Sapphire Tri-X R9 390X

Sapphire Tri-X R9 390X Review – The R9 390X is the top of the line in AMD’s new 300 series, and it’s yet another rebadged product from last year. However, this time AMD has actually made a meaningful change to the product, which should help it outperform its successor.

This card is based on the same GPU as that found in the R9 290X, but AMD has increased the memory bandwidth. Instead of using 1350MHz GDDR5, it has endowed the R9 390X with 1525MHz GDDR5, giving it an effective memory speed of 6Gbps. This is large 20% increase over the 5Gbps found on the R9 290X, which should come into play at higher resolutions. It’s also doubled the amount of onboard memory up to a staggering 8GB, more than enough for 4K resolution. Indeed, AMD is pushing the R9 390X as 4K-ready, but that’s a rather laughable suggestion given a GTX 980 Ti can’t even deliver playable 4K performance, and the R9 390X just doesn’t have the 4K performance to justify all that memory.

Sapphire has given its R9 390X quite possibly the smallest factory overclock we’ve ever seen, with the Boost speed increasing a mere 5MHz to 1055MHz. At this speed we see the R9 390X measuring considerably slower performance than the GTX 980. We should highlight that it’s possible to purchase a basic GTX 980 for the same price as this R9 390X, with Gainward’s GTX 980 starting at $699, and the R9 390X simply isn’t in the same league.

Pros

• FreeSync support

Cons

• Noisy fan
• Expensive ($689)
• Slower than a GTX 980 Card

Sapphire Tri-X R9 390X Specifications

GPU	2816 Stream Processors 28 nm Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1055 MHz  Engine Clock
Interface	PCI-Express 3.0
Memory	512 bit Memory Bus GDDR5 Memory Type 6000 MHz Effective Memory Clock 8192 MB Size
Displays	Maximum 4 Outputs
Output	1 x DVI-I 1 x HDMI 3 x DisplayPort
Resolution	4096X2160 Pixel DisplayPort Resolution 2560×1600 Pixel Dual Link DVI Resolution 1920×1200 Pixel Single Link DVI Resolution 2160P HDMI Resolution
API	OpenGL® 4.5 OpenCL 2.0 DirectX® 12 Shader Model 5.0
Feature	AMD CrossFire XDMA AMD PowerTune AMD ZeroCore Power Technology FreeSync Technology AMD Eyefinity Quad HD Display (4K*2K Support) Video Codec Engine (VCE) AMD HD3D Technology Component Heat Spreader 16K Hours Capacitor Intelligent Fan Control 10mm Heat Pipe Dual BIOS AMD Liquid VR technology AMD Virtual Super Resolution(VSR) AMD TrueAudio technology Universal Video Decoder (UVD)
Cooling	Tri-X fans Two-ball bearing
Form Factor	2.2 Part Slot Occupied 308 X 127 X 42.3 Dimension /mm
Power Consumption	375W
OS	Windows 10　Windows 8/8.1　Windows 7
System Requirement	750 Watt Power Supply (Suggestion) 2 x 8-pin AUX Power Connector 4 x 8-pin AUX Power Connector is required for CrossFireX™ system. System power supply with two 8-pin PCIe® power connectors that are each capable of supplying 28 A of dedicated current CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive for installing software To support 4 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard.