Arc A310 vs Radeon R9 390
The Radeon R9 390 pulls ahead here — substantially quicker, about 25% ahead of the Arc A310. It also wins on performance-per-dollar, making it the cleaner choice when you can afford it.
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Radeon R9 390 vs Arc A310: In-Depth Breakdown
Performance: Radeon R9 390 vs Arc A310
The Radeon R9 390 is significantly faster, around 25% ahead of the Arc A310. Both cards sit in the same broad class, well suited to entry-level 1080p.
Price & Value
Pricing has the Radeon R9 390 at $80 USD, $20 USD under the Arc A310's $100 USD. Because it's both faster and competitively priced, the Radeon R9 390 wins on performance-per-dollar by about 56%. The Radeon R9 390 is trading below its $329 USD MSRP — a genuine deal. The Arc A310 is trading below its $130 USD MSRP — a genuine deal.
Power & Efficiency
Power draw favors the Arc A310 (30W vs 275W), and it's the more efficient card too, so it's the easy pick if thermals or a smaller PSU matter. Its more modern Alchemist architecture on a TSMC N6 process is part of why it does more with each watt.
VRAM & Future-Proofing
The Radeon R9 390 carries 8GB versus 4GB on the Arc A310. The extra 4GB helps at 4K, with high-resolution texture packs, and for content-creation or local-AI workloads that exhaust smaller buffers.
Generation & Longevity
The Arc A310 is roughly 7 years newer than the Radeon R9 390 (Alchemist vs GCN 2.0), so it generally benefits from a more modern architecture and longer driver-support runway.
Features & Ecosystem
Beyond raw numbers, the Arc A310 brings Intel XeSS upscaling and AV1 encoding, while the Radeon R9 390 offers AMD FSR upscaling and strong rasterization value. If you lean on upscaling or ray tracing, that ecosystem difference can matter as much as the frame-rate gap.
Which should you buy: Arc A310 or Radeon R9 390?
The Radeon R9 390 is the all-round winner here — it's faster and the better value, so buy it if it fits your budget. Only consider the Arc A310 if you find it at a steep discount.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Radeon R9 390 better than the Arc A310?
Which is better for 4K gaming, the Arc A310 or the Radeon R9 390?
Is the Arc A310 worth the extra $20 USD over the Radeon R9 390?
Does the Radeon R9 390 have enough VRAM advantage to matter?
Which should you buy: Arc A310 or Radeon R9 390?
Technical Specifications Comparison
Architecture & Cores
| Specification | Arc A310 | Radeon R9 390 |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Alchemist | GCN 2.0 |
| Process Node | TSMC N6 | TSMC 28nm |
| CUDA Cores (Shading Units / Stream Processors) | 768 | 2,560✓ |
| Ray Tracing Cores | 6 | — |
| Tensor / AI Cores | 96 | — |
Clock Speeds
| Specification | Arc A310 | Radeon R9 390 |
|---|---|---|
| Base Clock | 2,000 MHz✓ | 1,000 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 2,000 MHz✓ | 1,000 MHz |
Memory
| Specification | Arc A310 | Radeon R9 390 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM Capacity | 4 GB | 8 GB✓ |
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus | 64-bit | 512-bit✓ |
| Memory Speed | 15.5 Gbps✓ | 6 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 124 GB/s | 384 GB/s✓ |
Connectivity & Power
| Specification | Arc A310 | Radeon R9 390 |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 x8 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| TDP | 30 W✓ | 275 W |
| Power Connectors | None | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |
| Released | Oct 2022 | Jun 2015 |
