R9 380x rumor and speculation thread

[Red Hawk]

I wonder if this means, no reference design from AMD, so, no review from this site...

AMD just needs to price this card right, and it will sell. Simple as that.

A few more days, and we will see.

Unfortunately it's just not that simple. If this card is to make a difference, AMD needs to market it -- and market it well, not put a bunch of monkeys in a meeting room and use whatever they draw/smear on the whiteboard as the "marketing strategy".

 

[.vodka]

Ya I took a second look at the specs comparison between the current card, the new card, and the 390(290), and ya, .

Oh well, didn't need this card anyway. I guess a second R9 290, then undervolting them so they fit within my PSU is the way to go! I really was expecting overall GPU power usage to go down just like how intel's CPU power has been going down. I guess I miscalculated and need a new PSU now.

Yeah, and my comparison was against a 95°C hot, throttling, power gobbling 900MHz 290. If you compare to a well cooled 290 with a little overclock to 1.1GHz (which is a 390 after all) then full Tonga is hopelessly outclassed, unless it could do 400-500MHz overclocks like GM204/200... which it can't. Tahiti/Pitcairn which are the best GCN clockers can't. Even if it could, Hawaii has much more memory bandwidth to use, that 512 bit bus is pure brute force that Tonga's 256 bit + compression tech can't touch (although it's enough to close the gap with Tahiti's 384 bit one)


It should replace Tahiti once and for all (it's on its fourth year and STILL relevant while climbing the benchmark charts vs the competition, that's a legendary run), and it's okay to compare it with, since they have the same paper specs, save for GCN 1.0 -> 1.2 improvements, if we consider 7950 vs 285 results. Cheaper, less complex board due to the narrower bus, more features, better per clock performance, but not much more than that, and won't touch a proper 290 or a 390, not by any chance. It should be a nice 1080p card though if you're not going to crank everything up to ultra.

10% faster than the 280x is a given, but it should be able to do more. I hope they price it well enough to be relevant.



If you need more performance just get another 290 for cheap, downclock both to 900-1000MHz where GCN is most power efficient, undervolt enough just to support that clockspeed, and be happy. You'll get a consistent under 150-200w per card that way and some nice performance. Hawaii/Fiji XDMA crossfire is awesome, when it works.

 

[LTC8K6]

If we take a look at TPU's performance index we see this:



Notice how the 280X is ahead of the 380. So say the 380X is faster than the 380 by 10%(not the same as 5 percentage points). It'll be a smidgen slower than the 280X, a 4 year old GPU by now.

In Sweden, I can buy a new 280X for $199. For the 380X to be competitive, it has to match that, since I don't think we'll see a 20%(or more) performance improvement over the 380. Of course, it would have a lower TDP than the 280X, but is that worth a $50 premium?

Now, if it can be faster than the 280X by 5-10% and still draw 60 watts less than it for a knockout $199, then we're talking.

The 280X might only be faster in that relative chart because the 380 tested only had 2gb of Vram. There are 380 cards with 4gb of vram

Plus, the 380 and 380X are GCN1.2, which I'd rather have now than a 1.0 card.

 

[AtenRa]

R9 380X vs 280X will have,

Higher performance
4x more ACEs = faster DX-12
1GB more ram
Lower TDP
FreeSync support
True Audio

 

[RussianSensation]

The 280X might only be faster in that relative chart because the 380 tested only had 2gb of Vram. There are 380 cards with 4gb of vram

Plus, the 380 and 380X are GCN1.2, which I'd rather have now than a 1.0 card.

So many people on this forum are still living in this magical land where GCN 1.0 is crap and GCN1.2 is some savior. 280X has been and continues to be better overall than R9 380 4GB. There were 1-2 games there 285/380 would win and everyone started shying from recommending the 280X. Wrong move for the last 12 months and nothing has changed. This is a November 9, 2015 review. 280X is still on top.

When R9 390 is hovering around $280-290, who is going to buy a 380X for $250? Also, 970 is too close to the 380X. If AMD wants to make something happen, 380X has to be below $250. R9 280X was $299 more than 2 years ago. Releasing a card that's barely 7-10% faster for $249 2 years later at the end of the 28nm generation, without HDMI 2.0 or an cool new features, is an epic fail. :thumbsdown:

AMD needs to make something happen. Let's think about how the Fury would have done if it was priced at $499 with a free AAA game 6 months ago. This is the same situation that would face the 380X. $50 price difference of $199 vs. $249 is the difference between having a killer card and a card many people will skip automatically.

