Gigabyte r9 390 g1 gaming review

Today we bring you an interesting review, this time at the hands of a Gigabyte R390 of its already known and famous G1 Gaming series. A very interesting card given some particular characteristics, such as being practically semi-passive, in addition to having its own lighting when the fans work or not, and being one of the smallest R9s on the market, but the most ideal for having graphics power in small boxes and for this it has a design and size 100% personalized.

Technical characteristics

GIGABYTE R9 390 G1 Gaming TECHNICAL FEATURES
GPU	AMD Radeon R9 390
Connectors	1 x PCIE 6-pin. 1 x 8-pin PCIE.
Core frequency	1025 Mhz
Memory type	GDDR5.
Memory size	8 GB.
Memory speed (mhz)	6000 MHz.
DirectX	version 12.
BUS memory	512 bits.
BUS card	PCI-E 3.0 x16.
OpenGL	OpenGL®4.4
I / O	1 x DVI-D 1 x HDMI Output 3 x Display Port (Regular DP) Supports HDCP.
Dimensions	23.7 x 12.9 x 4.2 cm
Price	345 euros.

Gigabyte R9 390 G1 Gaming

As we can see, the card not only has a fantastic finish but also has elements to take into account, such as the fantastic Windforce heatsink, with two fans and which has 4 pure copper heatpipes that are born from the gpu and are distributed by the entire card, having to finish a complete backplate on the back of the card.

Equipped with the “Grenada” chip, with 2560 Shaders GCN 1.1, a 512Bit memory bus accompanied by 8Gb ensure exceptional performance at high resolutions. The Gpu comes with a slight factory overclock, at 1025Mhz (25Mhz more than standard) and 6000Mhz in memory, giving it 384Gb / s of bandwidth. It has enough DP connections, an Hdmi and a Dvi, in addition to the already standard PCIe 3.0. To finish, you need a 6 + 8-pin power supply and a minimum 600w source.

As we observe, the heatsink covers all the important elements of the card, such as the Vrm, phases, memory… Being a totally customized pcb and designed for high performance at minimum size. Curiously despite being a G1 Gaming range, it has voltage blocked by bios, therefore we will not be able to expand on the overclock, having a voltage limitation. Another important feature is that it is semi-passive, having 0 dB up to 62ºc that its fans come into operation, ideal for lovers of absolute silence, although we can configure our profile at will.

The card comes with box, instruction manual and nothing else, it does not have a molex to pcie power connector as well as other accessories. We leave you now some of the most relevant stock photos.

Test bench and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	i6-4690k @ 4400 Mhz..
Base plate:	Asus Z97M-Plus.
Memory:	Geil Evo Potenza @ 2666Mhz.
Heatsink	Be Quiet Dark Rock 3.
HDD	Transcend M. " MT800 256Gb. Sata interface.
Graphics Card	Gigabyte R9 390 G1 Gaming 1025 / 1500Mhz. OC 1090 / 1640Mhz. Asus 970 Mini. 1280 / 1753Mhz. Oc 1440 / 1916Mhz.
Power supply	Corsair CS550M 550W.

To evaluate the performance of the card, it will be used as direct competition, a GTX 970 signed by Asus is its Itx OC model and both cards will compete at their factory frequencies and with the maximum stable overclock obtained. We will also have Windows 10 Pro 64 bit operating system and the latest current drivers for both cards.

For benchmarks we will use the following titles:

F1 2015Hitman AbsolutionLotR - Shadow of MordorThiefTomb RaiderAlien IsolationBioshock InfiniteMetro Last Light

All tests will be passed in their maximum configuration unless it is stated differently in the graph. And this time we will do it in two resolutions, the most popular today, 1080P (1920 × 1080) and a slightly higher one, 1440P (2560x1440P).

What are we looking for in the tests?

First the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS, the more fluid the game will be. To differentiate the quality a bit, we leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS, but we will also have the minimum Fps in the tests that were thus possible:

FRAMES BY SECONDS
Frames for Seconds. (FPS)	Gameplay
Less than 30 FPS	Limited
30 - 40 FPS	Playable
40 - 60 FPS	Good
Greater than 60 FPS	Fairly Good or Excellent

1080P test results

Test results at 1440P

Temperature and consumption

And because not only does the power of a card matter, we are going to evaluate both its consumption and its temperatures, and have a reference of how it positions itself against its current competitor.

Final words and conclusion

With exceptional performance, the 390 series is probably positioned as the best performance class and price in what high-end we mean, almost at the price of its previous model, the 290, but with twice the memory and higher frequencies, but more optimized in almost every way.

A suitable card and all-terrain both 1080P and 1440P, with a performance virtually similar to that of the popular 970 even with high overclocking, but thanks to its enormous bandwidth and amount of memory, in higher resolutions or more demanding scenarios, it tends to distance himself from it.

Silent, small in size and with a fantastic finish, this is the 390 with the best value for money today but lacks other more enthusiastic models, such as a larger heatsink or the simple feature of having the voltage unlocked, which reduces its quality of overclock as well as the lack of Dual Bios or some accessories that have always accompanied the R9 200/300 series, unfit for a G1 Gaming series.

It fully meets its price but for these details we cannot give you the gold medal.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ The smallest size on the market	- Voltage blocked for Oc.
+ Semi-passive at rest and silent under load.	- Lacks Dual Bios
+ 100% copper heatpipes.	- Could include DVI thief, power or drivers.
+ Performance
+ 8Gb of memory.