MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G

MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G - Introduction Lately we have had a lot of PC gaming enthusiast ask us why we dislike AMD cards, why we are 'ignoring' Team Red, and why we only have a seemingly token AMD card in our charts. At first this did annoy us as this could not be further from the truth - we are brand and team agnostic. We always have and always will recommend to our clients the best option for their budget, no matter what 'team' that option hales from. This question did however make us pause, and decide to change up our upcoming review list. Specifically we requested three modern AMD cards. This should help not only make the charts more balanced, but give readers a much more balanced view of what precisely their options are. The first we are going to look at is the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8. Even though a lot of the R9 390X's launch interest was eclipsed by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980TI, its bigger brothers the AMD R9 Fury and the Fury X cards, the fact of the matter is the typical R9 390X is still one heck of a card. After all it has 8GB of GDDR5 RAM (at an effective frequency of 6,010MHz) on a massive 512-bit wide bus, and a Grenada XT core clocked at 1,050Mhz. This core may 'only' be a slightly refined version of the "Hawaii XT" core used in the R9 290X, but this still means 2816 stream processors, 64 ROPs, 176 Texture Units, and generally enough processing power to laugh at modern video game 'demands'. Add in an average asking price of $425, or $75 less than a stock GeForce GTX 980, and your reference r9 390X actually has a lot going for it. The MSI R9 390X Gaming 8 is not your typical R9 390X. This R9 390X not only sports a factory overclocked Grenada XT, but also has turned up the speed on the 8GB of RAM to 6,100Mhz. Equally important is MSI has addressed the largest negatives of the new R9 3 series. Namely they have bestowed upon this video card an up-sized version of their award winning TWIN FROZR V heatsink. In fact it is a 2.5 slot high version and that extra mass allows it to boast one of the more unique features of the MSI NVIDIA based models: zero decibel noise levels when the card is idling. Now that is one heck of a hook, but when you add in the fact that this factory overclocked, obviously higher quality than reference, R9 390X only costs five dollars more than the typical reference R9 390X…well you can see why we wanted to start with it instead of its lesser priced siblings that we also have here waiting their turn! MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G - Specs and Features MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G - R9 390X Explained Due to the release of the AMD Fury series, the 390X did not get as much attention as it should have. Worse still is a lot of the attention it did receive was negative attention. Even before it launched the Internet was filled with cries of 'REBRAND' and similar talk that was sure to turn off consumers…even before it could show consumers what it had to offer. This is a shame as at the end of the day its abilities to push pixels, and not what it uses to do it, that matters most. So what exactly is the R9 390X and why should consumers care about what it represents? The answer to that is simple and yet complicated to explain. First and foremost this video card uses the new Grenada XT core. Contrary to what some people will tell you the Grenada XT is not just a rebranding of the Hawaii core that powered the R9 290X. Instead it is best described as a refresh to the Hawaii architecture - similar to what Intel does on their 'Tock' CPU releases. Much like Intel and their CPU division, AMD has taken their existing Hawaii core and improved it so that it not only has lower power consumption but is also faster than its predecessor. This double boost in conjunction with a much lower asking price compared to the GTX 980 series is why consumers should care about the R9 390X series - as it represents competition in the mid to high end of the marketplace. A corner of the market that is in sore need of competition! On the surface, more performance but lower power demands would seem like a good thing that no one could complain about. Unfortunately, the Internet is obsessed with new, and while AMD have improved their lineup to be more competitive, what AMD has not done is change the core specifications or even core layout of their '90X model. This is why the Internet is ringing with cries of rebrand and rebadge. At the heart of the Grenada XT / Hawaii cores is four Shader Engines. Each Shader Engine can be considered a 'block' made up of eleven sub blocks called a Compute Unit. Each Compute Unit is made up of a smaller building block consisting of 4 SMID sub-blocks….and that is far enough down the rabbit hole. Instead we will simply say that a SMID has 16 shaders. If you add all that up (16 x 4 x 11 x 4) you end up with a massive 2816 shader units. Which is the same number of shader units as a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ti has. Also like a 980TI, the Grenada XT core has 176 Texture Units, but unlike the 980TI only has 64ROPS - or the same as a GTX 980. Of course you cannot directly compare them to each other as it is an apples and oranges type of deal. Further making direct comparison difficult is the NVIDIA 980Ti core relies upon six integrated 64-bit memory controllers (384-bit wide bus), whereas Grenada XT has eight of them (512-bit bus).