# PowerColor Radeon R9 390 PCS+ 8 GB



## W1zzard (Jun 25, 2015)

PowerColor introduces a new triple-fan, triple-slot, full-metal cooler with their R9 390 PCS+. The card comes overclocked out of the box, and PowerColor is asking a small $10 premium over reference-design pricing. Like all R9 390 cards, it features 8 GB of VRAM, which is twice that of the R9 290.

*Show full review*


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## mroofie (Jul 1, 2015)

If one would look more at price/performance it could have gotten a 9/10
Since its another re-brand it deserves 8.0 
No VGA


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## zzzaac (Jul 1, 2015)

All the stores where I'm at are quickly taking the 290/290X's off the shelf. Urgh


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## btarunr (Jul 1, 2015)

R9 390 looks like a reasonable alternative to GTX 970, and is 1440p-worthy. It made NVIDIA cut GTX 970 price from $330 to $310. So unless you go 4K, you can get a decent setup for 1440p at $300 ±$30.


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## Hiryougan (Jul 1, 2015)

Too bad there are games like The New Order or CARS that distort the real performance of AMD cards.

Still, i think that with this 390 released, there is no reason to buy 970 anymore, especially if you go 1440p. Then, it's the perfect bang4buck card for you.


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## mroofie (Jul 1, 2015)

Hiryougan said:


> Too bad there are games like The New Order or CARS that distort the real performance of AMD cards.
> 
> Still, i think that with this 390 released, there is no reason to buy 970 anymore, especially if you go 1440p. Then, it's the perfect bang4buck card for you.


only if you want a heater in you're room


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## Hiryougan (Jul 1, 2015)

mroofie said:


> onlu if you want a heater in you're room


I have R9 290, i don't really see a problem. 390 has lower power consumption than 290 when being faster than 290X. That's a big improvement.

Also it's "Only if" and "your", not "you are"(you're).


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## Mathragh (Jul 1, 2015)

mroofie said:


> onlu if you want a heater in you're room


Yep, those 70 watts extra will really make all the difference to your room temperature. Better keep yourself hydrated!

Question to Wizzard: I always found those "(All resolutions)" summary plots very helpfull to get a more balanced oversight of performance (like used in this review), any reason why they're not there anymore in current day reviews? Thanks for all the work you're doing!


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## GhostRyder (Jul 1, 2015)

mroofie said:


> onlu if you want a heater in you're room


I am guessing you live on the surface of the sun since that small wattage difference is enough to count as a heater.

As a card, the 390 is not a bad deal currently considering its performance levels match or beat the GTX 970.  Since the price is right I see it as a good buy for those wanting a middle ground card with performance to spare.  But still the 8gb is wasted on this card as it might have been a better idea to drop it to 4gb though I bet some people may grab 2- 3 of these for a cheap enough price and make an overkill system which might benefit from the extra vram.


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## Hiryougan (Jul 1, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> I am guessing you live on the surface of the sun since that small wattage difference is enough to count as a heater.
> 
> As a card, the 390 is not a bad deal currently considering its performance levels match or beat the GTX 970.  Since the price is right I see it as a good buy for those wanting a middle ground card with performance to spare.  But still the 8gb is wasted on this card as it might have been a better idea to drop it to 4gb though I bet some people may grab 2- 3 of these for a cheap enough price and make an overkill system which might benefit from the extra vram.


Although there are some games that exceed 4GB of vram. They are few, i agree, but they exist(probably because of lazy devs, Witcher 3 didn't even use 2GB  )


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## mroofie (Jul 1, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> I am guessing you live on the surface of the sun since that small wattage difference is enough to count as a heater.
> 
> As a card, the 390 is not a bad deal currently considering its performance levels match or beat the GTX 970.  Since the price is right I see it as a good buy for those wanting a middle ground card with performance to spare.  But still the 8gb is wasted on this card as it might have been a better idea to drop it to 4gb though I bet some people may grab 2- 3 of these for a cheap enough price and make an overkill system which might benefit from the extra vram.


I live on Vega very hot


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## yogurt_21 (Jul 1, 2015)

I have an R9 290 and live in AZ, pretty hot here (june had 11 days north of 110 degree F highs and we're above 50% humidity atm) and the card makes zero difference in room temperature. Considering the amount of power the sun has at this uv index you're basically saying you can tell the difference between 10,000,000 watts and 10,000,070 watts. I call bull shit.

