Radeon RX 480 vs R9 390

Place in performance ranking	220	230
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Value for money	12.47	11.86
Architecture	GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)	Polaris (2016−2019)
GPU code name	Grenada	Polaris 10 Ellesmere
GCN generation	no data	4th Gen
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Design	reference	reference
Release date	18 June 2015 (8 years old)	29 June 2016 (7 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)	$329	$229
Current price	$20 (0.1x MSRP)	$174 (0.8x MSRP)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

R9 390 has 5% better value for money than RX 480.

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	2560	2304
Compute units	no data	36
Core clock speed	no data	1120 MHz
Boost clock speed	1000 MHz	1266 MHz
Number of transistors	6,200 million	5,700 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	275 Watt	150 Watt
Texture fill rate	160.0	182.3
Floating-point performance	5,120 gflops	5,834 gflops

Size and compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus support	PCIe 3.0	n/a
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	275 mm	241 mm
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin	1x 6-pin
Bridgeless CrossFire	1	1

Memory

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5
High bandwidth memory (HBM)	-	no data
Maximum RAM amount	0 MB	8 GB
Memory bus width	512 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	1000 MHz	8000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	384 GB/s	224 GB/s
Shared memory	no data	-

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort	1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
Eyefinity	1	1
Number of Eyefinity displays	6	no data
HDMI	+	2.0
DisplayPort support	+	1.4HDR

Technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

AppAcceleration	-	n/a
CrossFire	1	1
Enduro	-	n/a
FRTC	no data	1
FreeSync	1	+
HD3D	-	n/a
LiquidVR	no data	1
PowerTune	+	+
TressFX	no data	1
TrueAudio	+	n/a
ZeroCore	-	+
UVD	no data	+
VCE	+	+
DDMA audio	+	no data

API support

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	DirectX® 12	DirectX® 12
Shader Model	6.3	6.4
OpenGL	4.6	4.5
OpenCL	2.0	2.0
Vulkan	+	+
Mantle	+	n/a

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

R9 390 23.09
+3.6%

RX 480 22.28

R9 390 outperforms RX 480 by 4% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

R9 390 8942
+3.6%

RX 480 8631

R9 390 outperforms RX 480 by 4% in Passmark.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

R9 390 12730
+4.5%

RX 480 12186

R9 390 outperforms RX 480 by 4% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.