R9 290 *Complete* review list

[blackened23]

Has there been any tests concerning Eyefinity and crossfire issues being fixed?

Also, considering how poorly everything handles 4k, I suppose 3x 2560 x 1440 is probably going to be worse with 290 crossfire. =(

It's essentially fixed on the 290(X). Crossfire / eyefinity, that is.

 

[DooKey]

Has anyone come across any R290 owners and their thoughts on the fanspeed? Or has there been any threads with regards to those looking to use these cards at a lower fan speed?

Very interested in getting this card but then again.. Maxwell I believe will be releasing fairly soon (GM104) early next quarter.

If you want to run 290s without downclocks then you have to run at least 50% fan at stock clocks. If you overclock 60%+ is necessary and they are a bit noisy then.

Check my sig for details.

 

[Phanuel]

Has anyone come across any R290 owners and their thoughts on the fanspeed? Or has there been any threads with regards to those looking to use these cards at a lower fan speed?

Very interested in getting this card but then again.. Maxwell I believe will be releasing fairly soon (GM104) early next quarter.

47% is noticeable, sure. But unless you're completely focused on that or playing a game with no sound, you'll never notice it.

 

[Sweepr]

Framebuffer size is tied to the memory bus width. There are far more important performance metrics than raw framebuffer size, such as Pixel Fillrate, Texel Fillrate, Tesselation Performance, Memory Bandwidth, etc. GTX 780 Ti is ahead of R9 290X in ALL of these areas.

And yet it only performs ~9% better than R9 290X (overall, lets not even mention 4k and multi-GPU). You say AIB GTX780s beat reference R9 290Xs, let me tell you something, AIB R9 290Xs could easily beat the reference GTX780 Ti (especially at high resolutions 1440p+) for +$100 less. Alternatively the GTX780 is only 15% faster than the $300 cheaper R9 290, and would get destroyed by 2x R290s in CrossFire for an extra $100.

 

[parvadomus]

How efficiency + termals improves with custom cooler:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/arctic_accelero_xtreme_iii_meets_amd_r9_290/index6.php
Looks like 290/290X will be more than a simple noise and temp reduction with better cooling.

 

[Lonyo]

How efficiency + termals improves with custom cooler:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/arctic_accelero_xtreme_iii_meets_amd_r9_290/index6.php
Looks like 290/290X will be more than a simple noise and temp reduction with better cooling.

Everyone should know that you do indeed usually see less power draw with cooler temps, but that seems ridiculous. 30w drop in power use? Really?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2200205&highlight=idontcare+temperature
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2281195&highlight=idontcare+temperature

For those who want some evidence of how temperature impacts power use (CPU testing, not GPU, but the idea is the same)

40c change in temperature results in a 30w change in power use on a 2600K, so I guess it's feasible that you could get a 30w drop on a 290 as well.

 

[smackababy]

It's essentially fixed on the 290(X). Crossfire / eyefinity, that is.

Well, that is good to hear. I still am wary if two can actually handle 11 million pixels though. =(

 

[HurleyBird]

How efficiency + termals improves with custom cooler:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/arctic_accelero_xtreme_iii_meets_amd_r9_290/index6.php
Looks like 290/290X will be more than a simple noise and temp reduction with better cooling.

That's about what I was expecting. Seems Hawaii pretty close to GK110 in performance/watt when it isn't sitting at 95 degrees.

 

[Silverforce11]

How efficiency + termals improves with custom cooler:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/arctic_accelero_xtreme_iii_meets_amd_r9_290/index6.php
Looks like 290/290X will be more than a simple noise and temp reduction with better cooling.

This is exactly the point I've raised several times already. R290X is running CRIPPLED in all the metrics when its forced to run at 95C. It will use much more power due to leakage at those high temps. The same thing happened with the 480, until AIBs came in with better cooling, it dropped in power use a lot.

So the reference R290/X is a) using much more power than it should, b) running much more hotter than it should, c) much more noisy than it needs to be.. finally, d) running crippled due to thermal throttling. Even in uber mode, it cannot sustain 1ghz clocks.

Slap on a good cooler and suddenly you get R290X + 5-10% performance, running cooler and using less power.

 

[Sweepr]

This is exactly the point I've raised several times already. R290X is running CRIPPLED in all the metrics when its forced to run at 95C. It will use much more power due to leakage at those high temps. The same thing happened with the 480, until AIBs came in with better cooling, it dropped in power use a lot.

So the reference R290/X is a) using much more power than it should, b) running much more hotter than it should, c) much more noisy than it needs to be.. finally, d) running crippled due to thermal throttling. Even in uber mode, it cannot sustain 1ghz clocks.

Slap on a good cooler and suddenly you get R290X + 5-10% performance, running cooler and using less power.

There's a lot of potential here. Cant wait to see what Sapphire, HIS, MSI, Gigabyte and others will be able to do with Hawaii.

 

[Skurge]

Geez, It seems like AMD is hellbent on giving themselves a handicap with every release.

 

[Z15CAM]

Every Video Card in Canada is Approx $40 more here then in the States - Some Free Trade Deal - Huh.

That makes the Reference Radeaon R9 290 priced at $439 here. Add 13% HST and another $12.50 Shipping Plus $6.90 Insurance equals $515.47 and NO Games.

For a $700 GeForce GTX 780 Ti it amounts to $855.60.

That's over $340 difference. So for a $399 card in the States we pay over $500 for it and that puts it in a Hi-End Card category for all of us, but appears to be the best deal we have so far for descent 1440p/1660p Gaming.

