AMD Radeon R9 290X Video Card Review @ [H]

He did recommend waiting to get one with a custom designed cooler(not at the conclusion).

I don't see how anyone could deny the value and performance of the 290x. Even with the crappy reference cooler the card is whooping on the Titan which is almost double the price.

I think these reference cards are going to shine when water cooled with some good voltage control. 290X has a lot of life in it. The raw hardware in the 290X is very capable. I expect the 290X to be extremely popular amongst hard core over clockers and gamers.

Keeping the temps down is the most important thing from both nvidia and amd. One has delivered, other not so much. I am not denying that the price/performance isn't any good but 95c is not acceptable no matter how you look at it.
 
except they didnt....
unless you count the ONE 4k test....
and the card uses more power then 480 AND runs hot as fuck

Erm.. I see the 290X beating the Titian all over the place at ultra HD 4K rez.

'Amazingly, when the resolution is cranked up to Ultra HD resolutions like 3840x2160, the new Radeon R9 290X outperforms the GeForce GTX TITAN. We saw as much as a 23% performance jump over the much more expensive GeForce GTX TITAN. In all of the previous pages the R9 290X was in-between the GTX 780 and GTX TITAN, closer to TITAN, but at Ultra HD 4K it just owns the GeForce GTX TITAN.'

It is amazing how powerful the R9 290X is at Ultra HD 4K gaming resolutions when compared to the GeForce GTX TITAN. This is where the R9 290X truly shines. In the case of 4K gaming, the Radeon R9 290X is definitely a "TITAN killer."

The R9 290X is absolutely the best performer at Ultra HD 4K for a single GPU video card. And consider this, for just $100 above the price of one GTX TITAN, you can own two Radeon R9 290X video cards and use those in a CrossFire configuration. Yes, we will surely be looking into that.

Hey, if you want to pay an extra $400 for 10C cooler temps on a slower card.. be my guest.
 
Hrm, there is a very good chance I go back to the red side with this... Does anyone know how much cards usually get marked up in the first week or two of initial sales? I wonder if they'll even be available...
 
Erm.. I see the 290X beating the Titian all over the place at ultra HD 4K rez.

'Amazingly, when the resolution is cranked up to Ultra HD resolutions like 3840x2160, the new Radeon R9 290X outperforms the GeForce GTX TITAN. We saw as much as a 23% performance jump over the much more expensive GeForce GTX TITAN. In all of the previous pages the R9 290X was in-between the GTX 780 and GTX TITAN, closer to TITAN, but at Ultra HD 4K it just owns the GeForce GTX TITAN.'

It is amazing how powerful the R9 290X is at Ultra HD 4K gaming resolutions when compared to the GeForce GTX TITAN. This is where the R9 290X truly shines. In the case of 4K gaming, the Radeon R9 290X is definitely a "TITAN killer."


Hey, if you want to pay an extra $400 for 10C cooler temps on a slower card.. be my guest.


thats nice if you have 1.5k to throw at a 4k screen which in that case ill take Sli Titans since they use less power and i can run more then med settings at 4k
for get ever running cross fire at the temps thing runs at

i have a single 1920x1200 monitor a single 770 would be fine
if you did a double blind i could not tell you which card it was at that res
and the 780 was hardly slower it was slower by maybe 5 to 10 fps but that avg where all nearly the same with in 2-3 fps that in margin of error
and that was at the tested higher res
and its not just 10c(which is A LOT btw) its the 100+watts more it takes
then add in things like Gsync that will work with all games who cares if the card is 10fps slower if i dont have deal with vsync ever again

and did you miss the post about the card throttling after ~2 hours of game play
in summer my room gets to almost 90f to start with any speed advantage would be gone once the heat sink got saturated

real winners here are the 770 and 7970

worst of all GCN might not be able to be extended much more with major redesign which means kiss mantle good by
 
Punctuate much?


I'm waiting for a Crossfire review, it's hot as fuck and does not overclock all that well. Hopefully [H] uses a SLI 780/Ti vs 290X in Crossfire with new drivers. Nothing matters more to me than smooth gaming and my 7970 Crossfire setup was terrible.

Wait no more.
 
Looks like a great card from AMD. I gotta admit that that picture of the 290x next to the 780 really makes the AMD cooler look like a flimsy plastic box that was rushed but its going to be stuck in a case so its not really important.

