ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC Video Card Review @ [H]

[Kor]

The increased power usage in Quiet mode is fairly self explanatory. The constant fall off to lower clocks on the stock 290x results in a lower than average power consumption, while the custom board keeps the GPU at full throttle thanks to a decent cooler.

Also as expected the over all power usage in uber was lower thanks to the proper cooling solutions on the Asus card. AMD already said that people with better cooling would see lower power consumption due to the reduced leakage running at more humane temps.

If anything this card and the NZXT Kraken review do demonstrate just how damn terrible AMD's stock cooling choice was for this release.

 

[FrameBuffer]

It is an overclocked card matching a reference 780ti. The overclocked aftermarket 780ti performs 20-25% faster than the stock reference card -- Hardwarecanucks has benchmarks of the 780ti GHZ edition from gigabyte, which benchmarked faster than the GTX 690. The Asus DC II 290x is slower than the GTX 690 even when overclocked.

You can view the GHZ edition 780ti here:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...gigabyte-gtx-780-ti-ghz-edition-review-8.html

They also have a review of the DC II 290X. When overclocked it is slower than the above card by a considerable margin. So yeah. If they're the same price, an aftermarket 780ti is the far better buy with software and overclocking headroom taken into consideration. But at MSRP? The DC II 290X would be a hell of a great value and great performing card. Don't get me wrong. If by some miracle this card ends up at MSRP, it's going to be great. A far better value than the 780ti if it is indeed at MSRP. I just don't think it will happen. We'll see though.

1: Card was tested AS DELIVERED. Unless otherwise noted and I missed it, the card was not overclocked in the review. It came from Asus with a factory OC of a WHOPPPING 50 Mhz.. yeah a massive half of one percent increase ..

2: IF we are to take retail gouging as part of the determining factor of "value", then that Gigabyte 780Ti is not exactly one you want to be linking.. those are running for $820+ at the local Microcenter.. $250+ (44%) for +5.66 FPS (+11%) ..OCvsOC

I'm not defending the pricing currently going on... however it's hard to ignore some bias (I have my very own, very observable boas as well) when one product is a "great performer" and the other hardly worth it at the same price and performance AS DELIEVERED..

Canucks said it in their own conclusion :

If anything, the R9 290X DirectCU II has proven that AMD’s enthusiast product has what it takes to match NVIDIA’s highest end offerings without a stratospheric price tag.

and awarded it its "Dam Good Value"

Personally I can't wait for 3rd party cooling solutions and this LiteCoin thing to die down to nab some realistic priced parts from BOTH sides..

 

[Gumbi10]

Hmm. Great review, impressed by the card. The VRM temps are certainly worrisome. I would much like to see them a lot more in line with AMDs results (which are respectable despite the poor cooling setup).

I do hope this isn't due to poor mounting or anything.

The MSI 280x, despite having decent Twin Frozr cooling, suffered from horrible VRM temps (over 90 degrees which caused throttling I believe).

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Kyle/Brent- the only comparison we're missing is between the new card in Quiet mode versus the reference card in Uber. That is, can the ASUS approach 'Uber' reference performance while running in it's quiet mode?

 

[psyside]

@Brent Justice & Kyle Bennett, Thank you guys sooo much for finally bringing VRM temps in the tests! something which was missing in alot of the reviews, this is an amazing step forward, and now tells the whole story along with real life gamelay!

PLEASE continue to measure VRM temps in all of your testing, PLEASE! its enthusiast nightmare when we get card which are running like 60c on the core with custom design in the reviews, just to find out that the vrms are hitting like 100c even on stock! in the future, this should not be an issue anymore. I would pick loud card with cool running vrm's instead of custom quiet, but with hot running vrm's.

Fantastic review.You guys rock!

 

[psyside]

One thing to keep in mind.

Problem with VRM's is low fan rpm - airflow.

45 vs 49 fan speed = -17c drop, at 65% fan i'm 100% sure vrm's will stay around 70-80c max.

 

[Rizen]

One thing to keep in mind.

Problem with VRM's is low fan rpm - airflow.

45 vs 49 fan speed = -17c drop, at 65% fan i'm 100% sure vrm's will stay around 70-80c max.

That's also in an open air test bench. I wonder what the VRMs would look like in a case with a side panel air fan helping blow air across the VRMs. I'm upgrading my 800D with two 140mm fans in the side window to help cool my 290Xs.

 

[Deleted member 134608]

Thanks for the review [H]. I bought a 780Ti, because if you can find even a stock 290X in Western Canada, it sells for the exact same price. ($699)

Also, I needed a rear exhausting card because my case is small, so nV's reference cooler was the way to go. Also, I personally haven't had very good experiences with hot running video cards from either brand of any generation. So even if it was cheaper, I don't think I would have bought a 290 of any type.

