[WCCF] AMD Radeon R9 390X Pictured

[RussianSensation]

Since when GTX780Ti has higher SLI scaling than R9 290X CF ??
Are they using lots of GW games ???

What do you mean? 780Ti SLI has 71% scaling and R9 290X (Uber) CF has 80% scaling. Also, 290X CF beats 780TI SLI, as expected.

@RS
1) It will be fine. I just don't think AMD's flagship is that slow. I'm expecting Titan X+!

You didn't answer my question about R9 390 non-X as well as would the market benefit from a $550 or below 390X 4GB card? It seems in your world there is only 390X 8GB, GM200 6GB and Titan X 12GB but no other GPUs exist. That's not how the gaming market works.

2) There needs to be a focus on frame times rather than just min/avg when we're talking about games that are shown to consume more than 4GB vram, it will show whether they need it (to dynamic cache, smoother gameplay) or they allocate because they can.

That's unlikely to happen because CF has superior frame times to SLI in many situations/games which means the issues with Maxwell's SLI will be more exposed.

3) It will be fail going forward, ~2 years of lifespan at the top won't be secure with 4GB vram.

Considering next gen mid-range 14nm/16nm cards will beat R9 390X as early as Q3-4 2016, GM200/390X will not be flagship cards for 2+ years. It's a stop-gap generation. Secondly, what matters are the games and how long a buyer intends to keep his cards. I don't imagine a person spending $1400 on R9 390Xs keeping them for 5+ years as that's just not smart upgrading. Similarly, you keep ignoring the aspect that some PC gamers will buy just 1 of these cards for 1080P-1440P. At that point, 4GB of VRAM seems plenty. If you are right, then basically 99% of all GPUs are outdated the minute GM200 6GB drops, but that's not how games work. Games are scalable.

 

[AtenRa]

What do you mean? 780Ti SLI has 71% scaling and R9 290X (Uber) CF has 80% scaling. Also, 290X CF beats 780TI SLI, as expected.

Heh my bad, i took the 290CF scaling to be 290X Uber CF.

 

[Silverforce11]

@RS
I'm only giving you my views on the subject, particularly the top AMD card, WCE. I need it to have 8GB vram so I feel more confident it will still be strong 1 year later when more next-gen games come out, built ground up for these new consoles. Then 2 years later, it will still have enough vram so I can max out textures. This is at 4K because I intend to go with a big 4K monitor for work (1st) and gaming.

Lower end stuff will be fine with 4GB vram.

Let's say the 6GB 980Ti comes and it fights against a 4GB 390X WCE. Hypothetical, peformance is close. Price, NV is ~$100 more expensive. I can't recommend the 4GB 390X for someone who wants to game at 4K or 1440p + VSR (downsample from 4K). Thats just the way I see it.

But I also see if 390X is limited to 4GB, AMD is going to be crushed by NV's marketing on vram, it will be the new metric. It'll be DoA against a 6GB GM200 for the majority of gamers who aren't as informed as you are and prone to believe marketing.

 

[Jacky60]

I hope the 390X has got more that 4gb. My 295x2s can't run crysis 3 at 8x MSAA 4k and as I want the best possible graphics experience and have or will the GPU horsepower to crank up the settings.
If it's 4GB I won't be buying as that 4gb will already be or very soon will be the limiting factor affecting my performance.

 

[TemjinGold]

I think the confusion here regarding the vram can be solved this way: I am not buying a 390X if it tops out at 4gbs, not because it is obsolete on launch but because I don't want to bother upgrading it for 2-3 years or so. It's perfectly viable at launch. I don't see 4 gbs as viable for the useful life I want. And yes, I am not buying 99% of the gpus out there precisely because they don't have more than 4 gbs!

 

[3DVagabond]

Best I can tell looking at a couple of reviews with Crysis3 it seems like 4x MSAA is about all the GPU horsepower you would have.

 

[dacostafilipe]

Could you guys point me to where you got that confirmation that HBM1 only supports 4GB total addressable space?

 

[Jacky60]

Best I can tell looking at a couple of reviews with Crysis3 it seems like 4x MSAA is about all the GPU horsepower you would have.

Well they have plenty of legs left at 4xMSAA 60-90fps but unplayable slide show at 8xMSAA. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...x2_crossfire_video_card_review/5#.VVCmLPlVhBc

Thanks for putting me right though lol.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Since when GTX780Ti has higher SLI scaling than R9 290X CF ??
Are they using lots of GW games ???

Clocks. 780 Ti SLI will throttle harder than 290X (Uber) CF. Therefore I always advocate benchmarking fairly default vs default and Uber vs maxed Temp Target respectively.

