Radeon R9 390X Taken Apart, PCB Reveals a Complete Re-brand

[ensabrenoir]

this issue here to me is that......wait didnt Amd...sorta do did this before? Correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't my 6870 more of a upgrade from a 5850 than a 5870 ........performance wise at least..... At least with the green team the numbers went down. The 680 became the 770 and the new chip took the top spot. Rebrands aint bad when clearly defined, priced accordingly and if they managed to squeeze a noticeable increase in performance out of it.

 

[Breit]

Fury is not high end, Fury is enthusiast level. Unless vanilla Fury gets sold for around 350€ which I find very unlikely somehow...

If you see it this way, then 290X was also enthusiast level when it came out and is now propagated down to your high end category. I see no problem.

For me enthusiast level has to be something insane like Titan-X, Titan-Z and so on... Horrendously overpriced for only a little gain in performance. The best of the best if you will. That doesn't even include 980-Ti. This is high end and so hopefully will be Fury.

 

[RejZoR]

No, R9-295X was enthusiast level back then...

 

[Rowsol]

Oh my... I will weep for you, AMD.

 

[Breit]

No, R9-295X was enthusiast level back then...

R9-295X had a launch price of $1500. Sure it was enthusiast level. Let's hope Fury won't be that pricey...

 

[RejZoR]

Only way I can see this to work is if they sell R9-390X for less than 300€ (preferably a lot below 300). GTX 970's go for as low as 310€. If R9-290X was catching it "just" before, they can't possibly ask more for it than NVIDIA sells a faster GTX 970... It would make ZERO sense...

 

[Breit]

The 290X is already cheaper than the GTX-970. I see no reason why this should change with a new name?!
At least you get 8GB framebuffer for the same price instead of the 3.5GB on a GTX-970...

 

[RejZoR]

Maybe in US. Here in Europe, majority of R9-290X are still way more expensive than GTX 970. That's why no one is buying them.

I wonder for how much more they'll charge those extra 4GB of VRAM...

 

[Frick]

Maybe in US. Here in Europe, majority of R9-290X are still way more expensive than GTX 970. That's why no one is buying them.

I wonder for how much more they'll charge those extra 4GB of VRAM...

Here they are often cheaper than the 970.

 

[rooivalk]

Only way I can see this to work is if they sell R9-390X for less than 300€ (preferably a lot below 300). GTX 970's go for as low as 310€. If R9-290X was catching it "just" before, they can't possibly ask more for it than NVIDIA sells a faster GTX 970... It would make ZERO sense...

After denial and anger, now you're bargaining...

sorry, can't resist xD


I'd buy 390X 8GB though if they sell below 970 price. In my place 290X is more expensive than 970 too.

 

[chinmi]

RIP AMD... bye bye... you won't be needed anymore in this world AMD...

 

[Vayra86]

Obvious R9 390X being obvious.

Seen it coming since the R9 290X release and knowing its power signature to be honest. They were already at board power limits pretty much. The only reason Nvidia is taking 28nm further than AMD is because of Maxwell. A good move (again) versus a complete standstill at AMD. Tonga optimizations are not even ported to R9 290X or they are already in there which only goes to show the tremendous power hog it is. AMD's stance on performance has just been wrong ever since they kept scaling up the 7970.

 

[RejZoR]

After denial and anger, now you're bargaining...

sorry, can't resist xD


I'd buy 390X 8GB though if they sell below 970 price. In my place 290X is more expensive than 970 too.

Sorry, but I'm not bargaining with anything. I'm looking at this realistically. Initially it was said to be a card with same unit count as R9-290X, but with new more efficient shaders and framebuffer compression. I wouldn't have any problems with that, R9-290X was capable enough as it was, it was just missing that final "zeng" on top. Without that, you're buying a R9-290X 8GB Edition Speciale, almost 2 years later. Would you pay 450 for it knowing a 4GB version of the same thing is getting sold for less than 300, just with different name and no other changes? Be real plz...

 

[Breit]

Sorry, but I'm not bargaining with anything. I'm looking at this realistically. Initially it was said to be a card with same unit count as R9-290X, but with new more efficient shaders and framebuffer compression. I wouldn't have any problems with that, R9-290X was capable enough as it was, it was just missing that final "zeng" on top. Without that, you're buying a R9-290X 8GB Edition Speciale, almost 2 years later. Would you pay 450 for it knowing a 4GB version of the same thing is getting sold for less than 300, just with different name and no other changes? Be real plz...

You just don't know pricing yet. Keep your judgement till we know the launch price for sure.
Besides, I'm also from Europe (Germany to be exact) and here pricing for a R9-290X is almost identical to a GTX-970 (~320€).