But I appreciate knowing Asus cooler can keep even the hottest cards under control. It helps when my buddies want to know what version of a card to get. Great work.

 

[Gumbi10]

Also, note the Asus has appreciably higher voltage in both quiet and performance mode compared to reference model. That should almost guarantee it 1100mhz at stock voltage (seeing as many ref models did that, since the Asus has another bump even higher it virtually guarantees it in my eyes) and perhaps even higher.


I do hope the VRMs are brought under a lot more control with more airflow. 110 degrees at 45% fan speed is really too much in my eyes.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

I do hope the VRMs are brought under a lot more control with more airflow. 110 degrees at 45% fan speed is really too much in my eyes.

Appropriate enclosure airflow for an open-air cooler should take plenty care of that. As long as you can keep the card as cool in your case as it would be on an open bench, there shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Gumbi10]

Appropriate enclosure airflow for an open-air cooler should take plenty care of that. As long as you can keep the card as cool in your case as it would be on an open bench, there shouldn't be a problem.

I'd much rather they be more in line with the core temps. I have a good air setup myself, byt at 45% fan speed, would that cut 30 degrees from the VRM? I dunno... I wonder how the Trix VRMs are, none of the sites that reviewed it are giving numbers...

 

[shadyqwerty]

REALLY enjoyed reading all bout fan speed % and RPMs. Noise level is so subjective, but by listing the RPMs, it gives a good idea of what to expect.

 

[DarkStryke]

Dupe

 

[fanboy]

I have tested my R9-290 with an aftermarket cooler (gelid icy 2) which is not without issue in fit but if you take the time to make things work well it's worth it.. I pulled it off because my ram sinks fell off and I have to decide if I want to glue them on or not and buy better copper heat sink or a water block.

but the highest I could get the gpu was 62c and vrm 1 was 77c and vrm 2 was 55c as reported by gpu-z logging (1 hour of gaming)while I ran benchmarks and gaming.. Crysis 3 seems to bring the most heat but after looking at the drop in power useage from your review that leads me to think that my delta would be even greater at 61c with power useage and the release of AIB's new cooling is still not the best from air yet to be shown.
..

 

[KickAssCop]

REALLY enjoyed reading all bout fan speed % and RPMs. Noise level is so subjective, but by listing the RPMs, it gives a good idea of what to expect.

So true. Thank God someone posted the RPMs. With the stock 290X running at 3200+ RPM, I would be pulling my hair out. lol.

 

[funkydmunky]

AMD has obviously ramped production as card partners are beginning to launch their custom cards. The whole "mining" thing put a strain on AMD's limited pre Xmas supply, and we got some crazy prices. Now that things are up to speed prices should fall back in line. NO, retailers will not abandon their duche-bag pricing scheme initially, and why should they, but when the retail channels are full, one by one they will fall in line. I fully expect the custom card prices to match AMD launch prices within a month. Then the battle will begin, and expect competition with mail-in rebate/sales prices, to be below MSRP by early Spring.
Mining or no mining, AMD is going to make a shit load of these cards. That is what companies do when they have a hot product (no pun). If anyone can wait a month, you will get your bargain compared to Nvidia. Nvidia has no where to go. The 780Ti costs Nvidia a fortune to make. If they drop prices further it will be to stay competitive, but not to make money.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Isn't something from Maxwell due in March? Even it's just a mid-range refresh or something it will still help Nvidia.

 

[funkydmunky]

Isn't something from Maxwell due in March? Even it's just a mid-range refresh or something it will still help Nvidia.

Unless it is high-end, it will just screw their current lines. And if it is high-end, how much above a 780Ti do you think it could possibly be priced?
The Titian/780 series has yet to drop into mainstream, and with the 670/680=760/770 re-brand, where would a mid-range product fit exactly?

 

[Yakk]

Good review, also like the extra section on temperatures!

One thing I'm curious about the VRM temps, my own 280x DC2 VRM temps rarely go more than 10c higher than gpu while mining. If I put even just a little fan on the back of the card the VRM temp actually drops to the same temp as the gpu, +/- 71c.

This makes me wonder if the backplate is hindering more than helping on the 290x by trapping more heat than it really dissipates, and how much even a very slow rotating fan pushing air at the backplate would help, like on the 280x DC2.

 

[p3sty]

Unless it is high-end, it will just screw their current lines. And if it is high-end, how much above a 780Ti do you think it could possibly be priced?
The Titian/780 series has yet to drop into mainstream, and with the 670/680=760/770 re-brand, where would a mid-range product fit exactly?

I lost on this round the one time I hesitated !!! Damn u miners

 

[jorojr]

Good review, but I don't see any of the e-tailers selling this for MSRP in the current climate. By the time it even approaches MSRP, I suspect we may be close to Maxwell.