 

[AtenRa]

I hope the 390X has got more that 4gb. My 295x2s can't run crysis 3 at 8x MSAA 4k and as I want the best possible graphics experience and have or will the GPU horsepower to crank up the settings.
If it's 4GB I won't be buying as that 4gb will already be or very soon will be the limiting factor affecting my performance.

Just out of curiosity and luck of knowledge because i dont have a 4K monitor to test it my self, do we really need 8x MSAA on 4K resolution ??

I mean 4x MSAA is perfect for 1080p, I would think that 4K would need less not more.

 

[Silverforce11]

Clocks. 780 Ti SLI will throttle harder than 290X (Uber) CF. Therefore I always advocate benchmarking fairly default vs default and Uber vs maxed Temp Target respectively.

But NV doesn't throttle.

It just may not boost to its highest clocks is all, won't drop below the base.

Uber is not relevant, because reference cards are quite rare for a long time already. You can have any custom 290X at 1ghz clock on normal non uber mode and it would be faster, because ref with Uber do throttle if you bothered to check the review sites.

 

[destrekor]

Just out of curiosity and luck of knowledge because i dont have a 4K monitor to test it my self, do we really need 8x MSAA on 4K resolution ??

I mean 4x MSAA is perfect for 1080p, I would think that 4K would need less not more.

Many don't agree that 4x MSAA is perfect for 1080p, I certainly don't. It's a great compromise, because it does look good without being excessively resource intensive, but there is certainly room for improvement.

However, I would agree that at UHD/4K, MSAA is far less of a requirement, and for that, 4x MSAA is likely the most you'd ever need for even the more detail-obsessed eye.

I'm unfortunately in the worst middle ground - I like to play at a resolution that is 75% 4K (3x1080p), but has all the downsides of standard 1080p pixel density. I'd like more than 4x MSAA, but depending on what level of detail I want to sacrifice, I might not be able to even utilize that amount of AA and might have to settle for post-process like FXAA.

 

[Silverforce11]

Just out of curiosity and luck of knowledge because i dont have a 4K monitor to test it my self, do we really need 8x MSAA on 4K resolution ??

I mean 4x MSAA is perfect for 1080p, I would think that 4K would need less not more.

I've seen it in action, I think at most, 2x MSAA is all that is required but it also works without any AA at all.

8xAA is definitely beyond OVERKILL.

Then again when I game on 1080p, I think 4xMSAA is all that's required as well, can hardly notice the difference jumping to 8xMSAA.

I like 4K more for the screen real estate for productivity, gaming is secondary, but if I'm gonna get a 4K, I need a GPU capable enough for the next 2-3 years to handle it for gaming.

 

[Enigmoid]

#1. The reason I wanted 980 to have 4 and 8GB versions is given its price at the time and that it was a mid-range chip I didn't think a $550 price was warranted. First of all, the card was barely faster than a 970 but cost nearly $200 more. It was only logical that at least NV threw a bone and offered 8GB version to help justify the price. Otherwise, it had little to do with a single 980 requiring 8GB for the performance as it was obvious it would hardly benefit from 8GB because the card wasn't fast enough. I didn't like the idea of NV raising prices yet again from 680's $499 level and excluding the 8GB version altogether, which meant for 980 SLI owners keep their setups > 3 years, this wasn't great. After all, I am sure some 980 SLI users wouldn't have minded paying $50-100 more per card for 8GB of VRAM considering they were already spending $1100.

I repeat this point for you 1 more time: never was it stated that 980 was a 'worthless' or 'pointless' product just because it lacked 8GB of VRAM. That is the exact position being reiterated today with R9 390/390X for 1080P-1440P gamers, interested in buying just 1 of those cars. In that sense, the position is exactly the same as was on 980's launch => have 4GB and 8GB versions, rather than 4GB is now preferred to 8GB as you are trying to spin it....

Fair enough. Though I recall that due to reason #2 you insisted that 8 GB was mandatory if you were keeping the card for a long time because of future games requiring tons of vram.

#2. At that time, I made the incorrect prediction that PS4/XB1 games would start using a very high amounts of VRAM at 1080P or even 1440P very soon and that those users going 980 SLI should probably want 8GB if they intended to keep their cards for > 3 years. A lot of game developers kept stating at the start of the PS4/XB1 generation that the more VRAM, the better. That made me nervous and I assumed that 4GB might not be enough in a very near future. However, looking at what has happened since PS4/XB1 and 980's launch, this isn't really happening. The VRAM increases are very slow and we have hardly reached a point where even 3.5GB of VRAM is a problem as 970 SLI is fine in 99.9% of games at 1440P and blow. Most games have increased VRAM requirements from 2GB to 3-4GB, but not beyond that. PC games have basically leveled off at the 4GB mark. 4GB isn't a bottleneck for even 980 SLI at 1440P. As far as I've read, no professional review site shows 4GB to be an actual bottleneck at playable frame rates and 980 SLI when scales outperforms the Titan X in every benchmark at 1080P or 1440P. If you have data to the contrary, please provide it.

