PowerColor Devil 13 Dual Core R9 390 Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,532
PowerColor Devil 13 Dual Core R9 390 Video Card Review - The PowerColor Devil 13 Dual Core R9 390 combines two AMD Radeon R9 390 GPUs in CrossFire on a single video card. We'll take this beast of a video card and see how it games at 4K. If you want a simple all-in-one AMD CrossFire solution for 4K gaming you won't want to miss this.
 
What a beast of a card! 3 slots, 4 8-pin connectors and 3 fans. YEESH.
Question: Did you try out the mouse? If so, what did you think? Do you feel it was worth including, as in, did the extra value of Razer's most expensive (iirc) mouse compensate for the price?

All that said, i'm not impressed with the design of the card aesthetically. It's nice looking, but doesn't appear to have a premium finish or design I'd expect based on the price, type and packaging.
 
Last edited:
Well, I sure didn't see this review coming. Very nice job, fellas.

I wonder how two of these ($1600) would compete with two Titan X's ($2000).
The buyer would not only save $400 but would also get two $149 mouses for free.
 
Thanks for the review!

Damn impressive showing, especially that the triple slot cooler comes through with controlling load temps, and that's nice to see from an upper-end AMD GPU product. I'm blown away by the price tag...was totally expecting these to hit the market at no less than $900, but here we see it at $800 with a gaming mouse valued at $125ish. Drop the pricey add-ins and these could be around the same or cheaper than the premium price tier 980 Ti's. :cool:
 
Why did they make a dual 390 instead of a dual 390x...

Likely because you'd have to buy a Frigidaire to cool it an a mini nuke plant to power it. :p
It would have to have an integrated water cooler I'd imagine, and a beefy one. But the power requirements I think would make it essentially unmanageable.
Maybe as a limited run, 100 unit or less flagship.
 
Pretty neat card.

But for the money, if you are wanting Crossfire, two R9 390X would be the way to go.

Nice review, but what's up with that guy Roy autographing the GPU?

Surprised to see you guys got one to look at.:eek:
 
Badass review. If AMD keeps working on those drivers I could see a second R9 290 in my future.
 
As a 4K gamer I was initially very interested but then I saw you were reviewing the 2x 4 GB version rather than the 2x 8 GB version so didn't bother reading further.
 
As a 4K gamer I was initially very interested but then I saw you were reviewing the 2x 4 GB version rather than the 2x 8 GB version so didn't bother reading further.

So not only did you not read past the first or second paragraph, but you also completely failed at reading them in the first place?

o53UgVj.png
 
What a beast of a card! 3 slots, 4 8-pin connectors and 3 fans. YEESH.
Question: Did you try out the mouse? If so, what did you think? Do you feel it was worth including, as in, did the extra value of Razer's most expensive (iirc) mouse compensate for the price?

All that said, i'm not impressed with the design of the card aesthetically. It's nice looking, but doesn't appear to have a premium finish or design I'd expect based on the price, type and packaging.

I did not try the mouse.

It is my opinion PowerColor should sell a stripped down version of this card minus the bundle to bring the total price of ownership down. Not everyone needs the mouse.
 
Is there someone who would spend $800 on a card that has driver issues and stutters? Honest question, and branding aside. Personally I don't care how fast a video card is if it stutters. That ruins the entire experience no matter how fast it is between stutters. If it's not silky smooth, what's the point? This could be this card, another AMD card, an Nvidia card. I really don't care. Solve that, and it becomes interesting.
 
As a 4K gamer I was initially very interested but then I saw you were reviewing the 2x 4 GB version rather than the 2x 8 GB version so didn't bother reading further.

Then you didn't read well.

Our model is "AXR9 390 II 16GBD5" as indicated on the front page.

We even linked to the card we reviewed directly

http://www.powercolor.com/global/products_features.asp?id=597

This picture confirms it on the label.

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTQ0NDc3NzUyMFlJdTQ4SFZJQ05fMl8xMF9sLmpwZw==

GPUz confirms it, 8GB per GPU.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015..._core_r9_390_video_card_review/3#.ViU9evmrSV0

It is therefore 2x 8GB, i.e. 8GB per GPU of memory. Naturally, CrossFire cannot share framebuffers, but they label the video card as 16GB anyway since that much VRAM is installed on the video card.
 
Never mind, clarified above already.

Slick card...bit too pricey given the alternatives.
 
Going to buy this card and pour some holy water and oil over it.

Not very comfortable about having a card called Devil 13 in my rig.
 
Get rid of the Razer junk, and this would be extremely attractive at $650!
 
IMHO, Single strong GPU >> SLI / Crossfire with independent cards > SLI / Crossfire on same card.

