Hi all:

             I asked for GPU suggestions a couple of months back and was about to get the R9 280x or the GTX 960 4gb SSC,  but I got a promotion at work recently and my budget has gone up to about $350.

I was thinking about the GTX 970 but heard that the last 512MB of their memory was partitioned which meant it would run slower when its being used so not sure if I should get it. I was hoping some PC savy people could help me out and give me some suggestions on what card to buy for my budget/system.

My Specs are:

MOBO: P8 P67 Pro

CPU: Intel I-5 2500k

GPU: GTX 570 HD SC

PSU: Corsair 650W

Thanks for the help!

Wait for fury X and Pro. Or 390X, the 970 was never that great.

Instead of the GTX 970, look at the R9 390X, R9 390. More VRAM for higher resolution gaming and quite a lot of power.

GTX 970 if you play at 1080p. It's still faster than any AMD card at the same price bracket. R9 390 if at or higher than 1440p and you don't mind the power consumption.

Most cards are limited by shaders rather than memory. That's why it doesn't really matter if you get a 2 or 4GB GTX 960, or a 8GB R9 390 instead of a 4GB R9 290. The difference will be minimal. It will likely border 10% tops at 4k and that's it...

Nothing wrong with the 970. The slower portion of the RAM does not show in normal gaming. the 390 is another valid shot in your budget region.

What you may want to check is benchmarks for the games you want to play and see if Nvidia or AMD are better because there are some quite significant differences on a game by game basis.

The Fury is coming out tomorrow so wait for pricing information and reviews. If that's too high end I recommend the GTX 980/970 or R9 390x/390 depending on your tastes. Personally I'd recommend AMD because their cards (and freesync monitors) are much cheaper.

Get the R9 Nano. Should be out soon.
Its supposed to be slightly faster than the 290x, but use less than half the power (only uses a single 8pin plug).
Its made on Fiji silicon, so its equal to the Fury and Fury X, in terms of features ect, but its just a smaller card.

(its not like some of the other 3xx cards that are just rebadged cards almost).

Its supposed to be a tiny card like 6in long only, and sips power and barely gets hot, dispite being faster than the 290x.

The 970 will suit the rest of the build just fine. We have to consider that fitting a GPU in the elite division will likely require a new motherboard, which means he will need to replace the CPU and RAM and likely the PSU as well, making it a costly affair.
The VRAM issue with the 970 isn't such a huge deal, 3.5 GB should suffice seeing as how a card like that doesn't really have the horsepower to run software that would make use of more RAM anyway.

I would go Nvidia

But if you do buy AMD don't buy a 390 or 390X get the 290 or 290X with 8GB you'll save $50-100 for the same performance.(the 300 series are AMD trying to get more money for a 2 year old GPU)

970 is good GPU, you won't notice those 0.5GB @ 1080p, and it's not as power hungry as comparable AMD cards.