I think the R9 290X doom was premature.

[JEMC]

the-pi-guy said:
-The 290 series did see a price drop (after a severe price increase).
-Glad to know I'm not in my right mind. Thinking about getting a 970 for 1080p gaming. I love looking at the benchmarks and seeing that I'd be able to play X game at Y framerate. Especially considering the fact that I've never been able to do so. My current computer for example runs Skyrim @ 1024x768 at a frame rate of 30 fps. Which is awesome for me, but comparatively to the 970, that's sad.

I do agree with the point of this thread, AMD is definitely competitive and after the new 900 series was such a small jump over the 700 series, they could very well jump ahead. Though they usually close or even ahead in 4K benchmarks, they could so even more.

You have a 1024x768 monitor?

If that's the case, forget everything else and first get a 1080p monitor (24" or smaller) and then go for whatever you budget allows you, any R or 7xx series cards can play Skyrim at 1080p at >40fps.

An the 9xx series isn't worth an upgrade for anyone with a 290 or 780 card.