Small Giant Games announced the launch of their new game Rope Racers. The free-to-play instant multiplayer game will be available on the App Store and for Android devices on Google Play on March 17th.
The upcoming survival sandbox The Black Death details the profession of the merchant, who trades in resources, crafting tools, and cooked foods in pursuit of the 'rags-to-riches' lifestyle.
Another week another show this week is a good time to talk about Launch hype. I give you 5 things you should do to keep your on track. Let me know how do you stay on track in the coming days of a games launch.
To help players in ArcheAge find a better home for themselves within the game, server transfers have been added. While it's a core part of a lot of games lately and something that is often given as a free feature, ArcheAge has turned it into a sort of money sink, and not an extremely cheap one.
The Russian version has finally received the Valencia update, and today I will show you the most important features of the new Update. Black Desert Ru has tons of Wester players because the Russian version has a free to play model.
This week we are hosting a giveaway for Warframe. Get a key and receive a 3-Day Affinity Booster, a boost that doubles the amount of affinity you earn from mission rewards ad pickups, which will help you to level up your warframes and weapons faster. You simply need to follow the instructions to get one […]
The free-to-play, anime-style monster-hunting MMORPG Dragomon Hunter is celebrating the arrival of its biggest patch – chock-full of more content than ever before! The update includes a brand-new class, talent system, and a new continent to explore on the way to a higher level cap. Chief among the additions to the game is the newest […]
Grinding Gear Games is ready to unleash the latest chapter for their free to play online ARPG, Path of Exile. Path of Exile: Ascendancy and the Perandus Challenge League will be launched simultaneously today at noon US Pacific time. Path of Exile: Ascendancy, like every major expansion of PoE, will be completely free-to-play (and of […]
KOG Games today announced Elsword‘s final, yet epic installment of their Season Two update series with Add and Luciel! The crazed intellect of a maniacal, power driven madman and the embodiment of how to pay homage to the anime fan-base live vicariously through any 2 characters (ok, well.. 3) it’s definitely in reference to Elsword’s […]
What the heck? While Apple fights with the FBI to avoid creating software that will unlock an iPhone, Amazon has silently discontinued encryption in its Fire OS platform. As a reminder, Fire OS is the operating system Amazon uses on its popular tablets and lackluster Fire phone, which upgraded to version 5.0 back in September 2015. Amazon said that encryption was removed because customers simply weren't using it.
Awareness of this feature removal surfaced earlier this week, when EFF member David Scovetta posted a screenshot on Twitter that displayed a message about encryption support on his Kindle Fire tablet. "Your device has encrypted data," the message reads. "However, device encryption is no longer supported in Fire OS 5. Follow the steps outlines below to save your data."
The warning does note that Kindle Fire device owners can stay on the current, older version of Fire OS (4.0 or later) until they are ready to upgrade. However, the big stink surrounding this whole encryption issue is that Fire OS 5 was just made available to older Kindle Fire tablets like the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and the Kindle Fire HD 6/7, which previously sported Fire OS 4.0.
An Amazon representative said today that the company removed several "enterprise features" with the release of Fire OS 5 that customers simply weren't using, encryption being one of them. For example, customers could previously encrypt the entire device with a PIN number, which in turn would erase the device if the PIN number was entered incorrectly 30 times back to back.
With encryption removed, all files stored on the tablets and phone using Fire OS 5.0 can be accessed by anyone who they manages to break into the device. The representative said that encryption is no longer available because most Fire tablet owners use them for entertainment instead of productivity. There was no mention of those who use the Fire Phone.
In a separate report, Wired states that Amazon's decision to remove encryption from Fire OS has nothing to do with Apple's fight with the government. In fact, the removal of this feature had been in the works for some time. However, a representative reassured Wired that "all Fire tablets' communication with Amazon's cloud meet our high standards for privacy and security, including appropriate use of encryption."
Nathan White, Senior Legislative Manager at digital rights organization Access Now, points out that data encryption in motion and data encryption at rest are two different things. Amazon is essentially telling customers that their data stored on the device doesn't matter. Just think: email addresses, credit card numbers, and more will remain on the device unprotected.
"Amazon's decision is backward—it not only moves away from default device encryption, where other manufacturers are headed, but removes all choice by the end user to decide to encrypt it after purchase," White told Wired. "The devices themselves also become more attractive targets for thieves. Users should no longer trust these devices: If you wouldn't post it to the internet publicly, don't put it on a Fire Tablet."
