Devil 13 vs. Dual 390X

[ThatsMyGamer]

So I've been looking at two particular GPU setups:

Dual ASUS Strix 390X's 

OR

the PowerColor Devil 13 390X2

 

I plan to pick one off of eBay if the latter is better as Newegg doesn't sell them anymore. Please help!

[Aytex]

Powercolor devil

[Kobathor]

Whatever you do

don't get the STRIX 390x's. Okay?

If you want red, get the MSI ones. If you don't mind color, the Powercolor PCS+ and Sapphire coolers are good, too.

 

The Powercolor Devil 13 is a beast. Crazy power on a single PCB. It will take up less space in your case, and will most likely cost less.

On the other hand, two 390x's will perform better. They will also use more power and take up way more space in your case. Lastly, they will be more expensive.

 

I would get the Devil 13.

[afyeung]

Both are bad. The Strix 390x's are extremely hot and the Power Color Devil will be a bit hotter and louder and have issues if crossfire is support because the 2 chips are on the same pcb so flickering no matter what. 

[ThatsMyGamer]

1 minute ago, Kobathor said:

Whatever you do

don't get the STRIX 390x's. Okay?

If you want red, get the MSI ones. If you don't mind color, the Powercolor PCS+ and Sapphire coolers are good, too.

 

The Powercolor Devil 13 is a beast. Crazy power on a single PCB. It will take up less space in your case, and will most likely cost less.

On the other hand, two 390x's will perform better. They will also use more power and take up way more space in your case. Lastly, they will be more expensive.

 

I would get the Devil 13.

The consensus seems to be for the Devil 13. But what's wrong with the STRIX's? They come OC'd from the factory and have a backplate for extra rigidity and water cooling.

[afyeung]

2 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

 

Less space but it will be extremely hot and noisy. Fine if you just want the most power for your buck, but really not pleasant in an enthusiast PC and cards are supposed to get cooler and more power efficient. 

[afyeung]

1 minute ago, ThatsMyGamer said:

The consensus seems to be for the Devil 13. But what's wrong with the STRIX's? They come OC'd from the factory and have a backplate for extra rigidity and water cooling.

The core cooling sucks and literally no vrm cooling. If you want near 90c core temps and 90c+ VRM temps at stock go ahead. But I think most people wouldn't like that. 

[ThatsMyGamer]

Just now, afyeung said:

Less space but it will be extremely hot and noisy. Fine if you just want the most power for your buck, but really not pleasant in an enthusiast PC and cards are supposed to get cooler and more power efficient. 

This card can be compared to Titan X's, 980 ti's, and Titan Black's but it will still win. I'm not worried about power consumption. Secondly, this card can only be used in ATX cases, which traditionally have better airflow and cooling in general.

[Kobathor]

6 minutes ago, ThatsMyGamer said:

The consensus seems to be for the Devil 13. But what's wrong with the STRIX's? They come OC'd from the factory and have a backplate for extra rigidity and water cooling.

The cooler sucks. I think they used a STRIX cooler designed for the GTX 770, a card which produces much less heat than the 390x. A PCworld review of the STRIX 390x has it at 88C as a max temp at stock voltages and clocks. That's pathetic. Get a Sapphire, MSI, or Powercolor one. That's almost 90C. And it wasn't quiet, either.

 

EDIT- source of temps: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2947294/components-graphics/asus-strix-radeon-r9-390x-review-keeping-up-with-the-high-performing-joneses.html?page=2

 

Here, too: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_390x_strix_8g_review,9.html

[afyeung]

Just now, ThatsMyGamer said:

This card can be compared to Titan X's, 980 ti's, and Titan Black's but it will still win. I'm not worried about power consumption. Secondly, this card can only be used in ATX cases, which traditionally have better airflow and cooling in general.

Of course it will perform significantly better than the Titan X and 980ti. And Titan Black not even a question since that card performs worse than a single 390 now. I'm warning you as an owner of 2 390x's that these cards are hard to keep cool. And you can check the reviews as well. 

[afyeung]

1 minute ago, ThatsMyGamer said:

This card can be compared to Titan X's, 980 ti's, and Titan Black's but it will still win. I'm not worried about power consumption. Secondly, this card can only be used in ATX cases, which traditionally have better airflow and cooling in general.

You could probably find 290s/290x's for a bit cheaper but enough to afford something like the Kraken G10 +H55 which will keep temps nice and frosty

[ThatsMyGamer]

Just now, afyeung said:

Of course it will perform significantly better than the Titan X and 980ti. And Titan Black not even a question since that card performs worse than a single 390 now. I'm warning you as an owner of 2 390x's that these cards are hard to keep cool. And you can check the reviews as well. 

Cool. Where can I get a water block for those things, as I can't seem to find one? I think the Sapphire Tri-X has one but I'm concerned about the reliability of Sapphire's cards as a whole.

[afyeung]

2 minutes ago, ThatsMyGamer said:

Cool. Where can I get a water block for those things, as I can't seem to find one? I think the Sapphire Tri-X has one but I'm concerned about the reliability of Sapphire's cards as a whole.

Um, Sapphire probably makes the best AMD cards. Their warranty sucks, but their craftsmanship is excellent. The vapor x 290 is probably the best designed AMD pcb ever. You don't need a waterblock, the Kraken G10 allows you to attach an AIO cooler. Either that or 2 Vapor X 290s would be excellent. Tri X might be a bit hot.

[TheRandomness]

4 minutes ago, ThatsMyGamer said:

Cool. Where can I get a water block for those things, as I can't seem to find one? I think the Sapphire Tri-X has one but I'm concerned about the reliability of Sapphire's cards as a whole.

Sapphire cards are the best. This is coming from a 7970 and 290 owner, both are Sapphire. They also tend to be the coolest and sometimes the quietest. 

[DXMember]

Asus is not taking their time to design coolers for Radeon cards, they pretty much take the coolers designed for nVidia cards and slap them on Radeon cards without much regard to the fact that the die is positioned differently and is also bigger

with that said the Strix cooler itself is not particularly great

XFX, Sapphire, MSI, Powercolor, Gigabyte - get any of those

[Mr.Meerkat]

40 minutes ago, afyeung said:

Of course it will perform significantly better than the Titan X and 980ti. And Titan Black not even a question since that card performs worse than a single 390 now. I'm warning you as an owner of 2 390x's that these cards are hard to keep cool. And you can check the reviews as well. 

And I have 2 290x's, no problems keeping em cool...although one is running on a h75 and another on a 3 slot (more like 3 and a half...) cooler so...they don't go over 60c underload and is much quieter compared to my motherboard 2 fans...(the sabertooth fans are loud when the CPU is underload...), also when they were both running with reference coolers, the temps weren't going past 85c with furmark so...those asus strix must be terrible if they cool worse than a reference AMD cooler...