I expect non-reference coolers to do well to curb the heat concerns if it is a problem, my gtx 590 has been hitting 95+ on air (stock cooler) for the past year and guess what's happened? Nothing. The fan spins louder and it exhausts a crapload of hot air but thats about the end of it. The world hasn't ended, cats haven't chased dogs and there are bigger problems to really worry about aside from video cards. One of my best friends has had a 20% pay cut the past year and hadn't worked the first 2 weeks of the government shutdown, he's the sole breadwinner of his family, stay at home wife with 5 kids - now that's a fucking problem.

I suspect the heat concerns can be resolved via quality case fans, high static pressure and not the crappy stock fans or good old HOH.

Nvidia better cut the prices on their shit or AMD's going to eat their lunch. I'll give it a month to see how it all pans out after the dust settles and make a decision.
 
The thermals will definitely be a problem, but i don't think AMD GTX480'd themselves on this one.

Tons of people will put these bad boys under a loop etc.

That being said, 2 290Xs @ ultra HD for the price of 1 Titan definitely means that AMD is far more playable at 4K.
 
id like to see how this thing does in a hot room over 3-4 hours.....
i get the feeling it cant keep up once the heat sink gets saturated
 
Great price. Finally real high end for more normal price. 290 could be real winner. Nice move from AMD.

On the dark side. Cooling is close to catastrophic and AMD need to allow partners to put custom coolers on it. 780ti will have that advantage and probably better OC potential it could be real opponent for 290x for the right price.
 
Sorry but this is hardly a win for AMD vs the 780. 5 months after the release of the 780. So I paid $100 more for 5 months, drop in the bucket. Heat I'm not worried about, as long as it's stable. But damn, can you say leaf blower? My 780's with ACX coolers on them are damn near silent while gaming. AMD really needs to design a better reference cooler at this point imo.
 
I still consider 780 as fast as 290x at lest for up to 1440p. Only reason is cooling and bcs. 780 can be overclocking monster. No reason for someone with 780 to bi sad or something at lest untill 780ti arrives.
 
I'm waiting for a Crossfire review, it's hot as fuck and does not overclock all that well. Hopefully [H] uses a SLI 780/Ti vs 290X in Crossfire with new drivers. Nothing matters more to me than smooth gaming and my 7970 Crossfire setup was terrible.

a few out there with crossfire.
1200mhz with water seems to be common to reach.
crossfire is improved and works better
 
id like to see how this thing does in a hot room over 3-4 hours.....
i get the feeling it cant keep up once the heat sink gets saturated

You are just as bad as the other two trolls..What are you three doing, rotating in and out? How is it our fault if you can't afford/refuse to get air conditioning in "your room"?:rolleyes:..


This is a fantastic card. Fantastic Performance, Fantastic Price. PERIOD. Hell you Nvidia shills should be thrilled, now those of you that couldn't afford a $650 dollar 780 just might get a card you can afford.:p
 
lol at the replies on the first page where people missed the part that 290x is running 95c and uses more power than Gtx480.

I can care less if its $100 cheaper if this thing wont last you a year before it fries.


stop the nonsense please.

As people have already stated 95c is a target temp. If AMD has set this temperature I can guarantee they have a scientific basis for that decision. Do you really think your uninformed guessing holds any weight at all? Won't last a year sure...

Stop the nonsense indeed.

Keeping the temps down is the most important thing from both nvidia and amd. One has delivered, other not so much. I am not denying that the price/performance isn't any good but 95c is not acceptable no matter how you look at it.

Most important according to who? Not acceptable how? If the Engineers at AMD have determined that 95c is an acceptable temperature for reliable operation (which they have or it would not be the target temp) then who are you to say any different? "AMD states that the thermal threshold for these GPUs is well above 95c."

"We have designed the 290 Series to operate at a steady state of 95C. By running at 95C, we are both maximizing the performance and minimizing the acoustics of the product. Be assured, that 95C is a perfectly safe temperature at which the GPU can operate for its entire life. There is no technical reason to reduce the target temperature below 95C. "

I'm going to throw out my own guess just for fun. I bet you can run at 95c 24/7 for 5 years and see a failure rate lower than %4.
 