Amazon customers can either stick with Fire OS 4 and keep encryption, or upgrade to the latest Fire OS platform and risk having personal files exposed to nosy snoops.
The topic of encryption heated up a few weeks ago when Apple refused a court order to create what the company calls "GovtOS," a version of iOS that would be void of several security features. This version would be used on a number of locked iPhone devices collected by the government, including the controversial iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. Apple's official showdown with the FBI will take place on March 22.
Microsoft's Gabe Aul, corporate Vice President of the Engineering Systems Team, today announced the release of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14279. This build was dumped into the Fast Ring for Insiders this week, providing an updated logon experience, the March update for the Xbox app beta, and a number of bug fixes. This release also seemingly focuses on Cortana, adding more languages and reminders.
For starters, Microsoft has added Spanish (Mexico), Portuguese (Brazil), and French (Canada) languages. Aul said in today's blog post that the team works to provide a custom experience that is relevant to each language and market. As a result, Cortana users in Brazil will find that the Windows 10 assistant is "fond" of pasteis, a Portuguese custard tart that can be commonly found across the country. For Mexico, the team added "local flavor" so that Cortana matches the local accents and language.
As for reminders, Cortana now saves useful information when users need to remember something but don't have time to create a detailed reminder. For instance, users can have Cortana remember the name of a book, telling Cortana to "remind me to read [insert book name here]." Users can also have Cortana remember tasks that don't have a specific date, like washing the car or to do a load of the kids' laundry that's scattered across the floor before the "boss" gets home.
"You have the option to set specific details like location, time, and people at a later time so that Cortana will surface it when its most relevant," Aul said in the blog. "You can always view and edit all of these in the same place you see your reminders in Cortana today. In future builds Cortana will be able to retrieve these upon request, just like a real personal assistant would."
Cortana will also see a few fixes in this release. Aul said that Microsoft has resolved an issue regarding Microsoft Edge, Cortana, and users with roaming profiles. The company also fixed an issue in which Cortana would constantly show reminders that were already completed. There are other non-Cortana fixes in the mix as well, including a bluescreen problem caused by downloading certain drivers from Windows Update. A problem with copying/moving a file to the desktop and having it display correctly was also fixed.
Microsoft has updated the Windows 10 logon experience, providing a single background instead of two (logon screen, lock screen). The change isn't monumental, but allows the user to have the same custom background in both instances. However, for those who use Microsoft's ad-infested platform, aka Windows Spotlight, this change won't be available until a future update is released. The company is also tweaking the transition between logon and lock screens to provide a "smoother" experience.
For PC and Xbox One gamers, the beta version of the Xbox app for Windows 10 sports an updated "Featured" section and the addition of a Gamerscore Leaderboard. Windows 10 users will also see a change in the Photos app, as it now features Sway integration. That means users can click on the "Tell your story with Sway" button to produce an interactive web-based photo album. They can then add text, captions, and other details to tell the story.
This latest build of Windows 10 also arrives with a few known problems, so Insiders should take note here. One issue revolves around hibernation, as some Insiders are reporting that their device will freeze or bluescreen when resuming from the hibernation state. There's also a known bug related to Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Internet Security, or the Kaspersky Total Security Suite.
By now you've undoubtedly heard that Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 users. It's a solid deal, but if you're building from scratch and don't have access to an older and OS, you'll have to bite the bullet and buy one. The good news is you don't need to pay full price to jump into Windows 10 territory. Instead, check out today's top deal for Microsoft Windows 10 Home - 64-bit - OEM for $80 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: [EMCEHEF36]). Protip: Choose your privacy options carefully when installing the OS.
Sony goofed up yesterday by going live with a listing for No Man's Sky on its U.S. PlayStation blog that made it seem as the though the game would release today. That turned out to be wishful thinking, however you can pre-order No Man's Sky starting today.
It's not just available for the PlayStation 4, but for PC as well. You can find the title for pre-order on Steam, Gog.com, and iam8bit.com, the latter of which also offers an Explorer's Edition ($150) of No Man's Land with various extras, plus a few goodies ranging in price from $10 (Atlas Pin) to $50 (a couple of prints).
Those who pre-order get a bonus in the form of the Horizon Omega ship equipped with an upgraded hyperdrive and increased firepower.
