Asus 390X Strix DCIII - there is a more than fruit juice :)

[FlanK3r]

Hello guys again. There will be thread about my new GPU card and some results later from testing. Today only few photos as teaser. Im busy the next days of this week and part of the next week also (working at some projects). So with testing I can start after this. 

 

Strix R9-390X DCIII OC

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think about the card? Seems sexy, right?

 

 

PS: next update will be around the weekend with description of the card

PS2: Im ready for your questions

[don_svetlio]

Can I marry it?

[Jerakl]

I hate the damn Strix branding. Should have kept with DCU tbh.

I do like that DCU III cooler though.

maybe in the next gen I'll pick up a DCU card.

[W-L]

One breakfast to go with that 390X plz 

[Thermal]

Tis a beautiful card! 

 

[dizmo]

I don't care about the card. That cereal!! Is it as amazing as the flavors sound? I also love the lion on the box. Screw the cute and cuddly characters we get in North America.

Though, your seeded watermelon saddens me.

[FlanK3r]

Hmmm, thinking, If Il find some next card in near future. I can start giveaway challenge for this card ,-) Maybe some Christmas 2015?

 

 

They have still DC version of card, example R9-390X DCII. Strix is 1.5 year old gaming segment with headset, mouses, keyboards, soundcards (new one) and graphic cards. 

[FlanK3r]

Tis a beautiful card! 

 

 

Awesome man! Nice one. +1 for you

 

I don't care about the card. That cereal!! Is it as amazing as the flavors sound? I also love the lion on the box. Screw the cute and cuddly characters we get in North America.

Though, your seeded watermelon saddens me.

 

The cereal are greats, Im eating it almost every day at the morning . And I did some shopping of fruits and vegetables. Ussually I forget at it, but these days were in Czech very hot (36 C ) so I needed some refreshment

 

And the card relax with cucumbers

 

[typographie]

Why is half of your Czech cereal box printed in English? Sigh, it always makes me feel guilty that my Anglophone culture is so contagious.  :unsure:

 

I love these photos, so randomly hilarious.

[Thermal]

Why is half of your Czech cereal box printed in what I assume is English? Sigh, it always makes me feel guilty that my Anglophone culture is so contagious.  :unsure:

 

I love these photos, so randomly hilarious.

 

^{European Union wooo!}

 

 

 

 

 

But yeah most products will be printed mainly in English with localisations around the edge or on the back, makes it easy for mass marketing! No need to feel guilty, what proliferates will proliferate and it happened to be English 

[FlanK3r]

yes and ussually most of us there know basic english (generation born after 1980+, so me also as 1980  )

[Nena Trinity]

Preety indeed!

[FlanK3r]

First time we take a minute for design of the card. What is under the cooler shield we will see later (I have plan to test temperatures comparison with stock TIM vs Gelid Extreme TIM)

 

Core AMD called "Grenada" is based on previous news chip, AMD Hawaii. Still, there is speculation whether this is just a rebrand or for minor changes inside the core. Although flash process of BIOS 390 to 290 cards, it's not just a performance quite it ... Here is the expression of the appellation working for AMD:

 

"There is no physical difference between project 215-08520xx ("Hawaii") and 215-08800xx ("Grenada") ASICs. 

 

The only difference between the full variants (i.e. 44 CUs and 64 ROPs) is binning and fuse configuration.

 

215-0852000 - Hawaii XT (67B0h DID, MA-RID 0h, MI-RID 0h)

215-0852022 - Hawaii XT(L) (67B9h DID, MA-RID 0h, MI-RID 0h)

215-0880004 - Grenada XT (67B0h DID, MA-RID 8h, MI-RID 0h)

 

The XT(L) bin is the highest quality of Hawaii family ASICs.

The dies are binned for lowest possible leakage characteristics in order to reduce the power consumption and dissipated heat. It is only used in 295X2 cards.

 

"Grenada XT" has the highest leakage characteristics of Hawaii family.

Higher leakage makes it possible reach higher clocks without violating the design electrical characteristics of the die, in terms of voltage. The down sides in using high leakage ASICs are the higher temperatures through the board and higher power consumption (due temperatures and lower VRM efficiency).

 

Any performance difference between "Hawaii" and "Grenada" cards is caused by the display driver. AMD changed the fused configuration in a way the driver can tell the difference between "the old" Hawaii and "the new" Grenada cards. They both obviously share the DeviceID but "Grenada" cards have their revision number bumped to 8h (instead of 0h on Hawaii). The revision number is configured by the fuse configuration during manufacturing and cannot be altered by the bios on retail cards.

