**AMD's 390X: A Powerhouse of Performance**
The AMD 390X is a powerful graphics card that has been put to the test in various benchmarks and tests. One of the first things that stood out about this card was its performance at 1080, 1440, and 4K resolutions. In a surprise twist, it outperformed its predecessor, the 290X, albeit by a relatively smaller margin.
**Unpacking the Performance Potential**
When it comes to overclocking, the 390X showed promise, with some impressive results. By boosting the core clock speed to 1125 MHz, the card was able to maintain stable performance without any issues. This is similar to the performance of the 290X, suggesting that AMD has made significant strides in optimizing its GPUs. However, there were limitations to the overclocking potential, as the G CPU was not taken beyond a certain point.
**The Importance of Cooling**
One of the most critical aspects of the 390X's design is its cooling system. The card's cooler is effective at keeping temperatures below 69°C, even with heavy use and high clock speeds. However, this comes at the cost of noticeable fan noise. Fortunately, a custom fan curve in MSI After Burner allowed for a silent gaming experience at 60% fan speed, raising the GPU temperature slightly to a still comfortable 76°C.
**Benchmarks and Comparisons**
The performance of the 390X was put to the test against other high-end graphics cards, including the NVIDIA GTX 980. While there wasn't a 980 on hand for testing, the numbers suggest that these two cards would be trading blows in most modern games. This is significant, as the 390X retails for $429 at launch, which is about $70 cheaper than the GTX 980.
**The Reality of 4K Gaming**
Despite the impressive performance of the 390X, it fell short of its promise of 4K gaming smoothness. Even with anti-aliasing disabled, the frame rates were not consistently high enough to satisfy enthusiasts who spend upwards of $400 on a graphics card. However, the 390X still excelled in Quad HD gaming, hitting 60 FPS in most tests.
**The Aesthetics and Build Quality**
Power Color's rendition of the 390X is one of the most solidly built cards I've seen. The card's design is sturdy, with a large cement-like block that can be mistaken for an actual brick. While it may not be the prettiest card on the market, its structural integrity makes it a joy to work with. The cooler itself does its job well and quietly, but may require some fan tuning to achieve optimal performance.
**Conclusion**
The AMD 390X is a powerful graphics card that delivers impressive performance in various tests and benchmarks. Its overclocking potential is significant, and its cooling system is effective at keeping temperatures under control. While it falls short of its promise of smooth 4K gaming, it still excels in Quad HD gaming. With a retail price of $429, the 390X is an attractive option for those looking to upgrade their graphics card without breaking the bank.
**Sponsored Content**
If you're feeling uninspired by the monotony of online distractions, you might find what you need at Linda.com. This online learning platform offers tutorials and courses on a variety of topics, including video editing and 3D printing. The expert instructors are industry professionals who have honed their skills in these areas. Learning something new is empowering, and with Linda.com, you can unlock your full potential.
**Affiliate Marketing**
If you're interested in purchasing merchandise from this article, such as a t-shirt like the one shown below, I've included an affiliate link for you to use. This helps support my content creation efforts and allows me to continue producing high-quality articles for you. Thank you for considering it, and don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell I'm glad you had a good business trip honey it sounds like it went really well yeah I'm glad to be home is that a computer case yeah it's the definest from fractal design they run so quietly I figured I'd put it there as a reminder that in this crazy hectic World silence really is golden is that the same computer case yeah the Define s supports triple radiators water cooling pumps and reservoirs so I figured I'd put one there just to remind myself to be flexible in life really in the bathroom why well yeah I figured the toilet hasn't been working lately and the definest has such a spacious interior that I just thought oh my God the Define s from fractal design is built for uncompromised custom water cooling please use responsibly click the link in the description for more info what's up guys today I'm going to be reviewing a brand spanking new video card from amd's 300 series that just launched earlier this week this is the powercolor R9 390x successor to amd's former Flagship the R9 290x by now you're probably aware that the 300 series consists of all rebranded gpus use that we've seen in previous generations and while many of us may be reserving more excitement for amds very soon to be released Fury cards with their fancy new Fiji chips and hbm Technology there may still be some rationale for picking up a 300 series card for starters R9 300 card owners will benefit from Full direct X12 support and amd's newest Technologies like virtual super resolution liquid VR and of course free sync AMD is also claiming the R9 390 and 390x to be equipped for 4K gaming a bold statement that we'll verify with some benchmarks later on taking a closer look at our 390x the card uses an enhanced version of the Hawaii XT GP found on the 290x so yes we do get the same 28 nanm gcn 1.1 architecture and the same number of 2,816 stream processing units though a big memory clock boost over the 290x is a nice surprise jumping from 5 to 6 gbits per second a 20% increase that yields an impressive memory bandwidth of 384 GB per second that should serve nicely with the 8 gigs of gddr5 on the 512-bit bus the new Baseline frame buffer for the 390 and 390x whereas the 290x came stock with four gigs of memory using two 2 gig chips AMD has stepped up their game to using two 4 gig chips which not only grants the obvious benefit of more capacity but higher clock speeds at lower voltages don't expect any power savings though as the card still carries a hefty 275 watt TDP in true AMD fashion core clock Fox speed also gets a boost over the 290x but a minor one at that at 5% bumping it up to 1,50 MHz power color has given their 390x a slight Factory