R9 380X vs 280X will have,

Higher performance
4x more ACEs = faster DX-12
1GB more ram
Lower TDP
FreeSync support
True Audio

The competition for R9 380X today is not R9 280X. Gamers didn't buy a <$250 after-market 290 over a 960 2-4GB despite the 290 pummeling 960 into the ground, but now they are going to buy a $250 R9 380X that's worse than a 290? How does that make sense?

It's also possible to find a 960 4GB for $170 without much effort. That's a 47% price difference. Guess which cards are destroying AMD's market share the most? 960 and 970. A $199-209 380X neutralizes both of those cards and disrupts the market completely but a $249 R9 380X does nothing to change things for AMD.

Unfortunately it's just not that simple. If this card is to make a difference, AMD needs to market it -- and market it well, not put a bunch of monkeys in a meeting room and use whatever they draw/smear on the whiteboard as the "marketing strategy".

I call AMD's new strategy starting with Fiji the "Wii U" strategy - kill it with high price and lack of value. The old AMD would have never released 3 cards that all 3 failed miserably in price/performance. AMD needs some balance by offering catering to price/performance gamers or it's never going to move market share against GW's marketing and AMD's drivers suck mantra.

 

[Silverforce11]

380X needs to be $229 to be attractive, since 380/970 can be regularly had for ~$280.

380 4GB $199 and 380 2GB $169.

Would make for more bang for buck sales potential.

380X at $250 is pure fail, fully agree with @RS.

 

[RussianSensation]

380X needs to be $229 to be attractive, since 380/970 can be regularly had for ~$280.

380 4GB $199 and 380 2GB $169.

Would make for more bang for buck sales potential.

380X at $250 is pure fail, fully agree with @RS.

AMD is clueless it seems. You cannot jack up prices so dramatically in one generation when you aren't leading in any key metric. Newegg moved 334 units of $250 Zotac GTX970s in 1 hour and that comes with a free game coupon too. This is not just losing 334 potential consumers in 1 hour. Some of those gamers will like the NV card and when it comes time to upgrade in 2-4 years, they'll be more likely to buy an NV card. When AMD throws market share under the bus, they are risking that consumers will become sticky to NV and won't even consider AMD's products when they upgrade next time.

Remember the $170-240 battle during HD6850/GTX460/6870 days? R9 380X for $229 with $20 MIR - would be huge. R9 380X at $250? You aren't in it to win it.

 

[Borealis7]

this is just history repeating. the HD3XXX series was not competitive and mostly underwhelming but then came the HD4XXX series and blew away the competition, not to mention the HD5XXX which was pure awesome.

we'll just have to wait until Q2'16 i think.

 

[littleg]

The thing is RS can see it, Silverforce11 can see it, we all can see it but AMD has a miserable track record of market blindness.

I hope it doesn't but I fully expect this to come out of the gate at $249, wreck its chances of securing recommendations and a good rep in the market and forums and then quietly slip down to the price it should be in a few months when nobody cares anymore and the name has been tarnished.

 

[AtenRa]

People will have to understand that the PC market is not ONLY the USA.

There are no $280 GTX 970 in Europe or anywhere else in the world.

EU prices,

GTX 970 start at 315.00 Euros

R9 380 4GB start at 200.00 Euros

R9 390 start at 322.00 Euros

So, R9 380X at 250-260 Euros is exactly what its price should be.

Also, there were never 250 Euro/$ R9 290. That price could only be found in the US.
Same as the mining 290/X shortage. Nothing like that happened in EU or anywhere else in the world as far as i know.

Now if you only talking about the US market, then you should be glad you can have the R9 390 at $275

Obviously when you can have that 390 at such price the R9 380X at $250 looks bad.

 

[LTC8K6]

So many people on this forum are still living in this magical land where GCN 1.0 is crap and GCN1.2 is some savior. 280X has been and continues to be better overall than R9 380 4GB. There were 1-2 games there 285/380 would win and everyone started shying from recommending the 280X. Wrong move for the last 12 months and nothing has changed. This is a November 9, 2015 review. 280X is still on top.

I don't really trust those overall benchmarks. Do they re-do the tests again, with the latest drivers, or just recompile old and new benchmarks?

It's not too hard to find recent reviews of the 380 4GB card that also include the 280X. The 380 seems to generally be right with it, or slightly ahead of it, with a less powerful setup.

The 280X has 2048:128:32 and 384bit ram, yet the 380 can hang with or beat it with only 1792:112:32 and 256bit ram.

I bet one dollar that the 380X stands out above the 280X when it's released.

