NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti vs. AMD Radeon R9 390 CF
Category : Versus
Published by Marc Büchel on 11.12.15
Maybe you're one of the gamers out there who simply can't have enough power coming from the graphics department or maybe you want to assemble a gaming rig with a given budget and you want to get the very maximum out of it. In both cases the following article might be interesting and it might be quite surprising to see how two Radeon R9 390 in CF stack up against a mighty GTX 980 Ti.
We're finally back with our "versus" articles. Compared to the old ones we've reworked our template and you might have noticed that the navigation is not structured by games anymore but by resolutions. We're testing the three most important resolutions 1080p, 1440p and UHD all at high-details, which is going to put massive load on the GPUs, especially in the case of UHD. Regarding UHD we only test cards with 4GB of VRAM and above, since cards with 2GB or 3GB simply aren't sufficient. Like in the past, we'll also have a look at power consumption, noise levels and temperatures of the particular cards. Last but not least you'll find our conclusion on whether we'd recommend an upgrade or not on the last page. We've decided to keep that part pretty short, since the test results on the previous pages are speaking for themselves.
[pagebreak]
Test Setup
|
Motherboard |
- ASUS Maximus VII Hero (BIOS 0224)
|
| CPU |
- Intel Core i7-4770K @ 4.0 GHz (Turbo On / HT On)
|
| Thermal compound |
|
|
Memory |
- G.Skill Ares Dual Channel 2x8GB @ CL11-12-11-28-1T-Auto DDR3-1600 MHz
|
|
Graphics Cards |
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB
- AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF
|
| Drivers |
- Windows 7 x64 (up to date)
- AMD Crimson 15.11.1
- NVIDIA ForceWare 359.06
|
| Games |
- BattleField 4
- Watch Dogs
- Tomb Raider
- Crysis 3
- Thief
- GRID Autosport
- Sleeping Dogs
- Metro Last Light
- Assassin’s Creed Unity
- Far Cry 4
- GTA V
|
|
Games and OS |
|
|
System Drive |
|
|
PSU |
- Seasonic Platinum SS-1000XP / 1000 Watts
|
[pagebreak]
3DMark - Fire Strike
GPU Score - Performance
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
16'410 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
23'061 |
140.53 % |
GPU Score - Extreme
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
6'530 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
10'294 |
157.64 % |
GPU Score - Ultra
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
3'138 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
5'508 |
175.53 % |
Unigine Heaven 4.0 Extreme Preset
Score - 1080p
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
1'959 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
2'525 |
128.89 % |
Score - 1440p
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
1'198 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
1'603 |
133.81 % |
Score - 2160p
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
521 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
723 |
138.77 % |
FPS - 1080p
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
77.73 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
98.00 |
126.08 % |
FPS - 1440p
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
47.54 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
60.57 |
127.41 % |
FPS - 2160p
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
20.69 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
27.71 |
133.93 % |
Unigine Heaven Settings |
|
1080p |
1440p |
2160p |
- Preset: Custom
- Quality: Ultra
- Tesselation: Extreme
- Stereo 3D: Disabled
- Multi Monitor: Disabled
- Anti Aliasing: 8x
- Full Screen: On
- Resolution: Custom
|
- Preset: Custom
- Quality: Ultra
- Tesselation: Extreme
- Stereo 3D: Disabled
- Multi Monitor: Disabled
- Anti Aliasing: 8x
- Full Screen: On
- Resolution: Custom
|
- Preset: Custom
- Quality: Ultra
- Tesselation: Extreme
- Stereo 3D: Disabled
- Multi Monitor: Disabled
- Anti Aliasing: 8x
- Full Screen: On
- Resolution: Custom
|
[pagebreak]
1080P Games
Battlefield 4
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
109.74 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
90.44 |
82.41 % |
Watch Dogs
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
74.18 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
64.31 |
86.69 % |
Tomb Raider
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
68.92 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
89.05 |
129.21 % |
Crysis 3
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
44.40 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
50.97 |
114.80 % |
Thief
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
83.11 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
65.91 |
79.30 % |
Sleeping Dogs
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
98.93 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
123.24 |
124.57 % |
Metro Last Light
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
68.45 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
74.08 |
108.22 % |
Far Cry 4
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
82.96 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
76.89 |
92.68 % |
GTA V
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
129.76 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
165.02 |
127.17 % |
GRID Autosport
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
101.69 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
55.15 |
54.23 % |
[pagebreak]
1440P Games
Battlefield 4
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
75.58 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
85.44 |
113.05 % |
