Review: MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G OC

Indeed they dont spend too much on this "new" cards.
Maybe they will spend more on the new cards on 16nm.

 

This x 100. I can't see the 3xx series selling at all. In fact, unless you are completely uninformed, I see zero reason to buy.

 

Yeah, not impressed by this cards performance over a 290x considering its roughly £100 more expensive.

So whens NDA lifted on Fury since that's the only card worth looking at from this gen of AMD cards

 

I feel like it would have been better if they just released the Fury series without the "300" series. Perhaps slap a small discount or a game bundle and clear out all the 200 series.

Depending on 2nd hand prices, I might also pick up a 290X to last me through until Pascal/next gen as the 7950 is getting a little old for up at 2560x1080 (I got the Witcher 3 free, but am waiting for some more performance patches/drivers or an upgrade to play it as I only get ~30fps at native resolution). Then again, the only game I really want this year seems to be Fallout, which doesn't look like it'll need too much GPU power to run (hopefully). Everything else looks to be 2016, which hopefully means we would get to see some new cards from Nvidia/AMD on the next node instead.

 

Yep, 3xx series is quite an embarrassment and unless people blind buy, I see no reason for a purchase at all. Save your pennies and get a 3rd party 970, 980 or Ti.

 

Ouch, the 3xx series is a huge mess. They barely beat reference 980/970 in the benchmarks. Performance per watt is still low. There were 6 months without WHQL driver update. I'm a sad little Radeon owner. I'll wait for the Fury benchmarks, but I doubt, that I'll invest in red hardware this year, except if Nano brings enough to the table(I'm in love with that little thing just from the photos ).

 

Yeah right Gtx 970 3.5GB. No thanks

Unfortunatelly for Gtx in autumn they will become obsolete when Fury (X) will be on the market with non-reference card.

 

I see it as usefull as 980 since 980ti came out. You want green, you get 970 or 980Ti, you want red you get 290x(for very cheap) or wait for Fury-x. Thats what i would do if i was looking for upgrade


Still great reviews HH. Cant wait until next week

 

Because, the 980 is stock and is easily overclockable while the 390X here is an already overclocked product (from the 290X), meaning it has less headroom left as it is still using the same silicon, binned or not.

C/P wise, yes the 980 isn't that great, but for people living in areas with extremely expensive electricity, the balance might even up in just 1-2 years of heavy gaming.

I do agree getting the 290X is now a massive no brainer. 300 series isn't worth the price, that VRAM is useless without more GPU horsepower to utilize it in the first place.

 

In this review, there are only a couple instances where the 390x outperforms the 980. The best case for the 390x is that they trade blows, so the fact that it's all of those things specifically are the only selling points.

 

Well, After watching E3 I thought it was going to be better than this! (sigh) This could be a 50/50 good or bad. But the fact that the performance boost is only from a 50mhz bump? Is not good! You would be best off just buying a 290/290X. I am so glad I bought a 900 series card now instead of waiting! I did not miss out on anything except a new label.

 

This card has a 100Mhz bump over 290X and a 1,100Mhz bump in VRAM speed. This makes the card almost at it's limit already. Hilbert only managed a 9% overclock on this card. Most 970/980/980Ti's are getting a 20-25% overclock.

Here's hoping the Fury cards are better and overclock like the Nvidia cards.

 

yep, 290x is the one that makes sense here, at around £100-£150 cheaper than the 390x. 390x seems nothing more than juiced up 290x, with more vram.

About the 390x outperforming the 980, don't be fooled, most of us will overclock these and once you hit 1500mhz on the core of the 980, 390x has nothing on it.

 

Sigh. How many games actually use over 3.5GB? That's what I thought.

Even Witcher 3 that is one of the most demanding doesn't even touch it. VRAM is extremely overrated unless you are talking about Mordor or a handful of other titles.

 

Well you Def do not want a 4gb fury or fury x then.

 

I thought FuryX 4gb vram "was like" 6gb vram irl.

this forum gives me the lolz.

 

If you're lucky, I barely squeeze 10% out of my 980 G1.


I'll give them some credit for bumping performance and dropping power but, we knew that the 3XX cards weren't going to be very interesting as soon as we got confirmation that only Fury (X) were new cards.

 

The G1 is not Reference it's a factory overclocked card I'm speaking of over reference clocks. Hilbert's max overclock over reference 390x was only about 12%.