Also for those who live in hotter areas we run the A/C pretty much non-stop during the hottest summer months. That means a 3-5KW always on. 96Kwh a day just from A/C. So an extra .28 Kwh a day (assuming you game 4 hours a day) isn't going to even register on your electricity bill.

The only people complaining about the extra power are ones who really should have a Nuc based machine anyways. If power is so expensive that your graphics card is the main concern, you likely will be better off gaming at 720P or less on a 15w machine.

No the problem with this card is that the 970 is actually cheaper, meaning the savings are free. When the power and heat savings are free you might as well go with that option, no matter how little effect it has it promotes better tech in that area.
As I've said before if the 970 was out when I bought my R9 290 I would have one of those instead.

But right now at 250$ the R9 290 seems a better buy than the rebrand, or the 970.


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## Air (Jul 1, 2015)

yogurt_21 said:


> I have an R9 290 and live in AZ, pretty hot here (june had 11 days north of 110 degree F highs and we're above 50% humidity atm) and the card makes zero difference in room temperature. Considering the amount of power the sun has at this uv index you're basically saying you can tell the difference between 10,000,000 watts and 10,000,070 watts. I call bull shit.
> 
> Also for those who live in hotter areas we run the A/C pretty much non-stop during the hottest summer months. That means a 3-5KW always on. 96Kwh a day just from A/C. So an extra .28 Kwh a day (assuming you game 4 hours a day) isn't going to even register on your electricity bill.
> 
> ...



I dont get it. Are you saying his room is recieving 10 MW from the sun...?

I think the main problem with having a higher tdp is the higher noise levels. But an extra 77w can make a difference in a small room.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 1, 2015)

mroofie said:


> If one would look more at price/performance it could have gotten a 9/10



The price to performance is horrible on this card...how would that make the score better?



Hiryougan said:


> Still, i think that with this 390 released, there is no reason to buy 970 anymore, especially if you go 1440p. Then, it's the perfect bang4buck card for you.



No reason unless you want a card with the same performance, that costs less, with less power draw, less heat, is quieter, overclocks better, and only takes up 2 slots.

Yeah, I guess if you ignore all those benefits, there really isn't any reason to get a 970 anymore...


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## GhostRyder (Jul 1, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> No reason unless you want a card with the same performance, that costs less, with less power draw, less heat, is quieter, overclocks better, and only takes up 2 slots.
> 
> Yeah, I guess if you ignore all those benefits, there really isn't any reason to get a 970 anymore...


Couple of reasons like more high speed vram (4.5gb more) just for starters.  Then when you factor it starts lower in performance (Even with boost 2.0), its going to need some overclocks to catch up which will increase its power output closing that gap a bit, its noise is on par with others including the *0db at idle argument which this card has*, and there are two slot models of the card.

In short, they are both pretty well even...


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## mroofie (Jul 1, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> The price to performance is horrible on this card...how would that make the score better?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


chill!  was trying to make the R9 390 seem more competitive with the gtx 970


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## haswrong (Jul 1, 2015)

mroofie said:


> I live on Vega very hot


i live on evga. (it goes upto 75°C at times.. oh the blower, the blower..)


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## cokker (Jul 1, 2015)

So this PowerColor 390 consumes ~100w less than the MSI 390, I'm guessing that 1100MHz (+100MHz) MSI core clock eats power.


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## DidoD (Jul 1, 2015)

Anyone notice that?
 --> "The GDDR5 memory chips are by Hynix and carry the model number H5GC4H24AJR-T2C. They are specified to run at 1250 MHz (5000 MHz GDDR5 effective)."
so over overclocked out of the box?


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## Assimilator (Jul 1, 2015)

Every 390/390X review should just consist of the text "Slightly faster than the below" with a link to the last 290/290X review.



GhostRyder said:


> Couple of reasons like more high speed vram (4.5gb more) just for starters.



Oh you're one of those people who doesn't know the difference between 3.5 and 4. Plus it's already been proven time and time again that 8GB is a waste.



