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290x or 390x

adamg64

adamg64

adamg64

Associate
Joined
24 Jul 2008
Posts
328
Couple of days of research and so far disappointing black Friday sales has made me think is it worth the extra cash.

My 290x died so need a new one as this old 8600gt is not gonna cut it, ive read that the 390x is a rebadged 290x and 5-10% better so is it worth it?

Days of hunting and waiting for today to come ive found a sapphire 290x for £210 best ive found on 390x so far today is a MSI version for £310 both include delivery.

Ive lodged an RMA on my old GFX and been told as long as its faultly and fault is not of my own doing they will offer a full refund £400 quid but im not confident right now but if they do I plan on buying a 1440p monitor or plan on doing so in the new year so I need a card that can cover this (battlerfront etc)

Hopefully bargains may crop up today.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Sapphire-Radeon-R9-290X-vs-MSI-Radeon-R9-390X
 
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Personally I'd pay the extra for the 390x, A lot of people will disagree but I owned Hawaii and while it was an okay card it got hot and Grenada's platform has been improved to reduce this. It may be a refresh but they have done several changes that make it appear to be a much better card overall and unless you plan on water the 390 is likely to be a better clocker.

If the 100 quid difference is hard to swallow look at a 390 maybe.
 
nashathedog said:
Personally I'd pay the extra for the 390x, A lot of people will disagree but I owned Hawaii and while it was an okay card it got hot and Grenada's platform has been improved to reduce this. It may be a refresh but they have done several changes that make it appear to be a much better card overall and unless you plan on water the 390 is likely to be a better clocker.

If the 100 quid difference is hard to swallow look at a 390 maybe.
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yea I really believe the first year I ran the stock cooler on my 290x has done the damage it was so hot, I pre-ordered it and got the original cooler with was pants
 
If you re-buy the 290x, you may run into the common blackscreen problem, despite yo not having it on your previous one. I think AMD fixed the problem with this new series no? What about a gtx 970? They have less power consumption and more OC potential.
 
TheRealist said:
If you re-buy the 290x, you may run into the common blackscreen problem, despite yo not having it on your previous one. I think AMD fixed the problem with this new series no? What about a gtx 970? They have less power consumption and more OC potential.
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The black screen issue was just with memory instability. I had great memory on my reference Sapphire 290x, I could max it out in MSI AB without issue despite what people said about Elpida. the 390(x) seems to have better memory though, with a much higher initial clock.
 
TheRealist said:
If you re-buy the 290x, you may run into the common blackscreen problem, despite yo not having it on your previous one. I think AMD fixed the problem with this new series no? What about a gtx 970? They have less power consumption and more OC potential.
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Found the msi 390x £299 on offer elsewhere and they can get it t me 2mrw and they have excellent customer service too, 3yr warranty and little bit more future proof and OC potential over the 290x.

Hopefully those problems are gone on the 390x it would have just felt weird buying the exact same card I bought 2years ago although it was still running everything fine on ultra at 1080p.

Hopefully this can handle 1440 or even 4k on freesync once I get the right monitor!
 
can get a VTX 390x for £260 in some places still. as far as this goes though get a 390 rather than a 290x. same speeds, better cooler, less power draw and a new 2-3 year warranty. o and it's good for 4k xfire unlike the 4GB 290x's. I've been strongly considering selling my 290x for a pair of 390's but couldn't find deals on the msi 390's to make it worth it imo. I'm just gaming at 1440 on my 4k currently
 
sneakysnail said:
can get a VTX 390x for £260 in some places still. as far as this goes though get a 390 rather than a 290x. same speeds, better cooler, less power draw and a new 2-3 year warranty. o and it's good for 4k xfire unlike the 4GB 290x's. I've been strongly considering selling my 290x for a pair of 390's but couldn't find deals on the msi 390's to make it worth it imo. I'm just gaming at 1440 on my 4k currently
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ive not seen any at that price and was advised not to get the vtx version but quiet a big saving went got the msi version which is pre-overclocked and has excellent cooling and £299 was happy with that
 
MSI have been a bit sketchier recently. I usually see posts telling people to avoid MSI GpUs on this forum since their GPU fan oil thing and other cooler issues that a minority experienced.

I don't really care about the brand if the retailer is reliable, since my air-coolers just end up in my EK boxes.
 
so tempted to get two of those 390x but going to resist. as for MSI I can't speak about them as a brand as I haven;t had one of their cards recently but the 390 versions they have are considered one of the best from what I've read. Just want the regular 390's on deal or perhaps the powercolor 390x2 to be reduced a bit more
 
sneakysnail said:
so tempted to get two of those 390x but going to resist. as for MSI I can't speak about them as a brand as I haven;t had one of their cards recently but the 390 versions they have are considered one of the best from what I've read. Just want the regular 390's on deal or perhaps the powercolor 390x2 to be reduced a bit more
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off topic but how is the monitor working out? just been looking at your specs looks similar to mine, are you running any of the latests titles smoothly at 1440p?
 
adamg64 said:
off topic but how is the monitor working out? just been looking at your specs looks similar to mine, are you running any of the latests titles smoothly at 1440p?
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yeah no problem playing GTA V Online with most settings maxed out. I get 30-40 fps at times but that's fine for that monitors free sync range. I would say to not get a 24 inch 4k monitor though, miss judged it. I can see the difference between 1440 and 4k but it's not a huge difference. kinda why i held off on 390x's at £300. why pay £600 to game at 4k when my £200 290x can game at 1440 with almost the same visual experience.

edit. another heads up, the freesync range on this monitor is also kinda small. it's around 32-65 fps iirc So when looking at 4k freesync monitors that should be one of the big deciding factors, at 4k high settings GTA V would give awful screen tearing at times when my FPS dropped below the range. Seem to remember the SW Battlefront Beta playing fine at 4k and maxed though.
 
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