The new Radeon R9 300-series
It’s finally time to take a look at our first retail R9 300-series card, the Sapphire Nitro R9 390 8GB!
The new AMD Radeon R9 and R7 300-series of graphics cards are coming into the world with a rocky start. We have seen rumors and speculation about what GPUs are going to be included, what changes would be made and what prices these would be shipping at for what seems like months, and in truth it has been months. AMD's Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X based on the new Hawaii GPU launched nearly 2 years ago, while the rest of the 200-series lineup was mostly a transition of existing products in the HD 7000-family. The lone exception was the Radeon R9 285, a card based on a mysterious new GPU called Tonga that showed up late to the game to fill a gap in the performance and pricing window for AMD.
AMD's R9 300-series, and the R7 300-series in particular, follows a very similar path. The R9 390 and R9 390X are still based on the Hawaii architecture. Tahiti is finally retired and put to pasture, though Tonga lives on as the Radeon R9 380. Below that you have the Radeon R7 370 and 360, the former based on the aging GCN 1.0 Curacao GPU and the latter based on Bonaire. On the surface its easy to refer to these cards with the dreaded "R-word"…rebrands. And though that seems to be the case there are some interesting performance changes, at least at the high end of this stack, that warrant discussion.
And of course, AMD partners like Sapphire are using this opportunity of familiarity with the GPU and its properties to release newer product stacks. In this case Sapphire is launching the new Nitro brand for a series of cards that it is aimed at what it considers the most common type of gamer: one that is cost conscious and craves performance over everything else.
The result is a stack of GPUs with prices ranging from about $110 up to ~$400 that target the "gamer" group of GPU buyers without the added price tag that some other lines include. Obviously it seems a little crazy to be talking about a line of graphics cards that is built for gamers (aren't they all??) but the emphasis is to build a fast card that is cool and quiet without the additional cost of overly glamorous coolers, LEDs or dip switches.
Today I am taking a look at the new Sapphire Nitro R9 390 8GB card, but before we dive head first into that card and its performance, let's first go over the changes to the R9-level of AMD's product stack.
The New Radeon R9 300-Series Lineup
Many of you are going to be interested in the specifications and numbers first, so let's start off with a handy little table that details the Radeon R9 300-series against the relevant Radeon R9 200-series products.
R9 390X | R9 390 | R9 380 | R9 290X | R9 290 | R9 285 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GPU Code name | Grenada (Hawaii) | Grenada (Hawaii) | Antigua (Tonga) | Hawaii | Hawaii | Tonga |
GPU Cores | 2816 | 2560 | 1792 | 2816 | 2560 | 1792 |
Rated Clock | 1050 MHz | 1000 MHz | 970 MHz | 1000 MHz | 947 MHz | 918 MHz |
Texture Units | 176 | 160 | 112 | 176 | 160 | 112 |
ROP Units | 64 | 64 | 32 | 64 | 64 | 32 |
Memory | 8GB | 8GB | 4GB | 4GB | 4GB | 2GB |
Memory Clock | 6000 MHz | 6000 MHz | 5700 MHz | 5000 MHz | 5000 MHz | 5500 MHz |
Memory Interface | 512-bit | 512-bit | 256-bit | 512-bit | 512-bit | 256-bit |
Memory Bandwidth | 384 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 182.4 GB/s | 320 GB/s | 320 GB/s | 176 GB/s |
TDP | 275 watts | 275 watts | 190 watts | 290 watts | 275 watts | 190 watts |
Peak Compute | 5.9 TFLOPS | 5.1 TFLOPS | 3.48 TFLOPS | 5.6 TFLOPS | 4.84 TFLOPS | 3.29 TFLOPS |
MSRP (current) | $429 | $329 | $199 | $329 | $269 | $229 |
There are quite a few changes that need to be noted, starting with the new GPU code names given to the R9 300-series. Both the R9 390 and 390X are using a new spin of the Hawaii GPU, now called Grenada, while the updated Tonga GPU is being dubbed Antigua. Though not in the table above, the R7 370 uses Trinidad (updated Curacao, which is an updated Pitcairn) while the R7 360 uses the Tobago GPU (an updated Bonaire). Confused yet? I am; and it's going to take some time for me to really get those new names in my head. To be fair, AMD is out there trumpeting the new code names as gospel and they would probably be fine with them not being a part of the discussion, but technical users want technical answers.
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.
Obviously we need to judge all of that for ourselves.
The second and most obvious change in these cards is the move from 4GB of memory by default to 8GB of memory on both the 390 and the 390X. Obviously that is a huge jump in memory capacity and is surely a welcome change, but the benefit of that added memory, even at single display 4K resolutions, is questionable. NVIDIA's flagship GTX 980 Ti has 6GB of memory and thus far we haven't been able to max that out. Putting 8GB on both the R9 390 and 390X gives AMD a bullet point at the very least and the potential for better performance in future games that may require it. It's an interesting contrast though, knowing that the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X will peak at 4GB of memory while two cards that are lower in the stack than it feature double that.
