I am looking for a GPU for a friend right now. I have an option to get a EVGA GTX 970 FTW fpr 452$ CAD or go in the used market for a R9 290 going around 220 CAD. My friend plays 1080p games BF4, SC II, WOW... He always wants to be over 60 fps and somewhat future proof.
EVGA is pretty much the top class for Nvidia and is as future proof as it gets but the pricing is really not the same. What would you guys suggest?
The rest of his rig is identical to mine.
I would get the 290/290X. And
if it turns out to be loud and hot, I would just change the stock cooler to
this. 970 is way too crippled, and even a decent OC won't cover the deficit in extra units. The 980 Reference is the card I would get today,
if price is no objection.
Personally for me, there are only 2 cons of the 290 family: first) is the lack of VGA output support (yeah, sometimes it's handy to have a connection to a small VGA display for testing purposes). But for the majority of the people, this is not a real issue. And the second) the increased power consumption which requires good ventilation inside your case for optimal performance and your components longevity (with the 980 Reference, most of the heat goes outside your case, for example). So yeah, the 980 reference seems like the best card at the moment. Wish it had an AMD's ZeroCore equivalent though. Oh well, nothing is perfect.
EDIT: Forgot, there is HDMI 2.0 in the 900 Geforce series. This is new tech, though.. and some people are experiencing issues with that. Can't say from my experience. But google is your friend