R260/270/280/290/290x Review thread

[OILFIELDTRASH]

That makes zero sense. You do know graphics card companies are a business..high end gaming cards are NEVER about price. If you worry about price, then you should not be considering the 290x , period.

Not worry about price? Are we dealing in Lamborghini's and Ferrari's here? Geez you guys act like these things are solid gold bricks or something. A kid living at home and working part time at a fast food restaurant could get one of these cards. And yes I worry about price. I worry about price because I'm a grown man with a house payment that's likely more than your total income. That's not including the electric/water/phone or the 3 vehicles I own and maintain. So yes kid grown people worry about prices.

 

[imaheadcase]

Yes you are dealing with lambos and Ferrari's of the graphics card world, they don't call the high end for nothing. No people who work in fast food can't afford these cards, they also go student loans, bills, etc to pay.

The point is, its not wise to buy this card simply because its the fastest right now, its better to wait till 780ti or price cuts from nvidia. Unless you absolutely need one or are a fan of amd for whatever reason. If nvidia card and price cuts are not up to snuff, i'm going to buy 2 of these.

 

[BrightCandle]

The 4k results are mighty impressive. High ROP counts and massive increases in the rest of the front end to double ensures a lot of performance improvement at higher resolutions. The benefit of those changes shows up at 2560x1600 as well so these cards have been showing front end starvation. Not massively but enough to reduce performance that when the limit is removed you can see +5-10%.

After market coolers are going to make or break this card. I am now thinking the sweet spot for power is somewhere around 200W, if you go above that air coolers start to get quite loud. You can obviously cool 300W as the PCI-E spec allows but its not gone well this generation for the cards that have ventured above the 200W line.

As a water cooler I don't care about the noise, I would buy water blocks anyway. The issue is for me those crossfire stutters, while improved from the mess of the 7970s its still not fixed. Despite their dramatic hardware change there still seems to be an issue with the frame pacing. I really want them to fix that as I would really like to be able to buy a pair of these. But once burnt I won't so it again unless I am sure.

 

[Silverforce11]

Can't wait to get my hands on a custom R290.. hopefully its $399 to $449, would be the perfect sweet spot.

 

[Erenhardt]

Well, one could settle for less
290 (non X) needs more G-sync, because it looks so blurry you can't read!

 

[Imouto]

3DCenter? They will have their analysis up tomorrow or so.

That's it. Thanks.

 

[Silverforce11]

Well, one could settle for less
290 (non X) needs more G-sync, because it looks so blurry you can't read!

Well done! Just what we were expecting, R290 is gonna be the champ for this round. With a good cooler, and unlocked voltage.. oh yeah... its the 7950 all over again!!

 

[Sohaltang]

Yes you are dealing with lambos and Ferrari's of the graphics card world, they don't call the high end for nothing. No people who work in fast food can't afford these cards, they also go student loans, bills, etc to pay.

The point is, its not wise to buy this card simply because its the fastest right now, its better to wait till 780ti or price cuts from nvidia. Unless you absolutely need one or are a fan of amd for whatever reason. If nvidia card and price cuts are not up to snuff, i'm going to buy 2 of these.

So wait on an even more $$ card? Im not following your logic

 

[Skurge]

Wow, that stock cooler is garb.

So this cards runs between 850 and 1000mhz at 95C? A Twin Frozr or Windforce 3 should lower temps and power consumption and give it a nice 5-10% boost in clocks as well before an overclock.

I wanted to get this at launch, but I will wait till custom cards come out. Cause I am not going anywhere near the stock cooler espcially in Namibian summers.

 

[96Firebird]

Did you not read anandtech's review? It specifically said the cooler was designed on a budget to keep the price as low as possible. If you desire a better cooler than wait for the aftermarket cards and expect to pay more for it. There is no free lunch. I love their approach honestly. A bf4 bundle adds $30 or you can do without it. A better cooler will cost more or you can deal with the noise/heat.

No I didn't finish reading it, all of it isn't up yet and the part that breaks down the cooler ("Meet the 290X" section) isn't up. If that is the case, I think they made a mistake cutting costs on the cooler. I know they stated the chip was designed to run hot, but I would feel better releasing a card that doesn't run so hot. Getting a little bit of dust clogged in the fan can cause all sorts of problems.

 

[Silverforce11]

No I didn't finish reading it, all of it isn't up yet and the part that breaks down the cooler ("Meet the 290X" section) isn't up. If that is the case, I think they made a mistake cutting costs on the cooler. I know they stated the chip was designed to run hot, but I would feel better releasing a card that doesn't run so hot. Getting a little bit of dust clogged in the fan can cause all sorts of problems.

Its idiotic to cut cost on the cooler for a premium priced product. Really, $549 and they cut $10-20 to cheap out on the the most important aspect of the GPU? Noise and temps matter. It also affects performance due to the new boost mechanic, it also affects power consumption. What exactly is the point of getting the ref model when it can't even OC (throttles due to heat)? GPU engineers make an awesome chip.. AMD management fails hard.. not surprised.

 

[Zargon]

man one of them is almost as good as 7950 xfire

cost more though

 

[imaheadcase]

So wait on an even more $$ card? Im not following your logic

Who said anything about more money? Not me.