Watch Dogs
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
49.21 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
58.60 |
119.08 % |
Tomb Raider
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
42.84 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
56.29 |
131.40 % |
Crysis 3
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
28.04 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
35.11 |
125.21 % |
Thief
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
68.23 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
49.73 |
72.89 % |
Sleeping Dogs
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
60.20 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
82.19 |
136.53 % |
Metro Last Light
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
44.77 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
50.30 |
112.35 % |
Far Cry 4
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
54.25 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
82.81 |
152.65 % |
GTA V
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
84.94 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
112.72 |
132.71 % |
GRID Autosport
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
77.50 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
55.84 |
72.05 % |
[pagebreak]
2160P Games
Battlefield 4
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
39.40 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
51.17 |
129.87 % |
Watch Dogs
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
24.98 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
31.26 |
125.14 % |
Tomb Raider
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
20.18 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
26.10 |
129.34 % |
Crysis 3
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
13.88 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
17.90 |
128.96 % |
Thief
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
36.85 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
27.61 |
74.93 % |
Sleeping Dogs
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
26.08 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
38.19 |
146.43 % |
Metro Last Light
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
22.63 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
25.61 |
113.17 % |
Far Cry 4
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
27.15 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
38.68 |
142.47 % |
GTA V
| |
Score |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
39.93 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
52.63 |
131.81 % |
GRID Autosport
| |
FPS |
FPS |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
59.30 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
55.15 |
93.00 % |
[pagebreak]
Power Consumption
|
Idle Watt |
% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
70 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
85 |
121.43 % |
| |
|
|
| |
Load Watt |
% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
321 |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
695 |
216.51 % |
[pagebreak]
Temperatures / Noise Levels
Temperature
|
Idle °C |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
34 |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
38 |
| |
|
| |
Load °C |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
84 |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
89 |
Noise Level
|
idle dBA |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
36.3 |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
35.1 |
| |
|
| |
load dBA |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
40.2 |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
44.6 |
[pagebreak]
Performance Index &
Price
Performance Index 1080p
|
% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
99.93 % |
Performance Index 1440p
|
% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
116.79 % |
Performance Index 2160p
|
% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
121.52 % |
Performance Index Average 1080p, 1440p
|
% |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
112.75 % |
Price
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
|
| AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB CF |
 + |
[pagebreak]
Conclusion
Having a quick look at the results shows, that at 1080p the two configs are performing similarly on average. Increasing the resolution to 1440p gives the CrossFire setup a 16.8 percent advantage over the single GTX 980 Ti and at 2160p (UHD) the difference is 21.5 percent towards the 390 CF. Overall this shows that the CrossFire configuration can start to show it's muscles when you run games at high as well as ultra high resolutions and the fact that both AMD cards have been equipped with 8GB VRAM, really makes this setup suitable for UHD.
Apparently two Radeon R9 390 cards make for a powerful gaming setup. While the two cards together cost about 653 Euro, which is approximately 7 percent less than a single GeForce GTX 980 Ti, the increased power consumption is going to set you back quite a few bucks over time. Having a closer look at these numbers shows, our system with one GeForce GTX 980 Ti
pulls 321 Watts from the plug, whereas the setup with two R9 390X pixel accelerators needs a whopping 695 Watts. In other words the configuration with two R9 390 cards burs almost 217 percent more power and that really is a significant difference. Overall it is interesting to see that at very high resolutions two R9 390 cards outperform a single GTX 980 Ti well measurably but unfortunately the performance advantage comes at insane levels of power consumption, which cannot be justified.