GhostRyder said:


> Then when you factor it starts lower in performance



GTX 970 and R9 390 are pretty even in performance, thanks to nVIDIA's drivers not being a cesspool.



GhostRyder said:


> its going to need some overclocks to catch up which will increase its power output closing that gap a bit



A highly overclocked GTX 970 will easily outperform a stock R9 390, while consuming less power.



GhostRyder said:


> In short, they are both pretty well even...



Not even close.


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## Casecutter (Jul 1, 2015)

I don't know when you put this against the PC 290 PCS 4Gb that was a $230 card -AR most all of May and even lately $240 -AR, I think the price is just not aggressive.

I want to believe the PCS 290 had 1500 MHz (6000 MHz) same as a reference 290 received, along with  W1zzards 290X PCS review.  Sad most of the 8Gb now are like this, specified to run at 1250 MHz (5000 MHz effective). For these 390 I'd rather it have 4Gb of even better memory than 8Gb lower grade. That said, I was surprised W1zzard got them to 1730 MHz; 15% overclock that's just crazy.

There must be a improvement in ACIS quality on the power side, but seeing we're looking at original Hawaii @947Mhz and this now at 1010 Mhz (7% increase), that bump in clock and the extra memory used the improvement, while the 290 PCS was 1040Mhz and honestly looking at a recent Hexus review (Feb 2015) on the 290 PCS I think you could see it was receiving that same power improvement at that point.  I see little news on that front.

What is interesting is the 290 PCS at Hexus offered up a 1110MHz core/1415MHz memory OC, while W!zzard we see a 1090MHz core/1730 MHz.  The core is not all that out of bounds, but dang that memory I was not anticipating.  Who cares if there was a bios-wall, isn't that like 38% over it's "lower grade" 1250 Mhz specification?  This memory is running like crazy as it did with the MSI 390X W1zzard tested.  It seem this lower-grade memory is better than older better spec stuff.

All said I'd rather the 390 (non X) like this been a 4Gb card and a MSRP of like $270.  Adding the extra 4Gb of memory and jacking it in price to 970 level tells me AMD knew it didn't want to make this into a War. Just offer same performance and use 8Gb as their point of difference... and hold to a similar profit.  Perturb/disturbed Nvidia and they can eat Hawaii pricing in one mouth full, given the volume and slightly smaller die size. 

I agree with W1zzard if AMD might've had a $300 MSRP, that could've made a 390 the germane and affordable card for 1440p;  as it seems to be out in front of the 970 more then not, especially in the trenches at 30-40 FpS.


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## Cheeseball (Jul 1, 2015)

If they had aimed this at $260 to $270 for the extra 4GB VRAM, this would've been the perfect contender for the GTX 970 at 1440p.


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## TheinsanegamerN (Jul 1, 2015)

cokker said:


> So this PowerColor 390 consumes ~100w less than the MSI 390, I'm guessing that 1100MHz (+100MHz) MSI core clock eats power.


It eats up power because it needed a voltage bump to hit that. On a big core that's already power hungry, a small amount of adtl. voltage results in much higher power consumption.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 1, 2015)

Assimilator said:


> Oh you're one of those people who doesn't know the difference between 3.5 and 4. Plus it's already been proven time and time again that 8GB is a waste.


The 8gb is a bit overkill, but the beyond 3.5gb part is not considering where games today are going.  Oh and yes I do know the difference but claiming its a normal 4gb card is not true dude.


Assimilator said:


> GTX 970 and R9 390 are pretty even in performance, thanks to nVIDIA's drivers not being a cesspool.


So your saying the drivers are bad and causing it to perform badly?  So it will only get better with better drivers in the long run???



Assimilator said:


> A highly overclocked GTX 970 will easily outperform a stock R9 390, while consuming less power.


 I am shocked an overclocked card in the same area as another card will beat said card at its stock settings.  Stop the presses 



Assimilator said:


> Not even close.


You just said they were even in performance not to mention it has more VRAM for the around 70watt power difference.  So how is it not even close?


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## Xzibit (Jul 2, 2015)

Even though Batman Arkham Knight is considered broken, If its any indication of the direction games are going

*Batman Arkam Knight VRAM usage*
1080p @ 4.2 GB
1440p @ 5.0 GB
2160p @ 6.1 GB

 This would be the only card able to run it under $350 decently.


