[WCCF] AMD Radeon R9 390X Pictured

[maddie]

Nice glorified troll bait post. Wtf does this even mean? Nothing will be interesting, especially here on AT. The dedicated Nvidia buyers here will not purchase AMD products. Period. The much smaller base of dedicated AMD fans that you refer to here might buy it, but since they're budget buyers (am I right?), they'll have to pinch pennies. The rest of us who are brand agnostic and like shiny, fast stuff will buy either one. What's so interesting about that?

Nice rant.

But that was exactly my point. What will happen if R9 390X is a rebrand at $450 and the flagship Fury X is at $700-800? Sounds like a great risk to me, to include expensive HBM and water cooling, to drive up the flagship cost, when most AMD buyers are too greedy to pay for it?

How are the company expected to survive if the core AMD buyers mostly only are willing to buy a graphic card if its sold at a tiny profit?

How can you take one sentence [red bold] and write a reply ignoring the next sentence [black bold]?

 

[Vesku]

Ok I think we are done here. You cant even keep up with your own posts and put things together.

Here are keywords to help you along the way:
Mostly budget buyers
Flagship increase from $350 to $700
Economy
AMD

Lets see if you can figure this out.

From $500, silly or dishonest to go by the 1 year later price when creating your narrative. I don't think the 7970 nor 290X was a budget enthusiast card in their first 9 months or so.

AMD does tend to cater to those who focus on perf/$ meaning the higher they price a card the more powerful it needs to be to not get too out of whack on the perf/$ metric. That die Lisa Su showed off looks quite large and therefore will be packing a lot of GCN units. If they happen to have the fastest card with Fiji they will also be able to add a bit of a premium to it.

 

[x3sphere]

Nice rant.

But that was exactly my point. What will happen if R9 390X is a rebrand at $450 and the flagship Fury X is at $700-800? Sounds like a great risk to me, to include expensive HBM and water cooling, to drive up the flagship cost, when most AMD buyers are too greedy to pay for it?

How are the company expected to survive if the core AMD buyers mostly only are willing to buy a graphic card if its sold at a tiny profit?

Isn't there supposed to be a cut down version of Fiji with a normal air cooler?

I expect that to slot around $599 if the flagship is $800

Historically the step-down card from the flagship has been an incredible value as far as AMD is concerned. It will probably only be 5% slower

 

[JDG1980]

The 1070Mhz version listed is an OCed model.

R9390X-DC2OC-8GD5

I would expect the reference to ship at 1050Mhz due to maturity.

20 MHz over reference would be a pretty paltry overclock. Asus usually does significantly more than that. For instance, the R9 290X DirectCu II OC model already ships at 1050 MHz (reference + 50 MHz). The R9 280X DirectCu II runs 70 MHz faster than reference. This is one reason why I'm skeptical of the authenticity of this slide.

For what it's worth, regardless of whether the R9 390X is a straight rebrand of the R9 290X or a substantially revamped product, I don't expect there to be any actual reference cards. AMD got burned too badly on that the last time; the Hawaii chips looked much worse compared to Kepler than they really were, due to shoddy reference coolers. Since AMD still doesn't have a good reference blower, I expect them to simply send out AIB designs (probably Sapphire) to reviewers, and skip reference PCBs altogether.

 

[JDG1980]

Nice rant.

But that was exactly my point. What will happen if R9 390X is a rebrand at $450 and the flagship Fury X is at $700-800? Sounds like a great risk to me, to include expensive HBM and water cooling, to drive up the flagship cost, when most AMD buyers are too greedy to pay for it?

How are the company expected to survive if the core AMD buyers mostly only are willing to buy a graphic card if its sold at a tiny profit?

These are businesses, not charities. Why would I buy their products if they can't provide a competitive value?

I am not a fanboy of any of these companies. I'm a fanboy of competition. I want to see AMD and Nvidia keep each other on their toes in the GPU market, and I want to see AMD and Intel keep each other on their toes in the CPU market. Recently, AMD hasn't been keeping up their side of things, and that's bad for consumers. A rebranded Hawaii sold at an inflated price isn't going to win any sales, or provide any meaningful competition to Nvidia. For both their own sake and the sake of the industry, AMD needs to deliver something more.

 

[ocre]

I like how your lame opinions of who and what AMD buyers are, are fact in your mind. Can you support any of this diarrhea with a source, a link, facts, to show that "most AMD buyers are too greedy", or that "the core of AMD buyers mostly only" buy cheap cards blah blah blah. Support this crap with something. Your baiting is almost masterful.

