# Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8 GB



## W1zzard (Jan 22, 2016)

Sapphire's R9 390 Nitro is equipped with a triple-fan cooler that runs very quiet and also delivers good temperatures of only 65°C during heavy gaming. The card, which trades blows with the GTX 970, is also overclocked out of the box and provides a dual-BIOS as an extra safety net.

*Show full review*


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## chinmi (Jan 22, 2016)

wow that power consumption is crazy... i think it's still better and cheaper in the long run to buy a gtx 970 !!


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

chinmi said:


> wow that power consumption is crazy... i think it's still better and cheaper in the long run to buy a gtx 970 !!


4.5GB more VRAM, re branded 290 has higher performance even in 1080p and 9w in desktop is pretty good, you won't play games 24/7, 5 years long.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 22, 2016)

Eroticus said:


> 4.5GB more VRAM



That provide no benefit.


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## Aquinus (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> That provide no benefit.


*Yet*. That's the caveat. Also for what it's worth, I saw Elite: Dangerous eating up almost 5GB of VRAM earlier today (I was playing in surround so that's always a thing as well.) Clearly it's not using all of it at once but, less texture streaming always helps latency once those textures are needed and I know that most gamers don't appreciate having to deal with jittery performance.

Does it make a big impact right now? No.
Does it help now? Yes but marginally.
Will it help in the future? Time will tell but, I suspect it will.

Now, before you start saying the 390 can't utilize that memory because it would choke, I would like to remind everyone that the 390 has 50% more TMUs than the 970 which I wouldn't call peanuts. Just because most games are heavier on pixel level operations (something nVidia cards tend to excel at thanks to the higher clocked ROPs,) doesn't mean the 390 will struggle as more texturing capability is demanded out of it.

This isn't to say the 390 is better than the 970 or vise versa but rather each card has their strong points. Nothing more, nothing less.

I've said this before but I'll say it again: It's always better to have too much memory than too little, just like system memory. Swapping, like streaming textures, will only harm performance versus actually having enough memory to keep everything in memory instead of having to move it between different pools.


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## tomkaten (Jan 22, 2016)

> Will it help in the future? Time will tell but, I suspect it will.



Will you still have this (bound to go obsolete) card when the extra RAM will really make a difference ?
I suspect you won't


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## GhostRyder (Jan 22, 2016)

chinmi said:


> wow that power consumption is crazy... i think it's still better and cheaper in the long run to buy a gtx 970 !!


Unless you stress your card 24/7 those numbers are not going to cause any real power bill rise.  Even so were talking a couple bucks a year max.



newtekie1 said:


> That provide no benefit.


Unfortunately history says otherwise...



Aquinus said:


> *Yet*. That's the caveat. Also for what it's worth, I saw Elite: Dangerous eating up almost 5GB of VRAM earlier today (I was playing in surround so that's always a thing as well.) Clearly it's not using all of it at once but, less texture streaming always helps latency once those textures are needed and I know that most gamers don't appreciate having to deal with jittery performance.
> 
> Does it make a big impact right now? No.
> Does it help now? Yes but marginally.
> ...


^I agree 100%.  Time has been pretty consistent to show that having the extra can help in the long run especially if you keep a video card longer than a year.  Many cards that were once close battles at launch have made great big gaps between (Like the GTX 680/770 vs HD 7970/280X).

Pretty decent card and cooler, kinda like the design of the Nitro cooler and it performs pretty well.


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> That provide no benefit.



GTA V, Dying Light,Shadow of Mordor, Heavily modded skyrim, Far Cry 4(1440p).

All these games can use over 3.5GB in 1080p + AA.

TDP of i5 2500k stock clocks -95w, TDP of 2600k that overclocked too 4.5Ghz is around 150~170w, for long run better too stop overcloking ur cpu.


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## Aquinus (Jan 22, 2016)

Eroticus said:


> Far Cry 4(1440p).


When I was playing it through in surround, it would occasionally reach 4GB of VRAM used.


tomkaten said:


> Will you still have this (bound to go obsolete) card when the extra RAM will really make a difference ?
> I suspect you won't


I suspect I will. I replaced my 6870s after buying the first one 6 years earlier, then a second one 3 years after that.

Also, for what it's worth, my 390 idles lower than just one of my old 6870s by 25 watts.


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## Szb84 (Jan 22, 2016)

I think the power consumption - especially during video playback - has been improved with Crimson. 15.9.1 is a pretty old driver they've had 2 WHQL's since then.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 22, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> Will it help in the future? Time will tell but, I suspect it will.



I don't.  Cramming large amounts of memory on lower than flagship cards has always been nothing more than a marketing gimmick.



GhostRyder said:


> Unfortunately history says otherwise...



What history have you been looking at, because the history I've seen shows that large amounts of VRAM shoved on a mid-range or lower card turns out to be nothing more than a gimmick and the VRAM never gets used.  By the time it becomes relevant the GPU is too weak to render the games that need that amount of RAM at the settings that need that amount of RAM.



Eroticus said:


> GTA V



No issues with 4k there.



Eroticus said:


> Dying Light



No issues there either.



Eroticus said:


> Shadow of Mordor



Only an issues with the HD Texture back installed, which makes no visual difference in gameplay.



Eroticus said:


> Heavily modded skyrim



Who still even plays this game?  But, yeah, I guess if it is still your #1 game, the 390 is your best option.



Eroticus said:


> Far Cry 4(1440p)



I played the entire game in 4k.  No problems at all.



Eroticus said:


> All these games can use over 3.5GB in 1080p + AA.



People who say things like this obviously don't know how the memory works on graphics cards.  Games have been over running the VRAM on cards for as long as I can remember, there is a system in place for this, and when it happens the least likely to be used textures(the ones farthest away from the player in the scene) are paged out to system RAM.

That is why there is no real benefit to more than 4GB of RAM, that is why the Fury cards still outperform the 390s, even in all the games you listed.

Lets see:


Every reviewer has said 8GB doesn't matter.
AMD Themselves have said 4GB is enough for the current generation
But yeah, keep up the hope that those 8GB are going to come in handy..._someday..._


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## Aquinus (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> By the time it becomes relevant the GPU is too weak to render the games that need that amount of RAM at the settings that need that amount of RAM.


What?


