Radeon R9 380/390 experience?

Tim Stannard wrote on 9/29/2015, 4:35 AM
I know the graphics card debate has been done to death and consensus seems to be the R9 290x is the best all round performer, but system builders are no longer supplying these (or at least Scan isn't). So, anyone any experience of the 3xx series? Are these the cards to buy for a new system?

Comments

Grazie wrote on 9/29/2015, 6:25 AM
Tim? Did you read this from JR back in June this year?

Grazie
OldSmoke wrote on 9/29/2015, 7:07 AM
As far as I know, the 390 shares the same GPU as the 290 series and perform similar if not slightly better.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

astar wrote on 9/29/2015, 5:12 PM
Like Oldsmoke says. The 390x seems to an optimization of the 290x design that runs cools and has better performance. The Fury X with HBM, and 64 compute units vs 44, is the revolutionary design in the 3xx release of cards.
Tim Stannard wrote on 9/29/2015, 5:49 PM
@Grazie,

Indeed I'd read that thread and that had a lot to do with me concluding the R9 290x was the card to go for. However the only reference to the 390 was JR's
"AMD just came out with the Radeon R9 390X 8GB! The reviews say it's a monster. ;-)"

"The reviews" aren't necessarily reviewing it in terms of Vegas, which is why I was asking.

However OldSmoke and astar have set my mind at rest that it is likely to be at least as suitable as teh 290.

Thanks all :)
NickHope wrote on 9/30/2015, 2:39 AM
Please let us know how it goes Tim. I fancy upgrading to an 8GB R9 390X myself.
IAM4UK wrote on 9/30/2015, 8:50 AM
I have an R9 390. It makes timeline preview of FX/compositing smooth, but is not much benefit on rendering. It almost certainly COULD be of great benefit in rendering, but Sony does not really support GPU-assisted rendering as they suggest.
Tim Stannard wrote on 10/1/2015, 12:14 PM
@IAM4UK That's a shame. Improved timeline performance will certainly be useful as I do quite a bit of compositing with kids, green screens and animated backgrounds (though I'm doing more of that in HitFilm nowadays) but disappointing about the rendering. I may save half the cost of the card and go for the 380.

@Nick Hope I'd be glad to report back but as this would be a wholesale upgrade form me (i7 2600K -> i7 6700K, 8GB RAM ->16GB RAM, 7200rpm HD -> SSD for project files, I doubt I'll be able to quantify in any meaningful way how much of a difference the graphics card makes.
Stringer wrote on 10/1/2015, 1:21 PM
You should be able to get some idea of performance difference by disabling GPU support in Vegas.
Tim Stannard wrote on 10/3/2015, 1:18 AM
@stringer True, and I could always stick my old card in to get comparison with that.