Is the AMD r9 390 worth it over the AMD r9 290?

[Lekingmoonya]

I saw the 290 go as low as 210$ today and thought I should get that instead of the r9 390.
WHat do you guys think?

 

[Kenneth Barker]

The r9 290 and r9 390 have nearly identical performance. With the RAM on the 390 being the only really big difference. The 290 should be plenty for 1080p and most 1440p gaming

 

[CTurbo]

$210 is a great price for a 290. The 390 is not worth $100 more.

 

[jimmysmitty]

The only benefit the R9 390 has over the R9 290 is 8GB of VRAM vs 4GB. They both perform roughly the same but the R9 290 is much cheaper at the moment since it is considered "older" even though the R9 290 is just a re-branded R9 290.

Unless you plan to game at higher than 1080P the R9 290 will do just as good as the R9 390.

 

[MarkW]

Its the same card, but with double the memory, and a tiny 50Mhz GPU speed boost.

 

[Kenneth Barker]

To put it plainly, at that price. Get the 290. Its a great card, at a great price. Hard to beat it.

 

[Lekingmoonya]

I was just thinking that the new AMD cards support DX12 and according to this test, 390 has much more stable and higher FPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDQzlKDYq4

 

[CTurbo]

Yes the 390 is a little better, but not $80-100 better.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I was just thinking that the new AMD cards support DX12 and according to this test, 390 has much more stable and higher FPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDQzlKDYq4

That video review is a bit unfair. It was done on the release of the new GPUs which had a special driver cooked up just for them, the 15.7, that was not useable with the R9 290 cards. When people modified the driver to allow it to install (before it was released for all the GPUs) and they tested it they got the same performance as the R9 390 series.

If you were to test both right now they would perform the exact same with the same driver.

Also, the R9 290 will support DX12. Remember the R9 390 is the SAME GPU. If it supports DX12 so will its original version as they are the same GPU just different amounts of VRAM.

Hell if you want to spend the extra money just get a R9 290X 8GB:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-r9290x8dfd

About the same price as the R9 390 but would perform like a R9 390X and still support DX12.

 

[Lekingmoonya]

On Newegg the 390 is actually cheaper than the 290X...

 

[jimmysmitty]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr9290x4gbd5ppdhv2e

Cheapest R9 290X

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr93908gbd5ppdhe

Cheapest R9 390

Both on Newegg, the 290X is cheaper and both are Powercolor so same brand. Plus the 290X will beat the 390 in every game.

You keep coming up with objections to the information we are posting as if you have already made up your mind and want the 390. If so go for it but the facts are simple:

- The R9 390 performs the same as the R9 290 on the same driver, thus is not worth the price more it costs over the R9 290 even with the 8GB GDDR5
- The R9 290X is the same price or a bit cheaper than the R9 390 and easily beats the performance.

 

[Lekingmoonya]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr9290x4gbd5ppdhv2e

Cheapest R9 290X

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr93908gbd5ppdhe

Cheapest R9 390

Both on Newegg, the 290X is cheaper and both are Powercolor so same brand. Plus the 290X will beat the 390 in every game.

You keep coming up with objections to the information we are posting as if you have already made up your mind and want the 390. If so go for it but the facts are simple:

- The R9 390 performs the same as the R9 290 on the same driver, thus is not worth the price more it costs over the R9 290 even with the 8GB GDDR5
- The R9 290X is the same price or a bit cheaper than the R9 390 and easily beats the performance.

Ok, thanks for the info! Can you link me some "Fair" benchmarks please? I tried to find some but they always compare the 290X to the 390X.

 

[cTigon]

The real only difference is the VRAM. You get an extra 4GB VRAM on the 390 from the 290. If you think an extra $100 is worth the extra RAM, go ahead and spend that extra money.

 

[jimmysmitty]

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2015-vga-charts/compare,3665.html?prod%5B7295%5D=on&prod%5B7271%5D=on

290x vs 290, same as 290x vs 390.

 

[Mysticking32]

Hello. Just now catching this thread. In all honesty, if you can get a r9 290 for 210 dollars I'd go for it. However if you want the better card for 330 dollars and that beats the gtx 970 in most games, then the r9 390 is the way to go.

Get the msi version as it overclocks to 1060mhz by default. I've attached a video of the comparison you requested. The video also contains the gtx 970, r9 290, r9 390x, and the r9 390 of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDQzlKDYq4

Generally speaking you're going to get lower temps and power consumption from the r9 390, which essentially means more overclocking potential. (I've managed to get my r9 390 to 1120 mhz for example). Because you can overclock more, you're capitalizing on the already substantial gain in performance you'd get over the r9 290. The r9 390 is the better investment in my opinion.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Hello. Just now catching this thread. In all honesty, if you can get a r9 290 for 210 dollars I'd go for it. However if you want the better card for 330 dollars and that beats the gtx 970 in most games, then the r9 390 is the way to go.

Get the msi version as it overclocks to 1060mhz by default. I've attached a video of the comparison you requested. The video also contains the gtx 970, r9 290, r9 390x, and the r9 390 of course.

Oh and the R9 390 series actually uses more power as they are clocked higher and have a higher stock voltage.

Same GPUs, just more VRAM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDQzlKDYq4

Generally speaking you're going to get lower temps and power consumption from the r9 390, which essentially means more overclocking potential. (I've managed to get my r9 390 to 1120 mhz for example). Because you can overclock more, you're capitalizing on the already substantial gain in performance you'd get over the r9 290. The r9 390 is the better investment in my opinion.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1447763/amd-r9-290-290x-overclockers-club

The R9 290 series was easily capable of 1200MHz on decent after market coolers.

However right now at the $330 price range people can get a R9 290X which also can hit 1200MHz and will by default perform faster than the R9 390 due to more SPUs.