I find the irony in this statement so funny. You don't even have to spend 3 seconds on any thread in this forum and you will run across some comment like "nvidia buyers this, nvidia buyers that" ...

Heck, its not even the fact that those kind of post are so popular here, its way more funny that you say stuff like that yourself........ In this thread......on this page! (Edit: now its the page effort this one..too slow in my reply)

But the one time a person brings up AMD buyers, you are quick in your action.

I am sorry, but it is funny.


Everyone should calm down. Why get so angry? If AMD cards come out great, the bigger the surprise, the better the buzz. I mean, none of this stuff matters that much, we are all just speculating cause we all love PC.

No big deal.

Oh, and by the way...... AMD is the value brand to many people. There shouldn't be an uproar about it.

 

[dzoni2k2]

20 MHz over reference would be a pretty paltry overclock. Asus usually does significantly more than that. For instance, the R9 290X DirectCu II OC model already ships at 1050 MHz (reference + 50 MHz). The R9 280X DirectCu II runs 70 MHz faster than reference. This is one reason why I'm skeptical of the authenticity of this slide.

For what it's worth, regardless of whether the R9 390X is a straight rebrand of the R9 290X or a substantially revamped product, I don't expect there to be any actual reference cards. AMD got burned too badly on that the last time; the Hawaii chips looked much worse compared to Kepler than they really were, due to shoddy reference coolers. Since AMD still doesn't have a good reference blower, I expect them to simply send out AIB designs (probably Sapphire) to reviewers, and skip reference PCBs altogether.

I'll be shocked if they learned nothing from Hawaii launch. Noise is a big factor. I can deal with higher power consumption and higher temps, never with noise.

 

[Zstream]

I'll be shocked if they learned nothing from Hawaii launch. Noise is a big factor. I can deal with higher power consumption and higher temps, never with noise.

The 980ti is louder afaik

 

[dzoni2k2]

Yeah, I would definitely not buy reference 980Ti.

 

[flopper]

The 980ti is louder afaik

yea it sucks.

 

[ph2000]

If the chip is made at GF it would be strange. Why not just use tonga as the base, carizo is using tonga. Going back to hawai is a step back

 

[dzoni2k2]

If the chip is made at GF it would be strange. Why not just use tonga as the base, carizo is using tonga. Going back to hawai is a step back

I think 380x is a 384bit 6GB Tonga based GPU. Not sure what 390x is.

 

[RussianSensation]

Oh, and by the way...... AMD is the value brand to many people. There shouldn't be an uproar about it.

That's one way to look at it, but since these are videocards that go into a metal/aluminum case to generate FPS, this is not like comparing BMW to Porsche to Ferrari - a comparison that has a lot of different aspects to it like steering feedback, breaking feel, engine sounds, reliability, looks, interior quality, etc.. For many people a videocard is just a tool that does work, nothing more. Why would I pay significantly more for a tool that can't do a lot more work? :hmm: For some people videocard is just a tool to get from point A to B and they don't care if they drive a Honda or a BMW, which is fine too.

To counter your point, to many AMD is priced right and NV is the overpriced brand, rather than calling AMD a budget/value brand and NV the premium brand. There is nothing premium for me that NV offers over AMD. That's why I don't consider NV a premium brand, rather an overpriced brand. This distinction needs to be made more clearer. Just because some people see premium features and are willing to pay for them with NV doesn't mean those features are premium for others.

I don't care about power usage as I have a 1000W Platinum PSU. I also overclock my GPUs and CPUs which destroyes the perf/watt argument anyway.
I don't care to pay extra for HDMI 2.0 right now since I don't have a 4K gaming TV.
I don't care to pay extra for TXAA since it blurs the entire picture.
I don't care to pay extra for PhysX since it looks unnatural to me.
I don't care to pay extra for full hardware HEVC decoder since I don't produce 4K content.
I don't care to pay extra for ShadowPlay or GeForce Experience since AMD's alternatives are just as good (and I hardly use these features to start with).
I don't care to pay extra for an aluminum reference blower heatsink since I prefer after-market cards more in my system.
etc. etc.

