Tech Avenue +
Best's in it's Class.
By: TechAvenue
Today we will be looking at the performance analysis of the R9 390X (and subsequently it's peer the R9 290X 8GB) to see why it is in deed the best price/performance GPU for the Summer of 2015. We will be pitting the $430 R9 390X (it's subsequent peer the the $389 8GB R9 290X) and compare it the more expensive GTX 980 which cost's $500.
First Up we have Shadow of Mordor benchmark.
As you can see the R9 390X 8GB is beating the more expensive GTX 980 by 4 frames. A win for AMD. Next up, the ever popular GTA V
This is virtually a tie between AMD and nVidia but you have to remember the 980 cost's $70 more. Next up we have Thief
AMD scores another win by 3 frames.
nVidia takes the lead in the best selling Tomb Raider title in the franchise's history by 5 frames.
In one of this years best games nVidia beats AMD by 7 frames.
Last but not least we have Battlefield Hardline where the R9 390X matches the more expensive GTX 980.
Out of our sample of these games AMD wins 2. nVidia wins 2 and both AMD and nVidia draw in 2. But the main difference being that the R9 390X is signficantly cheaper than the GTX 980. So, that makes without a doubt the better deal. If you want to save more we would recommend the 8GB version of the R9 290X. Why? Because of the chart below.
When the R9 390X is clocked to the same core clock speed as the R9 290X we get the same performance since they are bred from the same Hawaii architecture. However, we must caution that one may not be able to overclock the 8GB/4GB R9 290X to the level of the R9 390X as AMD made some tweaks to the newer R9 390X. So your mileage may vary.
In conclusion, the R9 390X 8GB and it's previous iteration the 8GB R9 290X are this summer's best bang for the buck for GPU for 2015. The R9 390X often beats and ties the GTX 980 for $70 or less and with the R9 290X 8GB if overclocked to the R9 390X specs can do it for $110 less. And this point it's really no point in getting the GTX 980 given that we have far better options at a significant lesser price.
Source: Guru3d.com; HardOCP.com