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Looking good so far for AMD. Hopefully they can keep up with some good drivers.
 
damn, can you say leaf blower? My 780's with ACX coolers on them are damn near silent while gaming.

Hmm, I wonder if any of the OEMs will come out with a 290X using a cooler like the ACX, or even better. It would be a shame if they didn't.
 
Hmm, I wonder if any of the OEMs will come out with a 290X using a cooler like the ACX, or even better. It would be a shame if they didn't.

I read somewhere that is not allowed, for now. Maybe in future.

I cant wait for r9 290. It could be real 780 even 770 killer for 450$ with maybe better temps and i didint see that custom cooling wont be allowed. That could be my new GPU. I respect AMD for ending that price madness with enthusiast GPUs. They kind of started it with 7970 but 550$ for TOP perf. is much better than 650 or 1000$..
 
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Look, I was one who wasn't expecting much from AMD. And I was wrong, especially about the price. Kudos for them keeping the price so low, but being 10 months late no doubt hurt them as many people already upgraded. The 780/Titan still does beat the 290X sometimes however as many reviews have mentioned in tests. The reason it seems to be inconsistent is that AMD has also adopted a kind of GPU boost (even though they criticized NVidia for it when they first did it) and unlike the NVidia cards it is more inconsistent. PCPER mentioned it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6zzvUihPbw

No doubt NVidia will respond with price changes. They will have to. They already responded with the 780 Ti. But when you have the lead for 10 months, of course they will price high with no competition. That is why 10 months late with the competition is not good for anyone.

Also, the heat and noise will be subjective, but for me that would be a big problem.
So then it comes down to features you want... do you want G-Sync or PhysX? Or do you want Mantle? And if you want to overclock, which the 290X seems to not have much room at.

I think if it all comes down to price for someone than the AMD card will be the way to go, but seriously I would wait for an aftermarket card with better cooling. But then you are waiting longer and paying more and getting closer to NVidia pricing.
 
And it's 60-80 W more heat during load compared to 780 and 35-55 W vs Titan, it's not such a huge deal, for goodness sake. Turn off a light bulb to compensate.
 
Thanks for the review.

I've been reading through the thread and it has become clear to me that some people don't understand "heat". Temperature is only part of the equation. Having something at 200degrees does not automatically heat up your room faster/more then something at 50degrees. You have to look at power usage (watts) in order to be able to tell which one will dump more heat in the room.

Yes in this case, if you look at max draw in [H]'s review, the 290x has the potential to dump more heat in the room. But that has absolutely nothing to do with running at 95c vs. other cards at lower temperatures.

You could have something which draws 100watt at the wall, running at 300c, and something else sucking up 200w at the wall and measuring in at 30c. The 200w object will heat up your room twice as fast.

Looking at [H]'s review, Ubermode is 440w, Titan is 387watt. That's 13.6% more heat going in the room.

If you look at temperature, 290x@95 is 19% higher then Titan. This tells us absolutely nothing about heat in the room.

I'm not saying the 290x will not heat up the room. I just wanted to clarify that temperature is by design. And that total power draw is what needs to be looked at to know how much heat is generated.
 
even though I don't plan on getting a 290x, I'm really interested in seeing the first cards fitted with a waterblock
 
Thanks for the review.

I've been reading through the thread and it has become clear to me that some people don't understand "heat". Temperature is only part of the equation. Having something at 200degrees does not automatically heat up your room faster/more then something at 50degrees. You have to look at power usage (watts) in order to be able to tell which one will dump more heat in the room.

Yes in this case, if you look at max draw in [H]'s review, the 290x has the potential to dump more heat in the room. But that has absolutely nothing to do with running at 95c vs. other cards at lower temperatures.

You could have something which draws 100watt at the wall, running at 300c, and something else sucking up 200w at the wall and measuring in at 30c. The 200w object will heat up your room twice as fast.

Looking at [H]'s review, Ubermode is 440w, Titan is 387watt. That's 13.6% more heat going in the room.

If you look at temperature, 290x@95 is 19% higher then Titan. This tells us absolutely nothing about heat in the room.

I'm not saying the 290x will not heat up the room. I just wanted to clarify that temperature is by design. And that total power draw is what needs to be looked at to know how much heat is generated.

