[THW] Review Samples vs Retail R9290x boards(large differences)

[Abwx]

So Nvidia asked Tom to push this? Low blow

The slide they sent , published in HFR article about
tested retail cards.

Notice that pointing frequency without mention of the
actual perfs is somewhat a way to mislead the public
but heck it s not about being accurate.

One of the downside of this slide is that for whom
know the 290X perf level it s an aknowledgment
that at equal frequencies the 780ti is undoubtly
significantly outmatched and that once products
with a slightly better cooler are released it will be
quite an onslaught.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/910-31/trop-variabilite.html

 

[GaiaHunter]

And of course they forget to say that is for the Quiet Mode and not for the Uber Mode.

One thing is for sure - NVIDIA PR talks and a bunch of tech industry journalists immediately convey the message as if it is their own.

 

[3DVagabond]

The slide they sent , published in HFR article about
tested retail cards.

Notice that pointing frequency without mention of the
actual perfs is somewhat a way to mislead the public
but heck it s not about being accurate.

One of the downside of this slide is that for whom
know the 290X perf level it s an aknowledgment
that at equal frequencies the 780ti is undoubtly
significantly outmatched and that once products
with a slightly better cooler are released it will be
quite an onslaught.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/910-31/trop-variabilite.html

Something to note with hardware.fr charts. The "plain" 780 in the charts is the reference model and it throttles which is why the benches are lower than the uber model which is indicative of later models from the AIB's that were capable of maintaining boost clocks without throttling.

 

[3DVagabond]

And of course they forget to say that is for the Quiet Mode and not for the Uber Mode.

One thing is for sure - NVIDIA PR talks and a bunch of tech industry journalists immediately convey the message as if it is their own.

I also found this interesting from Kyle @ [H]

This sounds exactly like an NDA meeting I was in last week. The fan was referred to multiple times as "jet engine" etc., but all performance comparisons shown were with the card in Quiet Mode. Funny stuff when you are reaching for straws.

So, when we compare performance we run the 290X in quiet mode, but when we compare noise we run the 290X in uber mode. Just like it reminds Kyle of posters on [H], it also reminds me of Ryan's review of the 290. nVidia is working every angle they can to plant seeds.

 

[Abwx]

Something to note with hardware.fr charts. The "plain" 780 in the charts is the reference model and it throttles which is why the benches are lower than the uber model which is indicative of later models from the AIB's that were capable of maintaining boost clocks without throttling.

That s right and they explicitly mention it , that is , that the card is cooled enough using additional fans such it can maintain its higher boost frequency without throttling as a hint of what can be done by AIBs , nice , but they should do the same with the 290/290X.

 

[3DVagabond]

That s right and they explicitly mention it , that is , that the card is cooled enough using additional fans such it can maintain its higher boost frequency without throttling as a hint of what can be done by AIBs , nice , but they should do the same with the 290/290X.

That was in prior reviews. In this review they used a card that was capable of maintaining it's clocks on it's own without additional fans like they used with the reference model. They said that cards they got from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI could maintain their clocks. I'm not sure which models they were or exactly which one they used, but we can only assume they weren't reference models or they wouldn't need to keep using the separate stats for the reference model that throttles.

 

[railven]

And of course they forget to say that is for the Quiet Mode and not for the Uber Mode.

One thing is for sure - NVIDIA PR talks and a bunch of tech industry journalists immediately convey the message as if it is their own.

And this is why we, the consumer, get screwed. Journalist are being put in corporation's pockets.

Why collect data if you're only going to throw it away or not use it in your final conclusion?

Why not be transparent BEFORE you get called out on it. You blow your credibility by not stating "Nvidia brought this to our attention, but coming from them take it with a grain of salt" instead of [write article] "Conclusion: we found something wrong all on our own, we're sleuths you know!"

And I'm not (again trying to turn this on red vs green) more so, dafuq reviewers you're suppose to represent us - the consumers.

Reading some of Kyle's comments/posts is making me a fan of him. Call it out how it is.

 

[blackened23]

And of course they forget to say that is for the Quiet Mode and not for the Uber Mode.

One thing is for sure - NVIDIA PR talks and a bunch of tech industry journalists immediately convey the message as if it is their own.