So why would I pay hundreds of dollars more for those 'features'? They are all just marketing to me. I buy a videocard to generate IQ and FPS on a screen. That's what it's for to me. The less it costs to achieve those objectives, the more money I have to spend on other hobbies. Saying that people who buy AMD are cheap/stingy is misleading -- one can argue that they are more savvy with their $ because they don't overspend for unnecessary marketing gimmicks on just 1 hobby. Many of us are faced with a choice of buying a $500 card and spending $200 on some other hobby. 10-15% extra fps for $200 is meaningless in the context of 2-3 years but $200 buys me a top-of-the-line tennis racket. That's no a brainer and for many people who have kids+other hobbies, this is how the real world works. Maybe those for whom gaming is their ONLY hobby and/or are still < 25 with no real responsibilities think throwing $200 for 10-15% more performance is Awesome Sauce.

That doesn't mean if AMD priced a card at $699 that people who buy AMD cards won't buy those cards. It's not about what the card costs, but if that price is actually justified based on the performance. Just anecdotal evidence from other less technically savvy forums where younger gamers are getting into PC gaming, it becomes obvious unless it's close to the best GPU, most of them think it's junk. They have no idea about price/performance or value of $. Probably they are 16-19 and their parents are buying their stuff, or maybe they blow a lot of their summer savings on PC parts. With age, I feel that the e-peen factor becomes less important. I don't care to have the best CPU/GPU anymore because if it's generating 120 fps on my 60 Hz screen, I just wasted $.

Some would say $650 780 vs. $399 R9 290 and $699 780Ti vs. $549 R9 290X were justified premium prices for the premium NV brand experience but to me it's akin to taking $150-250 and flushing it into the toilet. I would get nothing extra for that $ spent, so why would I spend it?

That's the whole point of the market - to have choices but just because a product costs more, doesn't automatically make it a more premium product. That's what marketing spin is and why people get paid $ to be marketers.

MonoPrice 10565 speakers are actually higher quality than the Energy Take Classic 5.1 system but cost less.

I don't think it's really as simple as generalizing that AMD GPUs are a value brand. When I got my 7970s, not only did they cost LESS than 680s, but were not only faster but had more features I needed (GPU mining, 3GB VRAM, compute for distributed computing projects). In that case, it becomes a completely no brainer to buy AMD and for me 680s were the overpriced choice since the product was literally worse in every way for my needs but cost MORE. A premium brand isn't a product that costs more and is worse. :awe:
-----------

 

[happy medium]

JUst overclock and you have a 390x. For 400$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150723

 

[RussianSensation]

JUst overclock and you have a 390x. For 400$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150723

With Sapphire Tri-X R9 290 selling for $250, a $399 R9 390X 8GB is a tough sell. It needs to be $369-379 or so to ensure that even if 980 drops to $449 with rebates, it's still irrelevant. If NV and AMD have similar performance and NV has a $50 premium, most gamers will buy the NV card unless R9 390X has some unique features or reduced power usage tremendously.

Another way to look at it is Asus Strix 980 with Batman AK is $470 on Newegg. If we assign a $25 value to the game, the card is ~$445. For $45 extra I get more or less > 1.45Ghz overclock and guarantee that it will work better in GameWorks titles. Can R9 390X overclock 20-25%? If not, I would pay $45 extra for a 980. I am sure soon with rebates we will see 980 drop to $450.

GameWorks is making it very difficult to recommend an AMD card if performance is very similar. The $50 extra for the NV card is probably a wash come resale value time since the average PC gamer is all about NV. I am guessing it'll be possible to resell 980 for $25 more than an R9 390X anyway which means that $50 price difference on MSRPs is actually like $25 or less real difference in the cost of ownership. AMD is in a really tough spot, really tough spot. GameWorks destroyed any chance at fair competition for the time being.

We do know that R9 290/290X cards will sell out soon. Gigabyte GTX970 is $310 with the Batman game, effectively a $285 videocard.

Frankly it's very difficult to see how a $399 R9 390X ~ 980 level of performance or a $470 980 even make sense in today's environment. To me the only cards that make sense between $200 and $650 are R9 290/290X/970 and 980Ti. The $399-499 level is sitting in no man's land. The performance increase isn't good enough. If AMD brings 980 level of performance for $369-379, then we are talking real big progress. I guess some people might have a hard budget of < $500 and for them a $399-470 980 style card fits that ticket.

 

[Silverforce11]

JUst overclock and you have a 390x. For 400$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150723

Isn't that the point though? R290X custom designs with 30-50mhz OC are often going below $300 because THEY DON'T SELL and are forced to price drop to clear inventory.