 

If you are testing differences between "Hawaii" and "Grenada" bioses, note that "Grenada" bioses have higher clocks thru the different performance states than "Hawaii" bioses. This means that if at some point the card reaches it´s power limit and starts to shuffle through the different performance states, the "Grenada" cards might appear to be faster than "Hawaii" simply because of the higher clocks. If you are testing the differences between the two bioses, make sure you have the power limit set to the maximum setting (+50%) on both of them.

 

ps. Internally "Grenada" has been called as "Hawaii Refresh"."

 

The card is made by 28nm process, which is already with us for many years. It is the second largest core in history, core of AMD cards. Of the specifics of the support card is technologically interesting Eyefinity, True Audio, DX12, Mantle, UVD, VCE acceleration, PCIe Crossfire through the line. Additional technical information on the specifications are at the end of this post.

 

Description of Strix R9-390X

The card arrived in a handsome box with an owl theme, suggesting features Strix edition (owl is a quiet, well-sees, hears and has a strong attack - equivalence for the perfect graphics card). Box informs about 0 db noise and a unique collected Asus Awards

 

Rear side is devoted to the main points already Strix edition DCIII in detail, describes plates graphics cards, new fan blades, auto-extreme manufacturing technology and control, material components, software GPU Tweak II which contains XSplit streaming free and outputs on the graphics card. And specifications.

If you are interested in what is DirectCUIII Super Alloy Power or Auto Extreme technology, direct you to a recent video article in London:

 

Out of the box the first pull another one, which is incorporated in the outer carton. 

 

When you open the contents of the first part, looks at us padding and left the smaller cardboard box with remote control, power reduction, and small manual + sticker Strix.

 

The card itself is deposited on a layer below the box with driver.

 

And now it's time to look at the design and the exterior of the card Radeon.

 

 

Desing card is in my opinion hilarious, from the outputs of the cover slightly expands and oblique edges recede into the plane. Red and black somehow follows the Direct CU version, which keeps the color scheme for many years. But there is little to see the effect of the Matrix series, where certain design elements Matrix cards I see, too. The card has total length of 30 cm and a width of 13.7 cm and a height of up to 4 centimeters (in PC takes up two slots). Newly interesting trio of fans, each of which has diameter 87 mm (90mm hole spacing).

Another look: https://flic.kr/p/wgJGiQ

 

Backplate protects the underside of the card. It is 1 mm thick and metal material. Used primarily as reinforcement, high-end cards are in fact a robust and eventually could curved in the PC, attach them using several screws and spacers (we will discuss later on the card naked) ..

 

Cooling system consists set of core heatpipes with direct contact to the graphics core. In addition heatpipes have direct contact with each part before it branches. The most powerful of them have up to 10 mm thickness, which combined two strong and two thinner heatpipes enough for good heat dissipation away from the core. The photo is also visible pwm connector for the fans, fans coupler or SK Hynix memory chips.

 

In this photo it is seen that the VRM is cooled separate deficit. To itself the power circuit we will look after as well.

 

The second side of the card from the outside does not offer anything special. It is worth noting logo Strix which should pulsate according to the load.

 

It surprised me positively power conectors. I waited two 8 pins, but instead there is one 8 and one 6.

 

The front side we see ribbing liabilities that receives and radiates heat through fans away.

 

A rear side offers itself outputs graphics card. We can use the DVI-D, 1x HDMI and 3x DisplayPort 1.2

 

Finally, the specification of this model:

 

Core GPU: Grenada

Nr of tranzistors: 6.2 miliónů

Die size: 438mm čtverečných

Bus: PCIe 3.0

Nr of ROPs: 65

nr of Stream processors: 2816

bus widht: 512-bit

bandwidth: 384 GB/s

 

Open GL: 4.4

DirectX support: DX12

support of Open CL: 2.0

support of shader: 5.0

 

TDP: 275W

core clock: 1070 MHz (v OC profilu 1090 MHz)

memory frequency (effective): 6000 MHz

memory size: 8 GB GDDR5

[FlanK3r]

testing platform is coming . CPU is in my hands, motherboard also, so why no test it with new Intel platform? X99 could be more powerfull, but this is more "hotnews" :-)

 

 

 

[FlanK3r]

Software
OK, after some time we finally improve conditions for testing the taste and software. Asus made a slight upgrade and raised the second generation of GPU Tweak II. That again is a visual resemblance with the MSI Afterburner, moreover, both software already are one-design were very similar. I was use older version of software long time, but after a moment of practice, I have also become accustomed to the new version.