Aquinus said:


> I would like to remind everyone that the 390 has 50% more TMUs than the 970 which I wouldn't call peanuts. Just because most games are heavier on pixel level operations (something nVidia cards tend to excel at thanks to the higher clocked ROPs,) doesn't mean the 390 will struggle as more texturing capability is demanded out of it.


Also, what is your definition of:


newtekie1 said:


> I played the entire game in 4k. No problems at all.








Or this:


newtekie1 said:


> No issues with 4k there.








No offense @newtekie1 but, you seem to get super defense whenever someone makes the comparison. I wouldn't call 30 FPS or under "no issues." If you're going to make claims like that, stick with numbers, not subjective experience.


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## yogurt_21 (Jan 22, 2016)

^ in all of those examples, clock speed and memory speed alone accounts for the difference between the 4GB R9 290 and the 8GB R9 390. 

As stated before the only time  the 8GB makes a difference on this card is in crossfire at 4K. Otherwise the extra memory is just making the card more expensive for no gain.


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## GhostRyder (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> What history have you been looking at, because the history I've seen shows that large amounts of VRAM shoved on a mid-range or lower card turns out to be nothing more than a gimmick and the VRAM never gets used.  By the time it becomes relevant the GPU is too weak to render the games that need that amount of RAM at the settings that need that amount of RAM.


 
I am looking at the GPU history and how the cards age.  Even 1 year down the road cards change positions that used to be pretty much on equal grounds and have grown farther and farther apart in many tiers.  Look at the 280X and 770 which are essentially a GTX 680 and HD 7970(Ghz), the gap was 1% in favor of the HD 7970 and now the gap at 1080p is now 12% (In favor of it).  Look at the 290X versus GTX 780ti, the gap used to be 12% in favor of the GTX 780ti, now its 1% in favor of the R9 290X.  Unless you upgrade every year, generally its shown that the cards with more ram seem to scale better over time especially with how games evolve.  Not every card is going to make that huge a difference and low cards will not benefit much, but on the high end its better to have more and not need all of it than less and suffer for it.



Aquinus said:


> What?
> 
> Also, what is your definition of:
> 
> ...


I think he is referring to having two cards however and that its fine with two.

I won't say the 8gb is completely necessary in everything or every situation, but when those situations do arise its great to not have to worry.


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

People who say that 4GB is too much and don't even have 4GB, should switch to console, i see you enjoy with 24 fps and cinematic experience, with no problems at all.

GTX 970 can't even beat 290x any more, look on benchmarks in reviews and check new games like Battlefront, The Witcher 3.

Extra performance and extra vram for same price, so why not ?

Fury X and 390 isn't same GPU.


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## Aquinus (Jan 22, 2016)

GhostRyder said:


> I think he is referring to having two cards however and that its fine with two.
> 
> I won't say the 8gb is completely necessary in everything or every situation, but when those situations do arise its great to not have to worry.


My point is that he is demonizing the 390 when it's honestly just as capable as the 970 in most instances (particularly at higher resolutions.) Benchmarks show that. The only real downside is power consumption and size. When I'm buying a GPU around 300 USD, I don't really care if I'm paying a 20 USD price premium for 8GB of VRAM that can clock a little higher. At worst, I lose out on 20 dollars. At best, I won't have to replace my GPU should I need more performance. I'm just annoyed with the slandering of a GPU that I find to be more than capable where benchmarks seem to concur.

This feels like a "anything you can do, I can do better," mentality and it needs to stop IMHO. Both are good GPUs.


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## rtwjunkie (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> Only an issues with the HD Texture back installed, which makes no visual difference in gameplay.



Wrong.  No HD texture pack installed on Shadow of Mordor and running at highest settings and I regularly was hitting between 3.6 and 3.8GB VRAM.  I regularly wondered if I was going to exceed the 4GB  and get some stuttering.



newtekie1 said:


> Who still even plays this game? But, yeah, I guess if it is still your #1 game, the 390 is your best option.



Lots of people still play Skyrim.  Just because you attribute a game being 4 years old as not worth playing doesn't mean those values can be placed on others.

It's funny/opportune that you mentioned this now, because I'm playing Falskaar mod right now, which is less than a year old, and one of the best games I've played in a long while...and it's a mod! On a VRAM note about that, since that's the subject at hand, I'm actually using 2.3GB of VRAM.  I have a heavily modded game (243 listed mods, plus a lot of texture mods), so anything below 4GB is fine for Skyrim.


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## HD64G (Jan 22, 2016)

A great review as always W1z! And what a great in vfm GPU here! Which in high res it matches (and in several games wins) the 980 with a much lower price and the double VRAM in case it gets used better, especially with DX12 from now on. Also, a great cooler. Power consumption is going to hurt the power bill only with over 10H/day gaming and we talk about $10/year more than what a 980 would use. So, I cannot see a big negative issue with this GPU at all.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 22, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> No offense @newtekie1 but, you seem to get super defense whenever someone makes the comparison. I wouldn't call 30 FPS or under "no issues." If you're going to make claims like that, stick with numbers, not subjective experience.



Maybe you should look over at my system specs...I have two GTX970s, which is why I have no issues playing any of those games at 4k.  Maybe we should try paying attention.



GhostRyder said:


> I am looking at the GPU history and how the cards age. Even 1 year down the road cards change positions that used to be pretty much on equal grounds and have grown farther and farther apart in many tiers. Look at the 280X and 770 which are essentially a GTX 680 and HD 7970(Ghz), the gap was 1% in favor of the HD 7970 and now the gap at 1080p is now 12% (In favor of it). Look at the 290X versus GTX 780ti, the gap used to be 12% in favor of the GTX 780ti, now its 1% in favor of the R9 290X. Unless you upgrade every year, generally its shown that the cards with more ram seem to scale better over time especially with how games evolve. Not every card is going to make that huge a difference and low cards will not benefit much, but on the high end its better to have more and not need all of it than less and suffer for it.



That has nothing to do with the amount of memory and everything to do with the change in games used in benchmarks and optimization of the drivers over time.

Did you ever happen to notice that the Fury X went from being 1% below the 980Ti in Sept 2015 to 4% better in Oct 2015?  I guess the gaming industry changes super fast...or maybe W1z just changed up the benchmarks adding in a few more AMD friendly ones...



