R9 290 *Complete* review list

[NIGELG]

150 BUCKS FOR 20% over the 780!!!
I don't know if that is worth it...

It is a nice looking card...

But I think I will wait for a new node.

 

[ams23]

I am curious to know the rebuttal being prepared by team NV when 2xAsus DCUII R9 290s beat GTX780Ti by 50%+ for $120-130 more?

For the vast majority of people, a higher end single GPU will always be more preferrable vs. two lower end GPU's in SLI/Crossfire, due to the much lower power consumption and lack of multi-GPU issues/quirks. And once you get to the $800-$1000 price range (which is already really high to begin with), options open up for an even more performant and higher spec single GPU from NVIDIA. Other than 4K gaming at higher detail levels where multi-GPU is required, a single GPU is the more balanced choice for most people IMHO.

Also, who is going to spend $700 USD on a single GPU this late in 28nm cycle when 20nm cards are likely only 12 months away?

The same people who upgrade every two years? In two years time, Maxwell Gen2 will be more efficient and higher performance than Maxwell Gen1 in one years time.

 

[Shmee]

I should have one arriving today. I am curious as to what fan speeds I will need for a moderate OC. I may go H2O in the future.

 

[wand3r3r]

For the vast majority of people, a higher end single GPU will always be more preferrable vs. two lower end GPU's in SLI/Crossfire, due to the much lower power consumption and lack of multi-GPU issues/quirks. And once you get to the $800-$1000 price range (which is already really high to begin with), options open up for an even more performant and higher spec single GPU from NVIDIA. Other than 4K gaming at higher detail levels where multi-GPU is required, a single GPU is the more balanced choice for most people IMHO.

Marketing ftw.

The card only has 3GB, vs. 4GB on the cheaper 290x.

What are these multi-GPU issues and quirks??? Nice strawman there. Last I read the NV drivers had issues with 4k resolutions whereas the AMD cards worked out of the box. Do you have

7 WATTS difference average power consumption! Peak is higher, however it's not often I play furmark or similar power viruses.
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_780_Ti/images/power_average.gif

For one thing you likely can't even perceive the difference between the 290x and 780 ti, sure it's winning but by a mere 7% (1600p) while costing 27% more.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_780_Ti/27.html

For all intents and purposes, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti and the Radeon R9 290X at Uber Mode are identical in delivering the same gameplay experience.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/07/nvidia_geforce_gtx_780_ti_video_card_review/8

With excellent crossfire scaling, and framepacing you gain around 80%.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/07/nvidia_geforce_gtx_780_ti_video_card_review/8

You can pay (1600p)

$700 for 100% performance, or $7.00/%
$550 for 93% of the performance, or $5.38/%
$400 for 87% of the performance, or $4.50/%
$800 for 140% of the performance, ~ $5.70/% approximately (87 + 87)*0.8 (80% Scaling in crossfire)

Buying a $700 overpriced 780 ti at this point in the game is a waste of money. NV should have priced this at $600 max.

So you can pay 27% more for 7% performance, a quieter fan, less RAM, a similar experience (yes a slight win), and it's the tail end of 28nm.

 

[blastingcap]

The apologists for the R9 290 are funny. If you look at say the 7970, the reference cooler was good enough to keep noise to a reasonable level. If you overclocked the 7970 on the reference cooler, you could do it. Hell, I HAVE a reference 7970 as my main card right now. You can definitely oc it by a large amount without too much noise, and raising fan speed to R9 290-like levels will allow you a very healthy overclock of ~20%.

Compare this to R9 290. In order to achieve its top clocks--the ones reviewers gush over--it ALREADY requires obnoxious fan levels. If you forced R9 290 to be no noisier than reference 7970 then you have a clearer sense of their relative headroom. If I wanted 7970 to get a 20% overclock on reference fan, I could easily get it with noise being no greater than R9 290's default fan speed on reference fan. So reference vs reference, the 7970 would be 20% faster than reviewers said, and R9 290 would be no faster than what reviewers said.

