Sapphire Tri-X R9 390X Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts
Sitting at the top of the Radeon R9 300 series is the R9 390X. As expected this card is nothing more than a rebrand of the previous Radeon R9 290X with a slight clock boost and 8GB of VRAM. This is a little disappointing, but you have to remember that the 300 series was never made to be the flagship graphics card from AMD, that’s what the Fury line is for. The R9 390X does give you a slight performance bump over the R9 290X so the card sits around the performance of the GTX 980. This means you will be able to play games at 1440p resolution on pretty high settings, moving up to 4K you will need to bump your settings down a bit, but the extra 4GB of VRAM should help out. With the latest Catalyst drivers from AMD you have the ability to put this card in a CrossFire setup with a 290X, which is something to think about if you already own a 290X.

Sapphire has of course added a slight factory-overclock to this card giving it a little bit more performance than the reference card. They have also changed the display output configuration by removing one of the DVI connectors and going with three DisplayPort and a single HDMI connection. Sapphire has outfitted the card with their Tri-X cooling solution that features their Intelligent Fan Control II which won’t run the fans unless the GPU reaches a specific temperature threshold. This keeps noise down and saves energy. The Tri-X cooling solution is no slouch either, I was quite impressed with its cooling power. The cooler has also been redesigned with a more modern look, which I know many people will appreciate.

The only real issue I have with this card is that it does not come with a backplate. Other companies offer a backplate on their R9 390X models and even down their entire R9 300 series.

This bring us to the price, which is $429.99 at our favorite online retailer. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Sapphire Tri-X R9 390X Graphics Card a 9 out of 10 score.

rating9 10 small

Pros:
– Factory overclocked
– Tri-X cooling solution
– Intelligent Fan Control II
– Adjusted display output configuration
– Dual BIOS
– Newer sleek design on the cooler

Cons:
– No backplate

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