300 series Rebadge & Refresh confirmed

[n0x1ous]

So newegg has a bunch of aftermarket cards listed but all show "coming soon" looks like aftermarket only as I suspected. Why go through the trouble of making a new shroud for 390, 380, 370 and not even release it? Boutique System Integrators only maybe? I know the aftermarket coolers will be better but I was interested in if AMD have an improved blower option

 

[Abwx]

Computerbase.de review...

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-06/amd-radeon-r9-390x-390-380-r7-370-test/3/#abschnitt_leistung

Did previous "rebrands" display such a perfs uplifts..?..

 

[n0x1ous]

Anands brief overview is up. Confirms TSMC still making all non-fury parts and no reference cards for non-fury parts

 

[flopper]

Computerbase.de review...

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-06/amd-radeon-r9-390x-390-380-r7-370-test/3/#abschnitt_leistung

Did previous "rebrands" display such a perfs uplifts..?..

its not a rebrand.
if you change and tweak then its simply a refreshed line up.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202144

That 290X TRI-X is $374 at Newegg for reference.

From the Tweaktown review I posted earlier.

 

[Abwx]

its not a rebrand.
if you change and tweak then its simply a refreshed line up.

Indeed, i was just questionning the relevancy of the thread title...

 

[.vodka]

AT overview

Last but certainly not least however, we want to talk a bit more about the performance optimizations AMD has been working on for the 390 series. While we’re still tracking down more details on just what changes AMD has made, AMD had told us that there are a number of small changes from the 290 series to the 390 series that should improve performance by several percent on a clock-for-clock, apples-to-apples basis. That means along with the 20% memory clockspeed increase and 5% GPU clockspeed increase, we should see further performance improvements from these lower-level changes, which is also why we can’t just overclock a 290X and call it a 390X.


So what are those changes? From our discussions with AMD, we have been told that the clock-for-clock performance gains comes from a multitude of small factors, things the company has learned from and been able to optimize for over the last 2 years. AMD did not name all of those factors, but there were a couple of optimizations in particular that were pointed out.


The first optimization is that AMD has gone back and refined their process for identifying the operating voltages of Hawaii chips, with the net outcome being that Hawaii voltages should be down a hair, reducing power and/or thermal throttling. The second optimization mentioned is that the 4Gb GDDR5 chips being used offer better timings than the 2Gb chips, which can depending on the timings improve various aspects of memory performance. Most likely AMD has reinvested these timing gains into improving the memory clockspeeds, but until we get our hands on a 390X card we won’t know for sure.

So, mainly better binning and better memory along with "lots of small changes" for 390/X, plus a little overclock making use of the extra headroom that make it a resfresh that gets it dangerously close to the 980 for much less, not a rebadge, consuming similar amounts to a 290/x. Finally the blower of hell has been put down (no reference design this time) and Hawaii can get the reviews telling how it actually is.



Too bad there isn't a 4GB 390/x to flash its BIOS to a 290/x and test for improvements. (a 4GB 290/x with a 8GB 390/x BIOS reports having 8GB VRAM, so it's not exactly an ideal situation)

 

[NTMBK]

Wait, the 370 is slower than a 270? What the hell, AMD?

 

[n0x1ous]

Wait, the 370 is slower than a 270? What the hell, AMD?

yep 370 is cut pitcairn and 270 is full. epic fail

 

[Glo.]

Wait, the 370 is slower than a 270? What the hell, AMD?

It was obvious since we knew the specs. 270 is 1280 GCN core version and 370 is 1024.

I have no idea why they did this...

 

[96Firebird]

Too bad there isn't a 4GB 390/x to flash its BIOS to a 290/x and test for improvements. (a 4GB 290/x with a 8GB 390/x BIOS reports having 8GB VRAM, so it's not exactly an ideal situation)

I read about a member on another forum who edited the BIOS for 4GB, I'll see if I can find it...

 

[.vodka]

There is? Someone got to edit it and to work?

Oh, interesting. We all 290/x owners don't have the better binned GPUs or the more performing memory of the 390/x series but we could have its BIOS for what it's worth, maybe there's a few extra % per clock hidden there as the article mentions.


Finally a good use for the BIOS switch :biggrin:

 

[piesquared]

Wait, the 370 is slower than a 270? What the hell, AMD?

Wait, a 3xx is faster than a 9xx??? HUH?? What?? <insert more fake incredulity here>

 

[NTMBK]

Wait, a 3xx is faster than a 9xx??? HUH?? What?? <insert more fake incredulity here>

Oh come on. It's the direct replacement for the part- x70 to (x+1)70. You would expect it to get faster, or at the least stay the same.

 

[n0x1ous]

cards are starting to show as available on newegg.....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202147

 

[werepossum]

Doesn't the lack of full DX12 function make these less compelling than a 970 or 980 of equivalent price and performance? Otherwise they seem competitive.

 

[96Firebird]

There is? Someone got to edit it and to work?

Oh, interesting. We all 290/x owners don't have the better binned GPUs or the more performing memory of the 390/x series but we could have its BIOS for what it's worth, maybe there's a few extra % per clock hidden there as the article mentions.


Finally a good use for the BIOS switch :biggrin:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=5098588

Post #3, but the link for it is in the original post.

Looks like he downclocked the memory to 1250MHz though. Which makes sense, since 290X memory isn't guaranteed to hit 1500MHz. Hopefully he releases one that has 1500MHz memory though, just for those who have good GDDR5 chips.