Eroticus said:


> Extra performance and extra vram for same price, so why not ?



Indeed, the 390 is a good buy, I never said it wasn't.



rtwjunkie said:


> Wrong. No HD texture pack installed on Shadow of Mordor and running at highest settings and I regularly was hitting between 3.6 and 3.8GB VRAM. I regularly wondered if I was going to exceed the 4GB and get some stuttering.



Again, there is a system in place for that.  In fact, if you were that high in VRAM, you were likely already using it.  The reason the issues only happen with the HD texture pack is because the textures are so large, they take up so much space, that the ones that are close to the player and actually needed for rendering don't fit in VRAM.  So to render the current scene the GPU has to wait for the call out to system RAM to load the texture.  With the non-HD texture pack, SoM packs every texture possible into VRAM until it is full, and likely over filled actually.  But it doesn't matter because it makes sure the textures need to render the current frame are in VRAM. And the texture needed to render the area around the player easily fit in VRAM.  So the game runs smoothly.  This is the lazy way of loading textures, but meh, it works.  This is also why the HD Texture pack recommends at least 6GB of VRAM.



rtwjunkie said:


> Lots of people still play Skyrim. Just because you attribute a game being 4 years old as not worth playing doesn't mean those values can be placed on others.



It was more of a joke, but like I said, if that is important to you then the 390 is a good bet.



Aquinus said:


> My point is that he is demonizing the 390 when it's honestly just as capable as the 970 in most instances (particularly at higher resolutions.) Benchmarks show that.



Demonizing?  Saying 8GB isn't beneficial, which is exactly what W1z said in his review, is demonizing?  I never said it wasn't just as capable as the 970, I never said buy the 970 over the 390.  My one and only statement was the 8GB isn't beneficial.  You freak out over that, and go off the wall claiming I'm demonizing the card...wow...


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## Aquinus (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> Demonizing? Saying 8GB isn't beneficial, which is exactly what W1z said in his review, is demonizing? Wow, can't handle someone not sucking the 390's dick can you? I never said it wasn't just as capable as the 970, I never said buy the 970 over the 390. My one and only statement was the 8GB isn't beneficial. You freak out over that, and go off the wall claiming I'm demonizing the card...wow...


You're whining about a tiny price premium for something that *might* get used in the future and make the argument every time there is a 390 review. I would call that whining and blowing the thing out of proportion.

Also saying shit like this isn't exactly appropriate:


> Wow, can't handle someone not sucking the 390's dick can you?


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## rtwjunkie (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> Again, there is a system in place for that. In fact, if you were that high in VRAM, you were likely already using it. The reason the issues only happen with the HD texture pack is because the textures are so large, they take up so much space, that the ones that are close to the player and actually needed for rendering don't fit in VRAM. So to render the current scene the GPU has to wait for the call out to system RAM to load the texture. With the non-HD texture pack, SoM packs every texture possible into VRAM until it is full, and likely over filled actually. But it doesn't matter because it makes sure the textures need to render the current frame are in VRAM. And the texture needed to render the area around the player easily fit in VRAM. So the game runs smoothly. This is the lazy way of loading textures, but meh, it works. This is also why the HD Texture pack recommends at least 6GB of VRAM.



OK, makes sense!  It's still quite a large amount of VRAM to use though, which highlights that we're getting to that tipping point where 4GB won't be enough, even if it's because that is the lazy way to do it.


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> Demonizing?  Saying 8GB isn't beneficial, which is exactly what W1z said in his review, is demonizing?  I never said it wasn't just as capable as the 970, I never said buy the 970 over the 390.  My one and only statement was the 8GB isn't beneficial.  You freak out over that, and go off the wall claiming I'm demonizing the card...wow...



We don't really know that =P if we could test 4GB 390 and 8GB 390 today.

Yeah maybe 8gb is to much for this day, but we don't really know what would happen in 2 years.
(

and 960 / 280 4GB version has better fps than 2GB version, almost in every new game.


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## Jesus Castro (Jan 22, 2016)

I have a 980 and never saw 4k as an issue. Yes,  i dont see the 8gb useful on the 390. The card will be long irrelevant before those 8gbs are used,  unless,  of course youre going for a cfx setup. Amd basically overclocked the 390 from the 290 stock 947 to whatever these manufacturer want,  say,  1040 like what sapphire did. So theres even less overclock headroom. Meanwhile the 970 you can just put +200 on the core and call it a day. People seem to underestimate the overclock potential of maxwell cards since reviewers nowadays simply overclock the card they are reviewing i stead of the whole suit of cards they are comparing it to. Only one site i have ever seen them do that and it is overclockersclub

For example in this 390x review: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_r9_390x/3.htm

You see the whole picture when you see all cards overclocked.

But if i had to pick between the 970 or 390,  i would pick whichever is cheaper. Or flip a coin.


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

Jesus Castro said:


> I have a 980 and never saw 4k as an issue. Yes,  i dont see the 8gb useful on the 390. The card will be long irrelevant before those 8gbs are used,  unless,  of course youre going for a cfx setup. Amd basically overclocked the 390 from the 290 stock 947 to whatever these manufacturer want,  say,  1040 like what sapphire did. So theres even less overclock headroom. Meanwhile the 970 you can just put +200 on the core and call it a day. People seem to underestimate the overclock potential of maxwell cards since reviewers nowadays simply overclock the card they are reviewing i stead of the whole suit of cards they are comparing it to. Only one site i have ever seen them do that and it is overclockersclub
> 
> For example in this 390x review: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_r9_390x/3.htm
> 
> ...



4K and only 1 980 without problems at all ? are you sure ?


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## Frick (Jan 22, 2016)

I only have problems with the multi monitor power draw. Yikes!


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## Jesus Castro (Jan 22, 2016)

Eroticus said:


> 4K and only 1 980 without problems at all ? are you sure ?



Im not talking about about averages, no gpu today can run 4k at comfortable frame rate. Im talking about people saying that if you pass the 4gig limit, the game will start to choke and freeze etc. I never had those problems with games like gta, bf4.


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

Jesus Castro said:


> Im not talking about about averages, no gpu today can run 4k at comfortable frame rate. Im talking about people saying that if you pass the 4gig limit, the game will start to choke and freeze etc. I never had those problems with games like gta, bf4.



