390X vs 290X with 15.7 drivers?

[96Firebird]

Now that both cards can use the same drivers, has anyone seen a review site benchmark these cards with 15.7? Preferably at the same clocks, but any aftermarket vs aftermarket will suffice. Thanks.

Edit - This may belong in the AMD forum, if mods think that is appropriate feel free to move it.

 

[happy medium]

I don't think there is a site that has enough balz to do that test.

 

[Silverforce11]

Well apparently if you guys trust [H], they did the 390X launch review testing the 300 series drivers, showing lots of major gains.. then they tested it at the same clocks vs R290X and it was identical.

Which doesn't make sense if the gains come from drivers.

Seeing as tons of R290/X users report major increase in performance with this driver, [H] is full of crap.

 

[happy medium]

Well apparently if you guys trust [H], they did the 390X launch review testing the 300 series drivers, showing lots of major gains.. then they tested it at the same clocks vs R290X and it was identical.

Which doesn't make sense if the gains come from drivers.

Seeing as tons of R290/X users report major increase in performance with this driver, [H] is full of crap.

WHat driver? If you take a 369$ 8gb 290x with a aftermarket cooler, overclock it to 1050, it is a 429$ 390x. Can I make it any more simple than that?

Why would I not trust (H)? They are [an honest] site that doesn't care about the whining fanboys. I like em.

Profanity isn't allowed in the technical forums.
-- stahlhart

 

[escrow4]

WHat driver? If you take a 369$ 8gb 290x with a aftermarket cooler, overclock it to 1050, it is a 429$ 390x. Can I make it any more simple than that?

Why would I not trust (H)? They are [an honest] site that doesn't care about the whining fanboys. I like em.

Its not. The memory clock, amount and chip brand have changed. The 390X is a matured 290X.

 

[Mondozei]

Well apparently if you guys trust [H], they did the 390X launch review testing the 300 series drivers, showing lots of major gains.. then they tested it at the same clocks vs R290X and it was identical.

Which doesn't make sense if the gains come from drivers.

Seeing as tons of R290/X users report major increase in performance with this driver, [H] is full of crap.

Tell us something we don't know. Right up there with Tweaktown, who are also horrendous at reviewing. When I read the 390X reviews on acoustics and performance those sites were basically completely off-base compared to the gold standard of GPU reviews, Anand and the other runner-ups.

The good sites are Anandtech, Hardware Canucks, PCPER and Tech Report and a few more.

 

[Headfoot]

PCPER is pretty blatantly biased. Agree with the others though

 

[Stuka87]

Well apparently if you guys trust [H], they did the 390X launch review testing the 300 series drivers, showing lots of major gains.. then they tested it at the same clocks vs R290X and it was identical.

Which doesn't make sense if the gains come from drivers.

Seeing as tons of R290/X users report major increase in performance with this driver, [H] is full of crap.

That test was completely flawed though. In order to do it right, they would have needed to leave the 390X stock, and then overclock the memory on the 290X.

Creating an artificial memory bottleneck on the 390X is obviously going to hurt its performance.

 

[LTC8K6]

Its not. The memory clock, amount and chip brand have changed. The 390X is a matured 290X.

Well, these are rebrands, plain and simple, imo.

I have no problem with people who don't want to call them that, but the argument is mighty thin, imo.

I'm not going to argue over it if someone wants to say they are not rebrands.

 

[Face2Face]

Does anyone here own a 390X? If so, I love to see what the effect memory bandwidth has on performance in games @ 1080/1440p. Basically down-clock to 290X clocks and then re-run at stock and overclocked memory clock speeds.

 

[Silverforce11]

Well, these are rebrands, plain and simple, imo.

680 -> 770 = rebrand? If so, then sure, the 300 series is a rebrand.

By definition, the 680 -> 770 was a refresh.

 

[LTC8K6]

680 -> 770 = rebrand? If so, then sure, the 300 series is a rebrand.

By definition, the 680 -> 770 was a refresh.

I don't know anything at all about video cards that were not released in the last year.

