R9 290 *Complete* review list

[skipsneeky2]

Ouch thats some bad luck man,ive killed a 5770 moving it to another rig, perfectly healthy one minuted dead as a dodo the next.as for aftermarket 290s end of this month?i hope anyways.

Damn, i had a 7850 fail on me along with a mobo and ram due to a short circuit in my electrical outlet in my wall. Had to purchase a budget gtx650 just to game and a few months ago this 770 so i could have some respectable performance again. Originally decided to hang on to that 7850 till Maxwell.....

 

[Zanovar]

Damn, i had a 7850 fail on me along with a mobo and ram due to a short circuit in my electrical outlet in my wall. Had to purchase a budget gtx650 just to game and a few months ago this 770 so i could have some respectable performance again. Originally decided to hang on to that 7850 till Maxwell.....

 

[skipsneeky2]

Even waiting till Maxwell wouldn't have been a option if my 7850 was still operational, i wanted a card that kicked some serious ass @$400 and if i read the R9 290 review i know i would have ordered one.Late August when i ordered this 770 was when Hawaii had a launch date reported but i figured a sub par $650 card i couldn't afford....god was i wrong.

 

[SolMiester]

No. I game with headphones on and with a custom fan profile I can run 1125 core at around 80C, 60% fan speed. Even without headphones it's not too obnoxious for me, but I'm sure others wouldn't like it too much.

Im curious how a 60% fan profile can keep the cards at 80c when the uber 57% struggles to keep the card at 94c...This is the reference cooler yes and you have XF?..Am I missing something?

 

[Zanovar]

Even waiting till Maxwell wouldn't have been a option if my 7850 was still operational, i wanted a card that kicked some serious ass @$400 and if i read the R9 290 review i know i would have ordered one.Late August when i ordered this 770 was when Hawaii had a launch date reported but i figured a sub par $650 card i couldn't afford....god was i wrong.

Youve had some bad luck there bud i feel for ya,out of interest when do you think Maxwell will hit?some folks are claiming/guessing it might be on 28nm,i dont believe this myself.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Youve had some bad luck there bud i feel for ya,out of interest when do you think Maxwell will hit?some folks are claiming/guessing it might be on 28nm,i dont believe this myself.

Maybe June at the latest?I hear its Q1 2014 but who knows really.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Im curious how a 60% fan profile can keep the cards at 80c when the uber 57% struggles to keep the card at 94c...This is the reference cooler yes and you have XF?..Am I missing something?

I thought that uber mode allowed fan speeds up to 55% and rarely even saw that speed because it always attempts to keep the GPU at 95C. It's so hard to know what's going on with all the misinformation people are spewing and they don't even own the cards.

 

[3DVagabond]

Im curious how a 60% fan profile can keep the cards at 80c when the uber 57% struggles to keep the card at 94c...This is the reference cooler yes and you have XF?..Am I missing something?

He might have a card with one of the fans that 60% is more than other cards 60%.

 

[Zanovar]

He might have a card with one of the fans that 60% is more than other cards 60%.

All about the rpm

 

[(sic)Klown12]

Im curious how a 60% fan profile can keep the cards at 80c when the uber 57% struggles to keep the card at 94c...This is the reference cooler yes and you have XF?..Am I missing something?

Uber doesn't run the fan at 55%, only caps it there. I'm seeing a load of 83c at only 53% fan speed, which is ~2950rpm, by setting a new fan curve with Afterburner. The stock curve ramps up extremely slowly.

 

[SolMiester]

I thought that uber mode allowed fan speeds up to 55% and rarely even saw that speed because it always attempts to keep the GPU at 95C. It's so hard to know what's going on with all the misinformation people are spewing and they don't even own the cards.

That might explain it, it just that 47% is the new default to keep the card from throttling as I understand it, 13% more fan doesnt seem a lot to then bring it down to 80c from 94c..

It dont know about spewing misinformation, Im just repeating what I understand from the reviews.

 

[Will Robinson]

Its really interesting that owners of R290 are reporting far lower temps than have been getting "publicity" lately.
Wonder if the OMG engine noise!!! posts will conveniently not pan out either...

 

[(sic)Klown12]

Its really interesting that owners of R290 are reporting far lower temps than have been getting "publicity" lately.
Wonder if the OMG engine noise!!! posts will conveniently not pan out either...

The reason owners are reporting lower temps is they're playing with fan curves. Before I did, my card would hit and stay at 94c but with a fanspeed of only 40-42%. The "OMG engine noise!!!" post are correct if you push the fan past 70%, but anything under sounds pretty much like past AMD blower coolers. It may be a little louder going by just the decibel level, but the tone is much easier to put up with.

 

[DooKey]

Im curious how a 60% fan profile can keep the cards at 80c when the uber 57% struggles to keep the card at 94c...This is the reference cooler yes and you have XF?..Am I missing something?

