R9-390 or GTX 960?

Hi everyone,

I am looking for a bit of advice. I have two GPU cards that are good enough for medium demand games. I have an AMD R9-390 with 8GB of VRAM, and a Nvidia GTX 960 with 2GB of VRAM.

Now I hear that PoE is optimized more toward Nvidia, and my R9 is a bit choppy on default settings. I was wondering if I could pop in my GTX 960 and get simmilar performance with less choppiness, or keep the more powerful R9 installed and hope for the best.

Either way I expect my CPU to do a lot of the processing, I know that thing can handle it :) hehe. It is an AMD FX 9590 with 8 cores, down to 4 due to temperature management.

I have no real issue running PoE, I just want smooth Frame Rates. And the GTX is a bit less powerful, but if PoE is optimized more towards Nvidia, then I will happily pop it into my tower and see what happens :).

Thanks for any advice, much appreciated :).

Yp!

The RX 590 is brand new and sits above the GTX 1060 (which 1060 is far better than a 960) and is slightly below the 1070 or on par with a 1070, so you shouldn't have those problems with game stuttering or fps lag.

Here are the requirements according to Steam:


Minimum:
OS: Windows XP SP3/Windows 7 SP1/Windows 8
Processor: x86-compatible 2.6GHz or better
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 650 Ti or ATI Radeon™ HD 7850 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 20 GB available space

Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 SP1/Windows 10
Processor: x64-compatible, quad core, 3.2GHz or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti or ATI Radeon™ RX560 or better
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 20 GB available space

We probably need more information about your PC. How much RAM do you have? Is it dual channel? Is the game on a Hard Drive 5200rpm or 7200rpm or a SSD drive? What version of Windows do you use? Does your computer have overheating issues (above 90 degrees)?

I think your post will have more success in the Tech Support Forum under Help instead of Help and Information. But I am sure the RX 590 is not the cause, unless it being a new product is affecting the performance. Yes you can try put in the GTX 960 instead of it isn't too much hassle to you, and see if there is a difference, but the RX 590 really shouldn't be the issue here.

Ok firstly I apologize for my first post, its 4 am and misread the title. You meant the R9 390. Yeah it is a much older AMD card and chumps on Power. So yeah you could try the GTX 960 and it might make a difference.

Sorry for my mistake thinking you meant a RX 590 lol.

"

FearGX wrote:

Ok firstly I apologize for my first post, its 4 am and misread the title. You meant the R9 390. Yeah it is a much older AMD card and chumps on Power. So yeah you could try the GTX 960 and it might make a difference.

Sorry for my mistake thinking you meant a RX 590 lol.

No prob, thanks for the info though, been wondering about the newer cards out these days, but unfortunately I have no funds for one just yet.

In other areas of my system, I have 16GB of GDDR5 ram (I think it is GDDR5) Not sure if dual channel or not though, forgot how to find out. The HDD is 7200 but I have no SSD currently. Thought about getting a small one of those but I am unsure what size per price is a good deal for my budget. I hear SSDs are getting bigger and more affordable at the same time, so maybe I will wait just a bit longer :). And finally I have win 10 64bit. I know I meet all of the requirements for the game, but my system seems to bottleneck at the Graphics card. Not sure why since it far exceeds the required card for the AMD requirement of PoE.

Also, not sure if this might be an issue, but I have been running PoE at a different resolution than my Desktop resolution. I hear some games don't like that, but I always thought it was an older issue which I have not seen in quite some time. I have been collecting PC games for over 20 years now, and I have quite an extensive library, not as big as many other people though, since I have very specific tastes in games. I remember that a few of my games like top be on the same resolution, but like I said, it hasn't been a problem for me in some of the newer games I play.

Also, Nvidia seems to be the maker most of my games prefer, but the 2GB of VRAM seems low, especially when compared to the 8GB of VRAM on the R9 390. I might do just what you suggest and pop in the GTX and see what I get. I just found it in my mess of a bedroom so I guess we will see :).

Yp!

considering now, use the AMD card. You are FORCED to use DirectX 11, though - DX9 is way too rough (CHOPPY enough to impact latency!) on these cards (saying this from experience - I have a RX-460, myself.)

IF you are using Windows 10: DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT USE THE LATEST VERSION (1809). Windows Update SHOULD NOT give you that option, anyways. DO NOT MANUALLY UPDATE TO 1809, EITHER, AS IT IS SUBSTANTIALLY BUGGY (can turn your installation into an unusable brick.)

Well, I popped the 960 in before I saw your post. I was surprised at what I saw, in game and out. Sharper images, the R9 390 was fuzzy by comparison. And considering your advise, I wonder if there was some issue with the AMD driver that wasn't apparent to me. The Nvidia is doing well, I already tested the game and such, which is running beautifully, albeit the loads times are a tad longer. I think I will stick with Nvidia now, something is wrong with AMD (or my 390).

I have always preferred Nvidia anyway, they are just a bit out of my budget range though, but have always performed well for me. I wish they would lower their prices ;).

"

Ypsilanti wrote:

the R9 390 was fuzzy by comparison

Disable Dynamic Resolution in Path of Exile.

"

Sarno wrote:

"

Ypsilanti wrote:

the R9 390 was fuzzy by comparison

Disable Dynamic Resolution in Path of Exile.

with AMD cards, that setting does not do a thing at all. If it does (which I'll be surprised if it does with AMD cards (last time it did work was when it was introduced), it'll tank the framerate as well.

"

bvanharjr wrote:

with AMD cards, that setting does not do a thing at all. If it does (which I'll be surprised if it does with AMD cards (last time it did work was when it was introduced), it'll tank the framerate as well.

It works for me.

The 'fuzzy' description screams Dynamic Resolution to me as well.

Well, the fuzziness was in my desktop window as well. The 960 is sharper everywhere which was surprising. I have this feeling something is wrong with my 390, maybe it got too hot or something. Although I think it was a driver issue, but I am not an expert. It is hard to describe with any clarity, but I like the overall performance of my 960 over the 390 although the 390 is said to be more powerful.