Gaming Performance Comparison
In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB are very slightly better than the AMD Radeon R9 290.
The GTX 970 has a 103 MHz higher core clock speed than the Radeon R9 290, but the Radeon R9 290 has 56 more Texture Mapping Units than the GTX 970. As a result, the Radeon R9 290 exhibits a 42.3 GTexel/s better Texture Fill Rate than the GTX 970. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.
The GTX 970 has a 103 MHz higher core clock speed than the Radeon R9 290, but the Radeon R9 290 has 8 more Render Output Units than the GTX 970. As a result, the Radeon R9 290 exhibits a 1.8 GPixel/s better Pixel Fill Rate than the GTX 970. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.
The GTX 970 was released less than a year after the Radeon R9 290, and so they are likely to have similar driver support for optimizing performance when running the latest games.
Both GPUs exhibit very powerful performance, so it probably isn't worth upgrading from one to the other, as both are capable of running even the most demanding games at the highest settings.
The GeForce GTX 970 4GB and the Radeon R9 290 have the same amount of video memory, but are likely to provide slightly different experiences when displaying game textures at high resolutions.
The Radeon R9 290 has 95.6 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the GTX 970, which means that the memory performance of the Radeon R9 290 is massively better than the GTX 970.
The GeForce GTX 970 4GB has 1664 Shader Processing Units and the Radeon R9 290 has 2560. However, the actual shader performance of the GTX 970 is 2646 and the actual shader performance of the Radeon R9 290 is 2061. The GTX 970 having 585 better shader performance is not particularly notable, as altogether the Radeon R9 290 performs better when taking into account other relevant data.
The GeForce GTX 970 4GB requires 145 Watts to run and the Radeon R9 290 requires 275 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the GTX 970 and a PSU with at least 750 Watts for the Radeon R9 290. The Radeon R9 290 requires 130 Watts more than the GTX 970 to run. The difference is significant enough that the Radeon R9 290 may have an adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the GTX 970.
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| Mini Review | Overview
GeForce GTX 970 4GB is a high-end Graphics Card based on the second revision of the Maxwell architecture. Its relatively low release price and mind-blowing performance made it an extremely competitive product. Read below to know more.
Architecture
The Second variant of the Maxwell Architecture, despite being also manufactured with a 28nm technology, has an extremely large L2 Cache and features a Third Generation Delta Color Compression which allows NVIDIA to produce Graphics Cards with relatively small memory data transfer rates, without causing too much impact on the overall performance. Furthermore, the Shaders have been redesigned and are both more powerful and energy efficient.
The Second Revision of Maxwell also adds the VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination) Technology which makes scenes significantly more lifelike and believable as light interacts more realistically in the game environment and the MFAA Technology which provides the same effect as MSAA but at a much lower performance cost.
GPU
It equips a GPU codenamed GM204-200-A1 which has 13 SM activated and thus offers 1664 Shader Processing Units, 104 TMUs and 56 ROPs, on a 256-bit memory interface of fast GDDR5. The central unit runs at 1050MHz and goes up to 1178MHz, in Turbo Mode, while the memory clock operates at 1753MHz.
Features
DirectX 12.0 Support (11.0 Hardware Default) and support for SLI, MFAA, VXGI, GameStream, G-SYNC, GPU Boost 2.0, GeForce Experience, PhysX and other technologies.
Cooling Solution
The Cooling Solution consists of a Single-Fan and is identical to the one seen on GeForce GTX 770. The Card is known to run cool and has a maximum operating temperature of 95ºC.
Power Consumption
With a rated board TDP of 145W, it requires at least a 500W PSU with two available 6-pin connectors.
Release Price
Pricing is lower than the one seen on its predecessors - $329.99 and makes it an extremely competitive product.
Performance
Gaming benchmarks prove that at 4K (3840x2160) GeForce GTX 970 4GB is over 25% faster than its predecessor and even beats GeForce GTX 780 in about 10%.
System Suggestions
GeForce GTX 970 4GB is best suited for resolutions up to and including 2560x1440. We recommend a Very Strong Processor and 8GB of RAM for Optimal Performance. | | | | Overview
Radeon R9 290 is a High-End Graphics Card based on the First Revision of the Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture.
Architecture
The GCN 1.1 revision of the Graphics Core Next Architecture adds new important technologies and is largely oriented for energy efficiency. New technologies such as PowerTune and TrueAudio are the biggest additions as well as DirectX 11.2 support.
GPU
It equips a GPU Codenamed Hawaii PRO which has 60 Compute Units activated and thus offers 2560 Shader Processing Units, 160 TMUs and 64 ROPs. The Central Unit is clocked at 947MHz.
Memory
The GPU accesses a 4GB frame buffer of fast GDDR5, through a 512-bit memory interface. The size of the frame buffer is adequate. The Memory Clock Operates at 1250MHz.
Power Consumption
With a rated board TDP of 275W, it requires at least a 750W PSU with one available 6-pin and one available 8-pin connectors.
Performance
Radeon R9 290 competes with GeForce GTX 780
but it proves to be slower than the latter at resolutions up to 1920x1080 but takes the lead beyond that.
System Suggestions
Radeon R9 290 is best suited for resolutions up to and including 2560x1440. We recommend a Very Strong Processor and 8GB of RAM for Optimal Performance. |
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