[Overclock3D.net] AMD 390X review

[Creig]

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_review/1

 

[LTC8K6]

Yes, in a generic thread. This is a thread dedicated to the review itself.

Sheesh.

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[krumme]

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Please do not quote posts that are thread crapping, report them. And do not call out members.
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[xthetenth]

Good call by AMD sending a high quality aftermarket OC card. It'll be interesting seeing whether that can shake the 290 reference benchmarks' reputation.

 

[Silverforce11]

I don't understand O3D's charts, the numbers are all over the place?

 

[krumme]

"
Conclusion

Let's shut up the naysayers before we begin. Yes, we know this isn't the Fury X. Yes, we know that normally we despise rebadged hardware as much as anyone. Yes, we appreciate this is a stop-gap measure and owners of the R9 290X need not apply. All got that? Good. Where were we...
We were all ready to hate on the R9 390X for all the reasons we outlined above, and certainly if our first experience was a reference card then perhaps we wouldn't be so impressed. But the key word in that sentence is impressed and we absolutely are. You would imagine that a card at this price and designed as an interim it would be aimed at a very small sector of a the market. Somewhere around a basic GTX970. That's exactly where we had it pegged based upon our experience of R9 290Xs and knowledge of how reticent the manufacturers are to give 'free' performance.
The MSI Gaming 8G take upon the R9 390X is spectacular though.
Performance is slightly dependant upon which title you're benchmarking, but in general it's not just a good GTX970 that matches the R9 390X. Instead the MSI Gaming is more akin to a regular GTX980 and, sometimes, an overclocked one. We don't care what your relative thoughts about the wisdom of releasing a card that doesn't contain your latest GPU are. We don't really care about whether the Fury X will be a stunner. As always here at OC3D we live in the here and now, and right now the R9 390X, especially in the Gaming guise MSI have festooned it with, is a great graphics card for the money.
There is nothing about this card that is rebrand, its a totally new card. Also just to be clear this could have been called the MSI 290X Gaming V2 and we would be saying the exact same thing. This is in no way shape or form a number change on the box. This card has been designed from the ground up to be amazing and it did just that. Amaze..... (balls?)"

Lol. This is what a good facelift can do with good tech. Its simply good cards. And it matters. Hopefully this is the end of crappy coolers !

 

[cen1]

I don't understand O3D's charts, the numbers are all over the place?

The sorting seems to be messed up in some graphs and there are some weird results indeed (Unigine). Not all of them tho.

 

[RussianSensation]

"
Instead the MSI Gaming is more akin to a regular GTX980 and, sometimes, an overclocked one.

Yup, cuz MSI Gaming 390X has 1100mhz GPU clocks and 6100mhz memory out of the box that remain that way 100% of the time; it runs runs cool, quiet, turns off the fans at idle. Against a reference thermal throttling 290X, this card is a star. I hope AMD never again releases hot and loud reference blower cards with 250-300W TPD because 290/290X will forever go down in history as an underrated series with crippled image due to their reference heatsink launch reviews.

MSI Gaming 390 has 1060mhz clocks or nearly 12% higher than a reference 290 with its 947mhz.

MSI did put in work into the newer cards. The PCB is fully custom built, and the card has 10 power phases and Military Class 4 components all around.

 

[LTC8K6]

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[LTC8K6]

It doesn't seem much better overall than the 8gb 290X cards, though.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7037/sapphire-radeon-r9-290x-8gb-tri-video-card-review/index.html

We were able to really crank up the SAPPHIRE Radeon R9 290X 8GB Tri-X, up from its stock GPU clock of 1020MHz to 1163MHz, while the RAM we were able to really drive up from 1375MHz to 1575MHz. This was a great achievement, with the card keeping itself nice and cool thanks to that Tri-X cooling technology.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202144

That 290X TRI-X is $374 at Newegg for reference.

 

[RussianSensation]

It doesn't seem much better overall than the 8gb 290X cards, though.]

It's not much better, but it is better. 1200mhz on the core / 6600mhz on the memory is higher than the card you linked, plus it can turn the fans off at idle. None of 290X cards can turn the fan off. Obviously I still would have recommended someone to buy a $270 XFX R9 290X black edition or a $240 Sapphire Tri-X 290 but those are all gone now. AMD launched these cards overpriced, which isn't great for the mid-range customer and I almost feel sorry for people who only had a budget for $220-250 for a card since those great after-market 290 cards will be all but gone leaving someone with an R9 380/285 or a 960 - all turds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202144

That 290X TRI-X is $374 at Newegg for reference.