-Software in basic display shows the monitoring on the left and on the right part, then the main screen informs about the use of value graphics memory, clocks and temperatures. The screen was still taken as heat waves in Czech republic, now are idle temperatures  6-7 degrees lower.


-At top is knit with bar where you can choose between profiles. Silent, default Gaming and  OC mode. In OC mode is the GPU clock nicely 1090 MHz, memory effective clock plus 20 MHz
-you can customize personaly profile


-and there is it, push more juice to the card and more frequency, PL etc . If you need more, there exists some special unlocked BIOSes


-settings of control in GPU Tweak II


-macro keys for GPU Tweak II functions and update settings



-owl button for on/off Strix mode, so passive fans running up to 65 C. It will come in handy for example when we doing extreme overclock when we want to make the fans span constantly.


-here we can tweak the user fan control cards and have their own profile according to convenience


-info about GPU in GPU Tweak II




What is called Gaming Booster? Generally, it is changing the profile of Windows, turn off the 3D effects in them, and shut down some background processes. Good thing, because it can either leave or change between auto and manual tuning. It is useful especially in games or 3D-specific benchmarks for the best score results. And it really works

-classic run of 3D Mark11 without Booster

 

There is with Game Booster:


-vidíme, že  s Boosterem se skóre nemálo navýšilo!

You can get XSplit for one year free, not bad afterall


And next time we will tetsing at stok clocks, few benchmarks and some game tests (GTA V, Crysis 2/3, Sniper Elite, AVP)

[FlanK3r]

CPU is at RMA!  :wacko:

So I can wait around one week or change the testing platform.

[FlanK3r]

Now the results of the card with stock settings, first PC rig

Intel core i7-6700K 4GHz, cooled by Gelid Tranquillo

2x 4 GB RAM Corsair Vengeance Performance XMP 3200 MHz

Asus Maximus VIII Hero

Asus Radeon Strix R9-390X DCIII OC

zdroj Corsair AX 1200

SSD HyperX 120 GB

HDD Seagate 3TB

 

software:

Windows 10 Home Edition 64-bit

AMD Catalyst driver 15.8 beta

 

Info CPUZ and GPUZ

 

In terms of quality, it looks like a good compromise that could be good both in the air and on the extreme (although according to the general evaluation ASIC is the rather less suitable for LN2, but the reality may be different). 78.8% is in theory such a light above average.

 

 

Benchmarks and games:

3D Mark11 Performance

3D Mark11 Extreme

3D Mark Sky Diver

3D Mark Fire Strike

3D Mark Fire Strike Extreme

Catzilla 720P

Catzilla 1080P

Catzilla 1440P

Unigine Valley - preset

Unigine Valley Extreme HD

Resident Evil 6 (max settings at FHD)

Heavensword:Final Fantasy XIV (max DX11)

AVP test (max DX11 FHD)

Sleeping Dogs

Tomb Raider

GTA V

Sniper Elite 2

Total war Shogun 2

 

I'm not pure game player and therefore my game selection is limited to what I have in my house.As the measurements I used the integrated test or Fraps log. For a rough outline that will suffice goal is to show the general performance of the card and overlcocking, which is much closer to me than the analysis of individual gaming sites and FCAT frames (although in practice they are essential for players)

 

3D Mark11 - tests performance and Extreme

 

3D Mark Sky Diver, Firestrike, Firestrike Extreme

 

Unigine Valley and Extreme HD

 

 

Catzilla 720P, 1080P and 1440P

 

Heavensword FF XIV benchmark

-settings of the game test

 

Who would want a clearer display settings, including the results of this test, utilizes a preview of the image, and beneath it is already resulting point score:

 

Resident Evil 6 - settings and result bellow

 

Sniper Elite 2 - settings and result

 

Tomb Raider - settings and result

 

Alien vs Predator -settings+result

 

 

Sleeping Dogs - settings+result

 

GTAV - part of the flyby fighter and ride in the city

 

Total War Shogun 2, two settings and results, one custom settings from screenshots and second results is at Extreme DX11

 

extreme DX11 result:

 

Later, I will summarize the results in a clearer table with OC results for each tests. Now it remains available on temperature. The temperature in the room were around 22 C. Temperatures in idle were 38 C at the card. Fans at graphics card I have left on automatic and must say that the behavior and the load was very quiet. Indeed, at the fan speed to search for yourself. The same temperatures. It is seen that higher ASIC is a little warmer, but the temperature at a given noise good card has provision for overclock (but it needs a good PSU which is AX1200). Temperatures in the load ranged up to 84 C at peak times, or about 80 C most time. The acoustic speech card was bee-friendly. At rest, avoid turning the fan and the card to work in passive mode. On such a monster like the core of Fiji and its later derivative is commendable. If the card was running at a lighter load in the 3D mode, it was clear to hear the gentle whistling coils, but when the card switched to higher load capacity utilization, sound speech spools ceased, and there was only a slight murmur of fans.