Now if you want to talk aftermarket, you should compare aftermarket 7970 vs aftermarket R9 290. The headroom for the best aftermarket 7970s is ~30% stable with little to no overvolting. If you overvolt a little you can actually go >30%. Maybe it's possible to get ~30% overclocks on R9 290 with the best aftermarket parts holding noise constant. We'll see... I know some guy already posted how you can get 28% overclock with a 280X cooler, but at what decibel volume? So enough with the condescending "you've got to wrap your head around" stuff. Maybe we are talking past each other and actually agree, you know?

 

[GaiaHunter]

I'm not sure what you getting at Blasting.

I would rather all my components were at max performance from the box.

Percentage of OC is nice but without the baseline performance not that relevant.

 

[Phanuel]

Since there are every any aftermarket blowers on the market and I have a smaller case (FT03) I don't feel comfortable dumping all of that heat back into the case. The reference 290 is fine by me. I don't care to overclock my video card that much either, I never found the gains to be really enticing. An easy 800mhz on my CPU was more noticeable in day to day.

*shrug* Guess I'm a strange one who just doesn't care that much about the day 1 design other than some niggling concerns about running a piece of complex electronics at 95C constantly. But since I have one now I guess I'll find out long term if it works or not.

 

[blastingcap]

I'm not sure what you getting at Blasting.

I would rather all my components were at max performance from the box.

Percentage of OC is nice but without the baseline performance not that relevant.

Let me put it this way: reviewers who reviewed the reference 7970 significantly understated the actual performance you could get from those cards. To take advantage of the huge thermal headroom available with Tahiti, AMD eventually released the GHZ Edition that gave a more accurate picture of what you could get from the Tahiti GPU inside. GHZ edition was derided by some as a pre-overclocked 7970. And you know what? It was.

Reviewers reviewing the reference R9 290 at 47% fan are stating the realistic best-case performance you can get from those cards, especially reviewers who did not take cold vs hot runs into account. You could in theory go higher but noise levels are reportedly already borderline out of control at 47%.

I think we both agree that aftermarket coolers and cards with such coolers have the potential to raise the ceiling, though at the expense of dumping more heat into your case. If you have a well-cooled and ventilated case it should not matter too much.

 

[RussianSensation]

For the vast majority of people, a higher end single GPU will always be more preferrable vs. two lower end GPU's in SLI/Crossfire.

That's mostly true when talking about GTX460 SLI vs. 580 or HD6850 CF vs. HD7970GE or GTX660Ti SLI vs. Titan.

In those cases, where CF/SLI fails the faster single GPU is going to win by huge amounts. This is not at all the case with R9 290 vs. GTX780Ti.

As I said but you ignored: When CF won't work, R9 290 delivers 87% of the performance of 780Ti. At that point, 780Ti will barely provide a superior level of playability. However, when R9 290 CF works, it'll destroy GTX780Ti.

Other things you brought up: temperatures & noise levels are fixed with after-market coolers. Power consumption doesn't matter when the superior CF setup is winning by 50-60%. You constantly bring up power consumption but has not once been able to explain why it matters:

- people who buy $700 or $800 GPUs don't care about 200W of extra power when 50-60% of extra performance is on the line
- people who buy high-end GPUs aren't using $40 500W PSUs
- how many people run their GPUs 24/7 100% loaded? Looking at the difference in cost from gaming for a person with a real job, the annual cost of extra power consumption R9 290s will generate over 780Ti is immaterial.

You realize once Mantle arrives, R9 290s will probably beat GTX780Ti by 60-70% BF4 at 1600p? It's going to be a slaughter of epic proportions for just $100 more.

The apologists for the R9 290 are funny. Maybe we are talking past each other and actually agree, you know?

No one is condescending you. You are just talking about something completely different from everyone else it seems. It's like saying GTX780Ti is a failure because it doesn't overclock as well as the GTX460 in % terms. Or stating that R9 290 is a failure since it doesn't overclock as well as HD7950. Really?

Or this:

GTX480 $499 vs. $369 5870 = 18-20% performance increase for 35%
GTX580 $499 vs. $369 6970 = 18-20% performance increase for 35%
GTX780Ti $699 vs. $399 R9 290 = 15-16% performance increase for 75%

Worse performance increase for more than double what NV used to ask.