I went from deep into the heart of computer building, to totally out of it, cold turkey.

I have been away from building computers for a very long time. Got back into it about 3/4 of the way through last year.

I was totally absent from the field for a long time.

So I don't really have any AMD/NV preferences, and I never went through any of the previous episodes of card releases, however they went.

 

[shady28]

The main difference between 300 and 200 series is that 300 series did not have a reference design, and on paper AMD upped the memory and core clocks.

For practical purposes, an aftermarket 290X with typically overclocked core out of the box running on 15.7 drivers is likely to be equal to a 390x.

When you look at benchmark comparisons to the old 290x, you are probably looking at a reference 290x bench. The reference boards were notably horrible on noise and heat. This makes the 390x look better than it really is.

This is actually the big fallacy of reviews all over these days. I just looked at a 970 review where the card matched up against a 980 up to 1440p due to OC. But that was a ref 980, and you can get a 20% OC out of the box 980 for $499.

But very few review sites do apples to apples comparisons. I don't think it's in their interest to do so since it means they get to piss of one of the AIBs or GPU makers along with their fan base (whoever loses). This is why most card reviews are positive. It's also why an AIB 290x vs 390x comparison probably won't be seen on major review sites (as someone said, they don't have the balls), and if one does happen to show up it'll probably be using a 4GB 290x at resolutions and textures that give the 8GB 390x an advantage (despite the fact that 8GB 290Xs were/are available).

For the consumer it comes down to the specific card you are looking at in comparison to another specific card if you want to make an informed decision.

 

[LTC8K6]

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

I don't know that I'd pay more for a 390X.

 

[Hitman928]

Yeah, the difference between a 390x and 290x seems to be mostly a little bit of an efficiency bump and improved memory and memory controller. If the 8 GB is appealing, then I suppose it could be worth the extra money, but otherwise I think the 290x is the better buy for sure although we don't know how long inventory will last.

 

[Keysplayr]

680 -> 770 = rebrand? If so, then sure, the 300 series is a rebrand.

By definition, the 680 -> 770 was a refresh.

One sec. What was the GDDR5 speed rating for 680 and 770?

Didn't 770 come with 7GHz GDDR5?

Comparatively, what were the memory speeds for 290X and 390?

 

[LTC8K6]

One sec. What was the GDDR5 speed rating for 680 and 770?

Didn't 770 come with 7GHz GDDR5?

Comparatively, what were the memory speeds for 290X and 390?

Yes, 770 had higher core and memory clocks, but both were GK104.

http://www.hwcompare.com/14636/geforce-gtx-680-vs-geforce-gtx-770/

 

[xthetenth]

One sec. What was the GDDR5 speed rating for 680 and 770?

Didn't 770 come with 7GHz GDDR5?

Comparatively, what were the memory speeds for 290X and 390?

The 680 -> 770 was a similar memory increase (think it was the same % increase) and smaller core increase than the 290(X) -> 390(X), and involved an increase in power consumption with no memory increase while 290(X) -> 390(X) involved no power increase but a memory increase.

 

[shady28]

The 680 -> 770 was a similar memory increase (think it was the same % increase) and smaller core increase than the 290(X) -> 390(X), and involved an increase in power consumption with no memory increase while 290(X) -> 390(X) involved no power increase but a memory increase.

There was no memory increase in the 290X->390X, there was elimination of the 4GB SKU (notice the 8GB in lower left corner of this R9 290X).

 

[Stuka87]

There was no memory increase in the 290X->390X, there was elimination of the 4GB SKU (notice the 8GB in lower left corner of this R9 290X).

The 390X uses different memory than the 290X. Yes there was an 8GB 290X, but the 390X has far faster memory. Plus the small GPU clock speed changes.

Thereby making it a refresh, not a re-badge.

