MSI really has been on a roll lately as they seem to understand exactly what all consumers really crave: value. Even consumers who are interested in high performance video cards are not immune to this, and in fact they probably crave it even more – as there is not a whole lot of ‘value’ to be found in this end of the market.
The reason MSI has once again impressed us is because they are not afraid to think big. This is not the first time we have seen MSI do this and based upon what this card can offer, we hope its not the last time either. More importantly the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8 proves that MSI has not contained their unique way of designing video cards to their ‘team green’ lineup….and right now team red needs all the help they can get.
By taking on conventional wisdom has been able to take the two biggest weakness of the new R9 390X series and made them into positives. Namely ‘everyone knows’ that AMD cards run hot and loud compared to their NVIDIA counterparts; and ‘everyone knows’ that AMD cards are ‘slower’ than their comparable NVIDIA counterparts. Well this is not your grandma’s AMD card. By opting for a 2.5 slot design, MSI has been able to not only tame the hot running Hawaii…err… Grenada XT core, but also make it silent. That is impressive no matter what ‘team’ you root for.
As an added bonus this extra thermal headroom allows for this R9 390X to not only hit but stay at its maximum clock rating – something reference R9 390X’s cannot do. This added thermal headroom allows this card to outperform higher priced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980s and really comes close to factory overclocked GTX 980s at higher resolutions. This alone makes the extra $5 money well spent.
The only possible negatives that anyone can nitpick about this card is its higher power consumption, and oddball form-factor. As to the first issue, unless you are a bitcoin miner we don’t think power consumption is an issue – as you would literally need to run this card flat out for years before the difference in price between it and factory overclocked GeForce GTX 980s is eaten up in power bills.
Now on the surface a 2.5 slot form-factor would seem like a major negative – as you need three PCIe slots to fit it. The reality is most PC gaming orientated motherboards use such a separation for their two main PCIe x16 slots so this is not a major concern for most consumers. However, by the same token a true 3 slot design means that if you use two of them, the top most is going to be starved for air. This will not happen with the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8, as there will always be an air gap between the cards. We honestly wish more companies would adopt such a design form-factor for their R9 390X cards as doing anything else means either giving up cooling prowess or giving up Crossfire performance.
There is always pros and cons for opting for one card over another but if you are the type of PC gaming enthusiast who likes simple, easy overclocking; or are budget conscience; or even just like getting value for your money the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8 deserves to be on your short list. Don’t let Internet FUD scare you away from a card that is more than capable of getting the job done – and doing so without breaking the bank.