But, as you keep saying, we still haven't really had next gen games (starting with Witcher 3). So I'm not sure that you were wrong the first time.

Compared to the rate of change several years ago the vram demands have increased dramatically.

> Buy a much cheaper R9 390, save $200-300 from expensive flagships, resell it next year and get a next gen card with 6-8GB of VRAM that will be faster and have more advanced features. Alternatively, for those users who do plan to keep their cards for 3+ years OR are 100% gaming on 4K-5K monitors (or similar), then yes they should get 6-8GB cards. So no, absolutely there is no promotion here for 4GB > 8GB.

Sorry but that's not what most gamers do. They buy a card and keep using it until the performance is insufficient. While many on these forums resell and rebuy frequently this is quite rare for the market at large.

4 GB will be a fail for the vast majority of the market who keeps their cards.

What's being debated here is that an R9 390 non-X priced at $450-500 with only 4GB of VRAM would be an awesome sweet-spot should it have 85-88% of the Titan X performance for gamers on 1080P-1440P monitors. So next time, please pay attention to what's actually being debated.

Which I agree with. But there should be an 8GB version as well. If there isn't one then thats problematic.

Also, your implication that if R9 390X is 30-40% faster than 980 so it MUST have 8GB of VRAM or it's a fail is 100% unsubstantiated unless you can provide real world data where 980 SLI 4GB actually runs into major VRAM bottlenecks at 1440P and below. Secondly, as already discussed it completely misses the entire discussion -- R9 390 4GB for $450-500 and R9 390X 8GB for $600+. To imply that all R9 390 series cards must have 8GB of VRAM is ludicrous considering millions of PC gamers purchased 970 SLI and 980 SLI or a single 980 for 1440P gaming for the last 8 months. If you make the assertion that 4GB of VRAM makes 390/390X irrelevant for PC gaming, then I guess all those NV users should throw their 970 SLI and 980 SLI setups into the trash? Games determines VRAM amount, not just GPU speed increase over the 980.

There should be a 8 GB version. Also not sure why you are focusing on 1440p and not 4k which 390X CF should be able to handle.

Not to mention that I specifically talk about future games, not current games.

Considering not even the might Titan X (by itself) today shows tangible benefits of 12GB of VRAM over 980 SLI, the assertion that > 4GB of VRAM is required for gaming has no merit unless data is provided to back this up.

What about titan X SLI?

 

[crashtech]

There are several questions about 4K that can't be answered well until actually buying the monitor. I've heard many claim that AA isn't even necessary at that res, which makes me wonder if slight reductions in the LOD at 4K would still provide a far enhanced experience over 1080.

 

[Stuka87]

There are several questions about 4K that can't be answered well until actually buying the monitor. I've heard many claim that AA isn't even necessary at that res, which makes me wonder if slight reductions in the LOD at 4K would still provide a far enhanced experience over 1080.

I don't own a 4k, but having seen gameplay on a 4k, this is mostly the case. There is still some aliasing in some cases, but for the most part, you do not see any. This does of course depend on screen size. in my case, it was a 27".

 

[Jacky60]

Just out of curiosity and luck of knowledge because i dont have a 4K monitor to test it my self, do we really need 8x MSAA on 4K resolution ??

I mean 4x MSAA is perfect for 1080p, I would think that 4K would need less not more.

SInce I started PC gaming people have said similar things and it depends on your 'standards' or what you accept and are used to. All I can say is the better the image quality the better. We don't 'need' any of this but I don't want to see any crawling jaggies ever, I want it to look like reality looks. It's not far off but yes at 4k on a big monitor if you look for it you can see it. A friend who is a high end video/TV Editor says watching/playing Arma3 , Crysis 3 or GTA 5 on my rig is like watching TV or a film but if you look you can spot where it isn't. TBH I still have to pinch myself and giggle every time I fire her up, best money ever spent. Arma 3 VRAM usage is 12gb according to Afterburner which I assume is 4GB from GPU and 8GB from system RAM but either way GPU memory usage is at the ceiling on the graph. I think I'm more often VRAM bound than anything else and I wish AMD had continued the twice as much RAM per GPU with multi GPU policy that started with 4870x2. 4K needs more than 4GB today with multi GPU setups, it's as simple as that.

