• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

My next purchase. Help please

kPATm

kPATm

kPATm

Associate
Joined
7 Apr 2009
Posts
1,827
Location
Greenock, Scotland
So Im thinking of upgrading my Asus GTX 670 2gb card to a R9 390

Im also looking at upgrading my Ram from 8gb to 16gb

I will have this in my current mobo which is an Asus IV Gene-Z

Can anyone recommend some good ram and a good R9 390. My budget is about £350. Thanks
 
The 390 is a good card and you can't really go wrong with either the GTX 970 or 390 really. I would also look to one's with decent RMA feedback and that would be MSI/Gigabyte/EVGA.

Both the 390 and the the 970 come with a free game (Civilization Beyond Earth for the 390 and Assassin's Creed Syndicate or Rainbow Six Siege for the 970).

Me personally having used MSI recently on a 290X and a 970 would happily go with those again with knowing how quiet they ran.
 
Last edited:
I've read nothing but good things about the PowerColor 390. It seems to be the quietest one if that's an issue, since the fans only get up to around ~1400RPM. Even the Vapor-X 290X that I had got up to ~2200RPM under heavy load. Helps that it's one of the cheaper models too.
 
The iceq is the same cooler they used on Hawaii and the 7970 ghz before that isn't it? It wasn't great with Hawaii from what I read and because they did not bother to update the design once they knew about the flaws like MSI did (Used a substantially thicker heatsink) I would avoid it.

Sapphire, MSI or Powercolor for Grenada, The Asus Strix DCIII seems like a decent one too, avoid the DCUII though.
 
nashathedog said:
The iceq is the same cooler they used on Hawaii and the 7970 ghz before that isn't it? It wasn't great with Hawaii from what I read and because they did not bother to update the design once they knew about the flaws like MSI did (Used a substantially thicker heatsink) I would avoid it.

Sapphire, MSI or Powercolor for Grenada, The Asus Strix DCIII seems like a decent one too, avoid the DCUII though.
Click to expand...

Looking around at reviews it's still doing a good job of keeping temps low and at decent sound levels. The Msi on the other hand was often running in to the 90's so it badly needed a redesign.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1019-radeon-r9-390x-390-380/page7.html
 
Last edited:
TheRealDeal said:
Looking around at reviews it's still doing a good job of keeping temps low and at decent sound levels. The Msi on the other hand was often running in to the 90's so it badly needed a redesign.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1019-radeon-r9-390x-390-380/page7.html
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I trusted reviews like that which said the same things about Twin Frozer IV and Hawaii, Reality was a very different kettle of fish though. It's best to check forums for world experiences where people run them in regular builds rather than test sites that use open benches or full towers systems. It may turn out to be fine but the coolers age and the price makes me wonder.
 
nashathedog said:
Unfortunately I trusted reviews like that which said the same things about Twin Frozer IV and Hawaii, Reality was a very different kettle of fish though. It's best to check forums for world experiences where people run them in regular builds rather than test sites that use open benches or full towers systems. It may turn out to be fine but the coolers age and the price makes me wonder.
Click to expand...

Yea that's true. You can't go wrong with the Powercolor Pcs cooler so to be on the safe side that's what i would recommend from my own experience.
 
The PCS is pretty good value and has a very decent cooler but I don't know about their warranty. Are there even any really bad 390s out? All seem to be rather good quality but I'd still lean towards the PowerColor.
 
Keep the ram as is 8gig you wouldn't notice any difference whilst gaming, think the highest ive seen/read usage wise has been 6gig some thing.

Then put the rest towards a better card :D or even SSD if you're not using one
 
CyberCrow said:
Keep the ram as is 8gig you wouldn't notice any difference whilst gaming, think the highest ive seen/read usage wise has been 6gig some thing.

Then put the rest towards a better card :D or even SSD if you're not using one
Click to expand...
^This

For gaming, we still don't really need more than 8GB of memory at the moment. It would be much better to invest the money on something else.
 
The only reason I ask about the RAM is the the recommended Specs for Battlefront are 16GB?
 
I played the closed beta/alpha an it used no where near that much, the highest it peaked at was just under 6.

The beta is live tomorrow give it a test run or ask some one in the games section to post there results that are playing it now.

That would be your best bet m8 for the ram as it will save you some cash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom