Really it shows what a mistake it was to release 290 and 290X to reviewers with that cooler. First time I have seen a card gain an enduring reputation as being slower than its direct competitor just because its cooler was not adequate.
Reviews still have been using those old reference launch 290x & 290 numbers. Now we see it here fully uncorked by a good cooler and reviewed as such. Imagine how poor the 980 reviews would of been if the 290x had released with such an adequate cooler. It would of been perf/w is great, but otherwise even with a new architecture it's still slower than 290x.
That reference cooler on 290x was a huge mistake.
Right on the money but it also shows how biased certain members on this forum have been all along since 290/290X series released that they would never acknowledge how much better an after-market 290/290X is. They are quick to criticize 390/390X cards now without giving an ounce of praise to the amazing price/performance of after-market 290/290X cards over the last 1.5 years by constantly calling them hot and loud. You can't have it both ways. The people who objectively didn't disregard 290/290X by recognizing that after-market cards were available all along can easily criticize the price/performance and higher prices of 390/390X but all those who ignored 290 cards are now being hypocritical since they are quick to compare
after-market fire-sale 290/290X cards to 390/390X.
Also, per Guru3D, their overclock is on the high side for most 290X cards. It sounds like the node has matured. Their 390X cards got 1200mhz on the core and 6600mhz on the memory (422GB/sec memory bandwidth!). The end result is 29% higher 3DMark score than a reference 290X and a whopping
32% higher than a 970! That's more than 2X higher than a GTX680.
For all those people screaming how Fury X needs to match 980Ti's 30% overclocking, I sure see no mention of 390X's overclocked performance being mentioned.
because they are not able to sell R9 2xx rebrands.If AMD cannot sell R9 2xx with such a cheap price than how can AMD sell rebrands with a higher price even if they add extra vram.
Because in the eyes of the Average Joe who ignored after-market cool and quiet 290X cards for the last 1.5 years because "first impressions are everything," he will now see a reference 290X in reviews against an after-market 390X. In overclocked states nearly 30% faster performance than a stock thermal throttling 290X.
It's only fair --
all those people who criticized 290/290X for being hot and loud now have no choice but to compare reference 290/290X to after-market 390/390X because using after-market 290/290X against 390/390X today would make their entire position over the last 1.5 years hypocritical.
Why would they do that? Very few reviewers actually compared the after market 290x's to anything. Most comparisons to the competition were on reference cards.
Exactly. The only review sites that have any right to use after-market 290/290X in 390/390X reviews are the ones who used after-market 290/290X in reviews all along. Any site that used a reference 290/290X for the last 1.5 years and ignored after-market 290/290X cards and now tries to mention how 390/390X are no better than 290/290X cards is most likely on NV's marketing payroll or is straight up biased. For brand agnostic users who always acknowledged after-market 290/290X cards, sure this release is very disappointing but I sure didn't see NV fans posting how amazing $220-240 after-market 290 and $270-300 after-market 290X have been all this time. In fact, they continued to discuss how 290 is hot and loud and requires a 750W PSU in defending a 960 2GB since January 2015.
Dont know why AMD didnt offer this card immediately after 980 release. Sure would've dampened the 980 release and created a bigger splash imo.
They did -- it was called an after-market 290X. Welcome to 1.5 years ago.
Pretty remarkable how people were trolling for months how a ~300W card requires water-cooling and ignored how cool and quiet after-market 290/290X cards were:
This part is hilarious and shows how brand-attached the average PC gamer is when $240 after-market 290 and $280-300 290X cards still didn't sell:
390X = aka after-market 290X:
"Currently the R9 290X can easily be had for $330, so it seems to us given the age of the R9 290X and the fact that the R9 390X offers such a small performance bump, it should be introduced at or near this price. Sadly, however, the R9 390X carries an MSRP of $430, 30% more than the current R9 290X for less than 10% additional performance. This is still a better value than the GTX 980, costing 14% less for just 7% less performance, but it's hardly enough to get us excited."
LOL! Isn't that a familiar number. For months we've been saying how 290X is just 6-11% behind a 980 but oh boy people thought it was justifiable to pay $550 for that over a $280-300 after-market 290X.
390 = aka after-market 290
"This leaves us looking at the R9 390, which is a considerably better value at $330, making it a little over 20% cheaper and just 7% slower. The R9 390 roughly matches the performance of the R9 290X and it was 8% faster than the R9 290 while technically being faster than the GTX 970,"
Of note that both 390/390X are faster than 290/290X, which means these are refreshes, not re-brands -> essentially like 770 raised performance 8-10% over the 680, this is a repeat of that and no one called 770 a re-brand.
Still, goes to show how dead the GPU market has been in the mid-range space considering R9 290 was $399 as of late 2013. As Grooveriding alluded in the past, the most exciting cards this gen are 980Ti and Fury SKUs.
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