There's a lot to explore in No Man's Sky. It's set in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy with over 18 quintillion planets. What you do is up to you, whether its mine for crystals, shoot down ships, or explore, which is what the game really encourages.
"Explore uncharted solar systems and catalogue unique new forms of life. Every planet's landscape is different from the next, and populated by species never before encountered," developer Hello Games says.
The system requirements are pretty reasonable to run No Man's Land—you need a minimum Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB or RAM, GeForce GTX 480 graphics card, 10GB of free space, and Windows 7 or greater. Nothing too intense.
Things aren't looking so hot for Microsoft in the smartphone space. That isn't new, but with Windows 10 Mobile slowly inching its way to more devices, Microsoft is probably hoping for a greater share of the pie. Market research firm IDC isn't as optimistic.
To start with, IDC predicts that 2015 is likely to be the last year of double-digit smartphone growth. The year finished with 1.44 billion smartphone shipments around the world, up 10.4 percent over 2014. But looking ahead to next year, IDC expects smartphone shipments to grow just 5.7 percent on 1.5 billion shipments.
What does that mean for Microsoft? IDC says it was a "challenging year for Windows Phones," which saw shipments decline 18 percent to 11.1 million units. Despite the emergence of Windows 10 Mobile, IDC expects Microsoft's share of the smartphone market will end up at just 1.6 percent by the end of this year, and 0.9 percent by 2020.
"The recent MWC conference in Barcelona showed a few new products from partner OEMs although it remains unclear how serious the Windows Phone offerings will be from OEMs," IDC said.
If IDC is correct, Microsoft won't be happy with that kind of performance. Even though Microsoft doesn't need to match the volume of Android or even iOS shipments to see its Windows 10 vision through, it's certainly hoping for better than a less 1 percent share of the market.
Of course, IDC's predictions aren't written in stone. Microsoft is still fleshing out Windows 10 Mobile, which it plans to dole out to all compatible Lumia handsets at some point.
We're oh-so-very close to the first batch of Rift headsets being shipped out to consumers who pre-ordered the device for $599, all of which will need a relatively powerful Windows PC to tether it to. What about support for Macs? Don't hold your breath.
When asked by Shacknews if Rift would ever work with Macs, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said, "That's up to Apple. If they ever release a good computer, we will do it."
The translation there, if Luckey's statement needs one, is that Apple's computers aren't good enough to run with Rift. Specifically, it's the graphics hardware Luckey says is lacking.
"It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn't prioritize high-end GPUs. You can buy a $6,000 Mac Pro with the top of the line AMD FirePro D700, and it still doesn't match our recommended specs. So if they prioritize higher-end GPUs like they used to for a while back in the day, we'd love to support Mac. But right now, there's just not a single machine out there that supports it."
In case you're wondering, Oculus Rift requires an Nviida GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better graphics card. The recommended specs also call for an Intel Core i5-4590 or higher CPU, 8GB or more of RAM, HDMI 1.3, two USB 3.0 ports, and Windows 7 SP1 or newer.
The Rift is one of the most anticipated VR headsets, HTC's Vive being the other. It's been a long wait for this point—Rift started off as a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 where it raised $2.4 million in funding. Then in March 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus for a cool $2 billion.
Rift isn't a standalone headset. It has to be tethered to a PC, hence the aforementioned recommended requirements. The graphics demands are pretty high because the GPU is driving two optical displays, along with expansive landscapes—you can look all around in Rift.
Apple's higher end systems come with discrete GPU options, but they're professional level graphics cards, not ones that are aimed at gaming.
(+) Surf's Up: Hawaii is still fast; great 1080p and good 1440p performance; lots of VRAM; DX12 and async compute.
(-) Shark Bait: GCN1.1 is a bit old; lower perf/watt than competition; needs two 8-pin connectors; drivers sometimes lag behind games.
Hawaii Five-0
We're nearing the end of the reign of 28nm GPUs, but there's still time to kick back and relax on the beach if you want to enjoy the scenery that Hawaii has to offer. And by Hawaii, we're talking about AMD's penultimate 28nm GCN architecture (at least in terms of performance, since technically Tonga came after Hawaii and before Fiji). Originally seen in the R9 290 and 290X back in October/November of 2015, Hawaii was AMD's last real claim to the GPU performance crown. It was clearly faster than Nvidia's GTX 780, and it was priced $100 lower—even more impressively, it was generally faster than the mighty GTX Titan. Nvidia's response was swift, launching the 780 Ti just weeks later and more or less retaking the lead (but still at a higher price). However, the real darling of the Hawaii launch was the R9 290, a $399 card that delivered 90 percent of the performance of the 290X.
