MSI Radeon R9 390X GAMING 8G Overclocking Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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MSI Radeon R9 390X GAMING 8G Overclocking Review - We take the new MSI Radeon R9 390X GAMING 8G video card and overclock it to it fullest and compare it with an overclocked GeForce GTX 980 at 1440p and 4K in today's latest games. Find out how much overclocking the R9 390X improves performance, and which video card is best performing. Can R9 390X overclock better than R9 290X?
 
R9 290X redeux.

It would be interesting to do the same run through with an overclocked 290X and see what the results look like.:eek::eek:
 
R9 290X redeux.

It would be interesting to do the same run through with an overclocked 290X and see what the results look like.:eek::eek:


We did clock to clock 390X and 290X performance in our original review.

I think that tells you what you need to know about that.

Can we stay on topic about the review instead of what it is not about now?
 
Thanks for the review. Its pretty much what I had expected. Will [H]ard be doing an xfire review that shows 290x vs 390x vs 980. I know that looking up 8gb 290x xfire reviews should pretty much cover it but would still like to know if the extra and faster RAM really does anything. Also do you guys have any ideas when we might be seeing a fury nano review?
 
390X got owned. Owned [H]ard, at that. And fuck... that power draw. Any idle/load temp data for all the test units?

Thanks for the review!
 
390X got owned.

Did you even read the review? It was in the ballpark with a pretty much maxed-out 980......not to mention the 390X is a whole generation older than the 980, think about that for a minute.

Very nice review, Brent.
 
390X got owned. Owned [H]ard, at that. And fuck... that power draw. Any idle/load temp data for all the test units?

Thanks for the review!

Yes, but the fans were raised to 80% on the MSI card, so it wasn't automatic fan

Idle 28c
Full Load 67c

The GTX 980 was a reference card, with reference cooling, and its fan was set to 100% fan speed, not automatic

Full Load 64c
 
Did you even read the review? It was in the ballpark with a pretty much maxed-out 980......not to mention the 390X is a whole generation older than the 980, think about that for a minute.

Very nice review, Brent.

Okay so it's almost as fast as a year old reference 980?

Sorry, not impressed.
 
Holy moly, that's two light bulbs worth of more power drawn than the OC'd 980! How will the 390x OC owners ever be able to pay the bills now??
 
Man.
I wanted the 390x to be a beast. And it just isn't. Matching well with the competition's last gen top end card is ok, I guess, but not if you're in it to win it. I'd give them a pass if it was efficient, or small, or cool running or SOMETHING. Overclocking even. But it doesn't seem like the 390x does anything better than the GTX980.

A shame, really.
 
Uhh......Riggghhhttt. I guess it depends on the context. That power draw is horrendous though.
In the context of video games, it appears that the GTX 980 did, in fact, win the comparison!
Holy moly, that's two light bulbs worth of more power drawn than the OC'd 980! How will the 390x OC owners ever be able to pay the bills now??
I would rather pay to leave two lightbulbs on in another part of the house and take the 980. At least the extra 120+W per card of power (and ultimately heat) wouldn't be slowly baking me to death on extended summer gaming sessions

Man.
I wanted the 390x to be a beast. And it just isn't. Matching well with the competition's last gen top end card is ok, I guess, but not if you're in it to win it. I'd give them a pass if it was efficient, or small, or cool running or SOMETHING. Overclocking even. But it doesn't seem like the 390x does anything better than the GTX980.

A shame, really.

IMO thats the crux of the issue right here. Why on earth would you buy this card other than for the sake of buying an AMD card? Save up the $50 bucks difference, buy the 980 and enjoy a whole bunch of real advantages instead of one useless one (8GB vs 4GB)
 
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So the "new" 390x passed the 970 and is able to trade blows with the 980.

Not bad I have to say.

On the review side, showing the difference with turning off Gameworks is good. (Especially in light of the rumors nvidia is going to be shutting out AMD completely in upcoming Gameworks revisions on added effects).
 