With the increase in memory capacity comes a sizable increase in memory speed - moving from 5000 MHz on the reference design of the R9 290X/290 to 6000 MHz on the R9 390X/390. This boosts the memory bandwidth from 320 GB/s to 384 GB/s, an increase of 20%! In areas where memory was the bottleneck the new GPUs should see noticeable performance advantages.
XFX R9 290 DD, ASUS R9 290X DC2, Sapphire Nitro R9 390
In terms of raw compute of the GPU though, AMD rates the new Radeon R9 390X at 5.9 TFLOPS, up from 5.6 TFLOPS of the R9 290X (+5.3%) and the R9 390 at 5.1 TFLOPS up from 4.84 TFLOPS on the R9 290 (+5.3%). Those are pretty modest gains and its obvious that any retail cards that overclock the R9 290X/290 today are going to get pretty close to matching or beating those compute rates.
Finally, let's look at pricing. AMD is setting the MSRP of the R9 390X at a surprisingly high $429. The R9 390 follows at $329 and the R9 380 drops all the way down to $199. Compare that to the R9 290X (currently selling for $329), the R9 290 (selling for $269) and the R9 285 (selling for $229) and you have confusion running rampant. Is an R9 390X really going to be worth $100 more than a Radeon R9 290X? How can the R9 390, with fewer stream processors and nearly identical GPU clocks, cost the same as the R9 290X at current prices? At first glance it's easy to get irate about those prices; they look like increases for a new brands rather than drops. But let's see how the performance card plays out first.
This is just pathetic! The
This is just pathetic! The 390 and 390X are just re-named R9 290’s and 290X’s with a overclock. The 970 will still beat both 390’s with a decent overclock. I would like to see the 390 and 390X with the highest overclock possible benched against the GTX 970 with the highest overclock possible. And I can guarantee the 970 will still out preform the 390’s by more than 10%. I was really hoping AMD would do better than just stupid re-brands with only one new card! It is good that they are able to match the 970 and 980 at stock. But this could be done just by giving a OC to the older 290’s. And since it’s still the same hot running chip, This means it’s still not going to overclock any higher than the older 290’s! So honestly there is no point in even buying them over a older R9 290/290X. Gamers are still going to prefer the cooler running and more efficient 900 series cards from Nvidia.
I enjoy the videos you have
I enjoy the videos you have with Nvidia on launch day. I’m sure you reach out the same way to AMD to give them equal time. Is there any plan to have an AMD video with one of their engineers or are they not receptive?
Good to see reasonably priced
Good to see reasonably priced 8GB card. Kind of give you assurance that it will handle without problems any direct console port.
the $429 price tag for the
the $429 price tag for the 390x is just a lure for Nvidia to drop the gtx980 price tag. once Nvidia does that boom the 390x will be at $379 or lower.
but all in all a bland launch, sorry you guys had to review these…well sorry im not sorry lol
Ryan,
Did you test the Frame
Ryan,
Did you test the Frame Rate Target Control ?
One thing that these reviews
One thing that these reviews keep forgetting is this set of cards is not targeted at current owners of r9 2xx series cards. They are not even targeted at owners of most NVidia 9xx series cards. They are however targeted at owners of older tech and there are a great number of those people. The prices are fair and competitive.
For those that have a current gen card there will be the Fury branded cards. If you can upgrade your card every 18 months then great. But, most people cant. 3-5 years is far more common. So, lets not get caught up with performance numbers on the 3xx series cards over the 2xx series. I think AMD did a great job of refreshing this series. They do perform better and at a good price point. Perfect for those coming from the AMD7xxx/NVidia7xx series cards or for new builds.
Pretty impressed , will
Pretty impressed , will probably buy it. Lack of HDMI 2.0 / HDCP 2.2 is very disappointing though
When reviewing a video card,
When reviewing a video card, its usually a good to put in the base clock right? This card is 1010MHz ..
“yes the Sapphire Nitro R9
“yes the Sapphire Nitro R9 390 used less power in our testing than the ASUS Radeon R9 290X retail card, but the XFX retail R9 290 actually used about 20 watts less power than the Sapphire retail R9 390”
That is still an efficiency increase, as it’s doing about 10% more work with only about 5% more power.
Please try if crossfire works
Please try if crossfire works with the 290.
It’s like every time there’s
It’s like every time there’s a review of an AMD product to be had, the PcPer guys go way out of their way to make it as impartial as humanly possible. And yet … *smh*
The internet is truly a wondrous place. So much patience required.
I’d like to buy a blue one.
I’d like to buy a blue one.
Cant you just use normal bar
Cant you just use normal bar graphs instead of these convoluted overly complex line graphs? They mean nothing to me. Hard to make out what the hell is going on.
Hi, I have some problem…
I
Hi, I have some problem…
I have the same graphic card (Intel i4460) and my fps are around 15 fps.
I don’t know, what to do.
Thanks
Edit to previous post:
I have
Edit to previous post:
I have the same graphic options like above.