 

The power consumption of all PC (without LCD) was 76-78W in idle and 206W in CPU test, and 392W in combined test.

 

Next time we will look at the tooth of overlcocking card. Look also at the PCB itself, and then replace the original paste for Gelida Extreme = lower  temperatures and compare your before and after . Finally, I will summarize the results in the table.

[ConnorDahne]

Awesome review man, really enjoyed it.
Great detail keep it up!
Do you mind me asking what test bench you're using?? The frame itself lol

 

 

snip snip potato chip

 

[FlanK3r]

Thnak you :-)

 

Do you think benchtable?

 

Its this one:

 

http://www.liquidtech.cz/benchtable

[lovingGamer]

Can I marry it?

she is mine! 

[FlanK3r]

Overclocking with default voltage

 

Finally, we have the first results of the OC. The first task was to achieve such a daily routine overclocking, with the default voltage and tolerable noise and power consumption. I have to stress, therefore, not touch and were only two things. The first is increase of power limit up to maximum (for sure), and then scroll to set the right clock for the GPU core and memory clocks. And I also wanted to let fans still patches of about 50%. If we let the automatics, sometimes causing the artifacts in the load.

I would say that this is a slightly above average piece 390x cards. I managed to get the core to 1150 MHz (1160 MHz on some tests have been artifacts) and the memory at 6600 MHz effective.

 

How is this reflected in the performance? I'll start again with synthetic tests and gradually moving on to a few games. Up completely at the end of the entire testing will bring comprehensive and transparent measurement table. All settings are identical, as I said in the previous "chapter", where they can be viewed.

 

3D Marks

 

Unigine Valley Extreme HD

 

 

Catzilla tests (720P, 1080P a 1440P)

 

Resident Evil 6

 

Final Fantasy XIV HeavenSword

 

AVP

 

Sniper Elite 2

 

Tomb Raider

 

GTA V (the bridget, airfighter and the city ride)

 

Sleeping Dogs

 

Total War Shogun (custom settings+DX11 preset)

 

Performance of the card obviously increased, but it has risen slightly and noise, yet it is acceptable to my ears (eg. fan on the my CPU FX-9590 got noisier). Thanks to the high speed fans, or perhaps of baking paste dramatically changed the temperature of the card. They now load reached only about 68 C! Consumption was also unchanged voltage changed much.

 

The next step will be to increase voltages for maximum of GPU (I estimate about 1200-1250 MHz core and 6800-7000 MHz effective memory). And then we look at actual exchange paste and a new temperature and drops.

[FlanK3r]

OC2 mode is fighting against VRM temps. Seems max  will be around 1188 MHz core / 6752 Mhz effective memory. Will see today later...

[Zackfoo]

from what i see from various benchmark and reviews, dc3 tends to have the highest temperature quite noisy and also a little bit on the expensive side compare to the rest of the card. and higher current consumption. God bless you to have a better card than what i had.

[FlanK3r]

Noisy? Really not. The current depends at leakage of the GPU core. VRM design is very good afterall, but it need better solution for cooling (example heatpipe to VRM area). Temps with auto fans are 84 C in peak (in games lower around 77 C or so), but if you set  fan control around 40%, its still quiet and temps go down up to 68 C in maximum. Not bad I think

[Zackfoo]

Noisy? Really not. The current depends at leakage of the GPU core. VRM design is very good afterall, but it need better solution for cooling (example heatpipe to VRM area). Temps with auto fans are 84 C in peak (in games lower around 77 C or so), but if you set  fan control around 40%, its still quiet and temps go down up to 68 C in maximum. Not bad I think

www.computerbase.dce/2015-10/neun-radeon-r9-390-x-partnerkarten-test/

 

this is what the test shows. my msi is like 1 spot higher thats all. apparently powercolour and sapphire is way better. and both of that is cheaper too tho. ofc we are not taking binning into account for now as msi card generally overclocks better compare to sapphire and powercolour.