I'd never buy any dual GPU video card, at least not while they still need Crossfire or SLI in order to work.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041919698 said:
IMHO, Single strong GPU >> SLI / Crossfire with independent cards > SLI / Crossfire on same card.

I'd never buy any dual GPU video card, at least not while they still need Crossfire or SLI in order to work.

Agree 98% with this. However, just out of curiosity I did pick up a GTX-295 when they came out, and had nothing but good experiences with it. It may have just been the games I happened to be playing at the time, but the card just flew, and I never had any problems. That said, I didn't own one before that, or after.

I have had a few dual card SLI setups before and after that which also worked out well for me, but honestly, I'd prefer one good solid GPU nearly every time.
 
Agree 98% with this. However, just out of curiosity I did pick up a GTX-295 when they came out, and had nothing but good experiences with it. It may have just been the games I happened to be playing at the time, but the card just flew, and I never had any problems. That said, I didn't own one before that, or after.

I have had a few dual card SLI setups before and after that which also worked out well for me, but honestly, I'd prefer one good solid GPU nearly every time.

I have owned both a 5950 CFX, 3dfx voodoo 2 SLI and nVidia 6800GTX SLI over the many years I used to PC game and it all boiled down to the games and drivers available. I must have lucked out because I never had any SLI or CFX issues back then. Based on what I read these days, I probably would stick to the fastest single gpu video card possible if I were to get back into PC gaming.
 
So not only did you not read past the first or second paragraph, but you also completely failed at reading them in the first place?

D'oh!

In my defence, I will note that the card is called the Powercolor Devil 13 Radeon R9 390 X2 over here. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to borrow the Mess Webley...
 
Not worth it unless games support Crossfire well. So this is a "No"

-Former AMD Fan.
 
Has AMD ever responded to the CrossFire issues you have pointed out? I find it somewhat alarming that The Witcher 3 is still broken after 3 articles pointing out the issue and several driver releases. Have you heard anything at all?
 
We have not.

Note that Far Cry 4 is a year old now, and still has broken CF as well.

IMO these are issues that just can't happen if you want people to buy into multi-GPU performance. People spending that much money on a multi-GPU solution deserve to have their hardware supported.
 
First off I wanted to thank you guys here at [H] for the unbias and rigorous review process you put all of your hardware through. I've mostly been on the green side when it comes to PC gaming but sometimes I slip back to the red side when they are clearly the better purchase.

Though I don't think a dual gpu on one board is right for me, and it's been since the 7950X2 I think it was called since I used one. I do like reading these reviews and I do hope you guys keep up the good work.

I intend to grab a 1080P OLED TV (to compliment for 1080P Plasma which my wife now hogs with my PC) once I get my income tax so 4K won't be an issue for me for a while. I do hope AMD resolves or at least acknowledges these crossfire issues. As I am leaning toward the red team for affordability and hopefully better DX12 support. Also though I use GFE or whatever it's called on both my 580GTX and my laptops 780M, I have had issues with it installing drivers and the only thing that fixes it is installing the new drivers and GFE from Nvidia's website which leaves me concerned with their possible new direction of driver delivery.

A MD if your reading this, please address these issues. I'd gladly give you my business again if I know I can jam two reasonably priced awesome cards in my system and receive good gaming support. :)
 
Been listening to people call this website Nvidia-biased for the last 2 months and those people are suddenly silent. Who would have guessed, maybe Fury actually does have poor CrossFire support. :rolleyes: And criticizing a few select products (as well as certain AMD employees) which deserve to be criticized does not mean you hate the entire company.
 
Note that Far Cry 4 is a year old now, and still has broken CF as well.

So either Farcry 4 has a personal vendetta against Crossfire but not SLI, or AMD is the one that has personal vendetta.

Either way, that is bad, but I wonder which side most will place the most blame on...
 
Likely because you'd have to buy a Frigidaire to cool it an a mini nuke plant to power it. :p
It would have to have an integrated water cooler I'd imagine, and a beefy one. But the power requirements I think would make it essentially unmanageable.
Maybe as a limited run, 100 unit or less flagship.

LMAO @ Fridgidaire:D
 
Thanks for the review here. Always liked how Powercolor went their own way with their Devil series. Moreover, they have exceptional customer service in my experience.

Results tell me the $450 I spent on a 295x2 last month was worth it, especially since I'm "only" playing at 2560x1400 and not limited by only 4GB. Disappointing to see Crossfire wackiness still going on in some games -- and it's inexcusable AMD doesn't even deign to answer your questions here.
 
I don't think this type of power consumption on a single card is PCI-E compliant. You'd need a 30 Amp 120v circuit to power two of these cards in a system off a single circuit.
 
Back
Top