GPUBoss Review Our evaluation of R9 290X vs 970 among Desktop GPUs


Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Bioshock Infinite and 21 more




Face Detection, Ocean Surface Simulation and 3 more

Performance per Watt

Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Bioshock Infinite and 32 more


Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Bioshock Infinite and 32 more

Noise and Power

TDP, Idle Power Consumption, Load Power Consumption and 2 more


Overall Score

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 

GPUBoss recommends the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970  based on its benchmarks, compute performance and noise and power.

See full details

Cast your vote Do you agree or disagree with GPUBoss?


Differences What are the advantages of each

Front view of Radeon R9 290X

Reasons to consider the
AMD Radeon R9 290X

Report a correction
Significantly higher memory bandwidth 320 GB/s vs 224.4 GB/s Around 45% higher memory bandwidth
Better floating-point performance 5,632 GFLOPS vs 3,494 GFLOPS More than 60% better floating-point performance
Higher texture rate 176 GTexel/s vs 109.2 GTexel/s More than 60% higher texture rate
Significantly more shading units 2,816 vs 1,664 1152 more shading units
Significantly more texture mapping units 176 vs 104 72 more texture mapping units
Much wider memory bus 512 bit vs 256 bit 2x wider memory bus
More render output processors 64 vs 56 8 more render output processors
Front view of GeForce GTX 970

Reasons to consider the
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970

Report a correction
Significantly higher effective memory clock speed 7,012 MHz vs 5,000 MHz More than 40% higher effective memory clock speed
Better PassMark score 8,563 vs 7,331 More than 15% better PassMark score
Significantly better particle simulation score 1,119.71 mInteraction/s vs 604.46 mInteraction/s More than 85% better particle simulation score
Significantly higher memory clock speed 1,753 MHz vs 1,250 MHz More than 40% higher memory clock speed
Better PassMark direct compute score 4,375 vs 3,510 Around 25% better PassMark direct compute score
Higher battlefield 4 framerate 88.6 vs 68.75 Around 30% higher battlefield 4 framerate
Higher BioShock infinite framerate 107.6 fps vs 94.9 fps Around 15% higher BioShock infinite framerate
Much lower TDP 148W vs 300W 2x lower TDP

Benchmarks Real world tests of Radeon R9 290X vs GeForce GTX 970

Bitcoin mining Data courtesy CompuBench

Radeon R9 290X
675.23 mHash/s
GeForce GTX 970
488.73 mHash/s

Face detection Data courtesy CompuBench

Radeon R9 290X
118.56 mPixels/s
GeForce GTX 970
148.87 mPixels/s

Ocean surface simulation Data courtesy CompuBench

Radeon R9 290X
1,457.59 frames/s
GeForce GTX 970
1,586.77 frames/s

Fire Strike Factor Data courtesy FutureMark

Sky Diver Factor Data courtesy FutureMark

Cloud Gate Factor Data courtesy FutureMark

Battlefield 4

Reviews Word on the street

Radeon R9 290X  vs GeForce GTX 970 

Today, we're reviewing the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SuperClocked ACX, a non-reference design, factory-overclocked GTX 970 graphics card, which comes with a custom-design PCB, and the company's signature ACX cooler, which features an aluminium stack heatsink that uses a trio of copper heat pipes, to draw heat directly from the GPU die, and dissipate it under the airflow of two 80 mm fans.
GeForce GTX 970


Showing 25 comments.
hih i have so many same cards but my opinion is R9 290x is so much better card than 970, surface of WT GF ground craphics is more plastic when you use gtx 970 , great card but 290x card graphic is stunning !
Who has fps issues in Aion with the 970 ? I don't have any problem with the R9 serie, and the game's optimizations was designed for nVidia, I really don't get it !
about 4 years too late. It took them 4 years to come up with a new midrange gpu architecture. Its a great card but everyone bought a 970 already.
The 480 just launched yesterday and it is about the same as a 390x. lol
@Alexkk - Bro Your way WRONG, DX12 is Supported on AMD 7xxx-R9 3xx by a simple Driver Update thanks to GCN, point being I have a 7950/R9 280 (Thats what it shows in GPU-Z & Benchtest Suites) & my Sapphire HD 7950 DUAL-X Boost 3GB was a Silicon Lottery winner for sure plus it's x2 BIOS so I flashed one to 7970 GHz, but even using DX11 and Using Mantle in BF4 and other titles going from Stock 925 Mhz Core / 1250 MHz Mem / 5000 Mhz Max Effective to an OC that's beating out my MSI GTX 960 Gaming "100ME" Limited Edition is Most Titles running @ 1200 MHz Core / 1550 MHz Mem / 6200 Max Effective Memory Speed is just insane, and I'm CRUSHING it @ 1080p Titles getting 60 FPS total in COD-Black Ops 3, BF4+Hardline, Fallout 4, Star Wars Battlefront all the while Recording Game play at the same time. I got plenty Videos on these Benchmarks LIVE REAL WORLD 2 Show you don't need the LATEST and Greatest to have an Excellent Gaming Experience Regardless of the GPU and/or Brand, Rather it boils down to PRICE and more Importantly PERFORMANCE. So these arguments are silly on who's better than who...Example is I don't give a SHIT about Playing 4K right now...So I don't need a Shiny New GTX 970/980 or whatever pumping out 100 FPS when I don't even need that kind of Performance on 1080p 60Hz Monitor...So its a matter of choice and what fits into an individuals playing style and expectations and simply doing the research necessary to find the perfect GPU that matches ur parameters. But DX12 is WORKING 100% on my 7950/R9 280 which your Telling EVERYONE WITH R9's are shit out of luck, and DX12/Mantle gives me EVEN More PERFORMANCE BOOST averaging 5-15 FPS gains in any game vs DX11. So im happy I picked up 2 for $220 for a Solid QHD Setup or my Test Bench Triple 1080p Monitors using Eyefinity! They both can handle that 1150+ MHz Core / 6000 Memory beating out GTX 970 and 980 @ 1080p/1440 but at 4k its a give or take at that Resolution. Anyways, I don't really reply or post comments in Threads where there is "Fanboy-ism" if you want to call it that cuz you can argue till blue in the face, each have benefits and negs. If you'd like to see my GPU Battle Vlogs I'll be more than happy to post them here :)
conspiracy* atleast those AMD fanboys can spell xD but seriously this site is biased, i love nvidia and AMD but its quite obvious the site has its preference
direct x 12 is CGN..CGN is going forward..mantle was just step behind direct x 11 and direct we have direct x 12.1 and more advanced CGN 1.4 which is more advanced then direct x12..and hardware of amd are ready for all of it..even were ready past time(but drivers lack to support it) amd drivers was not on nvidia with less capable hardware taking win as on end of day as drivers use that less capable hardware better..and till amd push less sized in nm gpu..nvidia still winning in power and noise,and overall in 1080p gaming,but pass resolution 1080p amd is amd will drop gpu size ,reduce power and noise,and further push HBM to all segments,and nvidia will respond.. in mean time best selling cards are nvidia 960/970 which 5% of all gamers have, and that makes huge money..amd can winn when they make that drivers actually use hardware..seems on CEN they make it,lets see end of 2016!
when you have advanced technology(CGN) which is still not fully used ,why to produce newer? amd go now for less consumption &noise and have done that going to less nm in gpu chip,already have HBM,and nvidia drop HCM and choose HBM as future, so now amd will just push HBM to entire segments of cards...allready amd show on CEN ,more perfomance then nvidia actual.with less power ,heat and noise..and for less price tag! till now they offer better hardware which works less on end in gaming on resolution 1080p,because of drivers,and gaming on higher resolution then 1080p is not so huge market to make profits. what users not saw that CGN goes from 1.0,to 1.1,1.2,1.3,1.4...
Wrong, totally wrong. It all depends on the type of anti aliasing used. Whether it be temporal or mophillogical can make a huge difference. Also the amount of times the image is filtered. Aka 2x,4x,8x, or16x. Pc and consol hardware are actually quite alike, but pc hardware can be vastly more complex and powerful (cost inhibitive, of course).
They're more of refreshes than rebrands. A lot of companies have done that, nvidia included. The 760 being a 670, and a lot of others. AMD has cards to compete with nvidias high end now though. Nothing that straight tops the 980 Ti, but come really close. I really love that fury nano, I think it's such a small niche and won't sell that well. But it's a bad ass card, both are good brands, I do own a 970. But it was a hard decision between a 390 and a 970, they both have games where there's a little %5 gap give or take in performance between the 2. AMD is doing the best they can with the little money they have, I would be more disappointed with the software side of things with AMD with their drivers than the actual hardware. But I would like to see both companies doing very well. Can't wait to see what this new year brings in terms of cards and CPU's.
Came out at $600? Where in the US? The GTX 970 was released at $329 retail.
And when your playing games on either, what exactly is the difference besides what he stated with fps and resolution?
I would still get the car
If you click on the individual reviews for each card, the AMD 290X scored 8.4 and the Nvidia GTX 970 scored 7.9.
ROFL amd had overall better hardware and better architechure but still according to gpu boss shitvidia wins because it has better bioshock framerate and higher clock and passmarks rofl.Higher doesn't count shit and by the way gtx 970 is 3gb vram not 4.
Consoles actually have better AA without performance hit.A console is like motorbike with cheaper price and a weaker 500cc engine can equal a car which costs lot more and a 2000cc and same speed. so console=motorcycle and pc=car.
A PC is like a car you can make it run faster and look cool as a rainbow. A console is a bicycle it doesn't change much but does it's job
The 970 did came out around $600 but if you look up the gtx 970 on google, they are pretty much $300 to $600. I'd go for EVGA in my opinion
"OMG games coded to favor Nvidia! 3.5GB VS 4GB! LOL @ fanbois!" -AMD apologists
Glory to the PhysX master race!
Anti-aliasing is a big difference too. Console games are so rough along all of the edges compared to pc games.
you have no clue, same architecture but better manufacturing process, better ram and more of it, and the cost of the 980Ti hybrid is a further +$100 atleast over the fury X so it doesn't even compare to FuryX and 980Ti's price point , and fyi 390X is direct competitor for 980
comments powered by Disqus