Why bother with 380X if 290X can be had now for cheap?

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BCShak

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Jan 20, 2015
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Considering this announcement, and assuming it's legit
http://www.techpowerup.com/209719/radeon-r9-380x-based-on-grenada-a-refined-hawaii.html

The difference between the 290x and 380x will be moot. I know it would be best to wait for the 390x but thats much later in the year.
The 380x is supposedly coming out in the next few weeks.

But if it's pretty much the same as the 290x, why shouldn't anyone get the 290x since you can get that for much cheaper?
 
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It's just to get people to buy more cards. The announcement of a "new" card will prompt some to buy just because of the marketing exposure from reviews and hype. At this point, the 290X seems kind of stale and a somewhat flawed last-gen product. A "new" 380X will at least attract a few more purchasers, even if it's pretty much exactly the same rebranded card. It'll probably be more expensive than the 290X as well, so AMD's seriously suffering profit margins might increase at least a little bit. This one is all about AMD, though, not you the gamer and customer. We'll see if they at least offer something in terms of features or an improved reference cooler.
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It's just to get people to buy more cards. The announcement of a "new" card will prompt some to buy just because of the marketing exposure from reviews and hype. At this point, the 290X seems kind of stale and a somewhat flawed last-gen product. A "new" 380X will at least attract a few more purchasers, even if it's pretty much exactly the same rebranded card. It'll probably be more expensive than the 290X as well, so AMD's seriously suffering profit margins might increase at least a little bit. This one is all about AMD, though, not you the gamer and customer. We'll see if they at least offer something in terms of features or an improved reference cooler.
 
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caj

caj

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the new cards might have better memory pooling, less heat & power drawing, wider memory buses , better cooling & better driver support. jus look at the diff between the 780 & 970. the 970 outperforms the 780 with a less bus bit but better archicteture( maxwell compared to kepler)
 
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1stVeteran

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IMO the 290x 8bg models are the interesting ones. '
We sadly dont know what the 3xx series will bring, but if grenada really is just a rebranded hawaii i am a bit dissapointed. of course they would use this pretty pwerfull architecture again but i hoped at a bigger version of it, maybe 3400 shaders or so.

 
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1stVeteran

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also the 380x eas so hyped because it was suggested to pe the sucseesor of the 290x (top of the line single-gpu)
and the 390x would be the hardcore 295x2 sucessor. Now it seems the 390x will be the 'Monster', so i would rather talk about the 390x.
 
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Neur0nauT

Neur0nauT

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The 380X will have High Bandwidth Memory. It is supposedly being announced for launch at GDC 2015 in June. It will be a lot faster at higher resolutions like 1440p and QHD. If you haven't been keeping up with the development of the R9 3xx series, then it would be best to wait and see what the outcome is, or else get a Maxwell.
 
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1stVeteran

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We just can say right now what is going to happen, but i wouldnt recommand buying maxwell just becaause NV lied (the "comunication-problem" is pretty false-faced). IMHO Nvidia has lost the trust and shouldnt be the main player for a long time.
 
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The Nvidia issue could be viewed as an honest mistake. AMD, on the other hand, has a lengthy history of actually trying to deceive the consumer.

Previously they have been caught tweaking their default image quality settings to favor more performance at the expense of quality. This famously led to inflated performance numbers in reviews. Also, Tom's has exposed their tendency to deliver cherry-picked GPUs to review sites. These review samples have been shown to run cooler and outperform their retail samples. Anyone expressing outrage at Nvidia certainly should reserve similar derision at AMD, to say the least.
 
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ccampy

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Cherry picking you mean like virtually every hardware manufacturer does with product's that have a variable qualify

Also this article is the first time I've heard of Grenada what happened to Bermuda and Fiji I also doubt the 380x will be released without some sort if change e.g die shrink HBM lower power use if it was basicly a 280x with a few small tweaks like the 285 it could be been let out a while ago as there would be little reason to hold it back so long
 
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DKNF81KD60RATIO

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I don’t think that this card if for PC enthusiast. It is simply AMD rebranding their current R9 290x cards with a bit of new technology when it comes to stacking the die when it comes Frame buffer. Which might see slight performance gains when it comes to increased memory bandwidth but not enough to go out and buy the new card if you already have a r 9 290x or 290 cards. This is just a way for AMD to make the most of the 28nm design. Remember the Hawaii architecture in 2013 with the r 9 290 reference cards so they probably wont be changing it for some time. They are just getting their money worth with these new brand of cards.

The specs are basically the same. The same streaming processors memory interface and memory clock. This is good if you have no budget and you are just out to buy the newest thing out there from AMD or you just don’t know. I don’t see this card doing much better at GTA V than the 290x maybe a few FPS more on average and that’s it . I would get the 290x if I had a to choose between cards because the added cost is not worth it
 
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