No one said that =P i think , not sure xD

we said that if you can get better performance and extra 4.5gb of vram, so why not ?

Performance Summary 390 100% - 970
900p - 3%
1080p - 7% 
1440p - 11%
2160p - 14%


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## Aquinus (Jan 22, 2016)

Frick said:


> I only have problems with the multi monitor power draw. Yikes!


I'm have a concern about the validity of that measurement for a GPU at stock. When I have all 3 monitors my draw off the wall is slightly over 150 watts for the entire system. I just unplugged all but one of my displays and now it's ~148-watts. I wouldn't exactly call that consistent with what @W1zzard claims in the review unless he is doing something like forcing VRAM to clock up which very well might increase the draw but, just idle, sitting on the desktop, I can't confirm those numbers with my own card.

The only time I can confirm that it goes up that high is when I'm actively doing something like moving a window or something. Just sitting there at idle without being used is the same as a single monitor on my end.


Eroticus said:


> No one said that =P i think , not sure xD
> 
> we said that if you can get better performance and extra 4.5gb of vram, so why not ?
> 
> ...


Heat and power consumption are always a thing to consider. When I overclock my 390 the sucker runs pretty hot.


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## Eroticus (Jan 22, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> I'm have a concern about the validity of that measurement for a GPU at stock. When I have all 3 monitors my draw off the wall is slightly over 150 watts for the entire system. I just unplugged all but one of my displays and now it's ~148-watts. I wouldn't exactly call that consistent with what @W1zzard claims in the review unless he is doing something like forcing VRAM to clock up which very well might increase the draw but, just idle, sitting on the desktop, I can't confirm those numbers with my own card.
> 
> Heat and power consumption are always a thing to consider. When I overclock my 390 the sucker runs pretty hot.



I have 180~200w CPU, so i don't really care about power consumption haha =P

Nitro with OC and without OC has pretty awesome temps, only MSI GTX 970 has 3*c lower(TECHPOWERUP Reviews) , and Grenada can reach pretty high temps without any problems. =P.

any way i agree with you about both things =].


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## Aquinus (Jan 23, 2016)

Eroticus said:


> I have 180~200w CPU, so i don't really care about power consumption haha =P


Oh, me either. Us owners of SB-E chips need to stay together. 

Also that Heaven run you screenshotted, how the heck did you get a score that high? At 1150/1700 I could only get within about 100 points of your score.
Edit: Oh, you clocked that sucker north of 1.2Ghz. That explains a lot. My 390 gets pretty unstable at 1200Mhz. I would probably need to ditch Afterburner and switch to Trixx to shove a little more voltage through it. Do you use Trixx for overclocking your GPU?


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## Eroticus (Jan 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> Oh, me either. Us owners of SB-E chips need to stay together.
> 
> Also that Heaven run you screenshotted, how the heck did you get a score that high? At 1150/1700 I could only get within about 100 points of your score.



1247 / 1666  - +50% Power, 200 mv on GPU.


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## xkm1948 (Jan 23, 2016)

Looking at those benchmarks I am just so glad I didn't buy 970 back in May. Loads of people here on TPU were nagging me to go 970...


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## GhostRyder (Jan 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> My point is that he is demonizing the 390 when it's honestly just as capable as the 970 in most instances (particularly at higher resolutions.) Benchmarks show that. The only real downside is power consumption and size. When I'm buying a GPU around 300 USD, I don't really care if I'm paying a 20 USD price premium for 8GB of VRAM that can clock a little higher. At worst, I lose out on 20 dollars. At best, I won't have to replace my GPU should I need more performance. I'm just annoyed with the slandering of a GPU that I find to be more than capable where benchmarks seem to concur.
> 
> This feels like a "anything you can do, I can do better," mentality and it needs to stop IMHO. Both are good GPUs.


I agree with you, I was just pointing it out because I felt there was going to be a comment about it later on down the line.
I agree with you, I was just pointing it out because I felt there was going to be a comment about it later on down the line.


Jesus Castro said:


> I have a 980 and never saw 4k as an issue. Yes,  i dont see the 8gb useful on the 390. The card will be long irrelevant before those 8gbs are used,  unless,  of course youre going for a cfx setup. Amd basically overclocked the 390 from the 290 stock 947 to whatever these manufacturer want,  say,  1040 like what sapphire did. So theres even less overclock headroom. Meanwhile the 970 you can just put +200 on the core and call it a day. People seem to underestimate the overclock potential of maxwell cards since reviewers nowadays simply overclock the card they are reviewing i stead of the whole suit of cards they are comparing it to. Only one site i have ever seen them do that and it is overclockersclub
> 
> For example in this 390x review: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_r9_390x/3.htm
> 
> ...


Yea but remember, numbers are just number when it comes to the clocks.  Its how much performance you pull when overclocked that matters.


Eroticus said:


> 1247 / 1666  - +50% Power, 200 mv on GPU.


WTF, did you get a golden sample 290X???



Aquinus said:


> I'm have a concern about the validity of that measurement for a GPU at stock. When I have all 3 monitors my draw off the wall is slightly over 150 watts for the entire system. I just unplugged all but one of my displays and now it's ~148-watts. I wouldn't exactly call that consistent with what @W1zzard claims in the review unless he is doing something like forcing VRAM to clock up which very well might increase the draw but, just idle, sitting on the desktop, I can't confirm those numbers with my own card.
> 
> The only time I can confirm that it goes up that high is when I'm actively doing something like moving a window or something. Just sitting there at idle without being used is the same as a single monitor on my end.
> 
> Heat and power consumption are always a thing to consider. When I overclock my 390 the sucker runs pretty hot.


I think it matters, how ever many people blow it out of proportion the power usage numbers like the 390 will cause the lights to dim in your house when its on


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## rtwjunkie (Jan 23, 2016)

Jesus Castro said:


> The card will be long irrelevant before those 8gbs are used,



I'm going to paraphrase @Aquinus here because it's perfectly valid: It's not about being able to use all 8GB of VRAM, it's about the freedom to use more than 4 without a performance hit.  If people are paying attention, more and more games are coming close to 4GB usage...and that's at "just" 1080p!