overclock to 1,60 MHz speaking of which I'm supposed to be reviewing this card so now that you're a bit more familiar with some of the more notable changes surrounding the 300 series there is still much to say about powercolor take on amd's shortlived Flagship this card is sporting a beefy 11 1/2 in cooler that incorporates a traditional dual slot design but don't be fooled with a large width of 2 in this particular 390x occupies the space of a three slot card effectively blocking the slot two spaces beneath it fortunately most ATX boards have their highest speed PCI slots more than two spaces apart but this is something to bear in mind if you plan on having several PCI connected cards as cumbersome as it may be this is an absolutely gorgeous cooler Loosely inclosed by a textured steel frame with striking silver plastic accents power color has done a bang-up job with the build quality here as everything from the Shroud to the 380 mm fans feel topnotch as we're starting to see on more and more video cards these days the fans here keep at zero RPM when idling only spinning up when the GPU temp rises above 60° c a simple yet effective feature for power saving and dead silent operation with low impact usage beneath the blades is a monstrous nickel-plated aluminum heat sink that spans the entire length of the PCB and then some also included is an all copper GPU block for effective of heat dissipation along with 3 6mm heat pipes and 1 8 mm pipe on the front side we get some powercolor branding that's just the right amount of shiny and power ports for 1 eight pin and one six pin pcie connector flipping around to the back we see Power color has mounted a beautiful metallic back plate to the PCB for added rigidity and straight up sex appeal tasteful ventilation cutouts and an attractive brushed finish make this another perfect example of the card's outstanding craftsmanship finally on the back we get two dual in DVI HDMI 2.0 and display port 1.2 video outputs as I hinted earlier I did run some benchmarks on this card at 1080 1440 and most importantly 4K to see if amd's claims of 4K ready gaming are actually true unlocking the card's potential I was quickly able to boost the core clock speed to 1125 MHz with no problems meaning you get about the same relative overclocking potential as the 290x even leaving the memory clock speed at stock I couldn't take the G CPU any further which might indicate that we're now reaching near 100% of the Hawaii xt's full potential throughout my testing the card's cooler to Define job at keeping temps below 69° C though at the cost of noticeable fan noise in my Define R5 naturally wearing a pair of cans or even running the game audio through a pair of speakers at low volume drowns out the sound entirely still by creating a custom fan curve in MSI After Burner I was able to create a silent gaming experience at 60% fan speed which raised the GPU temp slightly to a still comfortable 76° C and in case you were wondering all tests were run in my x99 5820k system on Windows 8.1 all right tearing through this video I love it on that note ladies and gentlemen without further Ado here are the benchmarks so class what did we learn well if you're familiar with the performance of the 290x you can see that this card does in fact outperform it albeit by a relatively smaller margin still beating out its predecessor puts the 390x in the ring with nvidia's GTX 980 and though I don't have a 980 on hand to test myself the numbers I've seen in the past lead me to believe that these two cards would be trading blows in the majority of today's games the reason this matters is because the r9390x is retailing for 429 USD at the time of its launch or about 70 bucks cheaper than the gtx980 I suppose my point in all of this is that regardless of how ordinary or uninspiring these r93 100 series cards may be they're still on par with their team green counterparts but at a far lower price point which perhaps is exactly the angle AMD intended to play now circling back to the prospect of 4K gaming well we didn't exactly live up to that one did we I mean even though I ran all my tests with anti-aliasing it's unlikely that the frame rates gained from disabling that filter would satisfy the common Enthusiast gamer who spends $400 Plus on a graphics card 4K ready gpus still have a long way to go until they can consist instantly hit those smooth frame rates we're used to at lower resolutions now that being said the 390x is a great option for Quad HD gaming as we saw it hit 60 FPS in most of today's tests as for the card in question I'm really impressed by power colors rendition of the 390x this is easily one of the most solidly built cards I've seen and while it's easily confused with a large cement brick it's a pretty brick and I'd happily build my next house with a thousand of them if I could after all it'd be a shame not to utilize the structural Integrity of that backlick the cooler itself does its job well and does so quietly if you're willing to do some quick fan tuning overall this is a beautifully crafted card that'll make most Gamers happy assuming you have the room for it but let me know what you guys think of this card and the 300 series and all that jazz in the comments below and don't forget to toss me a like on this video If you enjoyed it before I go I want to thank today's sponsor linda.com are you bored have you grown tired of all the Mindless distractions on the internet don't answer that let's just assume for the purpose of this advertisement that you are all of those things linda.com has a metric fudg ton of online tutorials to keep your brain stimulated every online cour is led by industry professionals who are trained experts in video editing 3D printing and when to tell stories yes there's a video on when to tell stories how awesome is that cuz knowledge is power if you're interested in obtaining more knowledge so you can then acquire more power and eventually take over the world with an army of yan cats cruise over to linda.com awom sauce for a 10day free trial and learn something new today also feel free to check the description below if you want to buy shirts like this one or bookmark my Amazon affiliate link and use it every time you buy stuff it helps me out tremendously I'm K awesome sa Network thank you guys for watching subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and I'll see you guys in the next video\n"
