Damn I never liked the preinstall closed water cool loop it would be a waste just buy the card and throw it away since I'm on open loop.
Why not? Something similar has happen before. When the HD5970 was release it would already as powerful as having HD4970 in crossfire.
As I just mentioned in the DirectX 12 thread, if the 380X is a rebranded 290X, and therefore GCN 1.1, it won't support DirectX 12.1 feature level, but the 390X and 370X etc will. That would be unfortunate.
didnt a guy from AMD recently said that all the new R9 300s, specifically 380x are not a rebranded of the old 290 architecture? be interesting to actually see what these cards can do if it is true that AMD will debut them at Computex.
That's true, but I did write that just before the news of it not being a rebrand became widespread . It makes you wonder how accurate the leaks are then, and also what is exactly meant by not a rebrand. For instance, when Intel went from the i5-4670K to the i6-4690K, it's not a rebrand, but it's close to it. It could be that the 380X is a new stepping of the 290X, or that they added the features to it, or updated it to at least GCN 1.2, who knows. If they are truly not rebrands (direct or updated rebrands), then they should all be GCN 1.3. If any are 1.2 or 1.1 it would suggest they are just a modified 200 series chip.
If they change transistor layout and/or functionality of even smallest block, then it is not rebrand. Rebrand is any CPU which is exactly same inside, just made to tick on different clock.
That's what I mean. It would suck if the R9-380X is only GCN 1.1. No colour compression (15 percent performance lost right there), no tesselation improvements as found in GCN 1.2, so possibly more than 20 percent loss in certain games. Also, no full DirectX 12 support means further loss, for games that may eventually make use of the full DirectX spec list. The last point probably won't matter so much for the short to medium term.
With the r9 300 series around the corner (being within a few months or so) is it worth me picking up a 2nd r9 290?
Is AMD really going to take this long to drag out the 300 series? Jeez... they will be getting destroyed in terms of market share before it launches!
i hate to be captain obvious, but do you know how long it takes from inception to retail for a product like this? yearrrsss.... add to that design hiccups, supply line issues, production problems, tapeout revisions, prototype testing, yield issues, stock buildup, ad nauseum... i can assure you there are no feet dragging, they are trying to get it out as quick as possible..
It is just an estimation because we have no idea at this time unless there is information that we do not know about.
with 2nd 290 your worst case scenario is same performance as you have now (most of games without any support for SLI/CF do not need it at all anyway). Best case scenario is that you nearly double your current performance. I would say going with single 390x over 2x290 would be like having minimum fps 35~45% higher, but maximum fps like 30~40% lower. I quite believe that getting 2nd 290 would prove to be cheaper than selling yours and getting 390x.
Supposedly the R9 370X entered mass production around Chinese New year and they're aiming for April release.
390x sounds nice. I haven't had this 290x long. As great as the 390x is on paper, my only complaint is the lack of games that will take advantage. 4K isn't something I've invested in yet, nor plan to for a while. PC gaming has quite a lack of exclusives. Unreal Tournament is really the only PC exclusive game I see myself playing this year and it runs like a dream maxed on the machine I currently have. As great as the card is, I can't justify purchasing one until enough games take advantage of it. I'm also waiting to see these supposed improvements in Windows 10 with DX12 and how they measure up to Mantle. One thing is certain, I won't touch anything made by nvidia for a long time. Their downright lawsuit-worthy ignorance and broken promises on the shield tablet I bought has soured me on them beyond belief. They won't get a dime from me as long as I support PC.
A lot of questions to be asked in the future. I currently own a 290x and I know with crossfire, it downclocks your gpus to the slowest gpu. But with the Directx 12 architecture, I am think it is possible to bypass crossfire all together and have the API take care of rendering frames from different GPUS. This would allow me to purchase another GPU in the future without having to worry about which brand it comes from. Theoretically I can have a GTX 980 with my current R9 290x, or some other combination.
R9 390X is based on R9 285(GCN 1.2) architecture. R9 285 has 1792 shaders unit and it is beaten in some games at 1080p by GTX 960 which has 1024 shaders units If u multiply by 2 than u make GTX 980 with 2048 shaders unit just for an example R9 3xx has 3584 shader units Now Coming to titan X it has 3072 shaders unit and if it has to be beaten in all terms than AMD required 5376 shader units of GCN 1.2 but right now R9 390X has 4096 GCN 1.2 shaders. Yes of course AMD R9 390X will beat Titan X in 4K but not in 1080p or 1440p resolution and it is just an assumption and i could be wrong.
This fad push for 4k will really help out ~2560x1600 gamers in the long-run. Ie., I've yet to experience 1080p, still playing on 1440x900 monitor from 2007.
