AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Video Card Review @ [H]

Any word on when 14.4 beta hits? Will be interesting to see how that works on my 290x CF.

I am a little bit surprised to see a 120mm rad handle this. The fan on the card must be doing a good bit of work. I have 290x in CF with full water blocks, and they make my custom loop go nuclear.
 
Kyle, Brent did AMD state the number of these they plan to manufacture? And how many will actually be available the week of the 21st?
 
anybody could find me a picture of that monster and its rad sitting in an actual case? such as a Fractal R4?
 
vsboxerboy said:
Yeah, I'm not at all interested in anything below 2560x1600. I just got a 7680x1440 setup and I'm struggling to find benchmarks that will give me a reasonable figure to go against. Only [H] consistently has benchmarks which I can relate to.
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Agreed. The limits of the current generation of cards need to be tested, and these enthusiast-level cards eat up any resolution under 1600p for breakfast. If you're going to be spending $1000+ on your graphic hardware, then you'll be doing yourself a disservice by not investing in a high-resolution display setup in my opinion.
 
SystemCrash said:
anybody could find me a picture of that monster and its rad sitting in an actual case? such as a Fractal R4?
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Maingear

LCfjHZL.jpg
 
... that top cards VRM's and memory modules are going to be fried by the heat off the bottom card.
 
theGryphon said:
In all fairness, I think a 2560x1440 comparison is lacking in the review. Otherwise great review ;)

Titan Z is still unpredictable though and it may benefit from 6GB framebuffer under 4K res and heavy image processing. I'm pretty sure Titan Z would beat 780Ti SLI setup in the settings used in this review. So, calling 295X2 the winner is a bit premature I think...
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I think it wins on price even without any reviews yet. However, I really don't think TITAN Z is a competitor to the 295X2. If and when NVIDIA releases a dual-780/780 Ti then comparisons can be made.
 
theGryphon said:
In all fairness, I think a 2560x1440 comparison is lacking in the review. Otherwise great review ;)

Titan Z is still unpredictable though and it may benefit from 6GB framebuffer under 4K res and heavy image processing. I'm pretty sure Titan Z would beat 780Ti SLI setup in the settings used in this review. So, calling 295X2 the winner is a bit premature I think...
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Rumor is, and I know, rumor, can't trust it, are underclocked GK110's. In that case, it most certainly would. At stock speeds, it certainly would as well. I wasn't VRAM limited in my testing, except for maybe BF4 at 4X MSAA at 4K.
 
SystemCrash said:
anybody could find me a picture of that monster and its rad sitting in an actual case? such as a Fractal R4?
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No pics but I measured and it should fit my antec 900 even with the big aftermarket cpu cooler I have. It should also fit in my corsair 200r
 
Brent_Justice said:
I wasn't VRAM limited in my testing, except for maybe BF4 at 4X MSAA at 4K.
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Really? That's kind of a surprise.

And, yeah, price-wise 295X2 is the winner compared to Titan Z, no doubt. I don't think we'll see a GTX790 but you never know :)

I think AMD did a very fine job with the cooling solution. It's something Nvidia would never do for Titan Z, given its target market is not enthusiast gamers but rather semi-pro, lol.
 
You're surprised he wasn't memory-limited in most cases or surprised that he was memory-limited in BF4 @ 4k?

If the former, the idea that you need tons of memory for 4k and multi-display is something of a commonly-accepted but rarely true dogma. You do need a lot of memory in certain cases, but they're the exception rather than the rule.
 
This is the first EF+CF Mantle review I've seen, and it is running on a 14.4 driver set that we don't have yet. Are the fixes for this configuration in 14.4 or in BF4 itself?
 
Any numbers available on the VRMs? I saw the heat probe gave rough numbers of 80 - 90c, but anything more concrete available? 90c is a bit on the high end, and would limit over volting for overclocking.

I wonder would there be any way to ghetto mod better airflow (more/better fans over the VRM/memory modules?

Did you overclock the memory any bit? I see the core hit 1100 mhz without voltage tweaking, which is promising (though the VRM temps offset this slightly if true @ 90c), any numbers on the memory? Crappy 1350mhz Elpida or something more tasty that can hit 1400 - 1500mhz?
 
Yakk said:
Still wondering what the big deal was to not just add another 8pin, harder to calculate 3x 8pin on multi-rail PSU maybe? Still, not all that complicated.
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They couldn't add another 8-pin. PCI-SIG specs require graphics cards to be 312mm in length or less, otherwise they won't fit into hardly anyone's case, plus the weight/leverage of a GPU longer than that puts far too much pressure on the slot/motherboard and is simply unsafe.

Basically, AMD ran out of room to put power connectors.
 
Looking at a few other review sites, it seems clear that this card is meant for 4K gaming, but for anything below that the 780i Ti SLI seemed to hold it's own and win often. Was this your experience as well?

All that said, fantastic review. You guys simply do it right. Thanks for the hard work!

Edit: And for the record, I'm not complaining. I love the way [H] does their benchmarks. I get that someone spending that much on a video card is going to get a 4K monitor. I was just curious about 1440p setups, but that would probably be overkill at that resolution.
 
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Nice review.
Pretty cool card.

Only thing that stands out is that some may need not only to shell out the bucks for the GPU(s) but also pretty much need to buy a new PSU capable of powering their computer.

That also must be factored in I would think.
 