….but you do get an idea of the kind of horsepower this 'rebrand' has. Also like what NVIDIA can do, AMD can disable Compute Units or even Shader Engines to make smaller cores to power lower end models. For example cut off four Compute Units per Shader Engine (but leave it with four Shader Engines and eight memory controllers) and you have the 380's Antigua Pro core. Conversely, cut off four of Compute Units per Shader Engine and then entirely remove two Shader Engines (as well as four of the eight integrated memory controllers) and you have the 370's Trinidad core. To be fair it is disappointing to see the number of shaders, ROPS, and texture units have not increased with this new generation '90X; but the only area that consumers will dislike is the fact that a R9 290X can be found for about $350 but the R9 390X commands $425 asking price. That is a seeming steep increase for 25watt reduction in power, and small boost in clock speed. However, the $75 buys you twice the amount of RAM - as all R9 390X's come with 8GB and not 4GB of ram. A more fair comparison is a R9 290X 8GB vs R9 390X, and here the difference in price is more like 30 dollars. That is not much of a 'price gouge' like some Internet pundits were decrying. Now should existing R9 290X consumers be looking at R 390X cards? No, but that is not a fair comparison - few consumers upgrade that quick. Instead a more fair comparison is older card owners who should be thinking about the AMD R9 390x vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 equation. That is the question we will help you answer with this review. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G - A Closer Look Red or Green, MSI does not care who powers their cards and instead use a very similar style shipping container for both types of video cards. Of course, that red styling does make more sense with AMD cards, but the reason AMD opted for Red for their Gaming series was to help differentiate it from their other popular series, and not because the lead designer is secretly an AMD fan. It does however make confusing say a MSI Gaming 6 GeForce GTX 980Ti for the R9 390X G8 a touch easier than we are comfortable with. In either case, this shipping container is about the same size as the typical ATX form-factored motherboard and this extra size allows MSI the luxury of plastering the back with details that will help you make an informed decision…and make confusing one card for another in their lineup your fault and only your fault. MSI never goes overboard on the included accessories, but given the fact that we would take a lower asking price over goo-gaws and trinkets, we really cannot fault MSI too much for this approach. After all, this model is only $5 more than our usual reference R9 390X and MSI does cover off the bases nicely. In grand total you will get a single 6pin PCI-e to 8pin PCIe adapter, a quick start guide, a CD with the necessary drivers, a pamphlet going over some of MSI's other offerings, and dust covers for all the rear I/O ports. The only thing that is really missing is a DVI to D-Sub adapter - and consumers who still use analog monitors but are willing to spend 4-plus bills on a video card can be counted on one hand. Moving on to the real star of the show, when we first took it out of the shipping container we were taken aback by what MSI has created. Tipping the scales at 1.312 kilograms this card is bloody massive … and yet not so large as to have negatives outweigh its positives. This really is becoming a trend with MSI's Gaming series and we must admit to be being impressed by this rather bold design philosophy. Think Big really could be the unofficial motto of this card, and if you were to place this card next to a reference R9 390X no one would ever guess that it only cost a couple dollars more. The red, black, and naked silver design aesthetics are a touch aggressive for our liking but they do make this card stand out and making it the centerpiece of a custom build really would be rather easy. The only issue with making their R9 390X Gaming 8 so pretty and aggressive is that it looks even bigger than it is - and this is no petite card. As with previous Gaming series MSI video cards this card is wider than your typical video card, specifically they have made it about 29mm wider than reference sized cards. This will make installing it into smaller cases difficult, but as long as your side panel is not right next to the GPU, and instead is pushed out a bit to make room for side panel fans, you will be fine. By itself this issue is really a non-issue for most PC gaming enthusiasts, but what may cause some to pause for thought is that this card is also taller than a typical video card. Most video cards use a 2 PCIe slot design in that they are about 40mm tall. This card makes use of the unusual form-factor that is common referred to as a "2.5 slot" form-factor and is 51mm high - or 27.5% taller. For some consumers this will make using this card in CrossFire configurations impossible, as their motherboard's two main PCIe x16 slots are only spaced 2 slots apart. However, that is becoming less common with PC gaming orientated motherboards and most now use two PCIe slots as a buffer between the two main PCIe x16 slots. This was done to increase airflow to the topmost video card, but it does negate airflow as a reason to not purchase two of these cards. Specifically even though the gap between two of these R9 390X Gaming 8 cards would only be about 9mm that is still enough air gap to allow both cards to run cool. It is however an issue you need to be aware of before opting for this plus-sized card. On the positive side MSI has not wasted this room and instead has used it to make a(nother) custom version of their TWIN FROZR V heatsink. This time the TF V fin array is basically 2 PCIe slots high -instead of 1.5 like in most - and is the full width and length of the cards 277mm X 129mm footprint. Mix in multiple heatpipes, a secondary heatsink for the RAM, and two large fans and the end result is the most robust Twin Frozr V heatsink we have ever seen. The reason for this upgraded heatsink is because even though the Grenada XT core is cooler running than its predecessor it still is a 275TDP design. This makes even reference speed R9 390X's rather hot running. On its own we are sure that a typical Twin Frozr V heatsink would be more than enough, but MSI has overclocked their R9 390X Gaming 8 - which means even more heat is produced. A standard R9 390X has its core running at 1,150Mhz and the RAM clocked to an effective 61Mhz. MSI has applied a factory overclock to both and this R9 390X has its Grenada XT running at a maximum frequency of 1,100Mhz, and the RAM running at 6,100MHz. To put that another way the core is overclocked by 4.5% and the ram is overclocked at the factory by over nearly 2%. That may not sound like much, but this overclock in conjunction with the Gaming series special ability to run passively when the core is idling does account for the need for a massive heatsink. Quite honestly zero decibel R9 390X is bloody impressive and easily justifies the minor installation issues that may crop up with using oversized dimensions. Interestingly enough MSI feels that one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCIe power connector is all that is needed to properly power this card. This is a touch controversial but given the fact that R9 390X's are not known for their great overclocking headroom 300 watts of power (75 from the slot, 75 from the 6-pin, and 150 from the 8-pin) should prove to be more than enough to not be a problem for overclocking enthusiasts. By gently removing the heatsink we can see that MSI uses 'only' a 6+1 all digital power delivery subsystem phase for this card. This is certainly a downgrade from say the GeForce GTX 980Ti Gaming 6, but once again the components used are all 'military grade' components and should prove to be more than capable of delivery stable power at even further overclocked levels. To help keep the VRM components cool they are connected directly to the massive fin array via heatpads. This should easily keep these components cool even during extended gaming marathon sessions. Equally impressive is that the memory ICs themselves also get their own heatsink. This small low profile black heatsink may lack cooling fins, but since it covers a good portion of the board, more than enough exhaust air from the main heatsink will flow over it and keep the ICs cool - even when you push their speeds higher. This is one of the nice little touches MSI are known for that make overclocking their cards easier. As expected this heavy cooler uses a full length black backplate that adds rigidity and should keep it from 'sagging' even after years of use. As an added bonus it does give the card a nice and finished look that is lacking on video cards that don’t include a backplate. The input selection of the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8 is actually the only part of this card that bares even a passing resemblance to reference R9 390X cards. As with a reference card, the rear bracket is only 2 slots high and the top row is split nearly evenly between exhaust slits and a single DVI port, while the bottom row has a second DVI-D port, a single HDMI port, and a single Display Port. This is a decent selection of options, but we do wish they had used the extra slot for more ports. For example an extra Display Port would have been nice. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Testing Methodology To fully test the abilities of a given video card, we have used a blend of in-game benchmarks and custom recorded real world game benchmarking. For custom game play we have used FRAPS to record the minimum and average frame rates and to do so for a set period of time. All tests were run a minimum of four times and the scores are the average of all four runs. All games were patched to their latest version. The OS was a fresh clean install of Windows 7 with all latest hotfixes, patches and updates applied. All games were tested at the two of the most popular resolutions of 1080P (1920x1080) and then again at 1440P (2560x1440). This means each game tested was run a minimum of 8 times: 4 @ 1080P and 4 @1440P. Before testing Unigine’s Valley benchmark was run for 15 minutes to ‘warm up’ the video card. This was done to ensure that long term performance and not short term performance is being illustrated. The games used for testing were: Sleeping Dogs Metro: Last Light BioShock Infinite Crysis 3 Batman: Arkham Origins Tomb Raider Battliefield 4 Assassins Creed: Black Flag Call of Duty: Ghosts Witcher 3 For stress testing we used Unigine’s Valley benchmark. For overclocking we used either the manufactures included software overclocking program or if necessary EVGA’s Precision X program. Drivers: GeForce 353.30 AMD Catalyst: 15.7 Main Test System Processor: Intel i7 5930K Memory: 32GB (4x8GB) Crucial Ballistic Elite Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X99 Cooling: Noctua U12S SSD: 1x Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe SSD Power Supply: Corsair AX860i Monitor: Dell U2714H OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 Synthetic Game Benchmarks In the Synthetic Gaming Benchmarks section we will show a number of benchmark comparisons of the test card and other comparable GPUs, using various benchmarks which come included with five popular modern PC games. This will illustrate how much performance this card has to offer. To ensure that long term performance is and not short term performance is illustrated 15 minutes of Unigine’s Valley benchmark was run to ‘warm up’ the video card. Only then were any tests run on the now warm video card. Real World In-Game Benchmarks In the Real Gaming Benchmarks section we will show a number of timed real world game play results using FRAPS and five popular modern PC games. This will illustrate how much performance the card being tested has to offer, and do so in a way which cannot be unduly skewed by driver ‘optimizations’ which have been included for the sole purpose of improving benchmark results. While not as common as it once was such optimizing is still not unheard of by either AMD or NVIDIA. Once again Unigine’s Valley benchmark was run for 15 minutes to ‘warm up’ the video card prior to testing. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Sleeping Dogs (SGB) Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios and published by Square Enix, released on August 2012. Sleeping Dogs has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are the Extreme display settings and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. World density is set to extreme, Vsync disabled, high-res textures are enabled, and shadow resolution, shadow filtering, screen space ambient occlusion, and quality motion blur are all set to high. In Sleeping Dogs we saw basically a 5% improvement in performance over what a stock R9 390X could do. That’s basically one dollar for every percent of improvement. That is darn impressive. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Metro: Last Light (SGB) Metro: Last Light is a DX11 first-person shooter video game developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver released in May 2013. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features action-oriented gameplay. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play. Scene D6 was used and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Very High for quality and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. DirectX 11 is used, texture filtering is set to AF 16X, motion blur is normal, SSA turned on and tessellation is set to high. Metro LL we saw a rather large variance…of 3 to 5% improvement. Once again that is five dollars well spent. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – BioShock Infinite (SGB) BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games, and published by 2K Games released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are UltraDX11 (option 3) for quality and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Much like Metro, Bioshock Infinite posted a very decent 3-5% improvement. This improvement is obviously due to the better cooling as this card is able to stay at its highest frequency setting - which is only 50Mhz higher than a stock R9 390X. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Tomb Raider (SGB) Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game published by Square Enix and released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultimate default settings for quality (sans 'hair' shading), VSync disabled and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Tomb Raider saw only a 2 -3 percent performance boost from this factory overclocked, mega sized R9 390X card. By the same token that is still a very, very good return on a five dollar investment. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Batman Arkham Origins (SGB) Batman: AO is an action-adventure video game published by Warner Bros and released in October 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Anti-Aliasing is set to TXAA (high). Motion blur, Distortion, Lens Flare, Light Shafts, and Reflections set to On. Geometry, Dynamic Shadows, Depth of Field, and Ambient Occlusion all set to DX11 Enhanced. Batman AO is the kind of game where your resolution will play a large part in how much extra performance you will gain for opting for this card over a reference model. Basically the higher the resolution the higher the gains. By the same token, this overclocked card came within grasping distance of a factory overclocked GTX 980 - a card which costs significantly more than the Gaming 8. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Battlefield 4 (RWB) Battlefield 4 is first person shooter video game, published by EA Digital Illusions CE and released in October 2013. Unlike most, this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming tests. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded the first 90 seconds of the single player Tashgar level. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra pre-set for quality, with VSync disabled and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. BattleField 4 is another game where the higher the resolution the higher the difference between what a stock R9 390X and this custom cooled card can do. However, even at lower resolutions it is hard to argue with spending 1.2% more to get 4 percent or better performance. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Assassins Creed: Black Flag (RWB) Assassins Creed: BF is an historical action-adventure video game, published by published by Ubisoft and released in October 2013. Like Battlefield 4 this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded a custom run through Havana’s marketplace. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Environment quality was set to very high, Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X, Ambient Occlusion set to HBAO+ (high), Shadow Quality set to ‘soft shadow’, Motion Blur and Volumetric Blur both set to On. Texture Quality, Reflection Quality, and God Rays all set to High. With Assassin's Creed Black Flag the MSI Gaming 8 R9 390X came within touching distance of doing what a PNY GTX 980 Elite OC could do - and that is bloody impressive from a $430 card! MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Call of Duty: Ghosts (RWB) Call of Duty: Ghosts is a first person shooter video game, published by Activision and released in October 2013. Since it does not include an in-game benchmark, it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Ghost Stories' level, starting as soon as we resume control of Logan back on Earth. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Image Quality, Textures Resolution, Normal Map Resolution, and Specular Map Resolution set to Extra. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion and Antistrophic Filtering set to High, Terrain Detail set to ON, and Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X. With Shadows, Distortion, Motion Blue and Depth of Field set to Yes. Once again the higher the resolution the better the chances of the mega-wide 512bus making up for the slightly less efficient shaders the AMD has vs NVIDIA. Of course, when you take into account how much extra the NVIDIA option costs compared to the R9 390X, the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8 comes off smelling like a rose…or at the very least a great deal. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Crysis 3 (RWB) Crysis 3 is a first person shooter video game, published by Electronic Arts and released in February 2013. While older than some of the others it is one of the most visually stunning games released to date and puts a lot of demands on the GPU. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Post Human' level, starting as soon as soon as prophet is handed a Hammer II pistol by Psycho. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Texture Quality, Game Effects, Objects, Particles, Post Processing, Shadows, Shading, Water, and System Specs all set to Very High. Motion Blur was set to High and Lens Flare was set to On. Anti-Aliasing was set to MSAA 8X and Antistrophic Filtering was set to 16x. Crysis three may be a tad long in the tooth but it's still darn hard on video cards. However, it obviously is a game that prefers cards with the most memory bandwidth…and it is hard to get better than a 512-bit wide bus like the R9 390X! MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Witcher 3 (RWB) Witcher 3 is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED and released on May 2015. Our test uses a real world timed benchmark that consists of three minutes of game play during the 'Beast of the White Orchard' quest. This section of the game incorporates everything from grass, to water, to hair, to numerous NPCs. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra display settings, but with HairWorks off and Vsync disabled, at a resolution of 2560x1440 and 1920x1080. Even after disabling the obvious AMD hobbling HairWorks 'features', Witcher 3 is still a game that prefers NVIDIA over AMD cards. This is why it was here that we saw the largest variance between what this factory overclocked R9 390X could do and what a factory overclocked GTX 980 can do. Of course if such a card like the PNY Elite OC is outside your budget the MSI Gaming 8 will post better results than what you can expect to get from a GeForce GTX 970. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Temperature, Noise, and Power Analysis Video Card Temperature Results For all temperature testing the cards were used in an open test bed environment. Ambient temperature was kept at a constant 20°C (+/- 0.5°C) and if the ambient room temperatures rose above 21°C or dropped below 19°C at any time, all benchmarking was stopped until proper temperatures could normalized. For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak temperature. For Load tests, we ran Unigine’s Valley benchmark for 20 minutes. Hot running, factory overclocked core or not, that massive Twin Froze heatsink makes short work of keeping it cool. By the same token at idle the large heatsink does struggle to keep the GPU cool, but then again it has to do it passively - as the fans stop spinning. Obviously your internal case air flow has to be up to par, or you will be unable to use the 'silent' mode. Sound Level Test Results While everyone "hears" noise differently there is one easy way to remove all subjectivness and easily compare different fans: use a sound level meter. This way you can easily compare the various fans noise envelopes without us coloring the results and see what fans fit within your personal comfort level. Of course, we will endeavor to try and explain the various results - which are taken at a 15 inch distance from the GPU’s fan(s) - to help you gain an even better understanding of how loud a cooler's stock fan is, but even if you discount our personal opinions, the fact remains numbers don't lie. For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak dB. For Load tests, we ran Unigine’s Valley benchmark for 20 minutes and recorded the peak dB. Obviously by making this version of the TWIN Frozr V heatsink so large, MSI was able to work miracles. After all even though this is a factory overclocked version of a rather hot running core the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8 is a rather low noise video card. System Power Consumption To obtain accurate results we have connected the system to a Power Angle power meter that has in turn been attached to a 1500watt UPS. This ensures only 120volt power is supplied to the PSU and removes an variances that could potential crop up because of brownouts and power spikes. In order to stress the video card we have once again used Unigine’s Valley benchmark and ran it for 20 minutes to determine peak system power consumption. For idle results we have let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak idle power consumption. While AMD has made good strides in the power consumption department this card still has a TDP of 275 watts - and that is rather power hungry by modern standards. By the same token it still is within the realm of reasonable and it would take years of gaming to justify the lower power consumption of the more expensive GeForce GTX 980 series. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Overclocking To discover our samples overclocking abilities we used EVGA’s Precision X software and began raising power and thermal thresholds to the maximum allowed and then increased the voltage also to the maximum permitted. Then using Unigine’s Valley benchmark we began stability testing. Whether you want to call it a refinement, a rebadge, or a refresh, the end results are the same: very little room for overclocking. This is true for all R9 390X's and since MSI has already boosted the already 'boosted' base clock, manual overclocking will not be as rewarding with this Twin FROZR as it is on other MSI Gaming video cards we have looked at recently. That is a damn shame as this massive cooler had lots of thermal headroom left when we ran into the limits of what this Grenada XT core could do. By the same token, you can consider MSI having already done most of the hard work for you as we were only able to boost the speeds from 1,100 to 1,175 - a mere 75MHz or 6.8%. The only real area that you can dig deeper by overclocking is on the RAM side of the equation. Yes MSI has also applied a 100MHz (effective) overclock to the RAM but you can easily push this up another 800 - 900MHz. Our particular sample liked 7,008 on the RAM which is additional 14.9% improvement on the factor overclock. Equally impressive is this card can not only run at even higher than factory clocks speed it can stay at this new maximum frequency. Honestly, unless you have poor case air flow this card will only rarely down clock and that is something a reference design cannot boast. In fact if you modify the default fan profile to be more aggressive it probably will never thermally limit. We know our final overclock posted some of the coolest running numbers we have ever seen - mid 80s at maximum overclock. As you can see the improvements do result in tangible real world performance boost, but will be only really noticeable in memory intensive games at higher resolutions. In other words if you run at 1080P resolution on games that are core speed reliant overclocking the factory overclock will only net minor - at best results. That however is neither here nor there as overclocking this card is pretty darn easy. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Performance Summary and TL;DR In an effort to make sorting through all the results as easy as possible we have combined the results all of all the game results into an easy to digest summary format. By comparing it to similar products in all the games you will be able to easily find the game(s) you are interested in, see the improvement and decide if it is the worth the investment. As you can see MSI packs in a gobsmackingly large amount of value into this rather reasonably priced card enthusiast grade card. Color us impressed. Score Card and Summary Packaging & Accessories: 8 out of 10 MSI really does not include much in the way of accessories, but for the price it still is more than reasonable - if a touch average. The external shipping container is not 'average' and instead is just as good as what MSI uses on cards costing twice as much as what this R9 390X costs. That is impressive when you think about it. Functionality & Aesthetics: 19 out of 20 As expected the aesthetics are typical MSI Gaming series, that is to say on the aggressive side for our personal tastes, but still well above average…and that is about the only thing you can complain about in this area. This cards custom 2.5 slot Twin FROZR design works and works amazingly well. As long as your case and motherboard can handle its plus size dimensions you will be impressed with what it has to offer. Build Quality & Warranty: 18 out of 20 MSI knocked it out of the park with this one, as this card is not built but overbuilt . Quite honest if MSI ever decide to upgrade the warranty on their cards from 3 years to 5 we literally would have zero to complain about as it fine a specimen of what AMD has to offer as you are likely to find. Performance: 28 out of 30 Thanks to a very decent factory overclock this card is easily the match for GTX 980 cards. Hell factory overclocked 980s are only slightly faster than this powerhouse. Rebadge, refine, revalue, whatever you call it you certainly can't call it 'slow'! Value: 20 out of 20 No matter if you look at it as only costing $5 more than a reference R9 390X, or nearly $170 less than the typical reference GTX 980, the end result is the same: outstanding, best in class value. Final Score: 93 out of 100 When you combine GTX 980 (and better) levels of performance with GTX 970 prices the results are nothing short of double-take worthy. However, when you take that level of value and then add in the fact this cards upsized custom heatsink and fan allows it to be damn near silent …well then you don't just have a good value, you have an excellent card. A card that is fierce competition for NVIDIA's GTX 980. MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G – Closing Statement 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.

No Result