I'm running a custom fan profile and my case has very good airflow. Also, my cards aren't sandwiched together. Right now running collatz with my cards (a DC BOINC project) at 100% load on each and fans running at 65% my temps are 78-80C.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I'm running a custom fan profile and my case has very good airflow. Also, my cards aren't sandwiched together. Right now running collatz with my cards (a DC BOINC project) at 100% load on each and fans running at 65% my temps are 78-80C.

Those temps aren't to bad, my 770 with the Zotac Amp! cooler runs right about 78-80 cel when my room is warm enough and actually at the same exact fanspeed. Fun observation you can say but glad to see if i pick a reference model temperatures can be controlled relatively well given i put up with more noise which i have as of lately with my 770.

Hoping someone can make a respectable blower style 290 soon, this 770 pumps out major heat and personally my case is limiting how cool this card runs as any fanspeed pass 65% does little to nothing actually so i feel i may be going reference 290 just cause of this fact.

 

[ultimatebob]

All about the rpm

This particular fan on the 290 seems to pick up a grating whiney noise once it gets pushed past 40%, though. You'll notice it on the videos from Tom's Hardware. I'm wondering if that's why the engineers decided to make that the fan speed cap originally.... we'll likely never know.

Again, this issue goes away once the video card manufacturers upgrade to a better cooling system. While I wouldn't buy the AMD version of this card, I would likely buy another card that has the same GPU if it sold at a good price.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I'm running a custom fan profile and my case has very good airflow. Also, my cards aren't sandwiched together. Right now running collatz with my cards (a DC BOINC project) at 100% load on each and fans running at 65% my temps are 78-80C.

You have to have pretty crazy performance considering the cost of those cards (just $100 more than a single 780Ti). Very impressive!

 

[SimianR]

My current frustration: Reading review after review, thread after thread of comparisons between the 290 and the 780/780Ti. This is probably AMD's fault, as I guess they had those two high end cards in their sights with the 290/290x, but if I have a $400 budget right now for a GPU I can either get a 770 4gb or a 290. Between those two I think its pretty clear where the value lies - even at 40% fan speed on the 290. Yet we have lots of discussions going on about how it performs poorly when it throttles compared to a $500 and $700 card.

 

[p0rkguy]

My current frustration: Reading review after review, thread after thread of comparisons between the 290 and the 780/780Ti. This is probably AMD's fault, as I guess they had those two high end cards in their sights with the 290/290x, but if I have a $400 budget right now for a GPU I can either get a 770 4gb or a 290. Between those two I think its pretty clear where the value lies - even at 40% fan speed on the 290. Yet we have lots of discussion how it performs poorly when it throttles compared to a $500 and $700 card.

Because everybody has green lens.
It's either a heat and fan issue yet these issues are non existent in the real world by real people or that the Ti is SO much better for almost 2X the price.

 

[skipsneeky2]

God i can't wait for some damn non reference cards this way the whole reference cooler fan topic can drop dead.......it needs to die a slow painful death and personally someone needs to step up to the plate and offer some sort of aftermarket card very soon.

 

[sze5003]

God i can't wait for some damn non reference cards this way the whole reference cooler fan topic can drop dead.......it needs to die a slow painful death and personally someone needs to step up to the plate and offer some sort of aftermarket card very soon.

I agree.

 

[blastingcap]

My current frustration: Reading review after review, thread after thread of comparisons between the 290 and the 780/780Ti. This is probably AMD's fault, as I guess they had those two high end cards in their sights with the 290/290x, but if I have a $400 budget right now for a GPU I can either get a 770 4gb or a 290. Between those two I think its pretty clear where the value lies - even at 40% fan speed on the 290. Yet we have lots of discussions going on about how it performs poorly when it throttles compared to a $500 and $700 card.

You know what is funny? If they had simply NOT done that last minute "upgrade to 47% fan speed," they would have gotten nothing but praise from all reviewers for bang-for-the-buck. The 47% move was going for NV's throat but it semi-backfired on them because that's what people keep bringing up. I think in the end it will be a nonissue once axial-fan models come out, though.

 

[Regs]

Meh - I don't see any point spending 300 dollars on a 280x with my 7950. 300 dollars for 5-8 fps is a rip off. Spending 100 dollars more gives me more than twice the performance gain. Just does not make sense.

 

[3DVagabond]

Meh - I don't see any point spending 300 dollars on a 280x with my 7950. 300 dollars for 5-8 fps is a rip off. Spending 100 dollars more gives me more than twice the performance gain. Just does not make sense.

Your 7950 was just a great bargain, relatively speaking. Especially when you consider that the 270X is $200. It might match performance but it's only because it runs at ~25% higher clocks. Put them both at 1100MHz and your 7950 will walk all over it.

 

[Silverforce11]

Meh - I don't see any point spending 300 dollars on a 280x with my 7950. 300 dollars for 5-8 fps is a rip off. Spending 100 dollars more gives me more than twice the performance gain. Just does not make sense.

An OC 7950 is faster than the R280X..

The leap to the R290 is only about 25% extra, not really worth it unless you plan to OC the R290.. if not, waste of $$ for the upgrade.

Because the reference R290 is so neutered, it makes no sense to upgrade to it if you already have a 7950 class card. Have to wait for custom models.