R9 390. Good decision? or Best Decision?

[Tomasu]

Ha Ha. Colbert/Phil Ken Sebben....

 

TL;DR below.

 

Seriously though, I bought (slash impulse bought) a MSI R9 390 from newegg.ca a couple days ago during their boxing day sale for $422cad/$305usd ($480cad/$347usd reg) cad before taxes and MIR (they cancel each other out mostly, if I end up sending for the MIR. I hate MIRs so I never take them into account when making purchasing decisions).

 

I hear the 390 is getting pretty good reviews from all around the interwebs lately, MUCH better than when it was released, even on these forums . I was originally considering a $250-300 budget, which would have left me with a 380/380x I believe, and while the performance wasn't all that bad, It reminded me of the decision I made when I bought my last GPU, a 6850 for about $250. It has NOT aged well.

 

A friend gifted me a Fallout 4 key for Christmas (nice friend eh?), and I attempted to run it on two of my machines, with 4 different "GPU"s.

 

First, for the LOLs, on my laptop's integrated ivy-bridge HD4000. I did not expect much, and I did not receive much. Then, I tried it on the "discrete" Quadro K2000M in the same laptop. I expected a bit more and did not receive much more. Slightly surprising but not really.

 

Second, I tried my desktop with the GT640 I won at a LAN party a couple years ago. I expected more than I got quite frankly. I think I couldn't get it to do much more than 20-30fps on low settings.

 

Last, but not least, I tried my ancient Radeon HD 6850 that I bought an age or three ago. I actually got more out of it than I expected. I think I can get about 30-50fps on low/med with a 1080p resolution. Sure, it's not as pretty as it can be, but it didn't lag out due to the low frame rates the other gpus got. lol. The only reason I really ran the 640 is because the 6850 is so god damned loud when doing multi monitor. It's horrendous. Can't stand it, so I ran with a free GT640 that's like 60-70% of the performance rather than deal with the noise.

 

I'm not a super heavy gamer, though I do now have a triple 1080p setup that I'd at least like to pretend makes sense when gaming I am however a developer, and will be working on a game in the future and I imagine the power and extra VRAM will help over the 6850 (and the other much more inferior cards in my collection). I intend to do some live streaming and video editing for the various things I'm working on as well.

 

I think many people would claim the 390 is totally over kill for my uses (I have a hard time justifying it to myself even!), but I fully expect to be using this card a few years down the road given how long I had the 6850, and the 880GTS 320M I had before that (and the... god I don't remember if I had anything between the [Riva TNT2/ATI AIW Pro] and the 8800GTS. I can't remember at all what GPU I used during my Athlon/Athlon XP days)

 

Basically I'm trying to get people to tell me what I want to hear, and that it isn't a huge waste of money hahaha. It's funny because it's mostly true. 

 

As an aside, the card will live in a fraken box I've cobbled together over the years with random upgrades of every part every other year. It's got a Asus M5A99x EVO v1, a AMD FX 8320 (stock at the moment, but had it up to 4.7ghz or something insane, I'm not great at OCing though and usually don't bother), 32GB DDR3 @ 1333/1600mhz, a couple 240G SSDs, one for linux (linux user for over 10 years now), the other for windows 10 (fresh install ). I hope there isn't any real bottlenecking because of my CPU, theoretically it's "Fast enough" for many games, including fallout 4.

 

TL;DR: Bought a R9 390 to play Fallout 4, some other games on 1-3 1080p 60-75fps monitors, do DX12/Vulkan/GL4.4+ game dev, streaming, video editing, video rendering etc. And hope It'll last me a few years.

 

So what do you all think? Stupid? Overkill? Smart? Why? I want your honest opinions, even if it isn't what I want to hear

[monjanger]

[Clear17Mud]

I got a saphire tri-x r9 290(non-x) with a broken fan for $160, so got slightly less performance for half the money... Oh wait, Good purchase its what everyone recommends, and Its 100% not been mined on... I am waiting for next gen, but to each there own...

[Clear17Mud]

I gave up about half way through, but then persivered through skimming...

[Tomasu]

I gave up about half way through, but then persivered through skimming...

This is why the TL;DR

 

Normally I don't type so much. dunno why I felt like venting.

[Tomasu]

I first looked at buying used from kijiji (its like craigs list), but I really didn't feel like taking the risk. They are almost certainly heavily OCed, and/or been mined on.

[Clear17Mud]

I first looked at buying used from kijiji (its like craigs list), but I really didn't feel like taking the risk. They are almost certainly heavily OCed, and/or been mined on.

yeah I know mine was mined on, but for $160 it should hold me till hbm2... and or a fury x2 which will release around the same time, but hopefully it will have 16gb total vram.