 

[Headfoot]

SInce I started PC gaming people have said similar things and it depends on your 'standards' or what you accept and are used to. All I can say is the better the image quality the better. We don't 'need' any of this but I don't want to see any crawling jaggies ever, I want it to look like reality looks. It's not far off but yes at 4k on a big monitor if you look for it you can see it. A friend who is a high end video/TV Editor says watching/playing Arma3 , Crysis 3 or GTA 5 on my rig is like watching TV or a film but if you look you can spot where it isn't. TBH I still have to pinch myself and giggle every time I fire her up, best money ever spent. Arma 3 VRAM usage is 12gb according to Afterburner which I assume is 4GB from GPU and 8GB from system RAM but either way GPU memory usage is at the ceiling on the graph. I think I'm more often VRAM bound than anything else and I wish AMD had continued the twice as much RAM per GPU with multi GPU policy that started with 4870x2. 4K needs more than 4GB today with multi GPU setups, it's as simple as that.

Crawling jaggies and things like that are going to be a lot more dependent on AA algorithm and resolution than AA sampling number past 4x. 8xMSAA is going to be universally a waste versus 4xMSAA at 4k if you're sacrificing smooth FPS for 8xMSAA. If 4xMSAA still has jaggies, it's due to the nature of the algorithm and not the fact that its "only" 4xMSAA.

You will be best served by SMAA or other AA algorithms optimized for motion before increasing MSAA samples if you haven't got the grunt. The best algorithm being sampling at even higher resolution and downscaling (SSAA or DSR)

 

[Jacky60]

Crawling jaggies and things like that are going to be a lot more dependent on AA algorithm and resolution than AA sampling number past 4x. 8xMSAA is going to be universally a waste versus 4xMSAA at 4k if you're sacrificing smooth FPS for 8xMSAA. If 4xMSAA still has jaggies, it's due to the nature of the algorithm and not the fact that its "only" 4xMSAA.

You will be best served by SMAA or other AA algorithms optimized for motion before increasing MSAA samples if you haven't got the grunt. The best algorithm being sampling at even higher resolution and downscaling (SSAA or DSR)

Thanks, It's not lack of grunt it's lack of VRAM. FXAA gives by far the best image quality in GTA5 the point I'm making is GPUs at 30-60/70%, CPUs at 40-65% VRAM AT 100%. Obviously sacrificing smooth FPS for 8xMSAA is stupid. I am speaking from experience and I know when an image looks better so saying 4xMSAA is in effect no better than 8xMSAA is due to the algorithm is rather missing the point. MY limitation is VRAM!!!! Clearly if you haven't experienced a better image at high fps then the argument could devolve into semantics. I would at least like to experience Crysis 3 with 8xMSAA at 4k at more than 3-5 fps slideshow. If it can do 60 fps average at 4xMSAA 4k then 5fps at 8xMSAA is limited by something...guess what VRAM!

 

[njdevilsfan87]

This graph could be useful if we had frame time charts with it. If there's a benefit of caching more into the VRAM, it's going to be higher minimum frame rates. Or if could be the larger buses that typically come with more VRAM. We also know Maxwell memory management is different than its predecessors. All we can do is speculate, and that's enough for people to want cards with more VRAM. Because if you buy a card with overkill amounts of VRAM, you gain the peace of mind over something that lacks any sort of good scientific data to make conclusions.

 

[krumme]

Its not the 2gb holding 680 back today. Its the idiotic " first time impression last " priority from nv allocating driver ressources to only new Maxwell cards. Pleasing reviews of new cards and favoring newest games with newest cards. Looks nice on paper.
The 680 and 2gb would have been a fine balanced card today - the hardware is sound. Kepler arch didnt suddenly turn sour with Maxwell.
Future proof -> is not buying nv.

 

[3DVagabond]

I don't own a 4k, but having seen gameplay on a 4k, this is mostly the case. There is still some aliasing in some cases, but for the most part, you do not see any. This does of course depend on screen size. in my case, it was a 27".

I've seen people wanting 40"-60" 4K monitors, but people with experience with 4K in various sizes seem to think that 27" is the optimum size for pixel density for gaming and productivity tasks (photo editing, 3D graphics) that IQ matters. Also price.

 

[RussianSensation]

I hope the 390X has got more that 4gb. My 295x2s can't run crysis 3 at 8x MSAA 4k and as I want the best possible graphics experience and have or will the GPU horsepower to crank up the settings.
If it's 4GB I won't be buying as that 4gb will already be or very soon will be the limiting factor affecting my performance.

