Final Thoughts
Price
The Sapphire Tri-x R9 390x 8GB 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
I’m extremely pleased with this graphics card, the additional tweaks made have allowed it to top the GTX 980 in some tests. We recently had the older R9 290X 8GB Tri-x graphics card in for review which provided more than enough VRAM, but not enough graphical performance; this is what that card should have been. Sapphire has really produced a high-end card here with some great features that would appeal to most enthusiast users; it might even be enough to tempt some NVIDIA users to consider an AMD graphics card.
The Tri-X cooler seems to have taken a step back from its bright colours and sharp corners to a more reserved, almost boring design. It is very grown-up and should appeal to a wider audience than the previous model. Along with the more reserved aesthetics, it provides amazing cooling capabilities, giving some of the best temperatures we’ve seen, especially on an AMD, air-cooled graphics card.
Like most of the Sapphire line-up, it’s missing a backplate. It might be a small issue, but most users with a window have a conventional layout which allows you to look at the graphics card; who would really want to look at the rear of a PCB when you have spent so much money on the card?
Pros
- Amazing cooling capabilities
- Very quiet operation
- Great performance/ price ratio
- 8GB VRAM future-proof, ready for higher demanding games
Cons
- Lack of a backplate really detracts from the premium finish
“Sapphire has provided us with a great card here, great performance at an extremely good price point“
Thank you to Sapphire for providing this review sample.
How does this card have a great performance/price ratio if the price is unknown yet?
Kudos for being the first tech site that reviewed the 300 series from AMD ( from what I see).
Because the price isn’t unknown.
I find it intriguing that this seems to be the only review showing any higher memory usage.
I’m beginning to wonder if some 390/X are actually running the old Hawaii core while others are running the *very* slightly updated Grenada (which has 2~5% higher per cycle and about 20~40W lower power draw on the core – which is then used on the RAM and higher clock speeds.).
anything from Sapphire that is not OC AKA Black Screen version?
If you had black screen issue, you probably used ASUS motherboard. I had the same problem and it turned out it was the shitty’s Asus M5A78L-M fault. I had so many problem with this mobo it’s ridiculous. I’ll never take anything else from them.
Did you guys honestly run one compute benchmark and declare Nvidia as the winners? WOW just WOW
When I saw this: GTX970 ROPs: 64 i stopped reading. Gj on your fail