Sapphire Tri-X R9 390X 8GB CrossfireX Review

Final Thoughts

Price

Prices have been fluctuating a lot recently with the introduction of the R9 Fury X and price drops of the NVIDIA GTX 980Ti range. The Sapphire Tri-x R9 390x 8GB hasn’t seen any decrease since launch and is available in the UK from OverclockersUK for the amazing price of £359.99, while readers in the US can get it from Newegg for $429.99.

Overview

There’s something weird going on here, it’s almost like I’ve done this before. Yes, some will argue that the R9 390X is a direct copy of the R9 290X, especially the R9 290X 8GB. However, thanks to a much more matured production process of the GPU, PCB and components; AMD and sub vendors have managed to squeeze every last drop of performance out of this GPU architecture. Does that warrant the extra price? Yes and no, you can go and buy an R9 290X second hand for around half the price, but you do not receive any of the benefits of warranty and the additional features such as passive cooling, but that’s enough of that, let’s round up how these performed in Crossfire.

Sapphire has massively improved the Tri-X cooling design from the days of the R9 290X. It is far more understated and a piece of hardware that you would more openly welcome into your case. However, since the launch of the R9 Fury (non-X), the Tri-X cooling design on that is an improvement again in my eyes. That is just my personal preference and some of you may prefer the old design. A huge advantage, which is the same for any Crossfire and Sli setup, is the fact that you can buy one card now and another later. This might not sound ideal, but the R9 390X is a great and cheap option on its own; adding another card only makes it better.

As you would imagine, one card fumbles with the GTX 980, so two cards should give around double the performance and it does. It gives more than adequate performance at 1440p and most 4K simulations. The 8GB of VRAM is more than enough to tide the combination over for at least another year in terms of games VRAM demand. Sadly, the overall grunt of the Hawaii GPU just doesn’t cut it for the more demanding games at our tested settings at 4K. You could always turn the settings down, but where’s the fun in that?

One bad point I’ve noticed when trying to configure the Crossfire arrangement is the fact that the Tri-X cooler is slightly taller than 2 slots. This means that you cannot put one card in the next slot down; you cannot secure the card at the PCIe bracket and it would put too much stress on the PCIe slot itself.

Pros

• Great performance
• Silent operation at low load levels
• 8GB offers future proofing

Cons

• Quite power hungry
• Cooling shroud thickness disables use of next PCIe slot

“Offering more performance than a Titan X at a lower price point, the Crossfire R9 390X combination is a great option for those who want to play at 4K.”

Thank you to Sapphire for providing us with the review samples.