There is nothing here to apologize for the R9 290. NV just continuous with its rip-off pricing strategy.

 

[thilanliyan]

Buying a $700 overpriced 780 ti at this point in the game is a waste of money. NV should have priced this at $600 max.

It's not overpriced if people are willing to pay. Case in point, Titan.

As long as people are willing to pay these prices, nV will keep charging them. I'm not a fan of it, but nV is trying to make money, so I can't blame them...they are able to charge a premium.

 

[Teizo]

This was posted in another thread, but it is relevant here as well:

http://translate.google.hr/translat...-innan-arsskiftet-brist-pa-grafikkort&act=url

So far no AIB's have announced any aftermarket 290X's, and while aftermarket 290s have been announced, they are not likely to make their way to e-tail/retail soon due to short supplies. Won't be until next year when they become widely available.

That is unfortunate because by the time they become widely available 20nm chips will be within a few months of launching. I imagine they will still sale, but the adoption rate will be hindered a bit because games for the most part now run fine on present hardware and the 'need' to upgrade will not be as strong.

It's not overpriced if people are willing to pay. Case in point, Titan.

As long as people are willing to pay these prices, nV will keep charging them. I'm not a fan of it, but nV is trying to make money, so I can't blame them...they are able to charge a premium.

Yeah, pretty much this. Thing is, if you aren't even in the market for a $500+ GPU, why complain any damn way? Just your typical internet fud campaign some people just can't help themselves from. People who have the money will buy it. Most people I imagine who are going to buy Nvidia products are still going to opt for the 780 OC models though I would imagine. But, to those who can afford the 780Ti...they will pay for it. Doesn't make them stupid. Just means they make enough money to afford the best and are willing to pay a premium for it.

 

[wand3r3r]

This was posted in another thread, but it is relevant here as well:

http://translate.google.hr/translat...-innan-arsskiftet-brist-pa-grafikkort&act=url

So far no AIB's have announced any aftermarket 290X's, and while aftermarket 290s have been announced, they are not likely to make their way to e-tail/retail soon due to short supplies. Won't be until next year when they become widely available.

That is unfortunate because by the time they become widely available 20nm chips will be within a few months of launching. I imagine they will still sale, but the adoption rate will be hindered a bit because games for the most part now run fine on present hardware and the 'need' to upgrade will not be as strong.

Source? We may be as far as a year away AFAIK.

The other point of 20nm is that at leas the NV cards are rumored to be coming from the bottom/mid range and later going up. (Milk the mid range, then slowly increase performance and milk the high end)

The original rumors were pointing to Nov launch for aftermarket cards. Who knows, maybe yields are poor, or demand is high. There are 290's in stock so I'd imagine people are waiting for aftermarket cards or there is plenty of stock.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Let me put it this way: reviewers who reviewed the reference 7970 significantly understated the actual performance you could get from those cards. To take advantage of the huge thermal headroom available with Tahiti, AMD eventually released the GHZ Edition that gave a more accurate picture of what you could get from the Tahiti GPU inside. GHZ edition was derided by some as a pre-overclocked 7970. And you know what? It was.

Reviewers reviewing the reference R9 290 at 47% fan are stating the realistic best-case performance you can get from those cards, especially reviewers who did not take cold vs hot runs into account. You could in theory go higher but noise levels are reportedly already borderline out of control at 47%.

I think we both agree that aftermarket coolers and cards with such coolers have the potential to raise the ceiling, though at the expense of dumping more heat into your case. If you have a well-cooled and ventilated case it should not matter too much.

It was clear from the get go that the 7970 could get to 1000 MHz no problems and that you that 1100-1200 was something normal.

Only people that have a bias chose to ignore it.

Likewise one can expect to get something like 1100-1150 MHz range with a reference 780 Ti and something like 1100 MHz with a reference cooler 290.

People in this segment have highly overclocked CPUs and power hungry GPUs - they can deal with the heat dissipated.

 

[ams23]

The card only has 3GB, vs. 4GB on the cheaper 290x.

