Should I return the two 390x’s that I purchased and get two 980 ti’s instead? Please help me decide!

[Volxen]

I recently purchased two 390x’s for a new 4K gaming PC that I am building. At the time, I thought it was a good deal as the two 390x’s were $860. Two 980’s are $1,000, and two 980 ti’s are $1,300. I thought it was a good deal, especially since the 390x’s have 8 GB of vram.

 

However, after thinking about it more, I am now starting to have some serious concerns and doubts about this purchase. These concerns are not related to the 390x specifically, but rather to the quality and reliability of AMD products in general.

 

My major concerns are:

 

1)      The 390x consumes much more power than a 980 ti, even though the latter is a more powerful card. This in and of itself doesn’t bother me (I have a 1000W power supply), but does this mean that a 980 ti would last significantly longer than a 390x? Would I get several more years of use out of a 980 ti before it fails? This is extremely important to me, as I don’t want to build a new system for 4-5 years after this.

 

2)      Given that the 390x consumes much more power than a 980 ti, this also means it generates much more heat. At full load, is the 390x going to be much more loud than the 980 ti? Silence is also very important to me.

 

3)      Is Nvidia’s driver support for SLI much better than AMD’s driver support for Crossfire? I’ve heard a lot of mixed opinions on this, but the overall consensus seems to be that Nvidia provides better driver support (and that they have a lot less issues with their drivers to begin with). I definitely don't want to have any headaches dealing with driver issues.

 

4)      With things like GameWorks, are we going in the direction of having many games in the future that will perform much better on Nvidia cards than on AMD cards? This is very concerning to me as well.

 

On the flip side, I am also curious of just how much better the 980 ti is than the 390x, and specifically of the performance (FPS) differences of two 980 ti’s in SLI vs two 390x’s in crossfire. In 4k gaming on ultra settings, how much more FPS could I realistically expect to get with two 980 ti’s in SLI vs two 390x’s in crossfire? Would it be just a slight gain in FPS (e.g., 5-8 more FPS), or would it be a more significant gain in FPS (e.g., 15-20+ more FPS)? I would want the gain in FPS to be significant in order to justify the additional cost of switching to two 980 ti's.

 

I’ve ruled out the option of getting two 980’s; I see no point to pay more for something that performs the same as a 390x and has less vram. So the two options that I am considering are:

 

1)      Keep my two 390x’s

2)      Return my two 390x’s, and get two 980 ti’s instead (this will cost me $440 more)

 

I can afford the two 980 ti’s, I just need to be able to justify the cost to myself. So please convince me one way or the other!

[DigitalHermit]

if you want to bite the bullet and take the damage of diminishing returns, then go ahead...

 

else, save yourself the trouble and keep the 390xs...

[Colt_0pz]

Keep the 390X's. Vram does not stack with SLI and AFAIK with crossfire. Also, no one knows if DX12 will allow for VRAM stacking

[Lays]

The 390x doesn't consume "much more" power than the 980 ti, it's only like 20-40 watts, that's marginally nothing.

 

Which 390x's did you pick up? 

[Colt_0pz]

if you want to bite the bullet and take the damage of diminishing returns, then go ahead...

 

else, save yourself the trouble and keep the 390xs...

What he said and what i said

[mosin40]

Option 2

[Colt_0pz]

Option 2

Why would you return the 390x's? i just wanna hear what you think

[Sam Z Man]

1. The power consumption difference is almost nothing, and that wouldn't determine the lifespan of the GPU anyway.

2. Wrong the 390X only generates 10% more heat then the 980ti, and noise level will be determined by what cooler it has and won't be much different.

3. Crossfire is better then SLI.

4. Gameworks is like mantle, it's going to die and it don't change that much anyway.

Because I take it you have a 60hz panel dual 390X's will max out games at 4K anyway, so upgrading is just a waste of money.

Keep the Dual 390X's for the extra vram and the full DX12 support.

[Volxen]

The 390x doesn't consume "much more" power than the 980 ti, it's only like 20-40 watts, that's marginally nothing.

 

Which 390x's did you pick up? 

 

Really? That would be quite a relief if that's true. Do you know how much more hot the 390x runs under full load compared to the 980 ti?

 

I picked up two of the MSI 390x's from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/MSI-R9-390X-GAMING-8G/dp/B00ZGF158A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436062161&sr=8-1&keywords=AMD+R9+390x

[iludez]

1. The power consumption difference is almost nothing, and that wouldn't determine the lifespan of the GPU anyway.

2. Wrong the 390X only generates 10% more heat then the 980ti, and noise level will be determined by what cooler it has and won't be much different.

3. Crossfire is better then SLI.

4. Gameworks is like mantle, it's going to die and it don't change that much anyway.

Because I take it you have a 60hz panel dual 390X's will max out games at 4K anyway, so upgrading is just a waste of money.

Keep the Dual 390X's for the extra vram and the full DX12 support.

They arent full dx12 supported.

Personally id grab a pair of 980s/tis simply for the better power effeincy and heat output plus all the supported bonus's you get with nvidia.

And the 980/ti are a complete new platform where as the 390x's are simply a refresh 

 

The 390x will probably output more heat and be louder

[techguru]

4. Gameworks is like mantle, it's going to die and it don't change that much anyway.

it won't die

it will get refined

[iludez]

Though you have picked the best 390x there is out there

[Colt_0pz]

1. The power consumption difference is almost nothing, and that wouldn't determine the lifespan of the GPU anyway.

2. Wrong the 390X only generates 10% more heat then the 980ti, and noise level will be determined by what cooler it has and won't be much different.

