AMD has now announced their new graphics cards. The R9 390 Series is based on the R9 290 and basically consists of rebrands. The clock speeds have been increased a bit, but the card offers the same feature—shader count, ROPs, and texture units are the same, so the GPU is also the same. Only memory size has been doubled to 8 GB, a capacity that has been available on some R9 290X cards before. The first R9 390 Non-X we are reviewing today is the R9 390 PCS+ from PowerColor.
Power Color only increased the clock speeds by 10 MHz over reference, with memory clock unchanged, so the gains are quite small, roughly 1%. Compared to the GTX 970, we see slightly lower performance of around 3% when averaged over our benchmark suite, and the card is effectively the same 3% behind the GTX 780 Ti. I would recommend the R9 390 for gaming at up to and including 1080p, where it will deliver good framerates with full details set in-game. The R9 390X is only 6% faster at that resolution, but comes with much higher pricing.

PowerColor is introducing a new triple-slot, triple-fan thermal solution with a great look and feel because of its metal construction, which definitely beats the plastic surfaces we're seeing on other cards. In idle, the card stops its fans completely for a perfectly noise-free experience during desktop work. Once you start playing games, the fans will spin at up to 38 dBA, though, which matches the noise levels of the original GTX Titan and is slightly noisier than the GTX 970 reference design. I find these noise levels reasonable for a Hawaii-based card, but the card would have been quieter had PowerColor accepted slightly higher temperatures. However, when compared to custom GTX 970 designs, the PowerColor R9 390 PCS+ definitely falls behind in noise levels. PowerColor was wise to include a backplate with their card, which not only helps protect it against damage during handling, but also provides a little bit of extra cooling for the voltage regulation circuitry.

Power consumption of the card is virtually unchanged compared to the R9 290, but you have to consider that this card runs higher clock speeds and provides higher performance, which means that performance-per-watt is improved, although it is still far behind competing offerings from NVIDIA.

PowerColor's R9 390 PCS+ is currently available online for $340, which is $10 more than AMD's reference design pricing, a reasonable increase if you only look at the R9 390. You can find the GTX 970 online for $310, which is definitely a better option in terms of performance, power draw, and noise—pretty much everything. Don't get me wrong, this isn't PowerColor's fault as their card is good for a R9 390; it's AMD's old technology and their pricing that affects the product negatively. What the R9 390 has going for it is its large 8 GB memory capacity, though it doesn't make a difference because this is a 1080p-performance-class card. Unfortunately, that extra memory is also the reason why the price is so high compared to the R9 290 4 GB that can be found for as little as $250, a price point that delivers excellent value for the money, and you're not missing out on any features. If pricing of the R9 390 could go below $300, the card could become an interesting option for the more value-oriented buyer. So for right now, my recommendation would be a 4 GB R9 290 instead if you are looking for an affordable card that will let you play all games at 1080p.