Nearly two and a half years later, Hawaii remains an impressive piece of graphics architecture—outside of AMD's Fiji, there are still compute tasks where Hawaii is unmatched. It's fitting then that AMD doubled down on Hawaii with the R9 390/390X last summer, bumping clock and memory speeds up a notch, but more importantly boosting memory capacity to 8GB. Except, this wasn't really the first time AMD offered an 8GB Hawaii card; there was a quiet launch of the R9 290X 8GB a year after the first salvo, and with Nvidia's shiny new Maxwell 2.0 architecture delivering impressive performance and efficiency, that card was readily available for $350 (and is still available at around $315, after rebate). That made the only-slightly-faster R9 390X a dubious proposition, as we stated in our review. But the real attraction remains the vanilla R9 390.
Sapphire's Nitro R9 390 is a 12.5-inch card, so plan accordingly.
We've had Sapphire's R9 390 Nitro for a while, and it's frankly a colossal card. We've included it in our performance charts for several other GPU reviews already, but given we've placed the R9 390 ahead of the GTX 970 in our Best GPUs Guide, we felt a standalone review was warranted. Two years ago, it seemed silly to have a GPU with more than 4GB VRAM, and even last year it wasn't really necessary in most titles, but we're seeing increasingly more games pushing memory use beyond 4GB. AMD has worked to improve their drivers, but there's still more to be done. What's interesting is that with twice the VRAM, we're finding the 390 ends up suffering from stutter in games less often than AMD's other GPUs.
If we were talking about racing, the R9 390 Nitro (and most other R9 390/390X cards) are firmly in the category of muscle cars. Sapphire's Nitro includes two 8-pin PEG connections, which means a single card could potentially draw up to 375W of power. Considering the combined output of an 8-pin, 6-pin, and x16 PCIe slot is 300W, and the card has a stated TDP of 275W, the extra power isn't really necessary, but it's there—"just in case." It's sort of like having a turbo-charged engine but only driving at the legal speed limit, except exceeding the "speed limit" in this case would mean overclocking. And you can overclock the 390, but we found stability suffered at anything beyond a 10 percent increase in core clocks, with the memory cruising along at 1,600MHz (vs. 1,500MHz stock).
Cooling on the Nitro is equally beefy, with three large fans capable of moving a lot of air. The good news is the fans are able to run quietly, but the bad news is you'll need a very large case. Our GPU test bed has a Cooler Master Storm Trooper case, and it's plenty roomy; the R9 390 fits, but it's a bit tight when stuffing in this 12.5-inch long behemoth. We have several other cases where we would have to remove a drive cage to make it work. Again, imagine a car with a gigantic engine under the hood, sucking down gasoline but delivering some cray horsepower; also, the heavy engine can at times hurt the handling and braking. That's the R9 390 in a nutshell.
By comparison, Nvidia's GTX 970 can get by with a single 8-pin PEG connector, with a TDP of just 145W. Normally, the 970 is pretty limited by the TDP, but if you're willing to do some VBIOS tweaking to increase the power limit, it can hit some crazy overclocks. Just be aware that you'll need a better cooler than stock if you want to push beyond a 20 percent increase. The GTX 970 is a far more nimble card, 3.5GB memory-gate notwithstanding. With the right driver behind the wheel—or in this case, the right drivers—it will often give the R9 390 a serious challenge, but if there's a long straightaway, just know that the AMD card will typically pull ahead.
An XXL wetsuit
Like most of its lines, Sapphire has two models of the R9 390 available. The one we have is the "lesser" version that doesn't include a back plate, and it comes clocked at 1,010MHz (vs. 1,040MHz). In practice, both will do around 1,100MHz, and the back plate version tends to be more readily available these days—in fact, we can't even find the non-back plate model listed anywhere, so we're linking the slightly faster version for pricing. Here's the full rundown of the card:
Officially, AMD clocks the R9 390 at 1,000MHz, which means on our model, Sapphire gives a paltry one percent boost. There's a bit of wiggle room, but really you're buying these cards for factory performance. Compared to the previous generation of Hawaii parts, the core clock is five percent higher than the R9 290, while the memory is a more noteworthy 20 percent increase. That's sort of crazy when you consider the memory is already running on a wide 512-bit bus, but it turns out Hawaii and GCN like memory bandwidth a lot. (That's why the newer Fiji series with HBM increases bandwidth to 512GB/s.)