Yup, that's a better deal than the 390X. You aren't saying what we haven't said before -- discounted 290/290X cards will offer superior values until their stock starts running out and prices on them skyrocket. It's already happening. The mid-range buyer will get crushed in the process since there will be a giant gap between $200 and $300 space that was before filled by the awesome after-market 290 cards.

 

[LTC8K6]

It's not much better, but it is better. 1200mhz on the core / 6600mhz on the memory is higher than the card you linked, plus it can turn the fans off at idle. None of 290X cards can turn the fan off. Obviously I still would have recommended someone to buy a $270 XFX R9 290X black edition or a $240 Sapphire Tri-X 290 but those are all gone now. AMD launched these cards overpriced, which isn't great for the mid-range customer and I almost feel sorry for people who only had a budget for $220-250 for a card since those great after-market 290 cards will be all but gone leaving someone with an R9 380/285 or a 960 - all turds.



Yup, that's a better deal than the 390X. You aren't saying what we haven't said before -- discounted 290/290X cards will offer superior values until their stock starts running out and prices on them skyrocket. It's already happening. The mid-range buyer will get crushed in the process since there will be a giant gap between $200 and $300 space that was before filled by the awesome after-market 290 cards.

That particular one clocked up, mem and gpu, right to about where a 390X clocks up to though.

1163 and 1575/6300.

 

[Actaeon]

Nice card, finally glad to see a review where Hawaii isn't gimped by the poor reference cooler. I found it way too common for people to cite comparison benchmarks of the 290x with the reference cooler in non-Uber mode with throttled clocks instead of using a 290X with a decent cooler like most people bought. Yes, AMD messed up with the crappy OEM cooler, but the benchmarks for that car wasn't representative of the cards you could actually buy or what the GPU was capable of.

I am glad I got my 290Xs last year when AMD was selling them at fire sales prices. I got the two Sapphire Tri-Xs for about $300 and included 4 free games each. I overclocked them to 1100/6500 completely stable with no throttling. Memory @ 6.5Ghz give me over 416GB/s of memory bandwidth. It is very fast and I don't think you can get any faster for the money.

Hopefully AMD cuts prices of these 390Xs in time for Fury. This card for $350~ will be a very good deal for any one who missed out on the 290Xs.

 

[Nauticle]

So now that we know that the 290/290x are still the best value I was wondering which one I should get. It seems newegg.ca is the only place I can get them easily (ncix and memoryexpress are either sold out/not stocking them).

My top 3 picks are as follows (add 5% taxes)

Sapphire Tri-X 290 for 354 + 12 shipping.
XFX 290 for 369 + 15 shipping with a $25 American Express rebate card.
XFX 290x for 399 + free shipping with a $30 American Express rebate card.

The only demanding games I will be able to play this year are Dragon Age Inquisition and The Witcher 3. Mostly TW3. Any other games will be less demanding ones like Pillars of Eternity, Heroes of the Storm and other old titles. All will be played at 1080p with a slim chance of 1440p later this year.

Other specs are:
i7-870 (stock but can oc to 3.6-3.8ghz stable with 4ghz a possibility) with NHD14
12GB ddr3 ram (4gb @ 1333 and 8gb @ 1600)
Asus ROG Maximus 3 Formula
Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD, 3x3TB Seagate HDDs, 1x1TB Samsung HDD, 1x2TB WDC
1000w Silverstone Strider Silver PSU
EVGA GTX 570 (replacing)

Im planning on getting a new case with new fans (Phanteks Pro and their fans) and better airflow so my worry about temps with a 3.8ghz oc on my cpu wouldn't be as much of a worry. Also Ill probably be upgrading to Skylake or Haswell this year if that makes any difference.

Thanks

 

[digitaldurandal]

Barely lower temperature than the 290x in their own review, barely any more frames compared to the 290x in their own review. He spends the first five minutes repeating over and over what a great PCB and cooler it is. Honestly, he sounds like a huge shill in this review to me. How can you repeat yourself apx 10 times back to back like that. Anyway then the graphs go up and they are very lack luster. 100 bucks more than the 290x for a very small performance gain.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Barely lower temperature than the 290x in their own review, barely any more frames compared to the 290x in their own review. He spends the first five minutes repeating over and over what a great PCB and cooler it is. Honestly, he sounds like a huge shill in this review to me. How can you repeat yourself apx 10 times back to back like that. Anyway then the graphs go up and they are very lack luster. 100 bucks more than the 290x for a very small performance gain.

