Sapphire 390 vs MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by BB Gun, Jul 30, 2015.

  1. BB Gun

    BB Gun Active Member

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    GPU:
    MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G
    Hey guys, im deciding between two GPU's to buy.

    Its either Sapphire 390 Nitro and MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming

    Sapphire 390 Nitro
    Pros:
    -Cheap
    -Will enable me my Freesync support on my monitor
    -Can run modern games (while not all) on Ultra with 50+FPS
    -Has 8 GB VRAM (altough not that useful since I dont run it at 4K for modern games)

    Cons:
    -Will get old soon (and by old I mean wont be able to keep up with new games at ultra Settings @ 1440p at 60+ FPS)
    -Going with this one, I would only use it as a placeholder Until Pascal or Arctic Islands arrive , and even then they probably will come out at Q4 2016 which is very long , not to mention they might be even more EXPENSIVE than the GTX 980 Ti here, but my knowledge is that transitioning to 16/14nm node is actually a cheaper process and hopefully they would be atleast 550 or 650 $ (and by that I mean high end like GTX 1080 like GTX 980 Ti).
    -Crossfiring wont be an option for my 650 W Supernova G2
    -NVIDIA S!@#Works (or any NVIDIA optimized games) will sabotage my performance on 390 and I would be forced to reduce quality of games to run it at 60+ FPS
    -Freesync is only at 35-90Hz range

    MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming
    Pros:
    -Ultra powerful card
    -Will last me for a few years running games at max settings @1440p 60+ FPS
    -Wont be needing to replace it atleast minimum 3 years
    -Will benefit more from Gameworks

    Cons
    -Expensive (730 Euro)
    -Will feel regret if Pascal would be cheaper but more powerful than this one
    -Would have to game alot to feel my moneys worth if I buy it

    Any additional Pros and Cons for these 2 GPU's are welcome from you guys.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2015
  2. Cartman372

    Cartman372 Maha Guru

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    If you have the money for the 980 Ti (which you must have if you're considering it), then it's not even a contest.

    I'd definitely go for the 980 Ti.
     
  3. BB Gun

    BB Gun Active Member

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    GPU:
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    But at my country I am wondering is the 730 euros price tag worth it for GTX 980 Ti, or is buying 390 and playing waiting game again for Arctic Island/Pascal worth it since it is a new technology.
     
  4. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Guest

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    390 is old now same gpu as the 290 released 2 years ago. That 8GB is useless in single card configs.
     

  5. BB Gun

    BB Gun Active Member

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    GPU:
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    Well I know, I thought to use is t as a placeholder until Arctic Islands/Pascal arrive.
     
  6. Cartman372

    Cartman372 Maha Guru

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    In my opinion there is little to no point in getting placeholder items. If you feel like you need the performance boost now, get a 980 TI and enjoy it. If you can live with your 6850 for another 8-12 months, then wait and see what surfaces then.

    Also as TK said, the 8GB on the 390 is useless for single cards.
     
  7. Loophole35

    Loophole35 Guest

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    Go for the 980Ti if you have the coin. Something better is always around the corner. It would be around 4-5x faster than what you have now at stock and they overclock like crazy.
     
  8. oGow89

    oGow89 Guest

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    Well if i may to chime in, going with the gtx 980ti might not only mean spending more than 2x the amount, but with your setup, the gpu might not even be fully utilized, depending on resolution and how cpu intensive the game is, naturally.

    Now if you are planning to buy the r9 390 till the next gen. of gpus release, i would say, it might be a bit too much to spend for a place holder. The card will actually run all latest games at 1080p 60fps aside from maybe the witcher 3 and all cards have trouble with it anyways, and can run also many at 1440p. However, if you really want to save money while having a good card to fill that pci e slot, go with the r9 290, new or second hand as long it is a non-reference. They are cheap, and you will find barely used ones on ebay. OC the card and you have yourself a performance of that of even the r9 390x.

    I don't advice going with the gtx 980ti, but if you do so, i recommend giving the card a rather more capable cpu in line of the intel i7 4000/5000 series to really max the card out.

    If you have as much as 700 euros, my advice would be, to hold on to it, wait for skylake, get the cpu, mobo, ram, and everything else, and hold on to the gpu or look for a second hand cheap more capable gpu than what you have and await the pascal/arctice gpus.

    Just to be clear, i don't mean that your cpu is no good, i just mean that a 700 euro gpu shouldn't be combined with a sub 200 euro 4 years old cpu. OC'ing will show some gains in performance, but newer games are benefiting more from hyper-threading and stronger cores. All in all, your cpu will be able to handle the gtx 980 ti, but you will see that at times the gpu is running at 70-80% while your cpu is at 100%, again in cpu intensive games.
     
  9. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Guest

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    So what's wrong with a 2500k and a 980ti? I ran 2600k with sli 580, sli 680, sli 780ti all with great results. My son's rig with a 2500k at 4.4 feeds 780ti sli rather well.
     
  10. oGow89

    oGow89 Guest

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    GPU:
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    Intel 2600k is an i7.

    SLI gtx 580!= gtx 980ti

    SLI gtx 680!= gtx 980ti

    SLI gtx 780ti doesn't always equal compare to a gtx 980 ti.

    If there was a stronger and affordable cpu back then, you would have gotten it. Just like now you don't have that cpu with your gtx 980 ti sli setup, and you know damn well why.

