Upgrade time. Need some advice.

So im coming from a 560 ti and a i5-2500k. Im debating between a major upgrade or a PS4 so the upgrade should be in the same ball park as the PS4 ($400 give or take).

Im debating whether or not to get a 970 or a r9 290x. I will need a new PSU as well so that factors in. I plan on gaming at 1920x1080; nothing more anytime soon. As for what I want out of my system, a noticeable upgrade from my 560 ti so I can play most newer games on high with a steady framerate (60 preferred and 30 MINIMUM) is really it.

My questions are:

1) will a PCI 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot make much of a difference in performance ? from my understanding i will only lose around 1-3% in performance. If that is the case im fine with that.

2) what would be the better bang for my buck card ? this is the last upgrade I plan on making to this rig before I start from scratch in a couple years. I dont need to run crysis 3 on ultra at 120 fps. I just want to future proof and play newer games at higher settings than my 560 can do. Also i want to be reasonably sure I can run Fallout 4 ( i know there is no way to tell until its released, just taking a reasonable guess is fine with me)

3) I also found this regular 290 for $260, wondering if its well worth it over a 560 ti and with the price its a better choice than the 2 more expensive cards above.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202143&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-202-143-_-Product

Thanks for any input guys, its much appreciated.

Get a 970 and you won't need a new power supply. It is very energy efficient, unlike the 290(x). You will also get the benefit of better driver support and Nvidia gameworks features such as PhysX, hairworks, etc.

You can get a 290x for 270$ after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150696&cm_re=290x-_-14-150-696-_-Product

Well if you really need a new psu then a pre overclocked 290 series + psu would be the best combo. Now if your psu can handle a GTX 560ti then it can handle a GTX 970, 970 only uses around 25w more then that 560ti. 290x uses 125w more then 560ti.

@04dcarraher: Yeah I was looking into that, my PSU would need to be replaced for a 290x and if I did that i would want to get a quality one so that would put it past the price of a 970 by $30 give or take. Plus this one comes with Arkham Knight

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127850&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-127-850-_-Product

so the 970 is looking like the winner. That extra money would help going towards an SSD which i need

I would suggest the Gigabyte G1 GTX 970 if your case can handle the cooler length. Its binned, has the strongest cooler of the 970's and they overclock like a champ. Mine boosts itself to over 1.4ghz allowing it to perform as well as a GTX 980. Also the G1 is also $350 and has $30 rebate card plus comes with batman too. LINK

Im going to look into the one you linked instead, Thats actually a nicer deal. I just have to measure to make sure it will fit my case.

Just a little tip, my case said it doesn't support GPUs above 29cm, my R9 290 is 31cm and it fits well inside =)

Also if you have a 500Watts PSU that isn't older than more than 2 years you can grab R9 290 without replacing the PSU.

Not quite true, it all depends on the psu's pci-e power design and quality. Chances are that TC's psu is nearly four years old or more.

On a 500w psu a 290 would eat over half of the psu's output. Not smart to do that, most 290's that are clocked abit above 1ghz can eat 300w or more.

If by quality you mean some eBay Chinese 5$ PSU then I would have to agree with you here.

If it's something like Bronze rated PSU with +80 like mine he should be fine.

You cant just assume that, many 500w psu's only have one pci-e connector(most newer one's in the past couple years have added more). But chances are since the current pc has a 560ti ,most likely has a psu with at least two 6 pin pci-e power connecters, but could be a possibility that it has one pci-e and is using an adapter too. If that is the case running a 290 series on a molex pcie adapters isnt safe since its power draw is high.

I've connected my sister's 560Ti with adapter to her CX430, many GPUs come with an extra adapter.

I agree that molex solution isn't the smartest but sometimes it's the cheapest way instead of buying a brand new PSU.

If your only going to draw under 40w with a molex adapter its perfectly fine as long as slot and another pci-e power cable is handling vast majority of the output your fine. but with gpu like the 290's that require ~300w your just asking for trouble.

:D so your PC will shut down after heavy load with the GPU, worth trying instead of throwing money right away, as many will say - if it's working don't try to fix it.

I agree that buying a brand new 500Watts with +80 is sometimes only 20$ but still I think if you could save that spending or at least delay it, why not?

I probably should have thrown this out there, i do have a 750 watt cooler master but it was one of the lower end ones, no +80, etc Cert. I just dont know if i would trust it after all this time not to blow under a 290 (and if im really unlucky take other components out with it when it does because i cant afford it) Thats why im considering the 970. And also if i decide to SLI, because i simply cant cool 2 290s in my case. Its way too cramped and my cooling is not that amazing.

lol it can... ive seen 4 pin molex's burnt and melted from drawing too much on those adapters after a good period of time on good psu's.