down in price, then I think that's the obvious choice.
everybody who has blackscreen with r9 290 needs to flash their cards,thats it. If your card is not flashed that mean you're not even taking care of your hardware.
Flash a brand new card i just bought? Thats like telling me i have to give a major service to a brand new car with 0 km/ miles on the clock, no thanks, ill happily stay with nvidia, never never had a problem with there card
I'm upgrading from a R9 280X (powercolor) and went with the 970. Quiet and cooler was the deciding point. The R9 performed well but turned my PC into a space heater. Temp was an issue and the thing was noisy. It would easily go above 95c if you let it. I have tried 270X crossfire and it does well when there are no issues with crossfire (. One quiet, cool powerful card with no issues seemed the way to go.