HIS R9 290 iPower IceQ X2 OC

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The Benchmark Reviews crew seem mighty impressed with the HIS R9 290 iPower IceQ X2 OC video card they just reviewed. It probably wouldn't hurt to give this a read if you are GPU shopping.

When I first heard about the ‘Hawaii’ R9 290 and 290X GPU’s I wanted to see if AMD have what it takes to compete with NVIDIA, and really even out the playing field. Now that I have tested the R9 290 first hand I can see that AMD really mean business. The AMD Hawaii GPU’s are beating the GTX GPU’s from NVIDIA but not the Titans. AMD’s next hopes lay with their Mantle Graphics API.
 
Nice review, maybe its just me, but i do not like the look of there charts. I will be glad when these mantle games hit the shelves so we can get some mantle love in these comparisons.

I love my HIS 7950, and the iceq x2 cooler does kick out some heat in the case for sure, but it does not affect my overall internal temp much.
When im ready to upgrade, i will definitely look at what HIS has to offer, i have been very happy with mine.
 
Yeah, no 780ti comparison or current top performer for 290 (vapor-x)

Not really much of a comparison.
 
I can't take this review seriously. The only NVIDIA card I see them testing against is the GTX 770? While the R9 290 is a direct competitor performance-wise to the GTX 780. Also, their game testing suite is a joke...
  • Aliens vs. Predator - released 2010, run using included benchmark utility
  • Lost Planet 2 - released 2010, run using included benchmark utility, not very hard on the GPU (their own test runs with 32x CSAA)
  • Battlefield 3 - released 2011, most (if not all?) modern video cards can run Ultra settings at 1080p, testing unit includes 2 full minutes! :rolleyes: of the very first single-player mission after the intro
  • Metro 2033 - released 2010 but still brings video cards to their knees in some situations, testing unit again includes 2 full minutes! of what they call "Chase scene"
  • Project CARS - using an alpha build released in October 2013, 2 full minutes! of single car practice
Seems very lazy to me.
In each benchmark test there is one ‘cache run’ that is conducted, followed by five recorded test runs. Results are collected at each setting with the highest and lowest results discarded. The remaining three results are averaged, and displayed in the performance charts on the following pages.
If the want framerates to be statistically sound then they should use a larger sample size and not ignore any result. If it was me and these canned benchmarks meant something to me, I would run it at least 20 times and maybe plot a scatter chart with a linear line that includes a point showing the average.
A combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests have been used in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game.
Poor excuse for what they're actually doing: sacrificing best practices, even when using canned benchmarks, for a fast turnaround time.
 
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