I do agree that price is an important factor and the GTX960/970 is the target.

However, I have been waiting for the 380X since the 285 was released, and I am a guaranteed buy.

http://i.imgur.com/K740I1b.jpg
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Fallout-4-Spiel-18293/Specials/Test-Benchmark-vor-Release-1177284/

http://media.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2015/amd/amd-r93-mordor-1080.png

http://media.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2015/amd/amd-r93-fc4-1080.png

http://media.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2015/amd/amd-r93-w3-1080.png

 

[Techhog]

It's official now and nobody has anything to say? Okay...

 

[tential]

The thing is RS can see it, Silverforce11 can see it, we all can see it but AMD has a miserable track record of market blindness.

I hope it doesn't but I fully expect this to come out of the gate at $249, wreck its chances of securing recommendations and a good rep in the market and forums and then quietly slip down to the price it should be in a few months when nobody cares anymore and the name has been tarnished.

So much truth!

 

[Headfoot]

We'll see how market prices shake out vis a vis MSRP. $249 MSRP doesn't mean much beyond the very initial release. Isn't the 970 still MSRP $330?

 

[Elixer]

It's official now and nobody has anything to say? Okay...

How is it official when it didn't launch yet?
Everyone is still under NDA, so, until the launch date there is nothing that can't be said except for, they better get the price right.

 

[SimianR]

Supposedly its launching at $229 for the vanilla models and $249 for the overclocked ones. At $229 with performance that should easily surpass the 960 4GB models it really does seem like it could be a great mid-range card. NVIDIA's lineup really is lacking between the 960 and the 970 so hopefully the 380X will fill that void and get some sales for AMD. But I think this card should have been available from the get go with the launch of the 300 series.

 

[Techhog]

Supposedly its launching at $229 for the vanilla models and $249 for the overclocked ones. At $229 with performance that should easily surpass the 960 4GB models it really does seem like it could be a great mid-range card. NVIDIA's lineup really is lacking between the 960 and the 970 so hopefully the 380X will fill that void and get some sales for AMD. But I think this card should have been available from the get go with the launch of the 300 series.

I've only read $250. I've not seen anything about $230.

 

[LTC8K6]

Supposedly its launching at $229 for the vanilla models and $249 for the overclocked ones. At $229 with performance that should easily surpass the 960 4GB models it really does seem like it could be a great mid-range card. NVIDIA's lineup really is lacking between the 960 and the 970 so hopefully the 380X will fill that void and get some sales for AMD. But I think this card should have been available from the get go with the launch of the 300 series.

Should have been launched with the 285 as the 285X, imo.

 

[xorbe]

I've only read $250. I've not seen anything about $230.

It's from wccftech.

 

[Techhog]

How is it official when it didn't launch yet?
Everyone is still under NDA, so, until the launch date there is nothing that can't be said except for, they better get the price right.

Nevermind, I fell for a clickbait site.

 

[Elixer]

Supposedly its launching at $229 for the vanilla models and $249 for the overclocked ones. At $229 with performance that should easily surpass the 960 4GB models it really does seem like it could be a great mid-range card. NVIDIA's lineup really is lacking between the 960 and the 970 so hopefully the 380X will fill that void and get some sales for AMD. But I think this card should have been available from the get go with the launch of the 300 series.

I am betting that nvidia will decrease the price of 960 & 970 at the same time the 380X launches.
So, we could be in store for a price war this Xmas season.
Then they will add 'free' games and or rebates.

 

[jpiniero]

Should have been launched with the 285 as the 285X, imo.

They didn't want to do it because they didn't have price room for it given how quickly the 290's price fell after the 970 launch. BTW, since the 290 is still available at the price they are talking about the 380X the 290 would have to go to make sense.

 

[Silverforce11]

$229 for normal and $249 for OC models seems fairer.

The blower should be fine with 380 levels of TDP.

 

[96Firebird]

I am betting that nvidia will decrease the price of 960 & 970 at the same time the 380X launches.
So, we could be in store for a price war this Xmas season.
Then they will add 'free' games and or rebates.

Just about every week now to you can find a 970 for $250 or under, I'm not sure how much lower they will go with it.

 

[Azix]

MSRP is MSRP. the base price is 230 and 250 for Overclocked according to the rumour. Nothing stopping the price going lower for holidays.

MSRP is the right spot in comparison to the MSRP of the other cards. Even in the US people buy cards at MSRP (local stores, not so great online stores, preferred card on amazon or ebay etc.) while there are deals. Tons are still buying 390s and 970s above $300. Its placed correctly relative to the options available.