Who is going to buy R290X with 70mhz OC for anywhere near $400?

Call it common sense, logic, whatever, but AMD would be a laughing stock if its a straight rebadge.

 

[RussianSensation]

Isn't that the point though? R290X custom designs with 30-50mhz OC are often going below $300 because THEY DON'T SELL and are forced to price drop to clear inventory.

Who is going to buy R290X with 70mhz OC for anywhere near $400?

Call it common sense, logic, whatever, but AMD would be a laughing stock if its a straight rebadge.

It's worse than that. R9 290/290X are almost always on sale. It's not a temporary sale, it's weekly. Asus DCUII R9 290X is $270. Is the rumoured Hawaii Enhanced 2816 shader R9 390X (if that's even going to be what it's called) going to be 48% faster? Not a chance.

For me personally, I read enough reviews to see that after-market R9 290/290X cards run cool and quiet which means their image has been tarnished by pure marketing, general ignorance by the average PC gamer who doesn't read after-market GPU reviews post launch and entire image destroyed by reviews that tested reference blower cards, which absolutely do not reflect how good an after-market 290/290X is. It's probably reasonable to conclude that the entire R9 200 series' reputation is destroyed because even a $230 R9 290 isn't actually sold out against a barrage of POS $180-240 GTX960 2-4GB cards. That's just nuts. I've never seen a mid-range GPU 50%+ faster that has such a small premium over a competing solution priced so closely, not in 15+ years of GPUs I can't recall any such time. R9 290 might as well be $180 and 960 would still outsell it. I honestly truly believe that.

That's why I feel R9 390/390X are going to disappoint vs. an after-market $270 R9 290X for the informed PC gamer. But that's the point - most of the market aren't those types of gamers. If AMD spins R9 390/390X as way better than R9 290/290X in the eyes of the same average Joes who are likely to buy a 960 over a 290, then that's what matters more to AMD. Will 390 cards look decent against a $499 980? Probably, but the value of an after-market R9 290X card or even a $300 after-market 970 if you can find one is very good as is. Release a $400 card that's barely better than those would be kinda disappointing considering how old 970 is now.

I mean a $650 980Ti costs 2.4X more but at 2560x1600 is only 39% faster than a reference 290X. I just don't see how it's even possible for AMD/NV to release any videocard this summer that will beat the value of a $270 R9 290X. Over time it's possible as we see price drops and rebates but at launch, I don't see it.

The other thing about a $399 R9 390X or a $499 GTX980, at that point I'd rather buy a $550 R9 295X2 or even the $650 980Ti. However, some gamers aren't flexible with their budgets and might have a hard $400 or $500 budget, which is why cards priced between $350-500 exist.

It'll be interesting to see where Fiji PRO comes into this. If Fiji PRO is $499-549, it could itself make R9 390X at $399 a bad buy. There have been turds not worth buying in AMD's line-up too, like HD5830. Even if R9 390X looks good against a $499 980, it doesn't mean it'll be a good product in AMD's own line-up.

 

[sze5003]

Depending on how the performance fares for the 390x I agree, I'd probably upgrade to an aftermarket 290x at that point. I'll only consider spending $500 or more if performance is way above that.

 

[RussianSensation]

Depending on how the performance fares for the 390x I agree, I'd probably upgrade to an aftermarket 290x at that point. I'll only consider spending $500 or more if performance is way above that.

Since you aren't building a new rig from scratch, make sure to evaluate your context accordingly if you resell your old parts.

Assume 30% resale value in 3 years for R9 290X, 40% for R9 390X/980Ti since they are newer.

For instance:

Option 1:
Sell 7970Ghz for +$100
Buy R9 290X for -$270
Resell for +$270*0.3 ~ +$80
Total upgrade cost = - $90 for about 35% more performance

Option 2:
+$100
Buy R9 390X for -$400 (let's assume it's 15% faster than R9 290X for simplicity's sake)
Resell for +$400*0.4 ~ +$160
Total upgrade cost = - $140 for about 56% more performance

Option 3:
+$100
Buy GTX980Ti for -$650
Resell for +$650*0.4 ~ +$260
Total upgrade cost = - $290 for 100% more performance.

Just a random example.