Thank you for the great review. You are one of the few sites to test Crysis 3 at enthusiast levels of detail and high resolutions (4k and 5760x1200 eyefinity). For us folk planning on running Star Citizen at such resolutions this is very valuable information. :)
 
Based on multiple reviews elsewhere, it's strange how the 780Tis tend to win out at 1440p but then get pretty comprehensively beaten at 4k resolutions. Is it just due to VRAM differences or something else? I could understand if they were tied at lower resolutions, due to CPU bottlenecks, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
Stryke1983 said:
Based on multiple reviews elsewhere, it's strange how the 780Tis tend to win out at 1440p but then get pretty comprehensively beaten at 4k resolutions. Is it just due to VRAM differences or something else? I could understand if they were tied at lower resolutions, due to CPU bottlenecks, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Might be 384 vs 512 vram bus. That's a lot of pixels to push.
 
xorbe said:
Might be 384 vs 512 vram bus. That's a lot of pixels to push.
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Definitely not the bus width, you'll have to keep in mind the 290X 512-bit is running at 5000 Mhz while the 780 Ti 384-bit is running at 7000 Mhz. The only thing that matter is the actual bandwidth, which is almost identical between the two (320 vs 330-ish GB/s, respectively) with the 780 Ti being a tad higher.
 
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While the card itself it quite impressive by default, the 500W TDP can make it a headache for some novice (and even some intermediate and advanced users) to install who have no idea about power rails. Two of these cards in a system will really push the envelope on power consumption and makes power supplies that were considered totally wasteful, excessive, pointless, etc just a short time ago a requirement now. That said, it makes obtaining this level of performance easier for folks who don't have the confidence (or time) to roll their own water cooling system. The parts I really like about this card is that the CrossfireX is done over the PCI-E bus and the fact that stupid SLi certification of the motherboard isn't required. Any computer can use a pair of these (if it has the power reverses available).

I find it funny how many people will view a computer that has been overbuilt as wasteful and unnecessary. Then a part such as this one comes along that can take advantage of such a system and utilizes what was previously excess capacity.

I've built a few computers for friends over the years...each and every one of them can accept one of these with no modifications or upgrades required.

That said, I'm pretty much forced to stay with NVidia due to their grossly superior performance in World of Warcraft and better thermals. I'm really curious to see what the Titan Z brings to the table (exactly how well binned the GPUs are). This will determine a significant portion of the value coefficient (at least for me, anyway). If they can deliver a 375W Titan Z at nearly the same clocks as the Titan Black, it may be worthwhile. If the clocks are cut back too far, it becomes less attractive. Also, the lack of clarity regarding the actual thickness of the Titan Z makes it a bit questionable. A dual slot Titan Z would be ideal, but the card shown at its unveiling was a triple slot. Some promotional shots showed it as a dual slot, so we'll have to see what the shipping version looks like.
 
I just re-read the review and I am just impressed just how much horsepower games are requiring in order to run at 4k resolution. I remember when 1600p monitors were the previous gold standard and this is just an insane jump up in the required performance.
 
amdgamer said:
I just re-read the review and I am just impressed just how much horsepower games are requiring in order to run at 4k resolution. I remember when 1600p monitors were the previous gold standard and this is just an insane jump up in the required performance.
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Well if monitor resolutions increase exponentially and GPU speed increases linearly, we have a big problem on our hands.
 
Stryke1983 said:
Based on multiple reviews elsewhere, it's strange how the 780Tis tend to win out at 1440p but then get pretty comprehensively beaten at 4k resolutions. Is it just due to VRAM differences or something else? I could understand if they were tied at lower resolutions, due to CPU bottlenecks, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Nvidia cores have 48 ROPs

AMD cores have 64 ROPs

ROPs push pixels, higher number of ROPs don't really mean lower resolutions will be processed quicker, its just removing a bottle neck really. Nvidia has done a great job at keeping efficiency a priority at the driver level which is probably why it edges out at lower resolutions.

TaintedSquirrel said:
Well if monitor resolutions increase exponentially and GPU speed increases linearly, we have a big problem on our hands.
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Every time their is a resolution jump it takes hardware a while to catch up. It took us FOREVER to finally hit 1600x1200 which was available for years.

4k just hit and we can already play on it.
 
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If anything it's software and the APIs that hold things back. Look at Mantle and the performance increases it brings when you use an API designed from the ground up to take advantage of modern CPU and graphics architectures.
 
For those asking how this is any better than 290SLI...

Quad Crossfire on Haswell. must be the outright king of gaming setups now right?
 
Only 9 degrees difference between core temperature and radiator exhaust air. Does this seem suspicious to anyone else? Is it possible core temps are being under-reported?
 
As impressive as this card is, we clearly need 3-4 times this performance for 4k. And that's not going to come out soon enough nor cheap enough.

Sky15 said:
it's 304cm long which is 12in.
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304cm is 3m and 4cm which is quite a bit more than 12 inches, even though I am not very familiar with the imperial system.
 
Lorien said:
If anything it's software and the APIs that hold things back. Look at Mantle and the performance increases it brings when you use an API designed from the ground up to take advantage of modern CPU and graphics architectures.
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True, but the games where Nvidia is slightly winning are d3d based. Either way, it isn't compete domination and it's at 1440p which isn't going to stretch either amd or Nvidia's products right now.
 
200W more than 780ti SLI @ full load? Jesus, AMD is sure going to make you pay for that extra performance, aren't they?

Absolutely unimpressed by their performance with this part. Get those power consumption figures under control and we'll talk. Until they can compete on a performance-per-watt basis they simply aren't competing.

YAWN.
 
Daroller said:
200W more than 780ti SLI @ full load? Jesus, AMD is sure going to make you pay for that extra performance, aren't they?

Absolutely unimpressed by their performance with this part. Get those power consumption figures under control and we'll talk. Until they can compete on a performance-per-watt basis they simply aren't competing.

YAWN.
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Bet you weren't saying anything like that back in the Cypress/Cayman days.
 
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