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.

What are these multi-GPU issues and quirks???

Don't play dumb. Multi-GPU issues/quirks include: lack of SLI/Crossfire scaling on certain titles, framerate stuttering, incredibly high power consumption (and in some cases heat generated too). Why do you think GTX Titan easily outsold GTX 690 at the same price even though it's raw performance was significantly lower?

Buying a $700 overpriced 780 ti at this point in the game is a waste of money.

For the majority of games and the majority of resolutions/game settings that consumers use, GTX 780 Ti is currently the fastest single GPU that money can buy. Period. If people want the fastest single GPU for gaming on the planet, their choice will be GTX 780 Ti (just as it was GTX Titan many months ago). A side benefit is less noise, less heat, better OC ability, and free games compared to R9 290X, but that is just icing on the cake for the people who this card caters to.

 

[wand3r3r]

GTX 780 Ti has higher memory bandwidth than R9 290X. 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.

See there, everything you mention is like "marketing". So much for the higher theoretical this and that when you run out of ram in high resolutions as demonstrated by 5150. Deflection my friend, it certainly works... or not.

Don't play dumb. Multi-GPU issues/quirks include: lack of SLI/Crossfire scaling on certain titles, framerate stuttering, incredibly high power consumption (and in some cases heat generated too).

It was a legit question, I assumed you were referring to the 290's, not SLI and crossfire. Since crossfire has been proven to be far closer to sli now I misunderstood that as aimed at crossfire alone.

For the majority of games and the majority of resolutions/game settings that consumers use, GTX 780 Ti is currently the fastest single GPU that money can buy. Period. If people want the fastest single GPU for gaming on the planet, their choice will be GTX 780 Ti (just as it was GTX Titan many months ago). A side benefit is less noise, less heat, better OC ability, and free games compared to R9 290X, but that is just icing on the cake for the people who this card caters to.

Oh the irony when you were marketing the 780 over the 290x despite the 780 being 10% slower... But it was the fastest single card (290x), with more memory, more bandwidth, and even more noise.

 

[ams23]

See there, everything you mention is like "marketing".

Umm, no it's not for anyone who has a rudimentary understanding of these things. Obviously GPU's will not reach peak efficiency, but assuming that efficiency is similar between two different GPU's, then these metrics matter. Why do you think that the 3GB GTX 780 Ti consistently outperforms the 4GB R9 290X and 6GB GTX Titan for gaming? Voodoo magic?

So much for the higher theoretical this and that when you run out of ram in high resolutions as demonstrated by 5150. Deflection my friend, it certainly works... or not.

Out of all of the reviews where GTX 780 Ti was compared to GTX Titan, can you find even a single gaming test where the 6GB Titan came out ahead? I doubt it. There might be some extreme scenario where 3GB framebuffer will not be enough, but it would be very extreme.

Oh the irony when you were marketing the 780 over the 290x despite the 780 being 10% slower... But it was the fastest single card (290x), with more memory, more bandwidth, and even more noise.

When the R9 290X came out, it was no faster than GTX 780 SC editions that were already out on the market.

 

[Adampa1006]

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.



Don't play dumb. Multi-GPU issues/quirks include: lack of SLI/Crossfire scaling on certain titles, framerate stuttering, incredibly high power consumption (and in some cases heat generated too). Why do you think GTX Titan easily outsold GTX 690 at the same price even though it's raw performance was significantly lower?



For the majority of games and the majority of resolutions/game settings that consumers use, GTX 780 Ti is currently the fastest single GPU that money can buy. Period. If people want the fastest single GPU for gaming on the planet, their choice will be GTX 780 Ti (just as it was GTX Titan many months ago). A side benefit is less noise, less heat, better OC ability, and free games compared to R9 290X, but that is just icing on the cake for the people who this card caters to.

Heat and power can both be measured in Watts (joules/second). If you have 2 200 Watt cards, you will have 400 watts of heat being dissipated. High power=high heat, no way around that.

I'm taking a heat transfer class for mechanical engineering I've gained a better understanding of this stuff. We even had a project to design a cooler for a CPU.