 

[Erenhardt]

Well done! Just what we were expecting, R290 is gonna be the champ for this round. With a good cooler, and unlocked voltage.. oh yeah... its the 7950 all over again!!

preety much yes:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25170920&postcount=8

Seems like 290X can overclock. 1200Mhz core and 6400Mhz memory.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25171636&postcount=37

Such a damn quick card, this now places it ahead of the 1310MHz GTX 780 I included in the review in all test.

I wonder if it is on stock cooler or this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-054-TL

 

[Genx87]

The GTX480 was more expensive and consumed almost TWICE the power.
It wasn't 20W or even 50W more, it was 100W more. You could run a 5970 and have 50W left.

Maybe those are the differences.

Eh this card consumes on avg 23 more watts than that power hog the 480

Like I said, funny how people's tunes have changed since that card dropped.

 

[tviceman]

Did you want to pay more for it for the temp to be lower and it be quieter? My guess is most people won't care enough and would rather have the ridiculous performance and relatively low price.

Yeah I'd gladly pay $20-30 for it to be cooler and quieter. Quiet operation is something I value with my rig.

 

[tviceman]

Did you not read anandtech's review? It specifically said the cooler was designed on a budget to keep the price as low as possible.

And that is another problem with the mindset of AMD. Don't design a high end graphics card with a budget cooler. DO. NOT. DO. IT. It doesn't need titanium alloy nor look as fancy as the Titan cooler, but seriously, come out with a 430mm^2 chip running as hot as it can possibly run and throw a wal-mart cooling solution on it?

They should have spent the extra $10-15 and brought it to market for $579.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I see some comments about the 290x beating a titan, there are aftermarket gtx 780s that beat titan in games too. It should have been expected really.

 

[Fastx]

man one of them is almost as good as 7950 xfire

cost more though

BF is the important one for me 7950 CFX looks good to me in BF.

http://www.techspot.com/review/727-radeon-r9-290x/page3.html

 

[tviceman]

I see some comments about the 290x beating a titan, there are aftermarket gtx 780s that beat titan in games too. It should have been expected really.

Well AMD new what target with respect to performance they had to it. And again, just like so many people on here said GK104 was "overclocked" from the get-go to beat the 7970 out of the gate, I think those same people should be saying the very same thing about R290X to beat Titan. Except thermals, noise, and power draw is much more damning evidence with the R290X than with the GTX680.

I think AMD was aiming for a $599 price tag all along, but with the gtx780 ti announcement, they came in a little lower to go ahead and potentially steal sales while they still had their biggest opportunity. Great move by AMD.

 

[imaheadcase]

They are pretty much outs of stock most places like predicted. hehe

Wonder why the BF4 editions still say "coming Soon". They could not even get them to people before BF4 is released...mmm

 

[exar333]

Great (amazing) card, but as I was suspecting, the cooling is not sufficient for good overclocking. I am wondering what 3rd-party cards will look like, but the stock card is definitely not up to snuff for much overclocking.

Awesome performance, and the 'CF' performance really blew me away. I would wait myself until a better card cooler was available, if I was interested in buying one.

 

[Erenhardt]

I see some comments about the 290x beating a titan, there are aftermarket gtx 780s that beat titan in games too. It should have been expected really.

How about:

By the way this is an R290 I've flashed with R290X BIOS, works a tread, but shaders not unlocked, but can now hit 1220 core and 6600 RAM on the regular R290 as well. At these speeds this also obliverates Titan. Incredible value!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25174108&postcount=71

 

[Jacky60]

When the Sam Hill is the Vanilla 290 alighting on planet Earth?

 

[MeldarthX]

The 4k results are mighty impressive. High ROP counts and massive increases in the rest of the front end to double ensures a lot of performance improvement at higher resolutions. The benefit of those changes shows up at 2560x1600 as well so these cards have been showing front end starvation. Not massively but enough to reduce performance that when the limit is removed you can see +5-10%.

After market coolers are going to make or break this card. I am now thinking the sweet spot for power is somewhere around 200W, if you go above that air coolers start to get quite loud. You can obviously cool 300W as the PCI-E spec allows but its not gone well this generation for the cards that have ventured above the 200W line.

As a water cooler I don't care about the noise, I would buy water blocks anyway. The issue is for me those crossfire stutters, while improved from the mess of the 7970s its still not fixed. Despite their dramatic hardware change there still seems to be an issue with the frame pacing. I really want them to fix that as I would really like to be able to buy a pair of these. But once burnt I won't so it again unless I am sure.

The few crossfire reviews and such I've read doesn't agree with you bright; I know you got burnt.

Gibbo at Overclockers has been having a field day and basically said; right now 290X bar none is the best card on the market; he also said he's flashed 290 with a 290X bios; *didn't unlock the shaders sadly* and its overclocking to 290X levels now including memory.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18551534&page=6

He's also saying 290 at those OC levels; blows titan away.....

lol and looks like OC is sold out too Is there room for improvement? Yea; these are very early launch drivers; and my god is it held back by the ref cooler.

Once we see water and customer coolers on it; this thing is going to be hard to beat specially on price.

PS Eren already posted it and beat me to it LOL