AMD Radeon R9 290 Video Card Review @ [H]

YUP, this is my next card!!!!

I always like to buy at the price/performance sweet-spot, and this card destroys the bulls-eye!

Same reason I bought a i7-920, 5870, and sli 9600GT cards before that, they hit the performance and value target for me also.

Now add in Mantle (and TrueAudio as an extra, extra bonus) with the slew of games and developers lining up, and we have unbelievable value! :cool:


And... is this the first time we have seen a GOLD [H], and "epic" in the same review?! Almost sounds like we need a new logo!

Looked like a high-pressure review, good job. Can't wait for followup reviews on this one! Glad I waited for this!

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water cool 2 of them and BOOM fast system. If i didnt get 2 780s for an incredible price (cheaper than 2 290s) I would Deffinitely grab these! no questions asked.
 
My god, I havent seen this much value in a LONG TIME. Maybe like 8800GT shocking....

Can you imagine 2 of these on a dual GPU card priced at $800?.....$100 more then this 780TI.....

AMD Just kicked my wallets nuts.
 
YUP, this is my next card!!!!

I always like to buy at the price/performance sweet-spot, and this card destroys the bulls-eye!

Same reason I bought a i7-920, 5870, and sli 9600GT cards before that, they hit the performance and value target for me also.

Now add in Mantle (and TrueAudio as an extra, extra bonus) with the slew of games and developers lining up, and we have unbelievable value! :cool:


And... is this the first time we have seen a GOLD [H], and "epic" in the same review?! Almost sounds like we need a new logo!

Looked like a high-pressure review, good job. Can't wait for followup reviews on this one! Glad I waited for this!

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Great card indeed.

Wouldn't your i7 bottleneck that card like... very hard?

I'm sure my 965 would be a bottleneck if I choose to put that card on my rig (always talking we play @ 1080p).
 
Heh, you can even add in an ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme III cooler if you are not watercooling and still be price competitive! Awesome.

Rather get an AIO cooler and buy a bracket over on OCN, cheaper, and alot cooler.
 
Great card indeed.

Wouldn't your i7 bottleneck that card like... very hard?

I'm sure my 965 would be a bottleneck if I choose to put that card on my rig (always talking we play @ 1080p).

If his 920 is at 4.0, a big nope. Those older gen i7's (especially if oc'ed) are still excellent processors.
 
Always go for the new (kickass card this time round). Sell old stuff and get a 2nd part time job, work more hours for a couple months to go x-fire for the 290 when you go for the 1440p.

While I would LOVE to get back to work and put my hard earned degree to use, sadly I cannot in my current condition..The only income I have is my monthly disability check from SS since I was involved in a very bad accident back in Jan '08 that caused me some severe life long injuries....

I looked at Anandtech's BenchMarks quickly (since they test @ 1440P vs [H]ard's 1600P) and even O/C'd the 290 wasn't able to push out 60 FPS in their benchmarking suite..I know I could turn down some settings, but with X-Fire that wouldn't be a problem..Since I only play newer games, I am not worried about the DirectX 9 shit problems..

Anandtech has overclocking in its review.

Indeed..The OC numbers look promising since they only used 20% PowerTune increase, but still got a solid ~14% core OC..

To get right to the point then, this is one of a handful of cards we’ve ever had to recommend against. The performance for the price is stunning, but we cannot in good faith recommend a card this loud when any other card is going to be significantly quieter. There comes a point where a video card is simply too loud for what it does, and with the 290 AMD has reached it

I have been quite tired of Anandtech as of late, and this quote from Ryan Smith put the nail in the coffin..It's quite sad to say this but I will no longer be frequently their site for anything. I have been a loyal reader of Anandtech (and [H]ard of course) since my HS days back in '98...

They lack any imagination in reviews (ie, NOT using WC'ing in a Case BUILD FOR WC'ing):mad::mad:..Just means that [H]ard is going to have to pump out more reviews to feed my tech beast!:p

/rant off

290 is awesome though!:D
 
The 290 at 47% fan speed wasn't loud. The fans on these cards really don't become loud until around 60-65%. At 47% the card was not throttling, so the full performance potential was there. The 290 was perfectly acceptable noise vs. performance wise.

Acoustics can only get better on custom cards as well.
 
Great card indeed.

Wouldn't your i7 bottleneck that card like... very hard?

I'm sure my 965 would be a bottleneck if I choose to put that card on my rig (always talking we play @ 1080p).

If his 920 is at 4.0, a big nope. Those older gen i7's (especially if oc'ed) are still excellent processors.