What about overclocking? Our particular card maxed out at around 1,100MHz on the core, with the GDDR5 running at 1,600MHz (6,400 MT/s). Combined, we measured a performance increase of 6–8 percent in most games at 1440p, with a smaller gap at 1080p, depending on the game. Again, this is a far cry from the 20 percent or more overclocks we often get on Nvidia's Maxwell GPUs, but you're getting a lot of stock performance for the money.
Ports of call: the Nitro 390 has plenty of display connection options.
The Sapphire 390 Nitro is large, and it's also well-equipped when it comes to ports. It comes with three full-size DisplayPort connections, one full-size HDMI port, and even a dual-link DVI-capable connector if you're running an old-school display. [Side note: I still miss my 30-inch 2560x1600 display.] Everything looks good so far, but we ran into a hitch. You see those three DP connections? They don't seem to like running higher bandwidth resolutions. We tried both a 4Kp60 Acer XP280HK display as well as a 1440p144 Acer XG270HU, and we tried several DisplayPort cables.
It turns out that two of the DP connectors don't seem to like doing more than 1440p @ 85–100Hz, or 4K at 24Hz. Thankfully, the third port (the bottom one, by the DVI port) worked fine. This isn't just a Sapphire problem, however; I've had the same issue on a couple of other R9 cards, though the Fury X (Fiji) seems to be okay. It could be something with the design of Hawaii, where it's a bit finicky when it comes to high resolutions with high refresh rates. Or it might just need higher quality cables (though several of my other GPUs work fine with the same cables). Bottom line: Anyone planning on running multiple high-bandwidth displays may want to reconsider.
Despite the DP snafu, the R9 390 is still a great card. Performance ends up falling right between the GTX 970 and GTX 980, with pricing effectively the same as the 970. Here's our standard test bed, and since we're looking at a faster GPU, we've opened things up by including the 980 Ti and Fury X along with a collection of other GPUs. (Note that we didn't include the Nano or Fury as we haven't retested those with updated drivers, plus we're missing results on two of the games.) The law of diminishing returns is in full effect, as you'll see below.
The key competition from Nvidia is going to be the GTX 970, in terms of pricing. Both GPUs target the $300–$350 market, which is a popular option for gamers who want to play all the latest titles but don't have the funds for something like a 980 or Nano. While there was a time when Hawaii was considered slower than the GTX 970, driver improvements and hardware updates have turned the tables. The R9 390 is just slightly ahead of the R9 290X 4GB, if you're wondering, which puts it about 15 percent ahead of the R9 290. The GTX 970 would basically be running neck and neck with the R9 290, as the R9 390 is 15 percent faster than the 970 overall.
Of the nine titles we tested, the 970 only wins out in one game, and it's an older title at that (Metro: Last Light)—and even then, it's really more of a tie, as the two cards are within three percent of each other at all three tested resolutions. The 970 also claims a small lead at 1080p in Tomb Raider. But what you may not immediately notice is that 97 percentile scores aren't quite as favorable, with tying or leading the 390 in 10 out of 27 tests. Overall, the 970 is definitely the faster card, but the 97 percentiles do raise the same old question: Are the AMD drivers still holding back the hardware?
That's not something we can ever fully answer, but when you look at compute performance, GCN cards are seriously potent. There are some scenarios where Nvidia cards win out, but AMD's hardware tends to be faster at compute. In games, on the other hand, while we've seen improvements in performance over time, thanks to driver updates—from both AMD and Nvidia—we can't quite shake the feeling that AMD's hardware still has some untapped potential. DX12 could allow developers to harness that potential, but of course working with DX12 involves a lot more effort than a higher level interface like DX11. And by the time DX12 gaming enters the mainstream, it may not really matter—we'll be running next-generation GPUs by then.
There are a few DX12 titles in the works, of course—like Ashes of the Singularity, which should officially leave beta later this month. We've tested that game a couple of times now, and the latest iteration has the R9 390 slightly ahead of the GTX 980, never mind the GTX 970. The question of drivers may not matter as much with DX12, and armed with AMD's asynchronous compute, GCN does very well in Ashes. Will that same pattern hold in other DX12 titles? We'll have to take a "wait and see" approach. But there will be many non-DX12 games, so it's still important to work well with DX11 (and even DX10/DX9) titles.
