Gadgetory

it sounds like really well yeah is that a computer case yeah it's the define us from fractal design they run so quietly I figured I'd put it there as a reminder that in this crazy hectic world silence really is golden is that the same computer case yeah the finance supports triple radiators water cooling pumps and reservoirs so I figured I'd put one there just to remind myself to be flexible in life really in the bathroom why well yeah I figured the toilet hasn't been working lately and the define us has such a spacious interior that I just thought the define s from fractal design is built for uncompromised custom water cooling please use responsibly click the link in the description for more info what's up guys today I'm gonna be reviewing a brand spanking new video card from AMD's 300 series that just launched earlier this week this is the power color r9 390x successor to AMD's former flagship the r9 290x by now you're probably aware that the 300 series consists of all rebranded GPUs that we've seen in previous generations and while many of us may be reserving more excitement for AMD's very soon to be released fury cards with their fancy new Fiji chips and HBM technology there may still be some rationale for picking up a 300 series cards for starters r9 300 card owners will benefit from full DirectX 12 support and AMD's newest technologies like virtual super resolution liquid VR and of course free sync AMD is also claiming the r9 390 and 390 X to be equipped for 4k gaming a bold statement that will verify with some benchmarks later on taking a closer look at our 390x the card uses an enhanced version of the Hawaii XT GPU found on the 290 X so yes we do get the same 28 nanometer GCN 1.1 r and the same number of 2,816 stream processing units though a big memory clock boost over the 290x is a nice surprise jumping from 5 to 6 gigabits per second a 20% increase that yields an impressive memory bandwidth of 384 gigabytes per second that should serve nicely with the 8 2 gigs of gddr5 on the 512 bit bus the new baseline frame buffer for the 390 and 390 X whereas the 290x came stocked with 4 gigs of memory using 2 2 gig chips AMD has stepped up their game to using to-four gig chips which not only grants the obvious benefit of more capacity but higher clock speeds at lower voltages don't expect any power savings though as the card still carries a hefty 275 watt TDP in true AMD fashioned core clock speed also gets a boost over the 290 X but a minor one at that at 5% bumping it up to 1050 megahertz power color has given their 390x a slight factory overclock to 1060 megahertz speaking of which I'm supposed to be reviewing this card so now that you're a bit more familiar with some of the more notable changes surrounding the 300 series there is still much to say about power colours take on AMD's short-lived flagship this card is sporting a beefy 11 and a half inch cooler that incorporates a traditional dual slot design but don't be fooled with a large width of 2 inches this particular 390x occupies the space of a 3 slot card effectively blocking the slot to spaces beneath it fortunately most ATX boards have their highest speed PCIe slots more than two spaces apart but this is something to bear in mind if you plan on having several PCI connected cards as cumbersome as it may be this is an absolutely gorgeous cooler loosely enclosed by a textured steel frame with striking silver plastic accents power colour has done a bang-up job with the build quality here as everything from the shroud to the 380 mm eater fans feel top-notch as we're starting to see on more and more video cards these days the fans here keep at 0 rpm when idling only spinning up when the GPU temporize --is above 60 degrees Celsius a simple yet effective feature for power saving and dead silent operation with low impact usage beneath the blades is a Monstress nickel plated aluminum heatsink that spans the entire length of the PCB and then some also included is an all copper GPU block for effective heat dissipation along with three six millimeter heat pipes and one eight millimeter pipe on the front side we get some power color branding that's just the right amount of shiny and power ports for one eight pin and one 6 pin PCI II connector flipping around to the back we see power color has mounted a beautiful metallic backplate to the PCB for added rigidity and straight-up sex appeal tasteful ventilation cutouts and an attractive brushed finish make this another perfect example of the card's outstanding craftsmanship finally on the back we get two dual link DVI HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 video outputs as I hinted earlier I did run some benchmarks on this card at 1080 1440 and most importantly 4k to see if AMD's claims of 4k ready gaming are actually true unlocking the cards potential I was quickly able to boost the core clock speed to eleven hundred and twenty five megahertz with no problems meaning you get about the same relative overclocking potential as the 290x even leaving the memory clock speed at stock I couldn't take the GPU any further which might indicate that we're now reaching near 100% of the Hawaii XTS full potential throughout my testing the cards cooler to define job at keeping temps below sixty nine degrees Celsius though at the cost of noticeable fan noise in might define our five naturally wearing a pair of cans or even running the game audio through a pair of speakers at low volume drowns out the sound entirely still by creating a custom fan curve in MSI Afterburner I was able to create a silent gaming experience at 60% fan speed which raised the GPU temp slightly to a still comfortable 76 degrees Celsius and in case you were wondering all tests were run in my x99 5820k system on Windows 8.1 all right tearing through this video I love it on that note ladies and gentlemen without further ado here are the benchmarks so class what did we learn well if you're familiar with the performance of the 290x you can see that this card does in fact outperform it albeit by a relatively smaller margin still beating out its predecessor puts the 390x in the ring with invidious gtx 980 and though I don't have a 980 on hand to test myself the numbers I've seen in the past lead me to believe that these two cards would be trading blows in the majority of today's games the reason this matters is because the r9 390x is retailing for 429 USD at the time of its launch or about 70 bucks cheaper than the GTX 980 I suppose my point in all of this is that regardless of how ordinary or uninspiring these r9 300 series cards may be they're still on par with their team green counterparts but at a far lower price point which perhaps is exactly the angle AMD intended to play now circling back to the prospect of 4k gaming well we didn't exactly live up to that one did we I mean even though I ran all my tests with anti-aliasing it's unlikely that the frame rates gained from disabling that filter would satisfy the common enthusiast gamer who spends $400 plus on a graphics card for K ready GP you still have a long way to go until they can consistently hit those smooth frame rates were used to at lower resolutions now that being said the 390x is a great option for quad HD gaming as we saw it hit 60 FPS in most of today's tests as for the card in question I'm really impressed by power colours rendition of the 390x this is easily one of the most solidly built cards I've seen and while it's easily confused with a large cement brick it's a pretty brick and I'd happily build my next house with a thousand of them if I could after all it'd be ashamed not to utilize the structural integrity of that backplate the cooler itself does its job well and does so quietly if you're willing to do some quick fan tuning overall this is a beautifully crafted card that'll make most gamers happy assuming you have the room for it but let me know what you guys think of this card and a 300 series and all that jazz in the comments below and don't forget to toss me a like on this video if you enjoyed it before we go I want to thank today's sponsor lynda.com are you bored have you grown tired of all the mindless distractions on the Internet don't answer that let's just assume for the purpose of this advertisement that you are all of those lynda.com has a metric fudge ton of online tutorials to keep your brain stimulated every online course is led by industry professionals who are trained experts in video editing 3d printing and when to tell stories yes there's a video on when to tell stories how awesome is that is knowledge is power if you are interested in obtaining more knowledge so you can then acquire more power and eventually take over the world with an army of neon cats cruise over to lynda.com slash awesomesauce for a 10 day free trial and learn something new today also feel free to check the description below if you want to buy shirts like this one or bookmark my Amazon affiliate link and use it every time you buy stuff it helps me out tremendously I'm kind of awesome sauce Network thank you guys for watching subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and I'll see you guys in the next video