300 series Rebadge & Refresh confirmed

[KingFatty]

I still don't understand why AMD doesn't create a narrative about how to report on their products, to spoon feed the "journalists" and phrase the narrative in terms that are not unflattering to them? Just at least get on the same footing as NVidia, so then the "journalist" can compare and contrast both viewpoints and not be unbalanced.

 

[LTC8K6]

Did you read the article?

Quotes:

"That brings us to performance and how well these cards will do. In short they are going to get blown out of the water and AMD knows it. Worse yet they went out of their way to deny the press the opportunity to test these cards, they are that afraid of what independent testing will find."

"For the ‘real benchmarks’, AMD shows the 390 up against a Radeon HD7950 and a GTX 660 Ti, not anything it would be up against for real. The 390X is likewise shown head to head against similarly obsolete cards, the HD7970 and the GTX 670. It does beat both dinosaurs by large margins in an unspecified test with specifics buried in the footnotes dozens of slides later. If there was a Windows 8 driver for a Tseng Labs ET4000, I am pretty sure AMD would have dug one out to round out this ‘fair’ comparison. Worse yet it is saying that Nvidia not just pummels the new 300-series rebrands, they pummel it by being more efficient with a vastly cheaper to produce memory interface. Brilliant own goal there."

Its obvious he scrambled to write this after seeing the press release and without any checking anyone else and they actually have a paywall.

I'm going to read Charlie's after he becomes aware of the actual tested results.

Yeah, he looks like an idiot on fire.

He is not making AMD look bad, though.

His later comments should be interesting.

 

[xthetenth]

I am starting to get the opinion Tech "journalists" should be treated like Game "journalists" these days.

There is a severe lack of journalistic integrity in both fields these days.

Any journalistic field where a huge amount of money rides on preferred access and in-industry advertising is automatically suspect, and should be verified and only then trusted.

It's hardly new. It's just that people managed to stay angry longer this time.

 

[bryanW1995]

Are you trying to irritate me out of my decision?

Yes. Did it work?

I'm not trying to irritate you, and you've clearly made up your mind about 3xx in spite of all of the evidence that you're wrong.

Btw, I was just doing my yearly bible study and stumbled upon this phrase:

Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Especially if you're a really hot and loud 290(x) series video card.

I may have added that 2nd sentence.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yes. Did it work?

I'm not trying to irritate you, and you've clearly made up your mind about 3xx in spite of all of the evidence that you're wrong.

Btw, I was just doing my yearly bible study and stumbled upon this phrase:



I may have added that 2nd sentence.

I like the 3XX cards and am going to purchase one to replace a GTX750.

It will be an XFX R9-380, which is a rebrand of an R9-285, with really nice GPU and MEM clocks.

 

[bryanW1995]

It's strange, I remember getting into video cards (3dfx era) where models were separated by clock speeds alone (Voodoo3 2000 vs 3000) and that was fine then, no one was flipping out.

Speaking of which, a p166 isn't a strong-enough cpu to power a Voodoo3 3000. At least, it won't lead to a better gaming experience in Diablo (I). Don't ask me how I know this.

I am starting to get the opinion Tech "journalists" should be treated like Game "journalists" these days.

There is a severe lack of journalistic integrity in both fields these days.

Did you read my rant about Elizabeth Warren and the NYT yesterday? My friend basically told me that journalistic integrity and checking sources is up to the writer of the article nowadays, and first to publish is usually a lot more important as "most accurate information" but 3 days late after all info was verified/double checked/etc. She might have used a bunch of four letter words followed by "twitter" after that.

 

[Shaz12]

Techpowerup says at 1080p its only slightly more powerful than the GTX 970 by 2% .WTF

techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/30.html


"The MSI R9 390X Gaming roughly matches GTX 980 performance in 4K and 1440p when averaged over all our benchmarks. At lower resolutions like 1080p though, it is only as fast as the GTX 970"

The GTX 970 got as low at $300 at a time

 

[bryanW1995]

Techpowerup says at 1080p its only slightly more powerful than the GTX 970 by 2% .WTF

techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/30.html


"The MSI R9 390X Gaming roughly matches GTX 980 performance in 4K and 1440p when averaged over all our benchmarks. At lower resolutions like 1080p though, it is only as fast as the GTX 970"

The GTX 970 got as low at $300 at a time

There are some Hairworks game that artificially gimp 390(x), so when you average everything together like TPU does you get odd results. 390x is roughly equal to 9800 overall, maybe +5% non-OC and -5% when both are OC'd, but they're very close. Of course, if you're only gaming at 1080p then 390x or 9800 is a bit overkill...I'd buy a 9700 or 3900 for such a low resolution (or even better one of those $235 AR custom 290's at newegg before they go OOS).

If this gen follows the last one then you'll see the AMD cards continue to improve, however, so periodically check back to see how the cards age. I wondered the other day if perhaps that was a temporary blip b/c NV didn't focus enough on driver improvements. However, I now think that it's more likely due to NV's better ability to have excellent Day-1 drivers for all AAA titles whereas AMD often takes a few weeks or even months to get everything optimized.

 

[96Firebird]

TPU ran TW3 with Hairworks off...

However, AMD is still far behind in Project CARS and Wolfenstein New Order, which will skew results.

 

[krumme]

I still don't understand why AMD doesn't create a narrative about how to report on their products, to spoon feed the "journalists" and phrase the narrative in terms that are not unflattering to them? Just at least get on the same footing as NVidia, so then the "journalist" can compare and contrast both viewpoints and not be unbalanced.