Of course nvidia will do that, nvidia aren't saints and certainly their marketing is full of scumbags. That's what marketing is supposed to do, talk bad of their competitors product - not sure how that is surprising in any form of fashion; I mean do you expect Nvidia to come out and say "oh hey guys we LOVE the 290 series of cards!"? Please. That said, AMD was all too happy to oblige in their questionable design decision of the 290 shroud - I bet laughter was heard down the halls of NV when they learned the 290 would use the same shroud as the last 3 prior generation AMD cards. NV immediately knew what their ammunition would be against the 290 for marketing tactics, and AMD was all to happy to oblige and give it to them. Where did this problem originate, hmm?

Pretty much, in my opinion, the marketing for both of these companies has borderline ethics. That is to be expected for marketing. But when it comes down to it, who gave nvidia the ammunition? Was it nvidia's fault that AMD put a cheap shroud on their 290 series? No, it wasn't NV's fault. But, like I said, I bet laughter was heard down the halls of nvidia when they learned the same shroud was being used on the 290 as was the 7970 - in an instant they had their ammunition and marketing lined up for the 290. AMD was just all too happy to give them ammunition and were probably clueless in the process - I truly hope nobody at AMD asks "why" this is happening. It's their own fault.

 

[GaiaHunter]

blackened23

It seems to me AMD and NVIDIA have a much better understanding of how the enthusiast $400+ market works and what it responds to than either of us.

From what I see the enthusiast market responds to Performance and Price/Performance.

If that wasn't the case, NVIDIA with a graphics card less noisier that consumed less power and came with a three AAA game bundle wouldn't have dropped the price of the GTX 780 by $150.

 

[blackened23]

Well, I would have to respectfully disagree because making 27 headlines about thorttling and retail variances cannot be good for AMD's 290 sales. Maybe they know more than me, but my gut tells me that this recent deluge of bad press can't be good.

I know i'm being rough on the 290 but AMD needs to stop compromising user experience for the sake of pricing. I think the 290 is a hell of a card and the best in the 400$ price range by a country mile so long as you are willing to accept the noise at 47% - it's a great card. What it isn't - is a "balanced" card. Even though GTX costs more, you get more balanced cards with great acoustics, a great user experience and great software. AMD's approach is to sacrifice user experience for the sake of cost, noise be damned - I cannot agree with AMD's approach. In 2010 it would have been okay, but not anymore.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Well, I would have to respectfully disagree because making 27 headlines about thorttling and retail variances cannot be good for AMD's 290 sales. Maybe they know more than me, but my gut tells me that this recent deluge of bad press can't be good.

I know i'm being rough on the 290 but AMD needs to stop compromising user experience for the sake of pricing. I think the 290 is a hell of a card and the best in the 400$ price range by a country mile so long as you are willing to accept the noise at 47% - it's a great card. What it isn't - is a "balanced" card. Even though GTX costs more, you get more balanced cards with great acoustics, a great user experience and great software. AMD's approach is to sacrifice user experience for the sake of cost, noise be damned - I cannot agree with AMD's approach. In 2010 it would have been okay, but not anymore.

The 290X only throttles in silent mode. When you buy the 290X it also has a uber mode.

A few other sites have run tests with retail cards and found nothing abnormal.

If you want to focus on a single story repeated 27 times, sometimes made fun of it is your choice.

 

[Abwx]

I know i'm being rough on the 290 but AMD needs to stop compromising user experience for the sake of pricing. I think the 290 is a hell of a card and the best in the 400$ price range by a country mile so long as you are willing to accept the noise at 47% - it's a great card. What it isn't - is a "balanced" card. Even though GTX costs more, you get more balanced cards with great acoustics, a great user experience and great software. AMD's approach is to sacrifice user experience for the sake of cost, noise be damned - I cannot agree with AMD's approach. In 2010 it would have been okay, but not anymore.

It takes Nvidia a full 561mm2 chip to compete adequatly
with this alleged disaster that is only second in AMD s offering.

MSI or so has 17 iterations of the 780 and here you re unrelentlessly
complaining about a single variant of this GPU , you d better rush
if you want to keep spreading your propaganda , the soon to come
iterations using a slightly better cooler will render your sayings for
what they are , a hurricane in a glass of water....

 

[sefsefsefsef]

As I've asked in the other thread.

