AMD Radeon R9-290X tested and reviewed

I had a shaman on my 480 so it was super quiet, but yeah, the 290x kinda reminds me of the gtx 480.

 

Kinda where i expected it to be, between 780 and titan, on average 5% faster than 780 and 5% slower than titan. Overall not impressed with the card, but the price for what you get is great. Card runs way too hot and is noisy, uses an extra 50 watts over the titan while performing less overall. amd is copying nvidia with their gpu boost 2.0, same max temp target as nvidia a coincidence? i think not. Overall i bet the 780 would perform about equal if the default temp target of the 780 was 94 as well, it has a lower temp target(80c) and lower clocks. Reference card sucks imo, a good 290x lightning or dc3 would be much better overall but itll be a while before those are out.

Hopefully the aggressive pricing will make nvidia respond, but i dont think they will. If the 290x was a good 5-10% faster than the titan i would think they would instantly respond by lowering pricing, maybe release a titan ultra but i dont know what thell do now.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_sp=&AID=10440897&PID=3332167&SID=u00000687

woah a 290 with a WINDFORCE 3X coller of the bat

 

3DMark11 - Performance: Hall Of Fame

http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?cores=4#start=0#interval=20

 

it's not WF3

 

nice.

 

Damn, here it's ~ 2650 RON ~ 600 euros, it's either inflated price due to low supply or a preorder price...

 

It says WF3 in cooler description, the pic isn't though.

Slightly confused by this release, if leaks are to be believed then the 290 could be the best card overall, only a little bit slower than the 290x at stock, but I'm not the hearing complaints about heat and noise.

 

You could always buy them from cockers with those Prolimatech coolers on em

 

Lowest price I've spotted for 290X in Finland is 529,95€ ($730) for the Asus card. It seems no etailer has any stock of any of the 290X's though.

 

I dont think they have a pic. Its not even listed @ gigabytes site yet. But the 280x windforce is:



So it'll probably look like that.

 

You know, considering how hot this card runs, I'd really like to see a test made of a couple different cases and the ambient temperatures inside them after a couple hours of gaming on this card.
Would be interesting...

 

It does say WF3 if you look under General and then Cooler.

Looks like 290 will be the bang for buck though.. overclocked, .. can't beat it. Same price as 770 (supposedly) but overclocked beats Titan and 780. Now that's something.

 

interesting indeed. But somehow I believe that will be an error on their website.

 

Yeah, might be. Don't know though. Anyways you're going crossfire now? Already got the card?

Going the same route btw dude. I should get a rev 1.0 Gigabyte HD7950 in 2 weeks with voltage and everything unlocked. Will take that badboy to 1200/1700 and do some 3dmark runs.

This 1920x1080p monitor is getting slightly weak for it tho. Need something stronger.

 

Eclap wait for the 290 to drop before pulling the trigger on another 7950...

 

too late, just bought it. it was only £135 though so I don't mind. Should give me enough performance until end of 2014 I hope. If I don't like crossfire, I'll just sell both 7950 for £120 a piece or so when custom 290 land and get one of those. Really couldn't say no to that 7950 at that price mate.

 

I actually wanted to recommend the same.

He can sell that 7950 and get a 290 released, it should not cost more than 300-350Eur.

 

The new AMD Radeon R9-290X performance is excellent at the price it is going for and on top of that their drivers have been excellent, as well as their Gaming Evolved program and never settle bundles (with the exception of crossfire frame pacing issues).
Nvidia will have to drop their prices on current 700 series to stay competitive and drop in a few games as well for everyone (not to selected retailers only) or their sales will drop dramatically.

I really feel sorry for those who spend around $1,000 on Titan's and on top of that Nvidia drivers lately have been a bit of a mess for most 400/500 series cards, as well as Kepler's 600/700 series.
I have to admit though that kepler blew me away with their performance,low power consumption and very low temps coming from a GTX 480, which was a great performing card at the time especially in DX11 games.

I personally think M$ is part to blame as well for the current state of Nvidia's drivers (not sure about AMD?) due to the release of Win8,Win8.1, but mainly Nvidia's lack of funding game studios to promote their The way it is meant to be played program on AAA titles.
It's just a joke seeing their logo all the time on many crappy console ports and broken physx, unlike AMD's Gaming Evolved titles which have been all just AAA games.Plus on top of that they have their driver team coding one unified driver for all gpu's (8 series and up) for xp,vista,win7,win8,and win8.1.

AMD made a smart move when they dropped support for older gpu's and focused mainly on one architecture to avoid conflicts and driver issues.
The only downside for the Radeon R9-290X is the very high temp of 94c and a TDP of 286 Watts.
It has hit the number 1 spot in both departments for a single gpu.

Overall this is a great card at the price it is going for but it has beaten the record of the GTX 480 and gained the number 1 spot in the charts (i wonder if the R9-290X can cook an egg?).
Finally the way it downclocks according to the temp is just horrible.
This beast needs an aftermarket cooler 100% if not water cooling, and as a whole package, for me it looks like a mix of fermi/kepler with very high temps and down-clocking....
I can't wait to see Nvidia's response to the pricing adjustments they will make so a can grab another GTX 770 as well as their new high end GTX 780 TI pricing and performance.

 

why do you think I should have waited?