 

[SimianR]

One thing that a lot of people fail to mention or take into account is that not every 290/290X will do 1500 memory out of the box, especially not without a voltage bump. Cards with Elpida memory especially had trouble running at those speeds. A lot of the new 390's also have significantly bigger coolers than the non-reference 290's had (for example see MSI's R9 390X vs their 290X gaming cards). Regardless of what you want to call it, rebrand or refresh - the better coolers on launch, mature drivers, higher out of the box clock speeds, etc make them much more appealing than the 290/290X at launch. The 290/290X are a great purchase if you can still find them for cheap, but I don't think you can go wrong with a 390/390X either - they are quite competitive with NVIDIA's offerings. In fact - the 390X might be so competitive that it eats into AMD's own higher end offerings (the Fury non-x for example). It's hard not to see the value in the 390/390X - 8GB of VRAM at a fairly affordable price.

 

[shady28]

The 390X uses different memory than the 290X. Yes there was an 8GB 290X, but the 390X has far faster memory. Plus the small GPU clock speed changes.

Thereby making it a refresh, not a re-badge.

The difference is hardly worth noting.

There is no reference 390X card. They changed the paper specs and let the AIBs build based on that.


This is a 290X reference :
GPU Clock: 1000 MHz
Memory Clock: 1250 MHz
5000 MHz effective

This is an aftermarket Sapphire Tr-X 290X :
GPU Clock: 1080 MHz (+8%)
Memory Clock : 1410 MHz (+13%)
5640 MHz effective

This is a 390X :
GPU Clock : 1050 MHz
Memory Clock :
6000 Mhz effective


You might as well say that an EVGA GTX 980 FTW ACX 2.0+ is a "refresh" of the 980, along with 90% of the 980's you can buy. It meets your criteria.

Ref 980 :
GPU Clock: 1127 MHz
Boost Clock: 1216 MHz
Memory Clock: 1753 MHz
7012 MHz effective

EVGA GTX 980 FTW ACX 2.0+
GPU Clock : 1279MHz
Boost Clock : 1380MHz
Memory Clock : 1753 Mhz
7012 Mhz effective

 

[Gikaseixas]

So in the end the GTX 770 was a rebadge too
The way i see it is that the 390x has higher clocks, faster memory, double the memory, a bit better power consumption characteristics and better thermals due to improved coolers.

I don't remember people asking sites to lower GTX 770 clocks to match GTX 680 and test them. Troll thread

 

[shady28]

So in the end the GTX 770 was a rebadge too
The way i see it is that the 390x has higher clocks, faster memory, double the memory, a bit better power consumption characteristics and better thermals due to improved coolers.

I don't remember people asking sites to lower GTX 770 clocks to match GTX 680 and test them. Troll thread

Absolutely the 770 was a rebadged 680. The differences in the cards had far more to do with marketing than with technology, and was nothing that the AIBs couldn't or hadn't already done.

 

[Hitman928]

On a technical level, they are not rebrands. Pcper had a good write-up about it in their review:

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Sapphire-Nitro-Radeon-R9-390-8GB-Review

So what changes were made in these new spins of GPUs? AMD was quick to comment on the term "rebrand" that will no doubt be associated by many with the Radeon R9 300-series. They insist that engineers have been working on these GPU re-spins for over year and simply calling them "rebrands" takes away from the work the teams did. These GPUs (the 390 and 390X at least) have a "ground up" redesign of the software microcontroller that handles the clocks and gating to improve GPU power efficiency. As you would expect for a GPU built on the same 28nm process technology that has been around for many years, AMD has tweaked the design somewhat to better take advantage of evolutions in TSMC's 28nm process. And, thanks to higher clocks on both the GPU and the memory, performance increases will be seen over the existing R9 200-series as well. Being able to run around 50 MHz higher on the GPU and 250 MHz (1.0 GHz effective) on the memory inside the same power envelope shows that AMD has done SOMETHING, though how much that means for consumers is up in the air.

They are not 1:1 chips with an overclock. With that said, the changes are not big and as Simian mentioned, I think the combination of matured drivers and good cooling solutions out of the gate are what gave the 390(x) launch a much more favorable impression. I like the term refresh because it implies a tweaked chip rather than an improved architecture or a straight rebrand with higher clocks.