    That cpu is able to run your son's setup, but like i said, there are some games where he will see low performance due to the cpu bottleneck.

    If you are willing to spend so much for a gpu, why not give it the right cpu that can max it out all the time and benefit from its performance instead of having it run at 80%? Oc'd or not, it won't make up for the stronger cores and definitely not for the hyper-threading.

    You think i pull the crap out of my ass, go ahead and try this;

    Run a benchmark with a single gtx 980ti on games like the far cry 4, assassins creed unity, witcher 3, crysis 3, Arma 3, dead rising 3, watch dogs, and Gta v, with your cpu current clock and ht at 1080p. And by that i mean play some action packed sequences and drivethrough the city or ride or whatever.

    Then do the same but this time with ht turend off and your cpu clocked to say 4.0ghz max with no turbo, after all haswell have stronger cores. If the performance difference is less than 5fps at all time, post them, and ill delete my account and get off this site. How about that?
     

  11. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Guest

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    What the heck are you talking about??
     
  12. Darkest

    Darkest Guest

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    Maybe he's drunk?
     
  13. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    oGow89, post some scores of your 4690k 4.4Ghz, maybe Cinebench R15 single/multithread performance and let me show you how my 2500k beats all of that.

    I dont think that such a fast CPU can bottleneck any single card.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2015
  14. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Guest

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    Lol I upgraded to 4790k for sli 980ti? My plan was to buy 980ti sli for my 2600k but my mb died and possibly the 2600k as it would not post on the asrock 77 extreme I had. Had a 2500k I bought years ago so I decided to upgrade my kids pc.
     
  15. oGow89

    oGow89 Guest

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    Maybe you say something useful once in a while rather than bashing others just to feel good about yourself......?!

    I don't see how a synthetic benchmark is supposed to prove a point?! But i'll download it and run the test. Any other ones i should try?

    Just keep mind, i didn't recommend to buy an i5 haswell and combine it with a gtx 980 ti. I did suggest to wait for the i7 skylake, and combine it with a next gen. high end gpu the likes of pascal and arctic islands. I wrote that to give the OP another option, which is; rather than spending some of the money for a place holder that would cost him 300+ bucks then later spending double that for the next high end gpu, he should start building his next rig one part at a time.

    I am all for buying the highest end gpu, by all means buy the gtx 980ti, it is a wonderful card, but please, if you are spending that much for a gpu, at least give it the proper cpu. We can go back and forth of how an oc'd i5 2500k can handle any game, but the fact remains, you will have at more than one occasion a gpu like the gtx 980ti running at ~80% or even less, while the cpu is maxed out. Newer titles do benefit more from hyper-threading, and even with an i5 2500k clocked at 5ghz, it won't make up for missing virtual cores.


    I am touched.....

    I am suggesting dumbing your cpu down to the level of i5 2500k and see how much fps you lose in comparison.
     

  16. Darkest

    Darkest Guest

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    What makes you think I need to feel good about myself? You just aggressively crap-posted (not for the first time either) while off-topic, giving a highly suspect tutorial of how to make a CPU look to be on par with a 2500K while gaming at 1080p.

    You were offered to look at single threaded performance and argued against that. You even seemed confused as to why, which is hilarious really considering the per core performance difference between a 2500K and a Haswell generation processor isn't really that huge. The reason a test showing single threaded performance is important is because most games are still only utilising four cores at the most. This might change in the future, but we've a couple of years until then and there's no need for the OP to make a full platform update just to enjoy a high end GPU.

    Claiming a highly clocked 2500K cannot feed any single GPU solution is outright nonsense. Period.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2015
  17. yasamoka

    yasamoka Ancient Guru

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    Consider this, OP:

    980Ti runs your favorite new shiny game at 1440p 110FPS+ at 144Hz.
    390 runs your favorite new shiny game at 1440 60-70FPS at 35-90Hz FreeSync.

    Higher framerates (100+) at 144Hz might feel better than framerates hovering 60-70FPS at the 35-90Hz range, for example. This is worth looking into. Tearing is little at higher refresh rates, and stutter is reduced, but GSync and FreeSync completely eliminate the VSync off stutter caused by the mismatch between FPS and refresh rate.

    The further question is, is Nvidia willing to eventually support Adaptive-Sync (VESA's standard upon which AMD FreeSync builds)?

    Just some questions to consider.

    Why aren't you comparing Fury X to 980Ti? Your comparison will confuse you. The AMD card has a great technology you can use on your existing monitor while the Nvidia card as of now does not, but provides much higher performance, for a much higher price. The comparison doesn't hold all that much.
     
  18. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Guest

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    My kids 2500k at 4.4 is enough for sli 780ti at 1440p, it's an i5. And tbh I ran my 2600k with ht off most of the time. You fail to realize sli at the performance of a single card needs more cpu power. If you ever ran multi gpu you would know this. 2500k for a single card even a 980ti is alright.
     
  19. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    Idk why all this fascination about HT, its not a real cores you know? Upcoming i5 6600k will probably beat any past gen i7 when it comes to gaming. When 4690k becomes absolete 4790k will be too. Higher ipc and higher core clock is what you need atm.
     
  20. xeph

    xeph Guest

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    im sure a 2500k wont cause any issues with a 980ti, i think youll be fine. id buy the 980ti aswell, the extra cash will be worth it i think, the 390 is around the same performance as 970 (maybe a little better) but the 980ti comes close to two in sli, you would be getting great performance at 1440p like you stated
     

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