 

[Gumbi10]

Good review, but I don't see any of the e-tailers selling this for MSRP in the current climate. By the time it even approaches MSRP, I suspect we may be close to Maxwell.

Not a chance. Maxwell won't be here for months.

 

[samuelmorris]

A clear demonstration of how bad the 290X stock cooler is, and that it really isn't that difficult to cool a 270W single GPU with a dual-slot cooler. I also note that the VRM temps are far higher on the Asus card, which is typical of non-reference, but given the amount of power being drawn by these cards, I wonder whether that will be an issue long-term. I won't be buying anyway until a higher quality brand produces a non-reference card, but I would be interested to see how well two of these behave in crossfire with typical spacing (one breather slot).

 

[IdiotInCharge]

...but I would be interested to see how well two of these behave in crossfire with typical spacing (one breather slot).

The top card chokes and dies, unless extreme measures are taken to significantly boost the volume of air that is exchanged around the cards in question.

If you want to run cards like these in Crossfire or SLI, your best bet is to use a board, likely X79-based, that puts a full x16 slot at position 6 or 7, in a large enclosure that has ample room for the bottom card to ventilate as well.

If you only have one 'breather' slot, well, AMD has let you down this generation- pay the premium for Nvidia (if there is one...) and get cards that have quiet blowers.

 

[Gumbi10]

Or utilise HIS's excellent blower coolers. Let's hope they use them again for this gen, last gen they released some fantastic blower coolers for the 7950/7970. Nice airflow and good blower coolers and you're sorted..

 

[samuelmorris]

Yeah that's basically how I understood it. Back in the old days I got round this issue by looking at dual-cards. Ultimately though, that's no longer realistic with the sort of TDPs AMD cards have, especially not this gen. Stuff like the 4GB HD5970 was a great idea back with 180W TDP GPUs. Now it's half as much again they wouldn't really work I suppose. That plus the 4GB HD5970s were built to an appalling standard.
If it weren't for the fact that I could do with a slightly more up to date card for smooth 4K support at the desktop I'd stick with my current cards. As it stands I might give it a short while and see if the prices come back down to pre-litecoin levels then buy a single R9 290, and use that until the die-shrink generation happens, and evaluate the situation then. If the newer cards are still as bad (which would surprise me, but then so did the issues this gen), I'll look very carefully at going SLI with whatever the high-end cards are then, and assuming they have proper 4K support. If only it wasn't so absurdly expensive.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

When it comes to 4k- we're really still waiting.

It would be great if Nvidia would let the 6GB versions of the 780s fly since that's what we really need today and in the near future, or if AMD would release 8GB versions of the R9 290s.

Also note that Dell has a 28" 4k monitor that's coming in at under a grand. If Dell can do it for <$1000, imagine what the Korean exporters and the Monoprice/etc. guys can pull off for a stripped-down gaming monitor, possibly even with a G-Sync module (I'm dreaming, I know).

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Or utilise HIS's excellent blower coolers. Let's hope they use them again for this gen, last gen they released some fantastic blower coolers for the 7950/7970. Nice airflow and good blower coolers and you're sorted..

If HIS ever gets around to it...

Personally, I'm more of the persuasion to use integrated water-coolers with the brackets like NZXT is starting to make, especially if you can get a kit at retail. Could probably use the 140mm versions and have three cards going at once, each with their own radiator, along with the CPU...

 

[samuelmorris]

When it comes to 4k- we're really still waiting.

It would be great if Nvidia would let the 6GB versions of the 780s fly since that's what we really need today and in the near future, or if AMD would release 8GB versions of the R9 290s.

Also note that Dell has a 28" 4k monitor that's coming in at under a grand. If Dell can do it for <$1000, imagine what the Korean exporters and the Monoprice/etc. guys can pull off for a stripped-down gaming monitor, possibly even with a G-Sync module (I'm dreaming, I know).

For, me the clue is in the title - a P2815Q, as opposed to UP2414Q and UP3214Q. That implies the 28" version won't be here until a year from now, which explains the considerably lower price.
6GB vs 3GB I can understand, but are we sure that 4GB is insufficient on the 290s at this point? I'm not sure I've seen much evidence that 4GB isn't enough in anything yet, though I agree it probably won't be too far in the future when that starts happening.

Call me un-[H], but water cooling is something that to this day I refuse to use in my main PCs. Too much of a liability, even with sealed prebuilt units.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

First Google return from 'P2815Q':

Coming Soon: Dell 28 Ultra HD Monitor&#8211; Expected to be The Industry&#8217;s Most Affordable Ultra HD Monitor
The Dell 28 Ultra HD Monitor will be available in early 2014. Offering the same incredible Ultra HD screen performance as the Dell UltraSharp 32 and Dell UltraSharp 24 Ultra HD Monitors, but priced at under $1,000...