Correct, it's running at 4.0ghz and shouldn't bottleneck anything. Spent a bit more when I bought it, but this thing just keeps going, and going. :)
 
Looks like NVIDIA's got p0wed this time.... They got nothing in the price range that can meet the performance of a R9 series, especially the 290 card.... Nicely done AMD>...;)
 
Looks like NVIDIA's got p0wed this time.... They got nothing in the price range that can meet the performance of a R9 series, especially the 290 card.... Nicely done AMD>...;)

Specially when you consider the 770 4gb cards go for $389.....

I mean seriously Nvidia has to lower prices again, $499 780 GTX is too much now.
 
Damn, this card looks nice.

Was considering putting it in my HTPC but w/ only a 500W PSU I don't think it can handle it.
 
If his 920 is at 4.0, a big nope. Those older gen i7's (especially if oc'ed) are still excellent processors.

What about a 965 OCed at 4.0 GHz handling that card?

I'm a complete noob when it comes to the bottleneck thingy.
 
Once these r9 290s get custom board releases it's going to be extremely difficult for people to choose the Nvidia equivalent unless PhysX or ShadowPlay are weighed heavily. How can you beat having 4gb of memory and performance around TITAN level for $399? I love what competition in the market does for the consumer, nicely done AMD.
 
omg, this is the right time for a new gpu, gotta make my move now!!! thanks AMD!
 
anandtech's review shows out of this world decibels on standard speed. I don t think they know how to hold a mic.
 
Its a fast sumbitch...but that heat and noise, holy crap. Anand sure wrote a scathing review about it. Its louder than a 480 gtx, and we all know what a ear killer that thing was. I wouldn't touch one of these until the non-ref coolers come out. I bet we'll see some really nice OC cards come out once they slap a better cooler on there.
 
Its a fast sumbitch...but that heat and noise, holy crap. Its louder than a 480 gtx, and we all know what a ear killer that thing was. .

pcper.com has a better mic it seems cause they aren't even close compared to anand
 
47% fan is not loud, /shrug

put the fan to 65%, sure, but not at 47%, it's only 7% upwards of 40 on the 290X which is called the "quiet mode" and even less than the uber mode of 55%

I gamed with this thing right beside my head, didn't bother me

You can't really be too harsh on the sound, enthusiasts will go for the custom cards
 
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totaly agree with you brent , that why i get my [H]ardware news here first !
keep up the good work!
 
christ, does no one remember what it sounded like when the fans kick in on the early run of the 4870s; what the reference fans sounded like on those x1800/x1900s. oh the fan noise is so loud i can't concentrate on think about me...bunch of fucking generation-me whiners.
 
Can't wait to see some twin frozer coolers or direct CU coolers on 290x and 290. the performance and price is amazing but not at 95c.... Hopefully we get cards that can run 70's on air soon.
 
I have a 6950 unlocked with a reference cooler on it, I never turn the fan up past 50% and it never bothered me while gaming at all what so ever. I can't imagine 47% would bug me all that much, even so, I'm going to buy one with a non-reference design just for the overclocking potential.
 
is there going to be a crossfire review

and can a 290x and a 290 cf ?
 
Looks like Black Friday came early. I'll be waiting for 290/290X Lightnings then I'm pulling the trigger.

This card is a beast.
 
Finally we have real high end for normal prices.

Now i will wait for price drops od 780s and get my self nice Lightning and OC the crap out of it. Maybe even 290 but not with that carp on it. There are so good cooler on the GPUs and it would be stupid to live with noisy hot GPU when things like DC2, TF4 etc are around.
 
I'll admit I was a little confused when I read Anand's whining about the noise when [H] said it wasn't that loud. I wouldn't be surprised if they screwed something up in the driver and didn't notice. [H] is using an open air case, it'd be difficult to avoid noticing a video card emitting 62db worth of fan noise. I wouldn't buy one of these with the reference cooler anyway.

So two of these to enable 50fps+ 4K gaming for $100 more than a 780Ti. To AMD, thanks for bringing 4K to the poor man.


9i00.gif
 
Not just Anand..


Here is even worse.. I remember my kids couldnt sleep when I used to overclock ref 5870, this thing is same or worse.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ws/63863-amd-radeon-r9-290-4gb-review-17.html

OC potential is screwed with ref. cooler. I must say something in 780 defence, it is OC monster and stays cool and quiet even fully overclocked. Not enough for 100$ more but when prices go down it will be very competitive. I am happy this madness with prices is over. It was just to much for us from poor countries.
 
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No doubt the coolers on these cards is holding them back (somewhat) compared to the very good solutions from nvidia. Ultimately, the performance & price of these cards is too good for most to pass up.

If you do not plan on going custom water or using some 3rd party air cooler, it will be wise for some to wait on custom variants like the dc2, windforce, and others.
 
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