NEW VIDEO CARD- SUGGESTIONS

[Broin]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00KJGYOGG/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Thought suggestions

[Tbone]

So you narrowed down the problem, eh? Oculus came out with their recommended specs, so if you are going to get a new card, you should at least aim for their recommended as a base line. If you are going for the baseline, my recommendations are:

AMD R9 290 - currently $240 on Newegg. This is over $100 cheaper than when I got it last year. Best deal I could find. You'll want to get this one or a similar one that does NOT have the stock cooling system (they don't even sell them anymore). Reviews of this one says it runs quiet, which is perfect. Honestly this is a STEAL - most review sites have this card priced at $360, so it must have just come down in price recently. I would snatch it up.

GTX Nvidia 970 - $315. Much more expensive than the AMD counterpart, and therefore I cannot recommend. However if you MUST have Nvidia, this is the cheapest I could find.

The GT 740 is a super outdated card that isn't recommended by anyone. To give you a comparison, The R9 290 has a 3DMark score of 15210. The GT 740 has a 3DMark score of 2710! Ouch!

Now if you REFUSE to go above $150, get the Nvidia GTX 750 Ti, but that will NOT be enough to run Oculus software and you're going to struggle with any newer game (it's 3DMark score is 5670).

But seriously - I'm kinda jealous of that super cheap R9 290 deal. I would jump on that ASAP.

[Maglorius]

I believe the reason for AMD's price drop has a lot to do with their failing market share, keep in mind that AMD is hurting financially. Their stock is at a staggering $1.92.

There could be some unforeseen lack of support if AMD doesn't get bought out soon or they don't make some significant management changes in their video card department. They put out a net loss of $180 million for the first quarter of 2015.

Nvidia's first quarter report was a gain of 4% over last year, AMD blamed slow PC sales for their loss but Nvidia was up, I guess they benefited from slow sales. Of course I am a Nvidia fan, I was a 3dfx fan back in the day before Nvidia bought them out and naturally I moved over to Nvidia. I did jump on the ATI bandwagon once for the sake of price and was disappointed. I cannot speak of current AMD cards because I only used them before AMD bought out ATI.

Last year’s graphics card sales shows AMD’s share of the graphics market started to slither several years ago and has never recovered. 2014 was the largest swing yet, but it was hardly the start of the downward momentum.

Steam’s hardware survey has long shown Nvidia to be dominant, and the latest trends only reinforce that position. As of February 2015 only 28.6 percent of Steam gamers have an AMD video card, compared to 51.8 percent for Nvidia, and the red team’s share has decreased from just over 32 percent two years ago.

If a prices or the failure of a company is not an issue for you then go with AMD but if you are looking for sustainability I would go with Nvidia.

[doublej42]

I'd say 970 at a Min
benchmark scores
6966 http://videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+R9+290X+%2F+390X&id=2697
vs
8635 http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+970

so the 290 won't meet the recommended for oculus.  Also a lot of games have stuff that only work on nvidia cards.
Also nvidia cards have a h264 encoder that lets you stream and record games.

I'm biased, I own a 970. Also the 970 comes with $160 in games

[Tbone]

so the 290 won't meet the recommended for oculus.

Oculus says differently.

They're recommended specs are:

NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
8GB+ RAM

So a 290 will DEFINITELY met the recommended for Oculus.

The difference between the 290 and the 970 are negligible:

GTX 970: 15890
R9 290: 15210

I don't think that justifies a $75 price gap - especially if you aren't interested in pre-packaged games.

As far as the market goes, better to buy low and sell high. Now's the time to buy AMD. With VR right around the corner, both companies stand to get a big boost. VR requires more horsepower in the graphics department, which means everyone will be looking to Nvidia and AMD to provide. Until now there's been no reason to upgrade a GPU - graphics were pretty stagnated at the same level as consoles. But VR will probably change that.

If the prices were equal, I'd so go Nvidia. But at that price it's worth going to AMD. Both are going full force into VR and Oculus is working with both. I have a 290 and it runs VR stuff perfectly.

[doublej42]

I stand corrected. Every benchmark will be different. Mostly I like the 970 for it's power draw. It's passive cooling when not in a game.