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## DarkOCean (Jul 2, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> Even though Batman Arkham Knight is considered broken, If its any indication of the direction games are going
> 
> *Batman Arkam Knight VRAM usage*
> 1080p @ 4.2 GB
> ...



Batmam AK is just an unoptimised console port wich make it irrelevant for PC since it was ported so badly.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 2, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> I am shocked an overclocked card in the same area as another card will beat said card at its stock settings. Stop the presses


When they are both stock they are equal in performance.  When both are overclocked the 970 wins easily while still consuming less power.  The fact that the 390 overclocks like shit assures that.



GhostRyder said:


> So your saying the drivers are bad and causing it to perform badly? So it will only get better with better drivers in the long run???



Since this is the same card that has been out for a year already, it is pretty much as good as it will get.



GhostRyder said:


> there are two slot models of the card



None that are as quiet as a 970 and none that do 0db idle.


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## Xzibit (Jul 2, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> When they are both stock they are equal in performance.  When both are overclocked the 970 wins easily while still consuming less power.  The fact that the 390 overclocks like shit assures that.
> 
> None that are as quiet as a 970 and none that do 0db idle.



*MSI R9 390 says, Hi at 0db idle.*


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## newtekie1 (Jul 2, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> *MSI R9 390 says, Hi at 0db idle.*



I'm not entirely sure what your point was.  That is a 3 slot card.


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## Aquinus (Jul 2, 2015)

> DVI ports have no analog VGA signal


Are we seriously calling this a con in this day and age?


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## Xzibit (Jul 2, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I'm not entirely sure what your point was.  That is a 3 slot card.



Well if your gripe is 3 slots look at the *Gigabyte R9 390* then


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## newtekie1 (Jul 2, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> Well if your gripe is 3 slots look at the *Gigabyte R9 390* then



Yeah, and while the card is technically capable of 0db idle, it never gets cool enough to activate.


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## Xzibit (Jul 2, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, and while the card is technically capable of 0db idle, it never gets cool enough to activate.



Link please.  To verify your claim.

Plus I'm interested in a review of it.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 2, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, and while the card is technically capable of 0db idle, it never gets cool enough to activate.


Umm dude, the idle is where this happens and the difference in watts at idle is negligible at best (11 on R9 290 to 9 on GTX 970)...



newtekie1 said:


> Since this is the same card that has been out for a year already, it is pretty much as good as it will get.


That was an attempt at a sarcastic response to the person I was quoting not an actual argument 

Plus at @Xzibit already beat me to, the Gigabyte is a dual fan 2 slot card on the 390 that has 0db...


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## represiv (Jul 2, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> Even though Batman Arkham Knight is considered broken, If its any indication of the direction games are going
> 
> *Batman Arkam Knight VRAM usage*
> 1080p @ 4.2 GB
> ...



PC port is awful. I have 2.0 GB VRAM usage already in game menu after launching the game.


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## Tatty_One (Jul 2, 2015)

Personally I cannot see any viable argument to those that compare this card to a 970 when overclocked, I have no doubts that a 970 will overclock better and that may well give it a performance advantage BUT in terms of markets and segments 90% of users do not overclock so as an "off the shelf" product will more people buy the 970 of the 390?  I really like the idea and innovation (so to speak) behind the 0db at idle and I think it's a real positive move forward but to be honest whether it was zero or 10 I wouldn't hear it in my system and it's likely that a decent proportion of that 90% won't either.

Having said all that, for me who does overclock I would quite possibly still choose the 970.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 2, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> Link please. To verify your claim.
> 
> Plus I'm interested in a review of it.



I don't have a link, I've just already built a system with it.  The fans didn't turn off once when using the computer.  They turned off when I walked away from the computer, but what good is that?



GhostRyder said:


> Umm dude, the idle is where this happens and the difference in watts at idle is negligible at best (11 on R9 290 to 9 on GTX 970)...





GhostRyder said:


> That was an attempt at a sarcastic response to the person I was quoting not an actual argument
> 
> Plus at @Xzibit already beat me to, the Gigabyte is a dual fan 2 slot card on the 390 that has 0db...