Even if your 295X2 had 16GB of VRAM, you could never run Crysis 3 with 8xMSAA at 4K at 60 fps.

What you need for that game is GPU processing power, about 3-4X more than an R9 295X2 because even without AA, it can't even reach 40 fps.

For someone like you with a 4K monitor and dual 295X2s, I agree that 4GB cards isn't a viable upgrade from what you have. GM200 6GB Tri-SLI could be a good alternative should R9 390X only be limited to 4GB. If you ever get a chance to post pics of your 4K Phillips, that would be awesome!

Fair enough. Though I recall that due to reason #2 you insisted that 8 GB was mandatory if you were keeping the card for a long time because of future games requiring tons of vram.

If one intends to keep the card for 3-5 years, I would pick the 6-8GB card over the 4GB assuming there isn't a massive price difference because at that point I'd rather upgrade sooner with the $ saved. If GM200 6GB and R9 390X 4GB are very similar in performance in both stock and OCed states, cost very similar, I would pick GM200 6GB.

But, as you keep saying, we still haven't really had next gen games (starting with Witcher 3). So I'm not sure that you were wrong the first time.

True. The Division, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Starwars Battlefront, Just Cause 3, could all up the VRAM limits. The Witcher 3 looks like it was downgraded though (see our PC Gaming sub-forum).

Sorry but that's not what most gamers do. They buy a card and keep using it until the performance is insufficient. While many on these forums resell and rebuy frequently this is quite rare for the market at large.

From what I've seen over the years at various forums like OCN, HardOCP, AT, etc. gamers who buy buy $500+ flagships, especially in pairs, like to upgrade almost every generation because they like to have the latest and greatest hardware to play with, and they roll-over as much resale value as possible before their old cards became near worthless.

Just 4 years since 480's launch 750Ti offered that level of performance for $150, while in just 10 months 970 gave us $700 780Ti's level for $330. Knowing this, I don't see most ultra high-end GPU buyers keeping their cards much beyond 2.5-3 years. I don't see how it's a good idea to buy $1400 worth of R9 390X cards and keep them for 5 years.

4 GB will be a fail for the vast majority of the market who keeps their card.

Depends on the price and performance.

Is $450 R9 390 4GB nonX with 15% more performance than a $550 980 a fail? Sounds like an awesome buy for someone buying us 1 of these for 1080P-1440P.

Which I agree with. But there should be an 8GB version as well. If there isn't one then thats problematic.

I agree and I don't deny it. I think to address the $600-1000+ market, but is 8GB needed for $400-500 cards 15-20% faster than a 980, I don't think it is as it would be a waste.

There should be a 8 GB version. Also not sure why you are focusing on 1440p and not 4k which 390X CF should be able to handle.

Because most people automatically zoned in on 390X being a fail with 4GB of VRAM as if everyone is going 390X CF on a 4K monitor. That's why I specifically used examples of someone buying a single 390/390X/GM200 card for a 1440P or below monitor. Of course if you are looking to spend $1400+ on 2 cards and have a $800 4K monitor, then > 4GB is expected. ^_^

What about titan X SLI?

Haven't seen any benchmarks to see if it does or not because we don't have titan X 4-6GB cards to compare. HardOCP found Titan X SLI not any faster than 980 SLI at 1440P in GTA V due to a CPU bottleneck. If you saw any review with 980 SLI OC vs. Titan X SLI OC at 4K, that would be good for a comparison!

Its not the 2gb holding 680 back today. Its the idiotic " first time impression last " priority from nv allocating driver ressources to only new Maxwell cards. Pleasing reviews of new cards and favoring newest games with newest cards. Looks nice on paper.
The 680 and 2gb would have been a fine balanced card today - the hardware is sound. Kepler arch didnt suddenly turn sour with Maxwell.
Future proof -> is not buying nv.

Well actually both the 2GB and the Kepler architecture/driver support is hammering 680/770 2GB from both sides. Based Gibbo's comments from OverclockersUK, 680/770 were often outselling 7970Ghz/280X but today....

I don't know why so many people keep stating that AMD's drivers are so bad when today R9 280X/7970Ghz is leagues apart from a 680.

Even in older games, HD7970Ghz performs better.

 

[wege12]

What are your guy's opinion on how well the water cooled 390x might handle overclocking?

 

[jji7skyline]

I won't be buying the 390X if it has less than 6GB of VRAM. 4GB is plenty for now, but games seem to be using more and more VRAM these days and I don't want to be bottlenecked by VRAM in future.