Man.
I wanted the 390x to be a beast. And it just isn't. Matching well with the competition's last gen top end card is ok, I guess, but not if you're in it to win it. I'd give them a pass if it was efficient, or small, or cool running or SOMETHING. Overclocking even. But it doesn't seem like the 390x does anything better than the GTX980.

A shame, really.

Its a more refined 290x, so not much else to be expected. If it was $75-100 bucks cheaper it would be a really good card. Which is basically AMDs entire line up right now. If you took $75-100 off the price for every 300 and fury card they would all be very good cards. As they are currently priced they just aren't worth it when you compare them to what you get from Nvidia. I really do think that ecoin mining spoiled AMD and they need to realize that they need to price their cards more appropriately now that mining has died down.
 
So the "new" 390x passed the 970 and is able to trade blows with the 980.

Not bad I have to say.

On the review side, showing the difference with turning off Gameworks is good. (Especially in light of the rumors nvidia is going to be shutting out AMD completely in upcoming Gameworks revisions on added effects).

Which review did you read? The article leads me to believe that the 980 is clearly the superior card. Trading blows is implying that the comparison is a draw which it clearly wasn't. Or am I missing something?
 
Thanks for the review. I've been reading that the 390 (non -X) actually performs better than the 290X. Any plans for a R9-390 review? The video card seems like a good buy if this turns out to be true at the 329 price point.
 
Thanks for the review. I've been reading that the 390 (non -X) actually performs better than the 290X. Any plans for a R9-390 review? The video card seems like a good buy if this turns out to be true at the 329 price point.

When we can get one, yes, it will be planned
 
Did you even read the review? It was in the ballpark with a pretty much maxed-out 980......not to mention the 390X is a whole generation older than the 980, think about that for a minute.

Very nice review, Brent.

I did. Did you? 1440P results are more in-line with what a majority of users are interested in, being 4K is still a hell of a niche area. 980 dominated. In 5-10 years time when 4K is way more commonplace, then the masses will care about those results.

For those running 4K now, then the story does change.
 
Nice review as always.

On the one game where turning gameworks off, brought the performances together, does Nvidia have any comments? Is gameworks crippling AMD performance somehow?

My educated guess, judging from the fact that the rest of the games, gameworks on vs off didn't make much difference in performance delta, is that the gameworks in itself does not hamper AMD performance. Far Cry is the only game where the R390x comes out ahead, it's possible the 8Gb VRAM is coming into play, boosting the 390 and hurting the 980. And easy test would be to find an 8Gb 980 (ok perhaps not so easy) and run the same tests. If the Far Cry 4 performance jumps back up to 10% ish higher range, it would put the nail in the coffin on any doubt regarding Gameworks running on AMD hardware.

The 1% difference in performance delta with gw on vs off might be the only measureable advantage the nvidia cards have regarding gameworks. Seems pretty small. Will probably vary a bit game to game.
 
Not sure how this is considered a bad showing. It costs $430 and is faster than a $350 GTX 970 but slower than a $500 GTX 980. Looks about right to me.
 
Yes, but the fans were raised to 80% on the MSI card, so it wasn't automatic fan

Idle 28c
Full Load 67c

The GTX 980 was a reference card, with reference cooling, and its fan was set to 100% fan speed, not automatic

Full Load 64c

Must have been like a jet engine in that room :eek:. Did you ever keep it on automatic or was this basically just to see the max overclocked performance for each card?

390x costs ~$80 less but draws 50% more power and performs worse. What a waste of a card.
 
Must have been like a jet engine in that room :eek:. Did you ever keep it on automatic or was this basically just to see the max overclocked performance for each card?

390x costs ~$80 less but draws 50% more power and performs worse. What a waste of a card.

The MSI card wasn't that loud or extreme with 80% fan, the 980 on the other hand was annoyingly loud.

It was to ensure temperature wasn't holding me back. As I stated in the review, I would have had no trouble keeping the MSI fan at 60% with this overclock, about 15-20% higher than automatic.
 
what to do with 8gb of mem and no way to play 4k? I always thought this was a best buy cast and reel tactic for the masses but when these come down in price in a year they will be a very good option for crossfire at 4k.
 