 

[Gloomy]

Doesn't the lack of full DX12 function make these less compelling than a 970 or 980 of equivalent price and performance? Otherwise they seem competitive.

Not really. It nails all the most important features. But yeah, 970/80 are more compliant.

 

[.vodka]

Doesn't the lack of full DX12 function make these less compelling than a 970 or 980 of equivalent price and performance? Otherwise they seem competitive.

--------------------------offtopic-------------------------------

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8692

360, 380, 390/x (and all the 200 series equivalents in this regard), 970, 980, 980TI, etc all are fully DX12 compliant. AMD being 12.0, nV and their maxwellv2 cards 12.1; as of now:

Despite being pleonastic, it is worth to restate that feature level 12.1 does not coincide with an imaginary &#8220;full/complete DirectX 12 support&#8221; since it does not cover many important or secondary features exposed by Direct3D 12.

and more importantly:

In the end, as regards the support of every single capability, it is currently not possible, nor appropriate, to draw up a complete and well-defined table showing the support of on sale hardware.
Unless you name is AMD, INTEL or NVIDIA, you cannot present such report with the drivers currently available on the public channels, nor with non-NDA documentation, therefore everything else is only to be considered as pure rants.

Not a concern until W10/DX12 launches in less than a month and a half. When it launches, if you have one of the cards mentioned above, you're ready to enjoy DX12. At what capacity, that depends on engine developers and future DX12 games. You can be sure they'll target the 12.0 baseline -consoles and mentioned AMD hardware-, so again, you have one of those cards, you're ready for DX12.

Don't answer, go to one of the DX12 threads to continue this if you want

--------------------------offtopic-----------------------------------



390/x are more than competitive with 970/980. They provide sometimes more, else equal performance while being cheaper/similarly priced, as cool and as quiet as nV's offerings. This is going to force price changes on nV's side, the dust has to settle.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=5098588

Post #3, but the link for it is in the original post.

Looks like he downclocked the memory to 1250MHz though. Which makes sense, since 290X memory isn't guaranteed to hit 1500MHz. Hopefully he releases one that has 1500MHz memory though, just for those who have good GDDR5 chips.

Thanks! I'll give it a try later. My 290 does 1500MHz on the memory with a little overvolting so I'll have to play around. Thanks again.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Pleasantly surprised that AMD tweaked the core I was expecting no changes at all. The coolers look excellent AMD should have done this originally I see they learned their lesson. Finally.

 

[werepossum]

Not really. It nails all the most important features. But yeah, 970/80 are more compliant.

Two questions then. Does the 280/290 family have the same subset? If so, that argues for developers ignoring the features they don't have, to simplify programming, if they aren't that important. Assuming that's a big enough pool of cards to not justify ignoring anyway.

Next question - supposedly there is another set of new instructions coming which will apply even more to GPUs. Is that included in the DX12 compliance we're discussing? Or if not, do you know how well either or both comply?

 

[Atreidin]

We sure are seeing the words "rebrand" and "rebadge" repeated over and over and over and over and over again by certain people.

A refresh is not a rebrand. They are different words with different meanings.

It's like some people really, really, really want it to be true and think repeating it enough times will make it true.

 

[werepossum]

--------------------------offtopic-------------------------------

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8692

360, 380, 390/x (and all the 200 series equivalents in this regard), 970, 980, 980TI, etc all are fully DX12 compliant. AMD being 12.0, nV and their maxwellv2 cards 12.1; as of now:

and more importantly:

Not a concern until W10/DX12 launches in less than a month and a half. When it launches, if you have one of the cards mentioned above, you're ready to enjoy DX12. At what capacity, that depends on engine developers and future DX12 games. You can be sure they'll target the 12.0 baseline -consoles and mentioned AMD hardware-, so again, you have one of those cards, you're ready for DX12.

Don't answer, go to one of the DX12 threads to continue this if you want

--------------------------offtopic-----------------------------------



390/x are more than competitive with 970/980. They provide sometimes more, else equal performance while being cheaper/similarly priced, as cool and as quiet as nV's offerings. This is going to force price changes on nV's side, the dust has to settle.




Thanks! I'll give it a try later. My 290 does 1500MHz on the memory with a little overvolting so I'll have to play around. Thanks again.

Thanks. I had already responded to Gloomy, but this answers my questions.

 

[AnandThenMan]

After thinking about it, this is probably the most brilliant rebrand strategy yet. Sure it would have been nice if AMD had re-spun the GPUs over at GloFo but they likely didn't see the ROI being worth it. But what the rebrand does do is wipes out the 290(x) name which has been forever tarnished due to the stock coolers. Now no can associate the 390 cards with being loud and hot.

Well played Lisa Su.

 

[Leyawiin]

We sure are seeing the words "rebrand" and "rebadge" repeated over and over and over and over and over again by certain people.

A refresh is not a rebrand. They are different words with different meanings.

It's like some people really, really, really want it to be true and think repeating it enough times will make it true.

Regardless of hairsplitting over the vernacular its disappointing. Basically putting out two year old cards with higher clocks and in some more VRAM (in the case of the 390 and 390X more VRAM they can't use as a single card). The only interesting one is the R9 380 because the R9 285 should have had 4GB available to begin with. Now its a viable and attractive offering.