A setup that can handle that competing with nv marketing and technical marketing is difficult. Nv is at its best here. You are competing for the narratives. You need a winner and a loser. A very simple and cost effective way is just letting the board partners handle it or eg just not giving pcper sites the gfx. Amd dont have the fat prof org to handle eg marketing support the same way. Imo thats why. But could be other reasons?

 

[bryanW1995]

TPU ran TW3 with Hairworks off...

However, AMD is still far behind in Project CARS and Wolfenstein New Order, which will skew results.

Crap, sorry.

My brain hurts from looking at too many video card charts...

A setup that can handle that competing with nv marketing and technical marketing is difficult.

NV marketing is fantastic, that's for sure. Even people with a very strong bias towards AMD would struggle to criticize the results that NV marketing has achieved over the years. That doesn't mean that they can't be beaten, but it would be pretty tough to compete with them if you're stuck with an admin assistant, an intern, and some glue/duct tape/rubber bands/wooden video cards/3.5gb ram in the back shed.

 

[Abwx]

I still don't understand why AMD doesn't create a narrative about how to report on their products, to spoon feed the "journalists" and phrase the narrative in terms that are not unflattering to them? Just at least get on the same footing as NVidia, so then the "journalist" can compare and contrast both viewpoints and not be unbalanced.

They send a reviewer guide but that s no more than a list of indicatives but not mandatory benches with the results they got at stock and with some moderate overclock, that s at least for CPUs, for the rest there s no guidelines and reviewers are free to do whatever suits their needs, or eventualy agenda for some...

 

[IEC]

Techpowerup says at 1080p its only slightly more powerful than the GTX 970 by 2% .WTF

techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/30.html


"The MSI R9 390X Gaming roughly matches GTX 980 performance in 4K and 1440p when averaged over all our benchmarks. At lower resolutions like 1080p though, it is only as fast as the GTX 970"

And that's exactly why averages is only ONE of the data points you should look at in statistical comparisons. Because averages tell you nothing about min/max and individual game performance.

So if it's close, look at what games you primarily play/will play and what resolution you game at, what features you need, etc. before making a decision. I helped a friend get a GTX 970 for his most recent build for exactly the reason that he favored nV titles and was going to stick with 1080p for the foreseeable future.

If he was going to be 1440p+ I would have suggested he more strongly consider a aftermarket 290/X. Because until the recent price increases thanks to the 390/X release, it was THE card to get for high end performance on a budget.

 

[Blue_Max]

I am so incredibly disappointed... all this mystery and hype for a lousy rehash? Gad... I think my last fond memory of the once-Canadian AMD is just about crushed.

The small-sized, power-efficient "Fury" is my last glimmering hope... and so far it looks like it'll be priced out of my (justifiable) reach.

 

[shady28]

You jumped to a pretty big conclusion with very little evidence. Can 8 GB vs 4GB explain these results?

On metro last light, you've got an outlier there. Other sites tests give a non-confirmation, which means whoever that was probably screwed up :

MaximumPC :

TechPowerUp :

TweakTown :

In point of fact yes, at 1440p 16xAF + AA Ultra settings 8GB vs 4GB can explain that - particularly when you consider that the major improvement was in minimum FPS not max (minimum = stuttering due to memory swap out).

Basically R9 390X = R9 290X +5% overclock and forced 8GB. If you look at the (very few) R9 290X 8GB tests that are out there, that becomes apparent.

The R9 290X 8GB was ~15% faster than the 4GB 290X at 4K, 2% at 1080p. Add a 5% overclock and 10% faster memory to the 8GB 290X and you have the 390X. There's nothing magical going on here.

 

[shady28]

I am so incredibly disappointed... all this mystery and hype for a lousy rehash? Gad... I think my last fond memory of the once-Canadian AMD is just about crushed.

The small-sized, power-efficient "Fury" is my last glimmering hope... and so far it looks like it'll be priced out of my (justifiable) reach.

That's the only card I found interesting.

I think it's worth a lot more discussion here.

Here's the thing. Assume, Fury Nano = 980GTX performance at $450.

So first off it's 10% cheaper.

Next, its 175W. 2 6-pins. I can swing that on my 460W since it's so close to the 150W number. And it's an OEM box.

This card is already able to fit into a lot of enthusiast grade OEM systems, which typically have sub 500W PSUs.

If it falls in price to say $350 as HBM gets cheaper...

Anyway, the 300 line really has nothing to offer. Only if the Fury Nano type cards filter down do I think AMD has a chance.

 

[SimianR]

If perf/w is the only metric then you're right that the 300 series doesn't have much to offer. But the 200 series won't be around forever and there are still lots of people out there that would rather play games than stare at a kill-a-watt meter. If you have $429 you can get a 390X that out of the box offers the same performance of a 980. You're right that there's nothing magical going on - it's just hawaii without a crap reference cooler and 8GB of memory. There's also nothing wrong with that

 

[shady28]

If perf/w is the only metric then you're right that the 300 series doesn't have much to offer. But the 200 series won't be around forever and there are still lots of people out there that would rather play games than stare at a kill-a-watt meter. If you have $429 you can get a 390X that out of the box offers the same performance of a 980. You're right that there's nothing magical going on - it's just hawaii without a crap reference cooler and 8GB of memory. There's also nothing wrong with that

I probably shouldn't have said it had nothing to offer.

I can see a 1440p gamer wanting all the eye candy turned up getting a 390X. With the 8GB it's probably as good as a 980 for that use case.