The real question is concerning the type of panel used, and it's suitability for gaming with regard to pixel response and input lag.

Edit:This Indian site (http://www.newtechnology.co.in/dell-ultrasharp-p2815q-price/) shows that it's an LED-IPS panel with '1.07 billion colors', which means that it should be 10-bit capable.

As for VRAM- the issue I see stems largely from the 'extra' memory the new consoles came with. They'll have over 5GB available for gaming which makes having only 4GB of VRAM for the desktop ports sound a little cramped, in comparison.

Now, we really don't have great examples of games that can really stress VRAM today; every single top-end game we're playing right now was developed in concert with the last-gen consoles in mind as the lowest common denominator.

The best example is to take a skillfully modded Skyrim install; you can blow your VRAM ceiling without killing the GPU's rendering speed, just by increasing the game's available assets. We should expect at least this much from next-gen games.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Are they really gonna use 4 GB worth of textures at 720p?
Or even 1080p for that matter.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Are they really gonna use 4 GB worth of textures at 720p?
Or even 1080p for that matter.

I'm sure they'll find other uses for it too- but given that the specs of the consoles are pretty limited, textures are a great target both because they're relatively cheap from a processing perspective (if used wisely) and because that's the one thing that they've had to be super frugal with up until now.

 

[PandaZ3]

I decided not to wait and got a Sapphire 290X, I'll run it in quiet mode and I'm sure it will do more than I am capable of handling. .....wait I thinkI hear Rudolf now! Merry Christmas

 

[didactandnarpet]

Damn was really hoping this card would have multiple displayport outputs... hopefully MSI will make that happen.

 

[Sith'ari]

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is $110-$130 more expensive than the ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC.

1) I see this mistake since the article was first posted. I'm surprised that noone has spotted it. Can you put the "X" next to R9 290?
2)Also, i didn't quite understand. What's the exact price of ASUS's R9 290X? This review says that the card is being sold above MSRP, but what amount exactly you mean by using the word "above", and how does the conclusion that 780Ti is 110-130$ more expensive is being reached since we don't know the R9 290X's exact price?

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

2)Also, i didn't quite understand. What's the exact price of ASUS's R9 290X? This review says that the card is being sold above MSRP, but what amount exactly you mean by using the word "above", and how does the conclusion that 780Ti is 110-130$ more expensive is being reached since we don't know the R9 290X's exact price?

The MSRP is $569.99, which is the price they're basing those figures on.
It's actual price is unknown since it's not being sold anywhere yet.

 

[Sith'ari]

The MSRP is $569.99, which is the price they're basing those figures on.
It's actual price is unknown since it's not being sold anywhere yet.

The aftermarket 290X i've seen so far, like the Gigabyte model cost around 700$.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125499
There are lot of 780Ti's that costs exactly the same.:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=BESTMATCH&Description=780+ti&N=-1&isNodeId=1
So how the 290X takes the gold award in this review, since it will probably have price similar to 780Ti, and most important, how is the conclusion that ASUS 290X is less expensive than the 780Ti by110-130$ is being reached ?

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Because they're quoting ASUS's price and not dealing with the scumbags at Newegg and other e-tailers? The card doesn't launch for a month and online prices are likely to fluctuate. So why should they deal with unstable market prices when they already have the official quoted price from ASUS?
It's not like they're going to play the guessing game and try to predict what Newegg will do with the prices 30 days from now, on an unreleased card. They're hardware reviewers, not psychics.

There's already a note in the article about current AMD prices, anyway.

 

[Sith'ari]

Because they're quoting ASUS's price and not dealing with the scumbags at Newegg and other e-tailers? The card doesn't launch for a month and online prices are likely to fluctuate. So why should they deal with unstable market prices when they already have the official quoted price from ASUS?
It's not like they're going to play the guessing game and try to predict what Newegg will do with the prices 30 days from now, on an unreleased card. They're hardware reviewers, not psychics.

There's already a note in the article about current AMD prices, anyway.

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is $110-$130 more expensive than the ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC

I say again!!: How this conclusion is being reached!!
I don't see in ASUS's site any comment that they will sell their 290X at MSRP, so since there is a fact that the aftermarket 290X's so far are being sold at 700$, how they concluded that ASUS will be sold at MSRP!! Has ASUS made a press report confirming this?

 

[samuelmorris]

That MSRP of $570 is not the MSRP of the 290X as a whole. Despite what they're currently selling at, the 290X MSRP is $550. Now granted, I think $20 seems an unlikely small step up from the official MSRP, but who knows, given the current inflation of AMD prices, you won't be able to buy one at that sort of price upon launch anyway I suspect.