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## Jesus Castro (Jan 23, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> I'm going to paraphrase @Aquinus here because it's perfectly valid: It's not about being able to use all 8GB of VRAM, it's about the freedom to use more than 4 without a performance hit.  If people are paying attention, more and more games are coming close to 4GB usage...and that's at "just" 1080p!



Funny thing is, there is almost no performance hit. 

http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/68/amd-radeon-r9-290x-4gb-vs-8gb-4k-maxed-settings/index.html

Beside tomb raider, theres isnt any benefit to having those extra 4gb of ram. If there is a difference, its a small margin at best. The only way they saw a benefit to having 8gb was when they pushed shadow of mordor to 8k, 200% resolution scale on top of 4k. Where the 8gb cards got an average 23fps while 4gb tanked to 9fps. If you run a game then it passes the magical 4096mb limit, the fps wont just tank all of the sudden. You need substantially more "vram usage" than 4gb to actually get noticeable performance drop on a 4gb card.


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## bentan77 (Jan 23, 2016)

No Crimson?


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## Aquinus (Jan 23, 2016)

Jesus Castro said:


> Funny thing is, there is almost no performance hit.
> 
> http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/68/amd-radeon-r9-290x-4gb-vs-8gb-4k-maxed-settings/index.html
> 
> Beside tomb raider, theres isnt any benefit to having those extra 4gb of ram. If there is a difference, its a small margin at best. The only way they saw a benefit to having 8gb was when they pushed shadow of mordor to 8k, 200% resolution scale on top of 4k. Where the 8gb cards got an average 23fps while 4gb tanked to 9fps. If you run a game then it passes the magical 4096mb limit, the fps wont just tank all of the sudden. You need substantially more "vram usage" than 4gb to actually get noticeable performance drop on a 4gb card.


His point is that 4GB is going to get exceeded in 1080p soon. I already pass it now in surround with some games occasionally. Elite Dangerous normally sits between 3-4.5GB, I've rarely seen it get almost as high at 5GB. You're right though, texture streaming doesn't kill performance until you start getting north of 500MB, that was what I experienced with my 6870s before I upgraded.

Example:


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## Fluffmeister (Jan 23, 2016)

The performance is fine... always have been, but those bottom lines are suffering hard in comparison to the competition.


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## Jesus Castro (Jan 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> His point is that 4GB is going to get exceeded in 1080p soon. I already pass it now in surround with some games occasionally. Elite Dangerous normally sits between 3-4.5GB, I've rarely seen it get almost as high at 5GB.
> 
> Example:
> View attachment 71332
> View attachment 71333



Yes, even if you "pass" your vram limit, there wont be a difference with someone else below the the usage. Like in your example, i expect a person with a 4gb card to run fine, despite it coming close to 5gb. But a person with a 3gb card, i do expect their fps to tank using the same settings that you have there.


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## Aquinus (Jan 23, 2016)

Jesus Castro said:


> Yes, even if you "pass" your vram limit, there wont be a difference with someone else below the the usage. Like in your example, i expect a person with a 4gb card to run fine, despite it coming close to 5gb. But a person with a 3gb card, i do expect their fps to tank using the same settings as you did there.


By the time my 6870s were 600MB over, the GPU's couldn't go faster than 40-50% GPU usage. I suspect if someone is using 1GB over what they have, they will most definitely see a performance hit. Gradually as you use more, the GPU usage will simply go down because there's nothing for the GPU to do but wait for the data to get streamed from main memory, over the PCI-E bus, and into the GPU and depending on how often those textures are used, it could be a small hit or a huge hit. It really depends on the game and if all that is required to render the current frames but, you'll get more dips in performance  every time it has to stream textures. The more it streams, the more you'll scream. 

Also consider SLI and CFX. If you run out you'll need to stream that data to both GPUs which is a lot more intensive on a computer than just streaming to a single GPU.


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## Fluffmeister (Jan 23, 2016)

chinmi said:


> wow that power consumption is crazy... i think it's still better and cheaper in the long run to buy a gtx 970 !!



Indeed.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1114-vram-comparison-test/


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## nem (Jan 23, 2016)

chinmi said:


> wow that power consumption is crazy... i think it's still better and cheaper in the long run to buy a gtx 970 !!



i dunno , no async compute.. only 3.5Gb fast.. not be sure about have specials drivers of nvidia than manage the data than be used less to the slow 0.5Gb slow.. i think the NITRO will have much more lifetime..


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## newtekie1 (Jan 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> You're whining about a tiny price premium for something that *might* get used in the future and make the argument every time there is a 390 review. I would call that whining and blowing the thing out of proportion.
> 
> Also saying shit like this isn't exactly appropriate:


See, this is why I wrote that.  You can't handle anyone saying anything remotely negative about your precious AMD can you?  I said one statement and one statement only, 8GB is not beneficial.  It says that RIGHT IN THE REVIEW!!!  And your response is that I'm demonizing the card and whining about a price premium(when I never even mentioned anything about price).  See, I removed that comment, but now you've proven I was right in stating it.  You can not even begin to handle anyone saying anything remotely negative about AMD and the 390, and you fly off the handle if they do, and you've done so here.

Go yell at W1z about why he is demonizing the 390 and whining about the price premium, because he said the same thing I did.



Aquinus said:


> I already pass it now in surround with some games occasionally.



Yeah, but your surround is 3x1080p.  So saying that you get close, or go slightly over the 4GB barrier with surround isn't evidence that we are getting close at 1080p.  I play everything now at 1440p, and never come close to the 4GB point unless I'm using high levels of MSAA.  But you shouldn't be using, and don't need to use, high levels of MSAA at high resolutions. I'll use MSAAx2 on 1440p, but there is no need to go any higher, and no MSAA is needed at 4k.  At 4k TXAA or FXAA is all I use.



Eroticus said:


> we said that if you can get better performance and extra 4.5gb of vram, so why not ?



I agree.  If I was buying right now, today, I'd buy a 390.  They're the same price as the 970 and the performance difference between the two is close enough to say they are even.  Power consumption isn't too much of a concern for me(come on, I used to own GTX470s and GTX480s and the HD2900 was my favorite card, those flames on the cooler shroud!).


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## darkangel0504 (Jan 23, 2016)

nice review!


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## Aquinus (Jan 23, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> Go yell at W1z about why he is demonizing the 390 and whining about the price premium, because he said the same thing I did.