 

[RejZoR]

And what does that tell you? Would you pay same price for a 1 year old chip or would you rather have a brand new chip like Maxwell 2? Be aware, when NVIDIA launched GTX 900 series, R9-200 series was already 1 year old...

 

[Vayra86]

And what does that tell you? Would you pay same price for a 1 year old chip or would you rather have a brand new chip like Maxwell 2? Be aware, when NVIDIA launched GTX 900 series, R9-200 series was already 1 year old...

The discussion on this is also a year old and the AMD/Nvidia market share movement has underlined the truth.

 

[RejZoR]

Sorry, my knowledge of English language doesn't include understanding of poetry...

 

[Breit]

To be honest, I don't care if a chip is old or brand new. All I care about regarding chips is performance and features for a given amount of money. If AMD can compete here with a 2 year old chip than I'm OK with that.

If nVidia would rebrand their original Titan Black to a Titan Light and offered it for let's say $300 or less, I probably might consider getting one (or two) of those...

 

[RejZoR]

Well, and we are at the price again. Totally not a "told you so" moment...

 

[R-T-B]

RIP AMD... bye bye... you won't be needed anymore in this world AMD...

We need them very much. What we don't want is for them to go out, and from the looks of things, they are VERY close if they are penny pinching like this.

I know this sounds pathetic, but it may be more important than ever to buy their shit now just to help them survive...

...or maybe we can depend on some newcomer to make a GPU... hur hur. I'm looking at you, SiS. Aren't they still around?

 

[Vayra86]

We need them very much. What we don't want is for them to go out, and from the looks of things, they are VERY close if they are penny pinching like this.

I know this sounds pathetic, but it may be more important than ever to buy their shit now just to help them survive...

...or maybe we can depend on some newcomer to make a GPU... hur hur. I'm looking at you, SiS. Aren't they still around?

I have never REALLY understood this stance on AMD's survival.

If a company makes shitty products, or no longer improves its product lines, why would it have any right to survive in a competitive market? Goodwill, surviving on the pockets of its customers who get subpar products in return??? If anything, those customers are just supporting AMDs standstill, but not its survival. A company like this simply cannot survive without design wins. And AMDs last design win was a decade ago...

Honestly if AMD fails to impress, another company will take its place. x86 is big enough, someone will simply take over the company for its patents and technologies and continue onwards.

As far as the 'beautiful' philosophy of AMD for open-source and market standardization, I would brand it as utopian and surreal. It hasn't worked, it may work for FreeSync, but it won't work for AMD in terms of profit. Profit = survival. Lack of profit = inevitable death.

 

[R-T-B]

I'll agree with you it's flawed logic. I just don't want a monopoly damnit, lol.

Samsung can't buy AMD fast enough... but at this rate, why would they want to?

 

[RejZoR]

We need them very much. What we don't want is for them to go out, and from the looks of things, they are VERY close if they are penny pinching like this.

I know this sounds pathetic, but it may be more important than ever to buy their shit now just to help them survive...

...or maybe we can depend on some newcomer to make a GPU... hur hur. I'm looking at you, SiS. Aren't they still around?

One thing is avoiding AMD because of being a fanboy. Another is them showing middle finger to customers and losing them this way. R9-390X is a big middle finger. They were even so fucking lazy they couldn't use GCN 1.2 and framebuffer compression on top of R9-290X. I never asked for more shaders, more TMU's and more ROP's. I just wanted GCN 1.2 and framebuffer compression and I'd buy it instantly even without HBM. But now, they can have it. Great business done right there AMD. No card sold to me. Not sure what they are trying to achieve...

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah, I think my previous argument (BUY OR AMD WILL DIE!) was pretty poor as noted. So don't tear me apart too hard gentlemen... it's a matter of being between a rock and a hard place for a consumer.

 

[Vayra86]

We need them very much. What we don't want is for them to go out, and from the looks of things, they are VERY close if they are penny pinching like this.

I know this sounds pathetic, but it may be more important than ever to buy their shit now just to help them survive...

...or maybe we can depend on some newcomer to make a GPU... hur hur. I'm looking at you, SiS. Aren't they still around?

I'll agree with you it's flawed logic. I just don't want a monopoly damnit, lol.

Samsung can't buy AMD fast enough... but at this rate, why would they want to?

Patents, x86 licensing, the lucrative server business, and craploads of technology that could serve them well both in ARM and x86 markets. Samsung hasn't got a lot of inhouse GPU knowledge for example, but dóes make its own Exynos chips.

All of the above can be profitable business. Also: size. Samsung thrives on controlling markets through its overwhelming capacity in production, R&D, marketing. The success of the Galaxy phones is a simple example of that. They just pound the market with six thousand models and something is bound to succeed.