Here is the thing with 0db idle, for it to be an actual useful feature, it really needs to be 0db "under light load".  If the fans kick up the first time I do anything with the computer, then it isn't really working as intended.  The point of 0db at idle is that you can do basic tasks with the computer and have zero noise.  You can watch a movie, browse the web, write a paper in Word, etc. without the fans spinning up.

Yes, in the strict sense, when the 390 is at idle it uses almost the same amount of power as a 970, and the fans will turn off, even on a 2 slot card.  However, you have to look at the power consumption numbers for other low load tasks.  That is why W1z includes dual-monitor and blu-ray playback tests, both scenarios are low load tasks.   Look at how much more power the 390 uses in those areas compared to the 970.  The 970 is still down in the 10-12w range, and the 390 is up in the 75-80w range, which means the fans will stay off on the 970 but won't on the 390.

So, yes, in the strictest use of the term, the Gigabyte 2 Slot card does have 0db idle, it just isn't useful like the 970's 0db at idle.  Because if it isn't active when you are actually using the computer, there is no real point to it. 



Tatty_One said:


> Having said all that, for me who does overclock I would quite possibly still choose the 970.



Even for those that don't overclock, the 970 is the same performance, and is cheaper, and uses less power.  The only possible reason would be 8GB of vRAM, but even W1z acknowledges it provides no benefit.


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## Tatty_One (Jul 2, 2015)

To be honest, they are so close together in 1080P performance and in the UK pretty much priced the same (only looked at non ref designs) on what could possibly be early release price inflation that when things settle in a few weeks it could easily go either way as far as future market share is concerned, even if they remain in the same price segment that 8GB is going to tempt most who are ignorant to it's uses at 1080p.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 2, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Here is the thing with 0db idle, for it to be an actual useful feature, it really needs to be 0db "under light load".  If the fans kick up the first time I do anything with the computer, then it isn't really working as intended.  The point of 0db at idle is that you can do basic tasks with the computer and have zero noise.  You can watch a movie, browse the web, write a paper in Word, etc. without the fans spinning up.
> 
> Yes, in the strict sense, when the 390 is at idle it uses almost the same amount of power as a 970, and the fans will turn off, even on a 2 slot card.  However, you have to look at the power consumption numbers for other low load tasks.  That is why W1z includes dual-monitor and blu-ray playback tests, both scenarios are low load tasks.   Look at how much more power the 390 uses in those areas compared to the 970.  The 970 is still down in the 10-12w range, and the 390 is up in the 75-80w range, which means the fans will stay off on the 970 but won't on the 390.
> 
> So, yes, in the strictest use of the term, the Gigabyte 2 Slot card does have 0db idle, it just isn't useful like the 970's 0db at idle.  Because if it isn't active when you are actually using the computer, there is no real point to it.


The extra energy is from the memory clocks not specifically the GPU as to why the power usage is high at those levels.  Thing is, that is still not much for those massive heatsinks in general.  Just look at the Asus 3 fan STRIX which is also a dual slot design (Unless I missed something but from each angle I look at it it looks to be a dual slot card) says it keeps the fan off until the temps hit 65c.  I have only actually seen one AMD card with the 0db cooler on it (An R9 285 STRIX) and it kept the fan off browsing the web or watching youtube videos.  It also bumps the memory speeds up to max when on multi-monitor or Blu-ray (and some other tasks) though it has less VRAM but the results I have seen show a rough 20watt difference between it and the R9 390 at Blu-ray playback (I am going buy techpowerup numbers).  So I have looked through some different reviews and result of cards do not really clarify that so ill have to experience it in person more than one 285. 



newtekie1 said:


> Even for those that don't overclock, the 970 is the same performance, and is cheaper, and uses less power.  The only possible reason would be 8GB of vRAM, but even W1z acknowledges it provides no benefit.


Or the higher speed ram at above 3.5gb, most people in this range are looking at either a 1080p card to last them awhile, a 1440p card, or a set of these cards for 120-144hz setups at either resolution which will be more ram dependent.  Yes the 8gb is way overkill, but the 4gb is not...


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## newtekie1 (Jul 2, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Thing is, that is still not much for those massive heatsinks in general.



It may not be a lot, but it is too much for them without a fan.