W1zz calls the 8GB a pro and a con. Pro is that it has 8GB, con is that it's not useful with current games from his testing. He also said that there are 390 models you can get for as low as 290 USD so hardly call that demonizing.


newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, but your surround is 3x1080p. So saying that you get close, or go slightly over the 4GB barrier with surround isn't evidence that we are getting close at 1080p. I play everything now at 1440p, and never come close to the 4GB point unless I'm using high levels of MSAA. But you shouldn't be using, and don't need to use, high levels of MSAA at high resolutions. I'll use MSAAx2 on 1440p, but there is no need to go any higher, and no MSAA is needed at 4k. At 4k TXAA or FXAA is all I use.


That 4.4GB used screenshot was only with FXAA. I don't use AA much at all in surround because there is too much of a performance hit with only a single 390. AA is not one of AMD's strong points either (more pixel level operations, faster ROPs make nVidia a better option for things like AA.) My point is that it's possible to use more than 4GB, that's all and that the trend (as it always has been,) is that time goes on, more will get used. If that wasn't the case, my 6870s with 1GB would still be fine.


newtekie1 said:


> I agree. If I was buying right now, today, I'd buy a 390. They're the same price as the 970 and the performance difference between the two is close enough to say they are even. Power consumption isn't too much of a concern for me(come on, I used to own GTX470s and GTX480s and the HD2900 was my favorite card, those flames on the cooler shroud!).


I'm not looking for a concession. I respect your decision for getting what you did and after overclocking, I have no doubt that it's faster. Once again, I never said that the 970 is bad. I'm just saying that we might be seeing more than 4GB used before you know it.

Just remember the times when at full settings 1GB was enough, then it wasn't, then 2GB was enough, and now it's not. 4GB is no different. It might be enough now, but we don't know when it won't. That's all I'm getting at.

I never said the 390 was perfect. I'm, pretty sure I said it's a power whore that makes a lot of heat. I'm more pissed off at the attack on 8GB as if it will never be useful in the future. That's the *only* thing that's irritating me because this isn't the first time you've made that argument and you sound like a broken record every time you do it. I know that 4GB is enough now, the question is when will it not. Nothing more, nothing less. For someone like me who held on to his 6870 for 6 years and got a second after 3, 8GB very well might do me good should I decide to CFX it in a couple years down the road but, we'll have to see where the market is.

I got a second 6870 because it was the most cost effective upgrade. If that's the case when I upgrade again, then I'll do the same thing again. If it's not, I'll replace it but, I would rather have it for the future than not have it and limit my options.


Aquinus said:


> Heat and power consumption are always a thing to consider. When I overclock my 390 the sucker runs pretty hot.



Now can we stop arguing about this? It's rather pointless.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 23, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> W1zz calls the 8GB a pro and a con. Pro is that it has 8GB, con is that it's not useful with current games from his testing. He also said that there are 390 models you can get for as low as 290 USD so hardly call that demonizing.



His exact words were "provides no tangible benefit", my exact words were "provide no benefit".  You flew off the wall saying I was demonizing the card.   So you must also think he is demonizing the card.  Go yell at him.



Aquinus said:


> That 4.4GB used screenshot was only with FXAA. I don't use AA much at all in surround because there is too much of a performance hit with only a single 390. AA is not one of AMD's strong points either (more pixel level operations, faster ROPs make nVidia a better option for things like AA.) My point is that it's possible to use more than 4GB, that's all and that the trend (as it always has been,) is that time goes on, more will get used. If that wasn't the case, my 6870s with 1GB would still be fine.



Yes, but you were making that point to back up that you can use more than 4GB at 1080p.  Saying your surround setup uses more than 4GB of RAM doesn't support that 1080p will use that much.



Aquinus said:


> I'm not looking for a concession. I respect your decision for getting what you did and after overclocking, I have no doubt that it's faster. Once again, I never said that the 970 is bad. I'm just saying that we might be seeing more than 4GB used before you know it.



I never said anything about the 970 other than to confirm that they play 4k just fine without memory issues.  That is the thing, I'm not assuming you are attacking the 970.

What you have to realize is that I bought my 970s all the way back in 2014, upgrading from a pair of 670s.  The 390 wasn't even on the radar back then, the Titan X and 980Ti were sill just rumors.  And for a little over $600 in 2014 I got performance that beats the 980Ti, beats the Titan X, beats the Fury X all at any resolution, and not just by a small margin either by 15-20%.  I've never not been happy with my decision.  You also have to realize that my 670s were the 4GB models.  I bought them thinking that mabye 2GB wouldn't be enough.  We went through the 700 series, and on to the 900 series, and there was never a time when the extra 2GB helped, all the way up until they were replaced.  The reason?  Even in SLI, the GPUs themselves were too weak to drive the resolutions that would make the 4GB useful.  So I'm very well aware of the cram more memory on the card gimmick.



Aquinus said:


> I'm more pissed off at the attack on 8GB as if it will never be useful in the future. That's the *only* thing that's irritating me because this isn't the first time you've made that argument and you sound like a broken record every time you do it.



Again, I'm not the only one saying it.  Every review of these cards says the exact same thing.  I'm sorry, but that is just the reality, 8GB has no benefit, and likely won't in the future.  Is there a chance that will change? Sure, but it isn't likely, and every reviewer acknowledges that.  It isn't an attack on the 390, it is just stating the facts that the reviewer is also stating.  If you can mange to get the reviewers to stop saying it, I'll stop saying it.


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## Charcharo (Jan 23, 2016)

Hello people!
This is my first post here as I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here. I hope to become a regular poster here ! But I do want to explain how I view this 8 GB thing.

1) 8GB of VRAM is not an advantage in most situations EVEN at 4k. That is true. However, it can ammount to something in *Crossfire support*. Or people that *mod *their games heavily CAN see it being used up. *Modding *is a huge thing for me, absolutely superior to graphical fidelity and even frame rate for me. One of the major reasons why I am a PC Gamer even (after backwards compatibility and cheaper long term costs, before emulation).

The other reason is that some people do not *upgrade *every year or two or three... or four. The ability for your card to allow you to max two of the most important Visual Quality aspects ( Texture Quality and Model Quality) even in future titles, is great. EVEN if you have to turn down some other things, this means that for us, the R9 390 has this advantage. 

