PowerColor Radeon R9 390 PCS+ 8 GB Review

Name: PowerColor Radeon R9 390 PCS+ 8 GB
Brand: PowerColor

W1zzard

on Jul 1st, 2015,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: PowerColor

(53 Comments) »

Introduction

AMD's approach to new generations of graphics processors has been different for the past two generations. The Radeon R9 200 series initially saw the introduction of just one silicon, codenamed "Hawaii," which drove the company's previous flagship R9 290 series, while the rest of the lineup saw a cascading re-badging from the previous generation. AMD's previous generation flagship, the HD 7900 series, went on to become the performance-segment R9 280 series, and so on, and the performance-segment "Tonga" silicon was added afterward. The story is predictable even today.

With this generation, there is essentially one new silicon, the HBM-equipped "Fiji," which has been launched this week and will eventually drive up to five products from AMD. The previous-generation flagship silicon "Hawaii" now drives AMD's performance-segment products, the Radeon R9 390X and R9 390 Non-X we're reviewing today.

The Radeon R9 390 is based on the "Hawaii" silicon (now referred to as "Grenada" without any silicon changes) and features the same core-configuration as the R9 290. The standard memory amount has been doubled to 8 GB across the board and clock speeds see an increase from 950 MHz to 1000 MHz on the core and from 5.00 Gbps to 6.00 Gbps on the memory.

The PowerColor R9 390 PCS+ comes with a small core overclock of 10 MHz out of the box; its memory clock remains unchanged. As a cooling solution, a mighty triple slot, triple-fan cooler is used. Price-wise, the card is retailing with a slight $10 increase over the reference design.

Radeon R9 390 Market Segment Analysis
	GeForce GTX 770	Radeon R9 280X	GeForce GTX 780	Radeon R9 290	Radeon R9 390	PowerColor R9 390 PCS+	GeForce GTX 970	Radeon R9 290X	Radeon R9 390X	GeForce GTX 780 Ti
Shader Units	1536	2048	2304	2560	2560	2560	1664	2816	2816	2880
ROPs	32	32	48	64	64	64	56	64	64	48
Graphics Processor	GK104	Tahiti	GK110	Hawaii	Hawaii	Hawaii	GM204	Hawaii	Hawaii	GK110
Transistors	3500M	4310M	7100M	6200M	6200M	6200M	5200M	6200M	6200M	7100M
Memory Size	2048 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	4096 MB	8192 MB	8192 MB	4096 MB	4096 MB	8192 MB	3072 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	384 bit	384 bit	512 bit	512 bit	512 bit	256 bit	512 bit	512 bit	384 bit
Core Clock	1046 MHz+	1000 MHz	863 MHz+	947 MHz	1000 MHz	1010 MHz	1051 MHz+	1000 MHz	1050 MHz	876 MHz+
Memory Clock	1753 MHz	1500 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1500 MHz	1500 MHz	1750 MHz	1250 MHz	1500 MHz	1750 MHz
Price	$300	$210	$290	$250	$330	$340	$310	$300	$430	$390

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card
Documentation + driver CD
PCI-Express power cable

The Card

PowerColor is introducing a new cooler with the R9 390 series. It uses a triple-slot design with three fans. All surfaces are made from metal, which definitely adds to the product's high-quality feel. On the back, you find a baseplate. Dimensions of the card are 29.0 cm x 11.5 cm.

Installation requires three slots in your system.

Display connectivity options include two DVI ports, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.