It's really hard to predict resale value this time though since 14nm/16nm HBM2 gen could be really expensive and/or it could offer a tremendous increase in price/performance. In 3 years Volta cards should be out and by then a 980Ti could be worth < $200 if a $250 mid-range x60 series Volta card could beat it by June 2018. If Pascal increases perf/watt 2x over Maxwell and Volta 2x over Pascal, we'd be looking at 980Ti level of performance in a <75W card. NV accomplished this feat with a GTX750Ti $150 vs. a $500 GTX480 but it took them 4 years because of 28nm node. It's crazy to think how quickly GPUs advance compared to CPUs.

 

[sze5003]

Since you aren't building a new rig from scratch, make sure to evaluate your context accordingly if you resell your old parts.

Assume 30% resale value in 3 years for R9 290X, 40% for R9 390X/980Ti since they are newer.

For instance:

Option 1:
Sell 7970Ghz for +$100
Buy R9 290X for -$270
Resell for +$270*0.3 ~ +$80
Total upgrade cost = - $90 for about 35% more performance

Option 2:
+$100
Buy R9 390X for -$400 (let's assume it's 15% faster than R9 290X for simplicity's sake)
Resell for +$400*0.4 ~ +$160
Total upgrade cost = - $140 for about 56% more performance

Option 3:
+$100
Buy GTX980Ti for -$650
Resell for +$650*0.4 ~ +$260
Total upgrade cost = - $290 for 100% more performance.

Just a random example.

It's really hard to predict resale value this time though since 14nm/16nm HBM2 gen could be really expensive and/or it could offer a tremendous increase in price/performance where in 3 years Volta will be out and by then a 980Ti could be worth < $200 since a $250 mid-range x60 series Volta card could beat it by June 2018.

All good options and makes sense. I'll definitely be looking to sell my 7970ghz once I upgrade. I'm only doing gpu soon and new mobo and skylake in September or whenever it's out. Best to just wait until the 16th to see what happens.

 

[RussianSensation]

All good options and makes sense. I'll definitely be looking to sell my 7970ghz once I upgrade. I'm only doing gpu soon and new mobo and skylake in September or whenever it's out. Best to just wait until the 16th to see what happens.

Your monitor is missing from your sig.

 

[sze5003]

Your monitor is missing from your sig.

It's a 22 inch acer 1080p, widescreen.

 

[crashtech]

Every time I read about what a great value the R9 290 is, it makes me want to get another one and Crossfire, if it just didn't have lingering issues. I wonder if multi-GPU will ever be any good.

 

[desprado]

Really people here are really funny.

Just see the facts People who have GTX 980, GTX 970,R9 290 , R9 290X will buy AMD rebrand GPUs and if think that than you should quit posting in Anandtech.

Coming to Fury if it is priced at $850 than it is death before launch so why?

Because AMD is want to be a premium brand which they cannot be because their customer support is ridiculous, no proper driver support for Gameworks games , no special website or a forum to complain or to get troubleshot so why people want to get frustrated and pay $850.

Coming to fact AMD is aiming 2% to 4% of User with fury like Nvidia did with GTX Titan X but the problem is that those of course most of them wont trust AMD because of their recent support ,failed in promises and lack of professionalism.

Company needs a brand value now than ever to sell those GPUs which AMD do not have right now.

Second of all Majority of AMD owners see value and performance so they do not care if it is Nvidia or AMD but most of Nvidia owners are brand loyal so they will never shift to AMD.

If people are thinking that share will shift to AMD in massive than they are wrong.

 

[Abwx]

Really people here are really funny.

Just see the facts People who have GTX 980, GTX 970,R9 290 , R9 290X will buy AMD rebrand GPUs and if think that than you should quit posting in Anandtech.

Coming to Fury if it is priced at $850 than it is death before launch so why?

Because AMD is want to be a premium brand which they cannot be because their customer support is ridiculous, no proper driver support for Gameworks games , no special website or a forum to complain or to get troubleshot so why people want to get frustrated and pay $850.

Coming to fact AMD is aiming 2% to 4% of User with fury like Nvidia did with GTX Titan X but the problem is that those of course wont trust AMD because of their recent support ,failed in promises and lack of professionalism.

Company needs a brand value now than ever to sell those GPUs which AMD do not have right now.

Nice fud, as for brand recognition AMD will be viewed as selling new tech while Nvidia offering will look obsolete, like transistors and tubes, at some point excellency claims must be backed by technical realisations and products, otherwise it s just the usual " im better because i are Nvidia" served ad nauseam by the usual fans...