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Why does the R9 390 outperform the 290?

Luke
By Luke
in Graphics Cards
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Aside from the extra VRAM (The 390 wins even when under 4GB is being used) is the only that makes the R9 390 perform better some weird drivers that AMD decided to make only work on the R9 390?

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the R9 390 is clocked higher out of the box...that's 100% why...it's clocked slightly faster.

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3 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

the R9 390 is clocked higher out of the box...that's 100% why...it's clocked slightly faster.

It also has faster VRAM. I think one is 5GHz and the other 6GHz.

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3 minutes ago, Luke said:

Aside from the extra VRAM (The 390 wins even when under 4GB is being used) is the only that makes the R9 390 perform better some weird drivers that AMD decided to make only work on the R9 390?

 

It is clocked higher, and has faster memory. You can get the 290 to perform nearly the same with the same clock speeds and some bios editing. And performance improvement the 390 has, the 290 has it as well.  

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3 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

It also has faster VRAM. I think one is 5GHz and the other 6GHz.

yeah i forgot about that...

also i think they slightly tweaked the power delivery to be a bit more efficient as well isn't it? i think they run a tiny bit cooler than the older 290.

Basicaly they got better at producing the chips and were able to re-tweak them slightly to get a bit more mileage out of them.

| CPU: Core i7-8700K @ 4.89ghz - 1.21v  |  Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING  |  CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i V2 |
| GPU: MSI RTX 3080Ti Ventus 3X OC  |  RAM: 32GB T-Force Delta RGB 3066mhz |
| Displays: Acer Predator XB270HU 1440p Gsync 144hz IPS Gaming monitor | Oculus Quest 2 VR

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3 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

the R9 390 is clocked higher out of the box...that's 100% why...it's clocked slightly faster.

Oooh derp. It all makes sense now. I have a MSI 290X Gaming so i guess that performance difference kind of goes out the window considering there's only a 10Mhz difference between the MSI 290X and MSI 390. Thanks for the info m8.

Intel i7 3770K [] Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 [] MSI R9 290X 4GB [] 16GB  G.SKILL 2133Mhz [] Crucial MX100 256GB [] WD Black 1TB [] XFX Pro 850W [] Fractal Define R3 [] Func MS-3 R2 [] Corsair K60 [] 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

It also has faster VRAM. I think one is 5GHz and the other 6GHz.

Yep you're totally right. Thanks.

Intel i7 3770K [] Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 [] MSI R9 290X 4GB [] 16GB  G.SKILL 2133Mhz [] Crucial MX100 256GB [] WD Black 1TB [] XFX Pro 850W [] Fractal Define R3 [] Func MS-3 R2 [] Corsair K60 [] 

 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Luke said:

Oooh derp. It all makes sense now. I have a MSI 290X Gaming so i guess that performance difference kind of goes out the window considering there's only a 10Mhz difference between the MSI 290X and MSI 390. Thanks for the info m8.

oh no...your 290X is faster than the 390...especially if you tweak it a bit and overclock it a bit...your card is as good as a 390X if you overclock it.

the R9 390 has some portion of the die disabled...the 290X and 390X are fully enabled they have all the stream processors and ROPs active.

| CPU: Core i7-8700K @ 4.89ghz - 1.21v  |  Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING  |  CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i V2 |
| GPU: MSI RTX 3080Ti Ventus 3X OC  |  RAM: 32GB T-Force Delta RGB 3066mhz |
| Displays: Acer Predator XB270HU 1440p Gsync 144hz IPS Gaming monitor | Oculus Quest 2 VR

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Dont listen to them man! the 390 outperforms the 290 just because the 2 is replaced with a 3!

When life gives you drugs you sell them for a living.

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Better memory/core speed, memory controller, and memory timing.

 

Aside from memory controller, you can tweak your 290x to match or outperform the 390/x memory speed and timing via vBIOS.

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