My last GPU lasted me 6 years. The ATI 5770. 
If I had listened to people saying back in the day that the 1 Gigabyte model is somewhat pointless... well it would have bit me in the backside. That 1 GB of VRAM allowed it to play even games like Witcher 3. This is the same thing here. I am certain that 2-3-4 years from now there will be games whose texture and model quality sliders would benefit from more than 4 GB of VRAM. And for those that upgrade like me, even more slowly, at 5 or 6 years... it will be a godsend. We DO exist.

Being a PC Gamer means I should be able to choose the best performance/quality settings. So no, it wont struggle at all in 2 years at 1440P... most options would still be on Ultra or High (though not all, I admit). I can manage though, as long as the heavy hitters can be done well on my card. And my 1 GB ATI 5770 allowed just that. So I guess... the 8GB R9 390 will manage too.

2) Power Consumption is not so simple. The first thing is Idle Draw or draw under not very punishing scenarios is good on the R9 390. Another thing is that FRTC (frame rate target control) does exist and can be used to great effect in many of the most popular titles of today and yesterday.

Meaning it will exist... but it wont be a major difference to the pocket.

Just my opinion as a person who upgrades much more rarely than most of you


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## chr0nos (Jan 23, 2016)

some people don't understand how costly hardware can be outside of USA or UK.

I have been jumping from IGP's since my HD4870 died


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## D1RTYD1Z619 (Jan 24, 2016)

Techpowerup needs to add Battlefront 2015 to the video card reviews.


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## Jism (Jan 24, 2016)

8GB of memory comes in handy when going crossfire. You wont have that limitation of 4GB only with 2x4GB cards, but rather 8GB with 2 cards. Imagine this would kick-ass in 4K. When you have the money, just go for it. OC'ing seems low, but without voltage adjustments i see.


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## rtwjunkie (Jan 24, 2016)

D1RTYD1Z619 said:


> Techpowerup needs to add Battlefront 2015 to the video card reviews.



Then PM W1zzard and suggest it, since he does the GPU reviews. Putting it here won't get it seen.  Don't be surprised if he says no.  He likes continuity, and changing games everytime someone wants one doesn't add to credibility of the reviews.


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## Szb84 (Jan 24, 2016)

D1RTYD1Z619 said:


> Techpowerup needs to add Battlefront 2015 to the video card reviews.



The only (reasonable) way of  Battlefront benchmarks would be to do it in MP matches (or in a similar demanding scenario) - but this is not something that can be (consistently) reproduced...
There is no point to benchmark the game in Missions mode it's not a "realworld scenario", it would only create false expectations...


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## KIAFA (Jan 24, 2016)

You guys think I can run this card with a Corsair TX 650 v2 (made by Seasonic)? I plan to OC.

Ivy i5 4.3GHz @ 1.15v
Z77
8GB DDR3
1 HDD + 1 SSD


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## Aquinus (Jan 24, 2016)

KIAFA said:


> You guys think I can run this card with a Corsair TX 650 v2 (made by Seasonic)? I plan to OC.
> 
> Ivy i5 4.3GHz @ 1.15v
> Z77
> ...


It should be okay. My machine doesn't tend to consume much more than 550-watts for full system load off the wall with my 390 plus everything else in my machine when overclocked. Keep in mind though, these cards don't tend to overclock very far because they've been tuned already.


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## Deep (Jan 25, 2016)

First post here.

Thanks for the great review. Always enjoy Techpowerup's reviews.

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents as a R9 390 Nitro owner. Out of all the R9 390 designs, only the Saphire and XFX are 2-slot designs (my itx case could only fit a 2 slot design). And AFAIK, XFX is the only R9 390 for which you can buy a full cover waterblock. 
If I'd have had more room Powercolor would have been my choice, a s it's cooler is as good (=quiet), if not better than Saphire's.


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## Renatogarou (Jan 25, 2016)

970 and 390 are great card, there is no silver bullet between them.

I want a 970 but 390 was more cheaper, so I brouth its.

970 has better software suport and more room for overclock, fact, at least to me.

performance is very similar.

8GB is useless, will never appear a game which to use effectively this 8GB, but and 5Gigas?

If future games run smoothly on card that has only 1GB VRAM more than 4GB, the 390 has it and 970 don't. This game may appear or may not. It could give to the 390 an advantage, but 970 will still runs the same game very well.


(I'm Brazilian, sorry my bad english, I appreciate any help to improve my english)


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2016)

D1RTYD1Z619 said:


> Techpowerup needs to add Battlefront 2015 to the video card reviews.


I'm rebenching with new games right now, Battlefront is not one of them. New games: Anno 2205, AC Syndicate, Just Cause 3, Batman Arkham Knight, COD BO3, Fallout 4, Rainbow Six Siege.


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## nem (Jan 26, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I'm rebenching with new games right now, Battlefront is not one of them. New games: Anno 2205, AC Syndicate, Just Cause 3, Batman Arkham Knight, COD BO3, Fallout 4, Rainbow Six Siege.


hi W1zzard between 390 and 970 witch you will choice if you were the buyer..


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## Eroticus (Jan 26, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I'm rebenching with new games right now, Battlefront is not one of them. New games: Anno 2205, AC Syndicate, Just Cause 3, Batman Arkham Knight, COD BO3, Fallout 4, Rainbow Six Siege.



You have taste on most not optimized games for PC. battlefront isn't perfect but one of well optimized. =P


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## Aquinus (Jan 26, 2016)

Eroticus said:


> You have taste on most not optimized games for PC. battlefront isn't perfect but one of well optimized. =P


One usually requires a reliable and repeatable method for benchmarking an application in order to do it. Seems that it may not be feasible.


Szaby59 said:


> The only (reasonable) way of  Battlefront benchmarks would be to do it in MP matches (or in a similar demanding scenario) - but this is not something that can be (consistently) reproduced...
> There is no point to benchmark the game in Missions mode it's not a "realworld scenario", it would only create false expectations...


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## Grings (Jan 29, 2016)

Deep said:


> First post here.
> 
> Thanks for the great review. Always enjoy Techpowerup's reviews.
> 
> ...