Vulcan logic
works for me
 
Thanks for the review.

I've been reading through the thread and it has become clear to me that some people don't understand "heat". Temperature is only part of the equation. Having something at 200degrees does not automatically heat up your room faster/more then something at 50degrees. You have to look at power usage (watts) in order to be able to tell which one will dump more heat in the room.

Yes in this case, if you look at max draw in [H]'s review, the 290x has the potential to dump more heat in the room. But that has absolutely nothing to do with running at 95c vs. other cards at lower temperatures.

You could have something which draws 100watt at the wall, running at 300c, and something else sucking up 200w at the wall and measuring in at 30c. The 200w object will heat up your room twice as fast.

Looking at [H]'s review, Ubermode is 440w, Titan is 387watt. That's 13.6% more heat going in the room.

If you look at temperature, 290x@95 is 19% higher then Titan. This tells us absolutely nothing about heat in the room.

I'm not saying the 290x will not heat up the room. I just wanted to clarify that temperature is by design. And that total power draw is what needs to be looked at to know how much heat is generated.

+1. THis is what I was thinking, but I am glad someone pointed this out.
 
Thanks for the review.

I've been reading through the thread and it has become clear to me that some people don't understand "heat".

I don't think you have any idea about temperature differentials and thermodynamics in general. According to you, a space heater that draws 2kw at the wall but only reaches 50°C heats up a room more than an equally sized heater that draws 1kw but reaches 90°C.
 
I don't think you have any idea about temperature differentials and thermodynamics in general. According to you, a space heater that draws 2kw at the wall but only reaches 50°C heats up a room more than an equally sized heater that draws 1kw but reaches 90°C.

uh....
 
Thank you very much for this review.

I think it's bad AMD chose to sacrifice so much in the 'acoustics' department, and at the same time keeps a leash on its partners, preventing them from even announcing cards with custom cooling solutions.

Wait and see I guess.
 
It can't even run advertised speeds before down clocking it self by 200mhz? Lol
 
$550 for Titan performance....Ouch, that has to sting Nvidia right in the wallet. Good going AMD!
 
Perfect, I just got a 4k screen not too long ago. I'll be ordering one once I can get a full-coverage waterblock for it.
 
I am shocked that H didn't slam this super volcano like they slammed the GTX 480.
 
Sorry if this was already mentioned, I did not read all posts in the thread - but I noticed that Anand calls this "GCN 1.1." while [H] calls it "GCN 2.0". So which is it?
 
lol at the replies on the first page where people missed the part that 290x is running 95c and uses more power than Gtx480.

I can care less if its $100 cheaper if this thing wont last you a year before it fries.


stop the nonsense please.

Kyle, you didn't mention about the 95c in the Conclusion once, how come?

I remember when GTX 480 came out and offered 2x performance over the previous generation and yet Kyle still slammed it for running too hot.

Why is he praising the 290x so much in this review if it runs hotter and draws more power than gtx480, not once he mentions the heat issues under 'conclusion' in the review.

Not cool.

Keeping the temps down is the most important thing from both nvidia and amd. One has delivered, other not so much. I am not denying that the price/performance isn't any good but 95c is not acceptable no matter how you look at it.

It can't even run advertised speeds before down clocking it self by 200mhz? Lol

I am shocked that H didn't slam this super volcano like they slammed the GTX 480.

95c outside the computer case and higher power draw than many years old Fermi is not something to brag about.

But your free to do it as much as you like, truth will always be that it has serious flaws.
Reply With Quote
Have you read any responses to your posts? You're just coming off as a broken record now.
 
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I am shocked that H didn't slam this super volcano like they slammed the GTX 480.

Maybe because the GTX480 wasn't $450 cheaper than AMD's top card at the time?

Context, absolutely lost on fanboys. Or should I say, intentionally ignored?
 
$550 for Titan performance....Ouch, that has to sting Nvidia right in the wallet. Good going AMD!

95c outside the computer case and higher power draw than many years old Fermi is not something to brag about.

But your free to do it as much as you like, truth will always be that it has serious flaws.
 
95c outside the computer case and higher power draw than many years old Fermi is not something to brag about.

But your free to do it as much as you like, truth will always be that it has serious flaws.

LOL...wtf is it with fan boys that brings out the personal jealousy so much?
 
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