[TheRandomness]

The 390 isn't a huge waste of money and it's a great card for the price

yeah I know mine was mined on, but for $160 it should hold me till hbm2... and or a fury x2 which will release around the same time, but hopefully it will have 16gb total vram.

Fury X2 won't have 16GB VRAM, it'll have 4GB because A:VRAM doesn't stack in crossfire and B: HBM2 doesn't really exist yet in a way to implement it now. The Fury X2 should be released in the coming months.

[crystal6tak]

I'm driving a 1080P 60Hz screen with a 980 Ti and don't plan on changing the screen anytime soon 

 

I'm hoping it'll last me a good 5 years. Hoping at the very least, to max out any game and get solid 60 FPS 1080P for the next 2 years.

 

tbh, 390 isn't overkill today. It's what I consider the best balance between performance needed and cost right now.

[Tomasu]

yeah I know mine was mined on, but for $160 it should hold me till hbm2... and or a fury x2 which will release around the same time, but hopefully it will have 16gb total vram.

I used to try to bargain as much as possible, but over the years, I've come to realize cheap is always bad. I'm getting older (not OLD, but older) and don't have the time to deal with crap, like a used card borking on me and having to chuck it to buy a new one. Now if I had found a REALLY good deal on a 290 or 390, I might have jumped on it, but none were particularly awesome. The 390 was like $60 off though haha.

 

 

I'm driving a 1080P 60Hz screen with a 980 Ti and don't plan on changing the screen anytime soon 

 

I'm hoping it'll last me a good 5 years. Hoping at the very least, to max out any game and get solid 60 FPS 1080P for the next 2 years.

 

tbh, 390 isn't overkill today. It's what I consider the best balance between performance needed and cost right now.

 

In the past a card at the price point of the current 390s would have been overkill for me. Almost never gamed or really needed much. That's going to change, and having decent performance will actually help that. Nothing worse than trying to get into a game and it looking bad and stuttering so bad you can't stay immersed. That said, a 980Ti is WAY overkill for me. Like wow. I don't know if I'd ever be able to justify a price like that as a personal expense. Business expense maybe.

[App4that]

And the RE BADGE award of 2015 goes to? Never going to get old :lol:

[Tomasu]

And the RE BADGE award of 2015 goes to? Never going to get old :lol:

 

Refresh hah.

[App4that]

Refresh hah.

[Tomasu]

Jayz says its a refresh

 

[App4that]

Jayz says its a refresh

 

 

*looks at name of forum, looks at OP* *tilts head*

 

Oh, you're new. Welcome to LINUS tech tips

[Tomasu]

*looks at name of forum, looks at OP* *tilts head*

 

Oh, you're new. Welcome to LINUS tech tips

Not that new

 

It's called picking nits. The 390 isn't a straight up sticker change. Whether it's enough of a performance difference between the 290 and the 390, that's for the person made of money to decide.

[App4that]

Not that new

 

It's called picking nits. The 390 isn't a straight up sticker change. Whether it's enough of a performance difference between the 290 and the 390, that's for the person made of money to decide.

Yay! That's me

 

I've owned both, kept the 290.

 

Not made of money though, just have messed up priorities.

[Tomasu]

Yay! That's me

 

I've owned both, kept the 290.

 

Not made of money though, just have messed up priorities.

 

Heh, well I'd consider me the one with messed up priorities in this case.Normally money matters a lot for me. If I really wanted to work for it, I'd have gotten a 290 or something like it. But I just said Fsck it, don't want to deal with no shiet. One expensive card later, and I won't have to deal with crap for a while hopefully. Really, it was the extra vram, and the likely higher performance with vulkan than any current nvidia gpu's are capable of that made me pick the 390. My other option was a 970.

[App4that]

Heh, well I'd consider me the one with messed up priorities in this case.Normally money matters a lot for me. If I really wanted to work for it, I'd have gotten a 290 or something like it. But I just said Fsck it, don't want to deal with no shiet. One expensive card later, and I won't have to deal with crap for a while hopefully. Really, it was the extra vram, and the likely higher performance with vulkan than any current nvidia gpu's are capable of that made me pick the 390. My other option was a 970.

The 390's a great card, just not a proper improvement over the 200 series. And duct taping 4g of VRAM that doesn't do anything on it is like shoving a sock down your pants. I mod the shit out of my games, in 1440, and don't cross 4g. And no developer is going to risk developing a game that needs over 4g of VRAM in the future as long as most GPUs have 4g of VRAM. No developer is that dumb, not even EA :lol: .

 

But, nothing is lost owning a 390. Great GPU that will play any game on the market with ease.