Lets see two of these in crossfire vs the 970 and 980 in SLI @ 4K...Stock and overclocked for all. Seems as though [H] has had a [H]ate on for AMD for the past little while, choosing to show them in poor light and even with an apparent dud card. I get it that Nvidia has the better architecture right now, better performance per watt, but AMD has to be commended for bringing HBM to market and will have a jump on Nvidia when Arctic Islands drops with HBM2. Im rooting for AMD yes because a computer enthusiast world without AMD gets real expensive with Nvidia left unchallenged in the GPU market. Nvidia milks there loyal customers for all they can and then screws them by releasing a card with almost all the performance of the suppose-ed flagship but for $350 less? Market manipulators they are...Reason enough for me not to buy from em and help the underdog AMD.
 
Lets see two of these in crossfire vs the 970 and 980 in SLI @ 4K...Stock and overclocked for all. Seems as though [H] has had a [H]ate on for AMD for the past little while, choosing to show them in poor light and even with an apparent dud card. I get it that Nvidia has the better architecture right now, better performance per watt, but AMD has to be commended for bringing HBM to market and will have a jump on Nvidia when Arctic Islands drops with HBM2. Im rooting for AMD yes because a computer enthusiast world without AMD gets real expensive with Nvidia left unchallenged in the GPU market. Nvidia milks there loyal customers for all they can and then screws them by releasing a card with almost all the performance of the suppose-ed flagship but for $350 less? Market manipulators they are...Reason enough for me not to buy from em and help the underdog AMD.

HBM means precisely bupkis if it doesn't provide the performance. Just like AMD as a whole.
 
Lets see two of these in crossfire vs the 970 and 980 in SLI @ 4K...Stock and overclocked for all. Seems as though [H] has had a [H]ate on for AMD for the past little while, choosing to show them in poor light and even with an apparent dud card. I get it that Nvidia has the better architecture right now, better performance per watt, but AMD has to be commended for bringing HBM to market and will have a jump on Nvidia when Arctic Islands drops with HBM2. Im rooting for AMD yes because a computer enthusiast world without AMD gets real expensive with Nvidia left unchallenged in the GPU market. Nvidia milks there loyal customers for all they can and then screws them by releasing a card with almost all the performance of the suppose-ed flagship but for $350 less? Market manipulators they are...Reason enough for me not to buy from em and help the underdog AMD.

and yet you are using an i7 4930K with an costly platform instead of an FX8350 with a cheap platform (just for example)... =).

I love how people tag AMD as those who make Nvidia put lower prices, but still use High-End Intel Rigs =D. Ironic right?.
 
HBM means precisely bupkis if it doesn't provide the performance. Just like AMD as a whole.

Ahh one of the shortsighted ones...GDDR5 is at the end of its life in terms of performance vs power consumed. HBM is only just out of the gate and already beats it in so many ways, AMD was ahead when they made the jump to GDDR5 as well. Hoping once the damn Fabs can get a high powered chip built on 14-16nm we see both Arctic Islands and Pascal use HBM2. I want them both to stick around and trade blows back and forth. Competition keeps em both honest and innovating. As for this review, the 390X will give some awesome performance for the price at 4K in crossfire, looking forward to that analysis. Also dont give two shits if it uses more power, I can deal with the extra $1/month on my power bill
 
and yet you are using an i7 4930K with an costly platform instead of an FX8350 with a cheap platform (just for example)... =).

I love how people tag AMD as those who make Nvidia put lower prices, but still use High-End Intel Rigs =D. Ironic right?.

Built this ring all on a budget, 4930K came from my Retail Edge deal, board was open box and RAM came from my old rig. Always looking and price vs performance when I build. The rig will serve me for many years in its current form, I was looking for longevity and wanted a well made and supported board. That was the reasoning behind my platform choice. Anyways back to the 390X review...keep er on the road bud!
 