3. Crossfire is better then SLI.

4. Gameworks is like mantle, it's going to die and it don't change that much anyway.

Because I take it you have a 60hz panel dual 390X's will max out games at 4K anyway, so upgrading is just a waste of money.

Keep the Dual 390X's for the extra vram and the full DX12 support.

Umm... it's not officially confirmed about the vram stack

[techguru]

Umm... it's not officially confirmed about the vram stack

vram stacking does work

but its not automatic

it has to be programmed for it

[Colt_0pz]

vram stacking does work

but its not automatic

it has to be programmed for it

im talking about dx12

[techguru]

im talking about dx12

so am I

[Lays]

Really? That would be quite a relief if that's true. Do you know how much more hot the 390x runs under full load compared to the 980 ti?

I picked up two of the MSI 390x's from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/MSI-R9-390X-GAMING-8G/dp/B00ZGF158A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436062161&sr=8-1&keywords=AMD+R9+390x

They run close to the same temp. You got two really good 390x, and at a good price. Those are some of the best 390x that have been released so far. I say keep em. Maybe spend the extra money you saved on a custom loop for cool and quiet gaming?

[Volxen]

1. The power consumption difference is almost nothing, and that wouldn't determine the lifespan of the GPU anyway.

2. Wrong the 390X only generates 10% more heat then the 980ti, and noise level will be determined by what cooler it has and won't be much different.

3. Crossfire is better then SLI.

4. Gameworks is like mantle, it's going to die and it don't change that much anyway.

Because I take it you have a 60hz panel dual 390X's will max out games at 4K anyway, so upgrading is just a waste of money.

Keep the Dual 390X's for the extra vram and the full DX12 support.

 

Can two 390x's consistently maintain 60+ FPS in 4k at ultra settings?

[Sam Z Man]

Umm... it's not officially confirmed about the vram stack

I never said that?

They arent full dx12 supported.

Personally id grab a pair of 980s/tis simply for the better power effeincy and heat output plus all the supported bonus's you get with nvidia.

And the 980/ti are a complete new platform where as the 390x's are simply a refresh 

 

The 390x will probably output more heat and be louder

So your main reason to get the 980ti's is the fact that the thermal output would drop by 50 watts, and the 300 series does have full DX12 support. The only thing they refreshed in the 390X's is the GPU core, everything else is different, and the coolers on them perform amazingly well and the MSI twin frozr on the OP's looks as if it's the best.

[Sam Z Man]

Can two 390x's consistently maintain 60+ FPS in 4k at ultra settings?

I have had dual 290X's witch perform worse handle triple 1080p with everything maxed and get over 70 fps solid, dual 390X's will easily perform over 60 fps on 4K.

[iludez]

If you had of got any other 390x then my original statement of getting a pair of 980s would stand but since they are the msi ones id probably keep them and do whats lays said a full custom loop.

 

Also sam z man they support up to dx12-3

[Volxen]

I have had dual 290X's witch perform worse handle triple 1080p with everything maxed and get over 70 fps solid, dual 390X's will easily perform over 60 fps on 4K.

 

Cool Is it also true that AMD's Eyefinity is much better than Nvidia's Surround? I'm not looking to get into multiple monitors at the moment, but it's something I may do in the future when the price of 4K monitors go down. It sounds like with the dual 390x's, I should be able to seamlessly transition from a single monitor to a multi-monitor setup.

[Monarch]

You want to have a powerful PC, that will last you 4-5 years, so 980 Ti's are the way to go imo. They'd be significantly faster than your 390X's, especially if you OC them. 390X's are meh. 390X = OCed 290X + driver optimization. AMD's DX11 still has high overhead. Their driver support though is on par with Nvidia currently, sadly not because it got better, but because Nvidia got worse. Nvidia's last 3 drivers are unstable. There are a ton of complaints all over the internet. And since you have to use these drivers for 980 Ti's, you can't use an older driver version because they don't support the new card, you'll be stuck with TDRs.

 

Issue with Gameworks is tessellation in which (most) AMD's cards suck. But it's easily fixed. You can do it manually, or by getting an optimized driver. Besides, not even 980 Ti's can run GW effects at 60 fps. They're crazy demanding on hardware. It's that DX11 overhead that's limiting AMD's performance. We've seen considerable increase in amount of draw calls in W10, which significantly increased performance in Project Cars, which runs awful on AMD GPUs on W8.1.

Now, issues with multi-GPU setup are SLI/CF profiles, scaling and bugs. From what I've heard, both AMD and Nvidia suck, but AMD is worse. It took them 4 months to make CF work with FC4 and Dying Light for example. There was a memory leak in BF4 that was only recently fixed. However, I hear scaling is better with CF.

[TechSilver13]

440 more for GPU's is a lot but I can't really talk because I sold my 980s for 980 ti's. Me personally, I would do it. The 980 ti is WAY better than 390x's. I had dual 290x's and my 970's beat those and when I upgraded to my 980's it was an even bigger gap. The 980 ti is obviously even that much better than the 980 so speaking from experience and not reading about it I would highly recommend upgrading since returning them won't cost you anything.

[Sam Z Man]

Cool Is it also true that AMD's Eyefinity is much better than Nvidia's Surround? I'm not looking to get into multiple monitors at the moment, but it's something I may do in the future when the price of 4K monitors go down. It sounds like with the dual 390x's, I should be able to seamlessly transition from a single monitor to a multi-monitor setup.

Nothing can do triple 4K not even quad titans.

And I don't know if eyefinity is better then nvidia surround, I do know crossfire scales better then SLI though.