XFX R9 390 Double Dissipation Black Edition Review @ [H]

[FrgMstr]

XFX R9 390 Double Dissipation Black Edition Review - Today we review a custom overclocked AMD Radeon R9 390 video card in the form of the XFX R9 390 Double Dissipation Black Edition 8GB video card. We will compare it to an ASUS GTX 970 STRIX DCII OC video card, including both video cards maximum overclocks to determine the best performance and value.

 

[Rauelius]

At this point in time with DX12 looming AMD is the better choice across the board, as long as DX11 performance is comparable. Looks at the sig, I'm an nVidia fan (not a fanboi, just a fan, they made mistakes) and only recommend AMD hardware going forward. Pascal and Polaris may have me change my tone, but if someone NEEDED a GPU right NOW, I'd recommend the 390/390x over the GTX970/980, the 380/380x over the GTX960. The 370 may be ancient, but still holds it's own against the 950...and in DX12 runs games better still.

 

[Zion Halcyon]

At this point in time with DX12 looming AMD is the better choice across the board, as long as DX11 performance is comparable. Looks at the sig, I'm an nVidia fan (not a fanboi, just a fan, they made mistakes) and only recommend AMD hardware going forward. Pascal and Polaris may have me change my tone, but if someone NEEDED a GPU right NOW, I'd recommend the 390/390x over the GTX970/980, the 380/380x over the GTX960. The 370 may be ancient, but still holds it's own against the 950...and in DX12 runs games better still.

Agreed. AMD played this one well (about time they did). And now I don't see recommending anything but AMD for the near future, particularly with rumors that NVidia's next offerings still won't have hardware async compute, and that the earliest they will have that is the next hardware revision after Pascal.

 

[Rauelius]

Agreed. AMD played this one well (about time they did). And now I don't see recommending anything but AMD for the near future, particularly with rumors that NVidia's next offerings still won't have hardware async compute, and that the earliest they will have that is the next hardware revision after Pascal.

Thank you. BTW, nice Skylake build in the Sig.

 

[jhatfie]

I just picked up the slower version of this card and have been pleased. OC'd almost the same as [H], although I was able to get 200mhz more out of my memory. For daily use I just left the memory stock, clocked the core up to 1115Mhz (+100mhz over stock) and -15mv. Stays right around 70C in my 540 AIR with 60% fan, which is audible, but not loud IMO. I got it to test out 21:9 and Freesync with a LG 34um67 I got for $310 to make sure I liked the form factor and dumped $$ on a expensive model.

 

[Zion Halcyon]

Thank you. BTW, nice Skylake build in the Sig.

TY, appreciate that. Although I do have to say, getting it up and running and stable was a huge PITA - never had issues with MSI boards but that Asus Deluxe was so feature-rich, that I went with it, and it took 1 RMA, then a bios update, then figuring out why the bios update failed (the instructions Asus gave were not complete in terms of updating the bios via USB), then updating again to get the memory supported, not to mention a number of system instability crashes and fine tuning on the board to get it stable.

Now that everything has settled in, its great, but I've never had so much trouble before getting a build up and running. Worth the end though. I have it up and on display in the first post of the 2016 post your rig thread in these forums if you want to have a look at the finished product.

 

[ecktt]

Seems to me its neck and neck. Would have been nice to have an R9 290 in there. XFX seems to have a solid card. What sucks is, I've had a 970 for about a year and a half, but the prices have not changed much. Given NVidia better driver history, no DX12 games test results and the lower power draw, its easy to favor team green. I happen to play some games with PhysX so it's almost a no brainer. If there is an explosion of good DX12 games, i'll gladly eat some humble pie. There is also Vulancan to consider.

 

[noko]

If I was buying new, the 390x with 8gb of ram vice 4gb (3.5gb + .5gb) of the 970 and add in some good Async benchmark numbers for capability seems to offset the 970 good attributes (PhysX capability, GameWorks titles get better support from Nvidia, better tessellation which I think is way over rated). Great review and like the new game line up - Battlefield is kinda getting old though as an after thought.

 

[Mugato]

Have you ever done mobile chips? I don't remember seeing any. I run a G751 GTX970m w/ 75hz panel and it's amazballs. Highly suggest for anyone that wants a superb workstation and gaming machine. Mobile...not really...I just plug it in at work and game at home on a 17.3, pretty grand.

 

[Fun]

If I was buying new, the 390x with 8gb of ram vice 4gb (3.5gb + .5gb) of the 970 and add in some good Async benchmark numbers for capability seems to offset the 970 good attributes (PhysX capability, GameWorks titles get better support from Nvidia, better tessellation which I think is way over rated). Great review and like the new game line up - Battlefield is kinda getting old though as an after thought.

You can't forgot what Maxwell has achieved in regards to power consumption as well. That was the only reason I went with my current GTX 960. My little 450W PSU would in no way have been enough for an OC'd 380X. Or even a 970 for that matter.