Ahh one of the shortsighted ones...GDDR5 is at the end of its life in terms of performance vs power consumed. HBM is only just out of the gate and already beats it in so many ways, AMD was ahead when they made the jump to GDDR5 as well. Hoping once the damn Fabs can get a high powered chip built on 14-16nm we see both Arctic Islands and Pascal use HBM2. I want them both to stick around and trade blows back and forth. Competition keeps em both honest and innovating. As for this review, the 390X will give some awesome performance for the price at 4K in crossfire, looking forward to that analysis. Also dont give two shits if it uses more power, I can deal with the extra $1/month on my power bill

But where is that performance?! If you hamper the tech (the importance of which I do NOT deny) with a last gen GPU, who cares? Hell, you could strap second gen HBM on this thing and it would still ooze mediocrity.
I do not care the color of the card: If it doesn't bring the power, I don't care what the spec sheet says. If the fps isn't there, I don't care how important the format of the silicon is.
If it can't beat the competitor's card launched in September of last year, if it doesn't even fulfill the marketing claims: who cares?
 
Ahh one of the shortsighted ones...GDDR5 is at the end of its life in terms of performance vs power consumed. HBM is only just out of the gate and already beats it in so many ways, AMD was ahead when they made the jump to GDDR5 as well. Hoping once the damn Fabs can get a high powered chip built on 14-16nm we see both Arctic Islands and Pascal use HBM2. I want them both to stick around and trade blows back and forth. Competition keeps em both honest and innovating. As for this review, the 390X will give some awesome performance for the price at 4K in crossfire, looking forward to that analysis. Also dont give two shits if it uses more power, I can deal with the extra $1/month on my power bill

And HBM is doing what for AMD other than raising costs? It's great that AMD is trying to bring something new and interesting to the market but it's attached to a card that quite frankly is a huge disappointment. All enthusiasts should be disappointed by AMD's line up right now. A whole series of refreshes with some tweaks and an over-priced super high-end card. The entire pricing structure of AMD's current line up sucks. The performance isn't bad between these cards but they're put in the wrong pricing brackets on top of some really terrible marketing from AMD's PR team. The whole "defend the underdog" attitude does no good when the underdog is shooting itself in the foot.
 
[Fury X] is a huge disappointment.

Really? A huge disappointment? It's hard to earn credibility with statements like that.

Anyway, the 390X is overpriced imo. At $325ish it would be a great buy, but I guess AMD can't be blamed for pricing it in between the 970 and 980........and if anything those two cards are overpriced as well.
 
Really? A huge disappointment? It's hard to earn credibility with statements like that.

Anyway, the 390X is overpriced imo. At $325ish it would be a great buy, but I guess AMD can't be blamed for pricing it in between the 970 and 980........and if anything those two cards are overpriced as well.

For me it is. Leading up to launch I was really hyped for the X. It looked like it was going to be a massive game changer. Between AMD's big PR push and leaks a head of time it seemed like the X was going to be the card this year, something that would cause waves in the market and force Nvidia to react. Yet it's not. It's just another decent but very overpriced card that lives up to exactly zero of the promises (at least right now). So to me it is a huge disappointment right now. That might change in the future as new drivers are released, voltage tweaking is allowed, mem ocing is capable outside of a driver bug, and so on but I can't base my current impressions on what might happen 3-4+ months down the road. I'm still holding out hope for the Non-X and the Nano to be impressive but, again, that's the future and I only have AMD's current line up to gauge my feelings on.

Even at $350 I think it would be a great buy. The entire enthusiast card market, from the TX down, could use some price shifting. The 970 at near $300 I think might be the only one of that bunch that offers a pretty good value for it's price. A $300 970 with a $350 390X and a $400-$425 980 would make an amazing high-end market, but we can only dream about that kind of line up.
 
Well look at that power draw. Horrendous !

An overclocked reference 980 GTX is 10% faster than an overclocked 390X while consuming ~200W less.

I would be vary of all that heat going into my case and being blown out. Even a TitanX consumes less power than Hawai 1.1 :/
 
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