Monday, June 15th 2015
Radeon R9 390X and R9 390 to Feature Faster Memory, Core Over Predecessors
AMD's upcoming Radeon R9 390X and R9 390 performance-segment graphics cards reportedly feature higher GPU and memory clocks over the products they are a re-branding of, the R9 290X and R9 290, respectively. The 28 nm "Grenada" silicon they are based on, is identical to "Hawaii," down to the last transistor. This has been confirmed by leaked GPU-Z screenshots, which reveal the device-IDs of the two cards to be identical to those of the R9 290X and R9 290. Since the Device-IDs are the same, GPU-Z is reading the chip as "Hawaii." The code-name "Grenada" appears in the BIOS version string.
Unlike older, more blatant re-brands, such as GeForce 8800 GT to 9800 GT, AMD did drop in a few changes. To begin with, the memory amount has been doubled on both cards, to 8 GB. The memory clock has been increased from 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5-effective), to 1500 MHz (6.00 GDDR5-effective), resulting in memory bandwidth increase to 384 GB/s, up from 320 GB/s. The core clock speed on the R9 390X is 1050 MHz (up from 1000 MHz on R9 290X); and 1000 MHz on the R9 390 (up from 947 MHz on the R9 290).
Source:
VideoCardz
Unlike older, more blatant re-brands, such as GeForce 8800 GT to 9800 GT, AMD did drop in a few changes. To begin with, the memory amount has been doubled on both cards, to 8 GB. The memory clock has been increased from 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5-effective), to 1500 MHz (6.00 GDDR5-effective), resulting in memory bandwidth increase to 384 GB/s, up from 320 GB/s. The core clock speed on the R9 390X is 1050 MHz (up from 1000 MHz on R9 290X); and 1000 MHz on the R9 390 (up from 947 MHz on the R9 290).
114 Comments on Radeon R9 390X and R9 390 to Feature Faster Memory, Core Over Predecessors
I don't know how AMD's gonna sue people to buy their 300 series, because every SKU is rebrand, and more importantly, they have the same inherent overheating problem and high power consumption as 200 series (and 7000 series). I think they just gave Nvidia more space in the market, and no way it would make sense to "upgrade" to 300 series, unless someone is looking for more vRAM, because clock speeds doesn't impress. Get an aftermarket cooler or the stock could do well enough, do few tweaks and you are at the new cards' level, and maybe better. The BIOS is just new, and the more vRAM, but nothing else.
Boooo AMD! You let us down. :shadedshu:
I was going to buy a 970 but I don't like being lied too (I know it still performs excellent and overall is an excellent card but they knew it wouldn't sell as well if they advertised it as 3.5gb and they tried to blow smoke up our asses as a miscommunication between departments - bs).
4 GB of HBM, with a proper scheduler from driver, can do the same thing 12 GB of GDDR5 able to do at 4k.
Back to the topic, AMD did the same rebrand scheme in 2xx series. It's not a good move, but still is the only choice for them now. Money does make people do shit things :(
I feel bad for AMD, I am not a fanboy of AMD, neither of nvidia, but I really want it to trample nvidia for few years. I don't think HBM would do any good to AMD anyway, since nvidia's new arsenal, aka Pascal is coming with HBM v2, that would shatter anything of AMD's built fame over Fiji XT. Shrinking lithographies doesn't do the talking, you need better GPU architecture.
For CF it's nice, but isn't DX12 going to allow frames to be split between cards? So soon even the advantage in CF will be nil.
No doubt 8GB will be a big selling point for the masses who don't know any better. I guess success depends on how many in that category are in the market for a $350-$400 card.
Edit: I also should have said the cards on offer really aren't that compelling. I also don't think that the 290X is overkill for 1080. Minimum frames really aren't that good for games like BF4, and TW3.
Second, games is not build around HBM or GDDR5. It's the driver which controls how the VRAM is used. The ball doesn't need to and never be moved to devs.
Finally, do you really understand how a graphic card works before posting stuff here?
That was the card purchase thst taught me to not be on the leading edge of cards until the numbers were in.
And are now appearing to just be a rebrand plus some extra RAM, core speed?
Or am I at a complete loss?
4GB of HBM.
However, with HBM the speed of this read part is 9 times smaller than that of GDDR5 at same clock. In FuryX and TitanX case, this ratio reduce to 0.6 times smaller due to different clock. Some simple math from here show that with good scheduler from driver, 4GB capacity is not that big issue with frames of 4GB-8GB zone. At 8GB-12GB zone, the difference will be more clear, but the GPU also suffers here, which make the delay of memory less significant. In short, 4GB of HBM on FuryX can keep up with 12GB of TitanX in 4GB-8GB zone, and is superior in sub 4GB area.
So far with the leaks we have seen AMD has an answer to the entire Maxwell line up.