I've noted elsewhere that I wonder what would happen if AMD's driver team had the resources of Nvidia's driver team—in terms of manpower and money. On the hardware front, they're quite competitive, but while drivers are generally fine, they're not perfect. Hopefully, the new generation of Crimson drivers will continue to improve the situation. (Note that AMD's 16.2 Crimson Hotfix drivers launched after we have finished this review but before it was published.)
Two 8-pin PEG connectors yield 1.21 Gigawatts of time-traveling prowess.
One of the long-standing complaints against Hawaii has been the power requirements. For idle or light workloads, it's a non-issue—nearly all modern GPUs run at very low power levels, around 10–15W. But what about under a heavy workload? The TDP for GTX 970 is just 145W, and Sapphire lists the full 375W capability of the two 8-pin connectors plus the PCIe slot as their TDP, even though officially, AMD rates the R9 390 TDP at 275W (so possibly just a typo by Sapphire). In either case, we're talking about a graphics card that potentially uses 90 percent more power than its closest competitor, or 130W more, under load.
Besides using more power, there are other drawbacks for a higher TDP, like the facts that you need better cooling for the case and GPU, and you need a higher wattage PSU. Sapphire gets around the former by using a larger card and heatsink, another potential drawback we've already noted. As for the larger PSU, for single-GPU systems it's less of a concern—most gaming rigs will have at least a 500W PSU, and many will sport 650W or larger. But if you're looking to go CrossFire, you'd need four 8-pin PEG connectors, and realistically, a PSU capable of at least 750W (550W just for the two GPUs, and a spare 200W for everything else)—and 850–1000W "just to be safe" wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.
But how much power does the R9 390 actually use when running games? This is a different question, and one we can answer. Instead of our usual GPU test bed, which uses an X99 platform with an overclocked i7-5930K, we ran a few GPUs in our Skylake SSD test bed. The difference can be as much as 100W under load, which tends to make GPU power look less important. With the GTX 970 in our i7-6700K setup, power draw in games ranged from 235W to 255W; the GTX 980 sits at 265–290W (albeit at higher frame rates). As for the beefy R9 390, we measured 310–345W using the same games (though interestingly, the most power-hungry games often were the opposite of the least power-hungry games on Nvidia hardware).
Overall, then, the R9 390 while gaming is using 75–90W more power than the GTX 970, and 45–55W more power than the GTX 980. It's faster than the 970 and slower than the 980 as well, so there's no doubt that Nvidia wins the efficiency contest. But the 390 also doubles the VRAM in the process, which maybe will prove useful. For single-GPU gaming, the added power draw of the 390 isn't really a huge problem; all you need is dual 8-pin PEG connectors, which you're likely to have on any decent PSU (like this Sparkle 500W 80 Plus Platinum). Multi-GPU configurations would require substantially more power to run optimally, however, and you'd need to look at larger cases.
Somewhere over the rainbow
What you think of AMD's R9 300 series largely comes down to how much you worry about power efficiency. On paper, Nvidia's Maxwell 2.0 is way ahead of AMD's latest GCN offerings in terms of performance per watt, though in practice it's not quite so dire. An extra 80W power draw on average for a single card sounds like a lot, but even gaming eight hours per day, every single day of the year, it would only end up costing about $28 extra in power (using the national average). Provided your case and power supply are up to the task, the efficiency isn't really that big of a concern.
From a pure performance standpoint, even though R9 390 and Hawaii are past their prime, they're definitely not "too slow." Given you can pick up the R9 390 for roughly the same cost as the GTX 970 (give or take $10), both GPUs remain safe recommendations, at least until the next generation FinFET GPUs show up. Nvidia has been better about getting Game Ready drivers out prior to major game launches, however, so that's something to consider. The Sapphire R9 390 Nitro, meanwhile, ends up sitting a bit higher up the price ladder right now, which is surprising. At $320, it's an easy recommendation, but at the current $369 price on Amazon, we'd recommend looking at alternative brands. Nearly all of the cards with the same GPU perform within a couple of percent of each other, so be sure to shop around. If you're not willing to postpone upgrading until the next-generation GPUs become available, R9 390 remains a great choice.
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