Gadgetory

oh shoot dude what what the hell are you doing here oh yeah just in the area so I thought I'd dropped in see how you're like gonna know - OH - dude how how the hell did you get in here bathroom window was open so I just crawled in through there breezy by the way your a/c was like not even on man it is hot and you ride a crank that these chicks are pretty good tell me about that one did you know that you only have basic cable my face and face it so did we launch a necklace not everything belongs in your living room for a quiet and compact companion check out the node 2 oh 2 from fractal designs you can find more info in the description below what's up guys so back in June I posted my review of the pcs + r9 390x from power color and apart from a few minor setbacks the card earned my vote of confidence well this month the Taiwanese manufacturer has introduced a similar card to the market that now sports a more sophisticated cooling solution this is the power color Radeon r9 390x devil but unlike the fiery demon himself this card aims to save vastly cooler than the competition thanks to its hybrid air and liquid cooled design under the hood however we're essentially dealing with the same enhanced Hawaii XT GPU on the 28 nanometer GCN 1.1 architecture with 2800 and 16 stream processing units and 8 gigabytes of gddr5 on a 512 bit bus we do get a slight core clock bump from 1062 1100 megahertz and a 1 or 2% increase in memory clock speed to fifteen hundred and twenty five megahertz since the specs here are nothing terribly new or exciting let's take a closer look at the real star of the show here me I measure 67 inches tall with a striking aesthetic and Oh apparently it's not me it's the the cards special hybrid cooler guess we're saving the best for last the special design uses an all-in-one liquid solution to cool the GPU while a 90 millimeter fan and modest heatsink take care of the vrm and other components a sin combination considering most of the heat generated by this card will likely come from our Hawaii XT chip they really should have called that the devil I should mention here that the pump block 360 millimeter long flexible rubber tubing and 30 millimeter thick 120 radiator are all OAM components from our friends over at ace tech power color has included its own radiator fan but you do have the option to swap it out for one of your own choosing there's also nothing stopping you from slapping on a second fan for a push-pull setup enclosing the core components is a black plastic shroud with brushed metallic plating around the vrm fan while I find the silver accents to be a nice touch the rest of the enclosure looks and feels a bit like a child's toy and I'd much rather it resemble an adult toy if I had the choice that way I'd know it could take a beating this comes as a surprise when you consider the stellar build quality of power colors more affordable air cooled 390x the card feels somewhat light for a cart of its size and tapping the shroud creates an off-putting hollow sound probably due to the lack of a heatsink in place of the pump block power colors devil series is typically regarded as their select line of video cards yet when I look at this cooler I don't see the same premium craftsmanship that's expected whatever this card sold its soul to the devil for it clearly wasn't it's good looks on the front you get a small bio switch four separate custom profiles a hybrid LED that lights up white and a single a pin and 6 pin PCI II connector bear in mind that AMD's r9 390x has an appetite for raw power and this hybrid model is no exception so make sure you've got a 750 watt power supply at minimum when running this card up top power color has included a reinforced back plate with some double branding that spans the full 270 millimeters length of the PCB and cooler I should also warn not to be fooled by the cards pair of PCI slots the monstrous height of the shroud in fact gives this card a 3 slot design which will most likely hog if the PCI slot directly beneath it while giving less breathing room for that 90 millimeter fan should you opt for a crossfire configuration finally on the back you get a nice mix of video outs including DisplayPort 1.2 HDMI 2.0 and 2 - link DVI now moving on to the card the actual performance it is well known by now that Hawaii xt isn't the best overclocker but thanks to the cards hybrid cooler I was able to bump the core clock frequency to eleven hundred and seventy megahertz that's forty five megahertz more than I was able to push the PCs plus 390x on air surely the higher clock speed would translate to slightly better gaming performance yes unfortunately that wasn't the case at all oddly enough running all five of the tests that were used with the pcs plus 390x yielded the same frame rates across the board in fact the results were so identical at most a one frame per second difference that I didn't even bother making benchmark slides for this card if you want to see how the 390x devil performs just look at the benchmarks on my pcs plus three ninety x video because there's virtually no performance difference between the two in terms of frames per second now I'm not sure if I just got unlucky with a sluggish GPU or if this has something to do with how power color bends their chips but my testing speaks for itself that if you're expecting the chilly temps of this car to bring home noticeable performance gains over an air-cooled 390 X for example you just might be disappointed like my wife on our honeymoon perhaps not even liquid cooling can make an overclocking beast out of the 390x what the hybrid cooler can do however is make your GPU downright frosty and this is by far and away the devil's saving grace throughout my testing the chip stayed at a frigid 51 degrees Celsius a colossal 17 degrees cooler than the pcs plus that's an incredible feat when trying to cool a hot blooded chip like the Hawaii XT now naturally less heat generated means a cooler interior for your chassis especially when paired with a fan and a radiator to quickly dispense the heat outside so now that I have this big bag full of mixed feelings where does this leave us in conclusion well for one power color needs to step up their build quality game for future double branded cards to keep its reputation of a premium product line additionally the free 90 X wouldn't be my first GPU of choice to slap a liquid cooler on to given its low ceiling for overclocking now that being said overclockers would probably get more mileage out of a similarly priced GTX 9 eighty assuming they're willing to trade an AMD set of technologies for nvidia z' now if your heart is still set on a 390 X I would personally favor the PCs plus model which currently retails for about 70 bucks cheaper however if you don't plan on overclocking and superior thermal conditions are your top priority you probably won't find a cooler 390x on the market than the 390x devil from power color