The EK 290 waterblock fits the Powercolor card, and a full cover for the msi one is coming soon according to ek's cooling configurator, no plans for this card


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## medi01 (Jan 31, 2016)

A side note on WoW:

1) It peaked at about 12 million users quite a while ago, was at 7 million as of Jan 2015, lost 1.5 million, could have recovered a couple after WoD release, but would not get to 10m, no chance
2) Most popular MMORPGs are played in Asia and a number of them is bigger than WoW:
http://mmos.com/editorials/most-popular-mmorpgs-world


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## nem (Feb 1, 2016)

Nice how the 390 out performs to 970.. 

from pcper.


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## TheGuruStud (Feb 9, 2016)

Wait, so now everyone forgot about frame times and the 970's last .5GB being junk?
Go ahead and play some games using 4.5GB of vram on that 970. Don't bother replying when you get pissed off from the frame stutter.

I have multiple games installed that use over 4GB and I don't have AA cranked up (mostly shitty FXAA). So...that argument about games not using more than 4 is...BS.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 11, 2016)

Aquinus said:


> One usually requires a reliable and repeatable method for benchmarking an application in order to do it. Seems that it may not be feasible.



Battlefront benches are pointless anyway, we already have two(!) Frostbite engine games in the bench suite as it is.

Use BF4 for a reference performance benchmark for Battlefront = done.

Stop looking at game titles, start looking at engines.

When I analyze benchmarks/card performance myself, I always look at the main and most demanding engines, not games. So I am always very interested in Crysis 3 (latest CryEngine), Metro LL, BF3 (overclocking), BF4 (latest Frostbite), TW3 (I consider the RED engine a returning engine, it's way too good not to), and one Ubisoft open world thingy (for Dunia).

Also, for absolute performance differences, you can easily determine what it is that strangles a card. For TW3, it's Tesselation which is why Maxwell takes a lead there, which is far stronger at that than Kepler - even w/o Hairworks. FWIW, CryEngine / Crysis 3 shows what the true relative performance of cards is. All cards run equally well (or shit) on it, it pushes every button in the architecture and it taxes VRAM the most (look at the VRAM req for Crysis 3, 3GB is no luxury).

To chime in on the 4GB/8GB thing.... 8GB is pretty pointless. At all demanding titles you run out of GPU grunt long before you run into 8GB or even 4GB limits. For a crossfire setup, yes. If you intend to never resell your card and take it past 2-3 years of use, then yes, 8GB can bring you something down the line. In all other situations, the larger memory is a total waste, both in cost of the card as power consumption and it is silly to pay a premium for it.

That said, 390 is a solid offering regardless of 8GB or not. The major issue for me with picking it over a 970 would be AMD's driver model, which still isn't what it should be (can't really say that Crimson instilled faith thus far) and the lacking optimization on more recent titles. It's a shame really. Power draw is also an issue, but when temps are under control as they are on this Sapphire, that really doesn't matter to me.


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## Casecutter (Mar 10, 2016)

Wow I was surprise with this and the response in the forms on this review.  Honestly, hadn't come across earlier, as I've been caught up with other family health concerns, and didn't see this till now.

When I run through the titles @1440p the NITRO was more often "hanging-out" with a GTX980, not the 970.  There's like 4 games the NITRO was below the Nvidia pair, and nobody in this form appears merit those results?  Sure BF4, GTAV, SolidV, Witcher3 those games we anticipate Nvidia pulling in front but that leaves 11 titles.  Here's a card that's Newegg's has $325 -AR$15, and it's sparing with a $450+ card!  Now sure we're talking a reference 970/980 in these tests of W1zzard's, but will a 1367 MHz Boost 970 like say the GTX 970 ACX 2.0 FTW a $350 -AR$10 card get into the hunt perhaps a little more often.  From the 1440p Summary there an 11% spread, so it's amazing how stout this NITRO is.  Sure I think the 970/390 dovetail in performance when looking similar factory "soup'd-up" models, so it just comes down to a preference.

As for power under gaming; I still would like to see such similar factory "soup'd-up" models, and then pull the Watts that each card uses over the B-M, with the entire list of titles W1zzard works from.  I think the final average(s)... while in the Mawell's favor would not be as prominent as just pulling a number from one title like that of Metro: Last Light @1080p (not even a title that is used in the review).  I mean look at something like the Palit GTX 970 JetStream it exacts ~25% more power on the same matrix.  I think we aren't crediting what AMD has in these Hawaii rebrand.


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## Intervention (Jun 18, 2016)

newtekie1 said:


> I don't.  Cramming large amounts of memory on lower than flagship cards has always been nothing more than a marketing gimmick.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





newtekie1 said:


> I don't.  Cramming large amounts of memory on lower than flagship cards has always been nothing more than a marketing gimmick.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have a GTX 960 4GB, and I surely see the difference while playing games like FarCry4 and BF4, where the vram goes up to 3-4GB usage. Having more VRAM absolutely helps, specially in SLI configurations, where only a single card vram amount is used. Having that extra VRAM will definitely help the performance. 
Also, right now you may not benefit from the extra VRAM, but soon to come out open world games will definitely take advantage of that extra memory. The current generation of higher end cards today will still perform well at 1080 and 1440 resolutions for a few years to come, such as in the case of the 780ti and R9 290's. 

The only marketing gimmick I have noticed is the trend insinuating that GTX 900 series and R9 300 series are now obsolete, therefor you need to upgrade to the newest and greatest. That is crap! Personally, I think of GPU's the same way I think of CPU's. You have 22nm micro technology for Ivy Bridge and Haswell. Both are essentially the same micro technology, Haswell having improved microarchitecture. The so called "tick tock". But, they are still the same micro technology. Likewise, for me atleast, if the GPU is, 1. DX12 ready and 2. has the same microtechnology as the "newer" gpu's, they are the same generation and as good as the new ones, even if the new GPU's are faster. 

The RX 480 is coming out soon, and I was planning to wait for its release before upgrading to a faster card, but the R9 390's went on sale here in Norway for $280, which is the same price as what the RX 480 4GB are going to sale for in Norway, having a little more or less performance than an R9 390. I want the extra VRAM, so the R9 390 was the better choice, for me. Cheers!


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## Octopuss (Sep 16, 2016)

Does anyone happen to own the X version of this card? I'd like to confirm it doesn't behave any differently (as in significantly mor noise or whatever) than this.


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