GhostRyder said:


> Or the higher speed ram at above 3.5gb, most people in this range are looking at either a 1080p card to last them awhile, a 1440p card, or a set of these cards for 120-144hz setups at either resolution which will be more ram dependent. Yes the 8gb is way overkill, but the 4gb is not...



I'm pretty sure if the 4GB on the 970 is good enough for 4k, then it'll be fine for 1080p and 1440p as long as the card is relevant.


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## GhostRyder (Jul 2, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> It may not be a lot, but it is too much for them without a fan.


We will just have to see if there is a review specifically involving that otherwise ill have to wait for first hand experience because my only experience points to it being more than possible.



newtekie1 said:


> I'm pretty sure if the 4GB on the 970 is good enough for 4k, then it'll be fine for 1080p and 1440p as long as the card is relevant.


 Then we have differing opinions about that because its not a true 4gb card.  I would prefer a true 4gb card like the 390 or 390X (Or for that 290 or 290X) over the 970 especially for longevity considering the recent ram analysis done shows how much memory is getting used on video cards in this day and age compared to a few years ago.  We can blame what we want (poor console ports, bad optimizations, etc) however its still becoming part of the PC market.  Sorry but that's my opinion on the matter...


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## newtekie1 (Jul 2, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> We will just have to see if there is a review specifically involving that otherwise ill have to wait for first hand experience because my only experience points to it being more than possible.



I've used the card, the moment you put any kind of load on it, it goes over 60°C and the fans kick on.  Open a browser, the fans kick on, start watching a movie, the fans kick on.  Even on the 3-slot cards they can't keep the fans off under light load like the 970/980 cards can.  Even the card in this review only sits at 50°C when idle, in an open test bench.  Put it in a closed case and it will idle hotter, and be right at the verge of that 60°C mark.

Not that it really matters, like Tatty said, the fans spinning slowly aren't a big issue.  In fact, I'd rather they just stay on but spin slow enough they were basically silent when in a case.  The slight change in sound of them spinning up, even on my 970s, is more distracting than just spinning at a constant speed.  The difference is my 970's fans only spin up when I'm doing something that has audio that covers the change(playing a movie/game) while the 390 does it just opening a web browser and surfing, when my room is otherwise silent, so the fans spinning up is more noticeable.



GhostRyder said:


> Then we have differing opinions about that because its not a true 4gb card. I would prefer a true 4gb card like the 390 or 390X (Or for that 290 or 290X) over the 970 especially for longevity considering the recent ram analysis done shows how much memory is getting used on video cards in this day and age compared to a few years ago. We can blame what we want (poor console ports, bad optimizations, etc) however its still becoming part of the PC market. Sorry but that's my opinion on the matter...



It isn't really poor console ports or bad optimizations or whatever, it is just how some game devs handle textures.  Some of them only load the textures that are needed for the scene into vRAM, others load every texture they possible can into vRAM even if most of them aren't needed for the current scene.  The games that only load the textures needed(like Witcher III that only use <2GB@4K) stay very reasonable with vRAM usage.  The games that just cram as many textures as possible are the ones that use 6GB of vRAM even though they are running at only 1440p.  And those games don't really show a performance impact when run on a card with 4GB(or 3.5GB if you must) because it just means those textures that aren't used anyway aren't loaded.


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## darkangel0504 (Jul 3, 2015)

No PhysX, CUDA


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## btarunr (Jul 3, 2015)

darkangel0504 said:


> No PhysX, CUDA



No Mantle, no TrueAudio.


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## Assimilator (Jul 3, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Then we have differing opinions about that because its not a true 4gb card.



Please, explain what a "true 4gb card" is, and how the GTX 970 isn't a "true 4gb card".



btarunr said:


> No Mantle, no TrueAudio.



PhsyX and CUDA have far more adoption and use than (respectively) an API that was killed off after a year, and an API that nobody uses.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 3, 2015)

I know Mantle is dead, but what games use TrueAudio?


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## Xzibit (Jul 3, 2015)

Mantle API is being used in Liquid VR initiative


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## AlphaGTX (Jul 3, 2015)

Hi everyone...