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[AtenRa]

XFX R9 290X 8GB - OC3D review may 2015

MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G - OC3D review June 2015

Why would anyone be excited ??? the R9 290X 8GB was released last year, you just up the clocks 50-100MHz and you had a R9 390X more than 6 months ago.

 

[MrTeal]

XFX R9 290X 8GB - OC3D review may 2015

MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G - OC3D review June 2015

Why would anyone be excited ??? the R9 290X 8GB was released last year, you just up the clocks 50-100MHz and you had a R9 390X more than 6 months ago.

Something seems seriously off with the 1080p results on those benchmarks. XFX 290 DD at 60.9FPS in BF4, but the Club3D is 83.7 and the MSI R9 Gaming is 90.7? Ref 980 gets 97.2FPS but the Strix gets 92.9 and the overclocked GTX980 HOF gets 80.3?

 

[RussianSensation]

My top 3 picks are as follows (add 5% taxes)

Sapphire Tri-X 290 for 354 + 12 shipping.
XFX 290 for 369 + 15 shipping with a $25 American Express rebate card.
XFX 290x for 399 + free shipping with a $30 American Express rebate card.

Out of those 3, XFX 290X is the best buy since it's barely more expensive than the other 2 cards but is faster. However, given your very low overclock on your i7 and AMD's CPU driver overhead at 1080P, I think you should instead grab the Asus GTX970 Strix and possibly sell the game or keep the game.

It's possible to find much cheaper after-market R9 290 cards btw.
http://www.ncix.com/detail/club3d-radeon-r9-290-royalking-c5-94192-1360.htm
or a Gigabyte 970
http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-970-oc-6d-102012-1360.htm

 

[Nauticle]

Out of those 3, XFX 290X is the best buy since it's barely more expensive than the other 2 cards but is faster. However, given your very low overclock on your i7 and AMD's CPU driver overhead at 1080P, I think you should instead grab the Asus GTX970 Strix and possibly sell the game or keep the game.

It's possible to find much cheaper after-market R9 290 cards btw.
http://www.ncix.com/detail/club3d-radeon-r9-290-royalking-c5-94192-1360.htm
or a Gigabyte 970
http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-970-oc-6d-102012-1360.htm

Thanks for the info but I think Im going to go with the 290x though I would like to know how much overclocking would I need to offset the driver overhead. Im also planning on upgrading to Haswell or Skylake a little later this year anyhow so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Also overclocking to 3.6 and 3.8 were stable and so was 4.0ghz but I had only tested that one for 15minutes in prime95 before the temperatures reached a level I felt uncomfortable with. Im getting a new case/fan setup that should provide a lot more airflow and better circulation that should help with that.

 

[raghu78]

So now that we know that the 290/290x are still the best value I was wondering which one I should get. It seems newegg.ca is the only place I can get them easily (ncix and memoryexpress are either sold out/not stocking them).

My top 3 picks are as follows (add 5% taxes)

Sapphire Tri-X 290 for 354 + 12 shipping.
XFX 290 for 369 + 15 shipping with a $25 American Express rebate card.
XFX 290x for 399 + free shipping with a $30 American Express rebate card.

Thanks

the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X is the best of the choices you mentioned. go with it. :thumbsup:

 

[Subyman]

It is sad when I have to moderate or delete half the posts in this thread. Keep it on topic and quit attacking each other

Moderator Subyman

 

[boozzer]

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_review/1

wow, that is some high praise coming from him. he is very tough. I remember him burying 290/x in his review.

I love the first paragraph of his conclusion. it is like he knows he will draw some heat

 

[krumme]

wow, that is some high praise coming from him. he is very tough. I remember him burying 290/x in his review.

I love the first paragraph of his conclusion. it is like he knows he will draw some heat

Its just a very good card from msi. They have turned quite a lot a excellent cards lately from both nv and amd and from several models. Its just a fine card. To hell with the specs at least for a moment - just look at the perf - it speaks for itself. Thats what the reviewer does.