Question 1

I'm seeing a number of reviews mentioning driver issues and crashing to desktop. Can anyone speak to whether these issues are specific to windows 10 (or 8) drivers? Anybody with windows 7 having these issues?

Accepted Answer

They were caused by applications that used hardware acceleration in the background.   Mostly windows 8 and 10, winows 10 being the worst.  Although there were a number of windows 7 users experiencing the issue as well.  Since my review on this card AMD has released 15.10 beta drivers for this GPU wich has resolved the crashing issue for me and I use win10.  Good luck.

Question 2

I'm seeing a number of reviews mentioning driver issues and crashing to desktop. Can anyone speak to whether these issues are specific to windows 10 (or 8) drivers? Anybody with windows 7 having these issues?

Accepted Answer

Window 7 here. Blackouts, crashes, freezing. My issues weren't with the R9 390 Strix. My issues were from old video card drivers. I replaced an EVGA Nvidia gtx 970 and it's drivers didn't completely uninstall with the Windows 7 uninstaller. Had to go into drive C:, users files, regedit: registry and directories (HKEY) to remove Nvidia files and folders.  Nvidia tweaks like Precision optimize some games. They had to be removed and the games reinstalled. Repaired DX11 using dxdiag from 'Start'.
Some guys say third party uninstallers work and some say it doesn't. Whether they do or don't, Nvidia has paths that need to be rooted out.
Not all problems are old video and game drivers. Windows could be jacked up or damaged. I've heard using dskchk (disk scan or scan now) helps and installing Windows 10 works, too. Probably throw in a defrag and malware scan wouldn't be a bad idea. Hope this helps.

Question 3

can i crossfire tow asus r9 390 (does this card hava crossfire option) ?

Accepted Answer

It does crossfire through the mobo. It does not have the connections on the card themselves for the cable connection.

Question 4

Besides keep the video card rigid and help stop metal particles from crossing circuits, does that back plate really help cool anything? From it's design, it looks like it would retain a lot of heat.

Accepted Answer

I build amplifiers for a living so I've always dealt with heat issues.  The metal plate can actually help pull heat away from the hotter areas of the back of the PCB (GPU chip), and spread it to the rest of the plate faster than free air.  From there, that heat can dissipate out to the air through the entire surface of the back plate.  So while it may look like it's holding in the heat, it effectively pulls it away from GPU and gets rid of it more efficiently.  Combined with the added strength of the metal, it's a win-win situation!

Question 5

do you need 'active' adapters to utilize displayport to HDMI monitors or will a displayport to HDMI cable work?

Accepted Answer

well I am using HDMI to DP cable and its working fine, also DP to DVI,  but haven't try DP to HDMI, I think they will work fine, maybe you will need only 1 Active adapter if you are using Eyefinity Setup or maybe not at all with the new cards. so you can try them without adapter and if you needed 1 get it.

Question 6

How well does this card oc?

Accepted Answer

it runs pretty quiet but really hot because the fans bearly spin until its really hot. the fans are quiet even when they are at max rpm but this generate so much heat it cause my motherboard temp to increase. might be different if you got it though because i have a computer desk for a case and its super big with not very good air flow. once you start playing mid performace game or higher the fans will spin, otherwise just the center one or not even at all. i do everything at 4k. the card is too big, have to remove chassis fan3 cable to have this sit properly on first pci slot. i have a asrock fatality x99 pro motherboard. bearly lag at all on 4k, when i do lag i think its just my cpu, i dont overclock. cpu runs 3.3-3.6 if i do overclock it wil be 4.0 graphic and audio is a up for gaming from my nvidia gtx 750 ti. but i do miss my 750 ti for its not that hot.

Question 7

What is the difference between the ASUS R9 390 and the ASUS R9 390x? The price is around $70 more and the ram is the same, the clock and memory speed is almost identical, and they look the same.

Accepted Answer

TechPowerUp says the 390x has....

10% more shading units (2560 vs 2816)
10% more Texture mapping units (160 vs 176)
10% more Compute units (40 vs 44)
5% better Pixel Rate (64 vs 67.2 GPixel/s)
16% better Texture Rate (184.8 vs 160 GTexel/s
16% better Floating Point Performance (5120 vs 5914 GFLOPS)

what this means for gaming idk.

Question 8

Is it possible to crossfire this card? I see nothing in the details mentioning it.

Accepted Answer

Details on cross-firing the r 390 series seem to be nonexistent on the AMD site or the manufacturer site. Most people think you should be fine if its a card of the same chipset family, they have similar clock rates, and the same amount of VRAM. However, I'd advise you against it considering the lack of crossfire information, you might not be able to play most games if they don't have a crossfire profile, these cards need about 300w per card, they will output twice the heat , and the scattered benefits when using crossfire aren't enough to recommend it for usage.  Don't forget to check that your motherboard supports crossfire and that the AMD crimson drivers may not install if you have you antivirus enabled.

Question 9

I have read a reviewer saying that this STRIX card does NOT support crossfire.  I'm not sure why that would be the case.  Does anyone have 2 of these running in crossfire?  Just want to be sure prior to purchasing a second card.

Accepted Answer

This card does not have a crossfire connection on top of the board, like most cards do. I have heard that with Windows 10 and DX12 you can utilize both cards without the crossfire cable. Also I believe that some motherboards can achieve crossfire with out the cable, but you would need to research this.

Question 10

Do you have issues (crashes) with this card and GTA online?

Accepted Answer

What version of HDCP and HDMI does this card support? 
I am considering getting a 4K TV and 4K monitor to connect to this.

Questions & Answers