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Replacement for Sapphire Radeon R9 Nitro 390

Associate
Joined
14 May 2003
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1,116
Location
Worcestershire
First post in a long time. I've been running my Sapphire Radeon R9 Nitro 390 since 2015, a great deal from OCUK on Black Friday for £200. Today in the middle of a game the PC shut down, and now the card seems to be dead. No GPU fans spinning, nothing, even after re-seating the card so I'm assuming it's dead.
I've been totally out of the PC Hardware loop since my last x99 based build, so some advice on a worthy replacement would be welcome. The RTX 2060 looks interesting, but 6Gb of memory seems a backward step. I'm have no preference for ATI or nVidia, and my budget is up to £350.

Game-wise I play Fortnight and World of Tanks on a 60Hz Samsung 1440p monitor, and would like any replacement to be relatively future-proof!
 
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Associate
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16 Jan 2019
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Ironically I had the same card as the OP and it failed on Tuesday evening in exactly the same way! Sudden shut down of PC while gaming, no fans and no signal from the card when reset. I also ordered the Vega 56 Pulse (a no brainer if you want AMD) but had to amend my order and downgrade to a RX 590 when I noticed it didn't have a DVI output on it (long story but lets just say I needed one with DVI)

Fitted the 590 today, while its not a massive step up from the old 390X there is a noticeable improvement in frame rates and a drop in power usage. I'm actually more impressed with it than I was expecting to be given the reviews I had read. Will keep the card for a while then put it in my second PC and do a proper upgrade, hopefully to Navi, later this year.
 
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Plus the 3 games you get is incredible value for a card which will offer superb 1440p 60 fps gameplay! Last AMD card I owned was a Radeon 5770 however I can totally see how much the Vega 56 is a cracking deal!
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Jan 2007
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15,428
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PA, USA (Orig UK)
Ironically I had the same card as the OP and it failed on Tuesday evening in exactly the same way! Sudden shut down of PC while gaming, no fans and no signal from the card when reset. I also ordered the Vega 56 Pulse (a no brainer if you want AMD) but had to amend my order and downgrade to a RX 590 when I noticed it didn't have a DVI output on it (long story but lets just say I needed one with DVI)

Fitted the 590 today, while its not a massive step up from the old 390X there is a noticeable improvement in frame rates and a drop in power usage. I'm actually more impressed with it than I was expecting to be given the reviews I had read. Will keep the card for a while then put it in my second PC and do a proper upgrade, hopefully to Navi, later this year.

You know you can get an adapter for that right?
 
Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2019
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21
You know you can get an adapter for that right?

Yeah I looked in to that option. Unfortunately I have a BenQ XL2720 144hz monitor that has version 1 firmware. The monitors HDMI connector is not capable of 144hz signals and the displayport connector with V1 firmware also has known issues. If I was to buy an adapter it would need to be a Dual link DVI to displayport adapter to allow support for 144hz, and the ones I found were expensive.

I looked in to flashing the newer firmware to the screen but it requires a special tool or a working knowledge of Linux. Bit gutted really as the Vega 56 is better bang for buck but I couldn't see an easy way to connect it and use the 144hz refresh rate.

Happy for someone to enlighten me on the subject if I'm wrong however!
 
Associate
OP
Joined
14 May 2003
Posts
1,116
Location
Worcestershire
Ironically I had the same card as the OP and it failed on Tuesday evening in exactly the same way! Sudden shut down of PC while gaming, no fans and no signal from the card when reset. I also ordered the Vega 56 Pulse (a no brainer if you want AMD) but had to amend my order and downgrade to a RX 590 when I noticed it didn't have a DVI output on it (long story but lets just say I needed one with DVI)

Fitted the 590 today, while its not a massive step up from the old 390X there is a noticeable improvement in frame rates and a drop in power usage. I'm actually more impressed with it than I was expecting to be given the reviews I had read. Will keep the card for a while then put it in my second PC and do a proper upgrade, hopefully to Navi, later this year.
How very odd! I found another post elsewhere reporting the same issue.

I'm glad I read a few reviews before pulling the trigger as it's dropped 30 quid today, result! Ordered. I love buying new kit, even when it's due to a less than ideal event!
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2005
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8,618
Location
Southampton
I also had a black screen issue on my stock settings Sapphire R9 390 Nitro on Weds afternoon, using Benq XL2730Z over DP with 19.1.1 drivers, screen went black once booting had arrived at login screen (fine during basic Windows loading screen). It seemed to get resolved after a panic for ~30mins, when I went back to basics and pulled the DP cable out of the card and the monitor before re-inserting. This morning, I uninstalled 19.1.1 driver, ran latest DDU in safe mode before installing the new 19.1.2 drivers.

All a bit weird, as these days I rarely play anything more taxing than Rocket League (which happens to have a fix in the new drivers)!
 
Associate
OP
Joined
14 May 2003
Posts
1,116
Location
Worcestershire
I also had a black screen issue on my stock settings Sapphire R9 390 Nitro on Weds afternoon, using Benq XL2730Z over DP with 19.1.1 drivers, screen went black once booting had arrived at login screen (fine during basic Windows loading screen). It seemed to get resolved after a panic for ~30mins, when I went back to basics and pulled the DP cable out of the card and the monitor before re-inserting. This morning, I uninstalled 19.1.1 driver, ran latest DDU in safe mode before installing the new 19.1.2 drivers.

All a bit weird, as these days I rarely play anything more taxing than Rocket League (which happens to have a fix in the new drivers)!
Mine would regularly give me a black screen, a quick wiggle of the card in the slot and the power leads would restore things. Hopefully the new card is more relaible.
 
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