AMD 300 series is new but i think that is not whole gamer want from AMD.let give you more information :
Nvidia work on new structure as we know is call (Maxwell) and release it in new Series of graphic cards and most important release 900 series of their cards and something change in whole PC Gaming because this new series was FAST , CHEAPer than big cards such as (TITAN) and have more performance than them , less heating than the old series. i mean AMD just push itself to release.we expect more than that from AMD after 1 year advertising about 300 series.

OK Never mind now let's talk about R9 390 PCS  :
this cards is new release from POWERCOLOR and i think they just think about future gaming in this card and any other of 300 series of AMDs.
i mean 8 GB VRAM maybe sounds not really smart but in future we will see games need more values of VRAM and no doubt about it in next 2 or 3 years game's recommendation change to higher values.
anyway this card look good for gaming as other cards if we want rate this card simply we should say like this :

in some games :
970 < 390 < 980 < 390x

and in many games: 
970 < 390 < 390x < 980


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## GhostRyder (Jul 3, 2015)

Assimilator said:


> Please, explain what a "true 4gb card" is, and how the GTX 970 isn't a "true 4gb card".


A card that can use all its ram at an optimal speed.  The gtx 970 has the 3.5gb segment running at a theoretical speed of 192gb/sec while the .5gb is at a theoretical 28gb/sec. That's the biggest reason even GPUz reads on the sensors 3.5gb because the card blocks that segment in normal scenarios.




Assimilator said:


> PhsyX and CUDA have far more adoption and use than (respectively) an API that was killed off after a year, and an API that nobody uses.


 Sure, because there is no one using the mantle API...oh wait there are some games using it.  PhysX adoption is also pretty miniscule (and has been for years) at this point so the only thing of the two that have higher adoption rates are Cuda and OpenCL with Cuda leading by a decent margin.



Fluffmeister said:


> I know Mantle is dead, but what games use TrueAudio?


First one that hits my mind was Thief.  Plus the api is not dead, it's been moved to new projects because DX 12.


meh, the 8gb is overkill in most scenarios unless you pair up two of these cards.  I think that is understood but we might need more in the future the way things are going.


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## Kissamies (Jul 8, 2015)

mroofie said:


> No VGA


If VGA is important, maybe you should use some ancient GPU instead. Moving away from ancient analog connectors is nothing but a good thing.


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## mroofie (Jul 8, 2015)

9700 Pro said:


> If VGA is important, maybe you should use some ancient GPU instead. Moving away from ancient analog connectors is nothing but a good thing.


You do realize that most *NEW *monitors still come with vga 



Mathragh said:


> Putting it there for compatibility doesn't mean it's the preferred standard. If you're serious about your image quality VGA just isn't an option anymore, hence it being phased out.


Unless you want to pay $200 + for a monitor with hdmi/Display port then fine 

Most people wont


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## Mathragh (Jul 8, 2015)

mroofie said:


> You do realize that most *NEW *monitors still come with vga


Putting it there for compatibility doesn't mean it's the preferred standard. If you're serious about your image quality VGA just isn't an option anymore, hence it being phased out.


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## JBVertexx (Jul 8, 2015)

I'm actually looking at the MSI Gaming R9 390.  It has a back-plate, bigger fans for quieter performance, and I like the MSI Gaming look. 

Regarding prices, you may be able to get the cheapest EVGA 970 for ~$300 right now, but if you look at comparable models (i.e. MSI Gaming, Gigabyte Gaming or Asus), the 970 vs. R9 390 prices are comparable.  I also think prices will settle a bit after the launch, thinking we'll see promo's for 390's at around the ~$300 mark within a few weeks.

I am looking at this card vs. the 970 primarily for upgrade potential.  I currently run at 1440p but would like to upgrade to 4K in about a year, which would mean I'd get a 2nd GPU to run that.  I think the 3.5/4GB RAM of the 970 would become an issue at 4K in SLI.

If I made the purchase now, I'd probably go for the 390, but I'm going to wait to see where the market settles out with the upcoming Fury (non-X) and Nano launches.


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## eodeo (Oct 7, 2015)

As a gtx 970 owner where that is my main GPU, Project CARS and Wolfenstain look like cheats in the reviews. They're clearly very biased games and I'd hope you don't include them to average that 970 is 3% faster than this 390.


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