When AMD released the Radeon R9 390 and 390X they launches the models solely with 8GB of graphics memory. Probably a choice that they wanted to make a bigger difference compared to the 290 and 290X wi... 4GB Radeon R9 390 cards inbound
This won't have significant impact on either performance or price. GDDR5 chips currently come in the form of 256MB and 512MB chips. However, all GDDR5 chips come in the form of a width of 32 bits. So to keep the same buss width the new 4GB versions will need to have 16 chips, regardless of the storage capacity of the chips. GDDR5 chips are not cheap, but i seriously doubt the cheaper 256MB versions will have a significant impact on the price of the entire product.
Good thing these weren't around mere weeks ago when I bought my 390. It would have meant one more decision to make.
What the point? Its not like it will effect the pricing. You can get a R9 390 8GB for 330€. Let's hope they will not pull out 8GB 390 versions and let 390X at 8GB only.
it's not pulling out... it's adding cheapper card and level down a GPU... Right now the 390x 8gig is considerated as high end (it make shadows on furry's sales with it's 4gig). The GTX 970 is less expensive (and enough powerfull for most user with it's 3.5gig + 0.5gig cache... oups 4gig lol), the R9 290 where great competitor against it with 4gig... So yes it is not a big step, but it is logical, and i think it should have been made last month to be successfull for xmass and winter sales.
So the question is and probably the good thing is that the 290 owners can flash their bios with this one without any issues as I can see the last picture is a reference board so no need of moded bios with bad timings. And if they realease a 4GB 390X, which I doubt, I can flash my cards
from my experience it is not so good... better extract the original 290(x) bios then apply the 390(x) clocks on it and flash it back... but is it so usefull??? i doubd about it as by software OC you can go already upper than a 390(x) with 99% of the card...
I know that, my 290x is 1050 gpu at default and my mem easily pass 1500(I`ve reached 1600+), but when I bought my first 290x the bios allowed me to overclock the GPU clock over 1150 but the card was running as fast as a regular non OC 290x, that was known issue with the Powercolor 290X PCS+ version and I got the updated BIOS from them, and now with the fixed one I can`t go that high with the clocks like before without touching the voltage. And I have a 290 (non X) and I cant go on the mem more than 1300 stable and its with Hynix and the 290x powercolor its with Elpida and it clocks more, and shout be the opposite. The XFX 290 (stock) is modded with a custom made watercooler so my temps are no more than 60 C, even with the highest achieved overclock, so its not the temp that holds it back, I think the timings are the key, and 1300 for the mem, its fu**ed up when the chips are made to operate at 1500 :bang:
Is the 290/290x even capable of using 8gb all benchmarks I have seen show very marginal performance gains over the 290x with 4gb but i thought that was due to minor core oc.
O and i love what u did with that card pixelize, I did something similar to my gtx 670 with a corsair h55 and cut up gpu blocks for ramsinks not aesthetically pretty like yours since i cant fit the reference shroud back on but hey 1380/7200 clocks with modded bios at 60c
it's more to do better than the 6go of the green side... or more like the 750Ti 4go. in most scenario 4go is enough... on other hand they have to do with mem maker so step are 4gig -> 8gig ; 3gig -> 6gig etc etc unless they have to redo a complete PCB/chip architecture (and so it wouldn't be profitable)... but yes R9 290(x) as the 980(ti) can handle huge (for now ) mem.