 

[tonyfreak215]

When the R9 290X came out, it was no faster than GTX 780 SC editions that were already out on the market.

Pretty convenient that AIB versions apply when it's NVIDIA, but they get ignored when it comes to AMD.

 

[blastingcap]

There is nothing here to apologize for the R9 290. NV just continuous with its rip-off pricing strategy.

We aren't talking about NV pricing, you are the one bringing that up. The main thrust of what I was saying was that I am personally disappointed in the R9 290's headroom so far, relative to previous gen. We'll have to wait and see on non-reference coolers and if they really can raise the ceiling without too much noise or thermals or wattage problems. A few users slapping on custom coolers is not really the same as full-fledged reviews by reputable sites.

I would personally not buy an Arctic cooler. With a little waiting, you can probably get a R9 290 with good axial cooler for not much more than the price of a reference R9. In fact if you wait a little longer they are supposedly going to include game bundles with R9 290s soon, too. I think we can all agree on that. I guess I'm just not as optimistic as you guys about the oc headroom given the reference cards so far.

 

[GaiaHunter]

We aren't talking about NV pricing, you are the one bringing that up. The main thrust of what I was saying was that I am personally disappointed in the R9 290's headroom so far, relative to previous gen. We'll have to wait and see on non-reference coolers and if they really can raise the ceiling without too much noise or thermals or wattage problems. A few users slapping on custom coolers is not really the same as full-fledged reviews by reputable sites.

I would personally not buy an Arctic cooler. With a little waiting, you can probably get a R9 290 with good axial cooler for not much more than the price of a reference R9. In fact if you wait a little longer they are supposedly going to include game bundles with R9 290s soon, too. I think we can all agree on that. I guess I'm just not as optimistic as you guys about the oc headroom given the reference cards so far.

We had the likes of computerbase.de and tomshardware slapping the artic extreme iii and techspot with iceqx 2.

 

[96Firebird]

I'm taking a heat transfer class for mechanical engineering I've gained a better understanding of this stuff. We even had a project to design a cooler for a CPU.

Heat Transfer is a great class, I learned a lot in that.

Fluid Mechanics is also helpful, but I had a tough time in that class.

Do any work using FEA techniques yet?

 

[wand3r3r]

We aren't talking about NV pricing, you are the one bringing that up. The main thrust of what I was saying was that I am personally disappointed in the R9 290's headroom so far, relative to previous gen. We'll have to wait and see on non-reference coolers and if they really can raise the ceiling without too much noise or thermals or wattage problems. A few users slapping on custom coolers is not really the same as full-fledged reviews by reputable sites.

I would personally not buy an Arctic cooler. With a little waiting, you can probably get a R9 290 with good axial cooler for not much more than the price of a reference R9. In fact if you wait a little longer they are supposedly going to include game bundles with R9 290s soon, too. I think we can all agree on that. I guess I'm just not as optimistic as you guys about the oc headroom given the reference cards so far.

I agree with the points you've mentioned. The reference 290 requires loud fans to avoid throttling so to overclock you've got to go even higher.

I think the aftermarket cards will keep the temperatures in check and therefore allow room to overclock. Given the couple examples where someone slapped on a better cooler and the temps dropped drastically, there should be room.

I don't think it'll be less than the 780 alternatives which are voltage locked, however I don't know if it'll match the 7970 for headroom. Considering the reference coolers pretty weak the reference cards are limited.

 

[Teizo]

Source? We may be as far as a year away AFAIK.

Well, by months I mean that info and leaks and build up will begin to appear around the late spring/summer I imagine. Hard launches probably won't come until fall. And, given that no games other than Crysis 3 totally maxed out cripple most GPU's $250 and up...so the impulse to buy due to launch hype will not be the same and will have dissipated and take a back seat to the anticipation of the increase in performance of 20nm vs 28nm.

So, whatever shortages AMD may be dealing with will hurt them more than Nvidia who appear to have sufficient quantities of GK110s to ship to AIB's. That is, of course, if that report is true. But, no one has come out yet and explicitly said it is not true.

 

[Cookie Monster]

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.

 

[smackababy]

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. =(