HOPE there are Black Friday or Xmas not excluding Boxing Day Sales with a Game or 2 included coming up.

 

[krumme]

How efficiency + termals improves with custom cooler:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/arctic_accelero_xtreme_iii_meets_amd_r9_290/index6.php
Looks like 290/290X will be more than a simple noise and temp reduction with better cooling.

Okey thats way more efficiency improvement than i expected. This makes a difference.

 

[Lonyo]

Geez, It seems like AMD is hellbent on giving themselves a handicap with every release.

If they had charged $50 more and put it towards a better cooler, like the Prolimatech, it would add $100 of value to the card based on performance relative to NV, excluding any additional bundles of offers/games/etc.

It's like they decided they didn't want to release a good stock product, and leave it up to AIB partners, but not give partners enough time to release custom products...

 

[3DVagabond]

Every Video Card in Canada is Approx $40 more here then in the States - Some Free Trade Deal - Huh.

That makes the Reference Radeaon R9 290 priced at $439 here. Add 13% HST and another $12.50 Shipping Plus $6.90 Insurance equals $515.47 and NO Games.

For a $700 GeForce GTX 780 Ti it amounts to $855.60.

That's over $340 difference. So for a $399 card in the States we pay over $500 for it and that puts it in a Hi-End Card category for all of us, but appears to be the best deal we have so far for descent 1440p/1660p Gaming.

HOPE there are Black Friday or Xmas not excluding Boxing Day Sales with a Game or 2 included coming up.

What does a made in China product have to do with NAFTA? Don't worry, when the US catches up to Canada with social programs, they'll catch up with prices, as well. You ought to see what all this costs us in NZ.

Take off GST and adjust for currency conversion you get

780ti = $935usd
290X = $740usd
290 = $460usd

NOTE: I compare in stock prices only. You find here when shops don't have them they list a lower price.

 

[omeds]

How much to ship from Oz? 780ti works out to $756 here. $661 for 290x. $545 for 780. $480 for 290. Those prices include tax.

 

[3DVagabond]

How much to ship from Oz? 780ti works out to $756 here. $661 for 290x. $545 for 780. $480 for 290. Those prices include tax.

Not heaps. Still have duty/taxes when it arrives. I just give up on tech items here until demand drops off a bit and prices stabilize at realistic levels.

 

[Atreidin]

How efficiency + termals improves with custom cooler:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/arctic_accelero_xtreme_iii_meets_amd_r9_290/index6.php
Looks like 290/290X will be more than a simple noise and temp reduction with better cooling.

That's pretty much the range of improvement I was predicting. Even if I'm not buying one I just want the aftermarket cards to come out so I can stop seeing floods of posts about how bad the reference cooler is. Talk about beating a dead horse, then pulverizing it into dust.

 

[Shmee]

Reference cooler is OK if you adjust fan speeds, what I did was lower temp threshold to 85C, and up max fan speed to 90%, leaving it on auto. Max I saw was about 70% in litecoin mining.

Still getting it configured though, not sure how efficient the miner is for it.

 

[Lonyo]

That's pretty much the range of improvement I was predicting. Even if I'm not buying one I just want the aftermarket cards to come out so I can stop seeing floods of posts about how bad the reference cooler is. Talk about beating a dead horse, then pulverizing it into dust.

It does suddenly become a lot more appealing, especially if you look at the custom HD7900 cards that came out like the Windforce and the triple slot Asus card.
There is some quite beastly cooling in the world that hasn't been used for the 290 and might give it a lot more potential, and suddenly power, noise and performance all improve dramatically.

Which is absurd. Someone at AMD clearly doesn't want their products to succeed.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Reference cooler is OK if you adjust fan speeds, what I did was lower temp threshold to 85C, and up max fan speed to 90%, leaving it on auto. Max I saw was about 70% in litecoin mining.

Still getting it configured though, not sure how efficient the miner is for it.

Keeps well under the 90c threshold but at the cost of noise?Most of the reviews made this thing sound like its a impossible feat for the card to run under 90c but hell with Amd claiming 95c is fine perhaps you could drop your fan usage down to 65% and run it at about 88-90c?

The 290 is impressive for the buck but no one mentions how cool the thing can run assuming your running a 65+% fanspeed, all they focus on is how hot it loads up with a 40% fanspeed.

 

[SlowSpyder]

It does suddenly become a lot more appealing, especially if you look at the custom HD7900 cards that came out like the Windforce and the triple slot Asus card.
There is some quite beastly cooling in the world that hasn't been used for the 290 and might give it a lot more potential, and suddenly power, noise and performance all improve dramatically.

Which is absurd. Someone at AMD clearly doesn't want their products to succeed.

I can understand why AMD reused the the 7970 cooler. It is probably cheap, they probably ordered/produced a ton of them. They had a price target in mind and this is what worked, they still were able to hit their performance goals. I also think AMD knows that the vast majority of 290/290X cards that will be sold will be non-reference. AMD will sell the GPU's to their partners, the board makers will do the rest.

 

[AdamK47]

DP

 

[AdamK47]

I'd still get a 290X over a 290. AMD chose to brute force their way through benchmarks in order to attain better marketing value in expense of higher heat, power, and noise.

I'm willing to pay more for more capable hardware in the form of increased SPs. It's the same reason I found it silly that some people with Titans went with 780s at the time of release. For me, more SPs > brute force clocking.

 

[smackababy]

About to pull the trigger on a 290... except Amazon only has one even close to retail at $440. Wtf? I want my Amazon Prime shipping!