[Tomasu]

The 390's a great card, just not a proper improvement over the 200 series. And duct taping 4g of VRAM that doesn't do anything on it is like shoving a sock down your pants. I mod the shit out of my games, in 1440, and don't cross 4g. And no developer is going to risk developing a game that needs over 4g of VRAM in the future as long as most GPUs have 4g of VRAM. No developer is that dumb, not even EA :lol: .

 

But, nothing is lost owning a 390. Great GPU that will play any game on the market with ease.

 

Have you played that batman game? I can't even remember that it's called now. hah. I think there was another poor console port that had similar issues. They just assume they have a large 8GB shared ram buffer, and the pc ports suffer with less than that.

 

Also, the extra ram is a future proofing stop gap for me. The higher bandwidth and huge vram may make all the difference in a couple/few years.

[App4that]

Have you played that batman game? I can't even remember that it's called now. hah. I think there was another poor console port that had similar issues. They just assume they have a large 8GB shared ram buffer, and the pc ports suffer with less than that.

Many games detect the amount of VRAm you have and with this knowledge decide how much VRAM and system RAM to use. With my 390 I used on average a full 1g more of VRAM in any demanding game. Pop in the 290 and my memory usage dropped. But if anything the 290 had an advantage in both fps and smoothness. Is that because games aren't optimized for that kind of memory use? Could be. But the memory games use is set by the available GPUs on the market. If you were a developer or a publisher would you risk alienating Nvidia, the GPU manufacturer with a lions share of the market?

 

We might see driver and optimization changes in the coming months to years that helps the 390 better utilize its VRAM. But for now the 8g VRAM capacity on the 390 is all marketing, and brilliant as everyone fell for it.

[Tomasu]

Many games detect the amount of VRAm you have and with this knowledge decide how much VRAM and system RAM to use. With my 390 I used on average a full 1g more of VRAM in any demanding game. Pop in the 290 and my memory usage dropped. But if anything the 290 had an advantage in both fps and smoothness. Is that because games aren't optimized for that kind of memory use? Could be. But the memory games use is set by the available GPUs on the market. If you were a developer or a publisher would you risk alienating Nvidia, the GPU manufacturer with a lions share of the market?

 

We might see driver and optimization changes in the coming months to years that helps the 390 better utilize its VRAM. But for now the 8g VRAM capacity on the 390 is all marketing, and brilliant as everyone fell for it.

 

Well that is how it probably should work. Instead the Arkham Night port was a piss poor game that seemed to want 4-6GB vram to play less crappy.

 

I suspect your issue is just that games will scale down their texture size/detail and use more compression with lower end cards. A card with tons of ram and high bandwidth can handle more, larger, and less compressed textures with added things like shadow maps and whatnot. Though the compression is essentially free, so why you wouldn't use it, I don't have a clue. Now, managing a lot of memory and graphics resources could be an issue. Could be the drivers suck at it, or the game does.

[App4that]

Well that is how it probably should work. Instead the Arkham Night port was a piss poor game that seemed to want 4-6GB vram to play less crappy.

 

I suspect your issue is just that games will scale down their texture size/detail and use more compression with lower end cards. A card with tons of ram and high bandwidth can handle more, larger, and less compressed textures with added things like shadow maps and whatnot. Though the compression is essentially free, so why you wouldn't use it, I don't have a clue. Now, managing a lot of memory and graphics resources could be an issue. Could be the drivers suck at it, or the game does.

Driver just plain suck right now, on both sides. Hopefully that changes sooner rather than later.

[Tomasu]

Driver just plain suck right now, on both sides. Hopefully that changes sooner rather than later.

I never really had much faith in either nvidia's or amd's software departments

 

But tbh, I think a lot of blame rests on the game developers for the poor state of PC games these days. They could do better, but its still not seen as a proper "target market", so its just a second thought to them. Look at how glitchy Bethesda games are

 

Funny driver story. I recently just installed windows 10 on my desktop, and AMDs site gave me the latest drivers to download and install.. Well, they completely failed to install because the 6850 is a legacy card and needs a different crimson download. Why it did not give me that download first off, or didn't bother to attempt to detect it in the installer, instead of failing to install the driver with no error to be seen, I have no clue. After I found the right package to install, it worked fine.

[Clear17Mud]

Fury X2 won't have 16GB VRAM, it'll have 4GB because A:VRAM doesn't stack in crossfire and B: HBM2 doesn't really exist yet in a way to implement it now. The Fury X2 should be released in the coming months.

well it will have 4gb per chip which will add up to 8gb at least, but its been delayed, so I'm hoping they did that so it will have more vram. It was originally suppose to have 8gb per chip. That's were I get 16gb.