What is the core voltage of all the samples?

This really is an important question that no press outlet is covering. This would offer an *explanation* of *why* some cards run at a higher clockspeed on average (lower voltage, cooler cards are throttled by heat less), but the fact still remains that it sucks that the reference cooler isn't good enough for cards with a variety of voltages to all run at high speeds all the time.

 

[railven]

It takes Nvidia a full 561mm2 chip to compete adequatly
with this alleged disaster that is only second in AMD s offering.

MSI or so has 17 iterations of the 780 and here you re unrelentlessly
complaining about a single variant of this GPU , you d better rush
if you want to keep spreading your propaganda , the soon to come
iterations using a slightly better cooler will render your sayings for
what they are , a hurricane in a glass of water....

By all means, list the other variants of the R9 290 so one can adjust their opinion? Or are you going to tell us to wait?

Sure, we'll wait, until then sorry but you'll have to put up with our only example for comparison.

 

[Abwx]

By all means, list the other variants of the R9 290 so one can adjust their opinion? Or are you going to tell us to wait?

Sure, we'll wait, until then sorry but you'll have to put up with our only example for comparison.

The card has been released ONE week ago and you know it ,
the same as asking to see AIB 780ti , totaly irrelevant.

That the variants are yet to come doesnt render null
the assumption that the AIB radeons will perform
significantly better with the 290X taking clearly
the lead , it s not by chance that Nvidia did try to
spread the fud that the 290 ref can throttle , they
perfectly know that it s the condition sine qua non
for their card to equate or slightly beat the competition.

 

[f1sherman]

The card has been released ONE week ago and you know it ,
the same as asking to see AIB 780ti

Here you go

Galaxy HOF @1300+ MHz @stock cooling

 

[Abwx]

Here you go

Galaxy HOF @1300+ MHz @stock cooling

You should also point us where it was and can be bought..

 

[railven]

The card has been released ONE week ago and you know it ,
the same as asking to see AIB 780ti , totaly irrelevant.

That the variants are yet to come doesnt render null
the assumption that the AIB radeons will perform
significantly better with the 290X taking clearly
the lead , it s not by chance that Nvidia did try to
spread the fud that the 290 ref can throttle , they
perfectly know that it s the condition sine qua non
for their card to equate or slightly beat the competition.

So, then just basically "wait"?

So when someone complains about the cooler, ignore it, since you can't say anything else but "wait".

 

[Abwx]

So, then just basically "wait"?

So when someone complains about the cooler, ignore it, since you can't say anything else but "wait".

You can always find an adequate back panel on an old GFX,
increase its exhaust size by 20% it will reduce significantly the air pressure and increase accordingly the flux output speed if you are that pressed, it s free and you ll still have the original bracket for warranty purposes.......

 

[f1sherman]

You should also point us where it was and can be bought..

Take a pick:

Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 780 Ti HerculeZ X3 Ultra
Inno3D GeForce GTX 780 Ti HerculeZ 2000
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclocked ACX

 

[railven]

You can always find an adequate back panel on an old GFX,
increase its exhaust size by 20% it will reduce significantly the air pressure and increase accordingly the flux output speed if you are that pressed, it s free and you ll still have the original bracket for warranty purposes.......

I can also get a water cooler, or a third party cooler, or more excuses.

 

[Abwx]

Take a pick:

Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 780 Ti HerculeZ X3 Ultra
Inno3D GeForce GTX 780 Ti HerculeZ 2000
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclocked ACX

Great but the claim still stand , AIB radeons
will be hardly if not at all matched by the 780ti.

 

[Abwx]

I can also get a water cooler, or a third party cooler, or more excuses.

Get what you want if you re pressed , once AIB card
show their nose the 780ti will appear as even more
overpriced aswhat it s actualy , wether it has an AIB cooler
or WC...

That s the numbers that tell this story , not me.

 

[railven]

Get what you want if you re pressed , once AIB card
show their nose the 780ti will appear as even more
overpriced aswhat it s actualy , wether it has an AIB cooler
or WC...

That s the numbers that tell this story , not me.

We can keep going in this circle, we're back to "wait".

 

[Abwx]

We can keep going in this circle, we're back to "wait".

A few weeks...or would you advise people to buy something
else rather than waiting a few times ?

But even then a reference 290 is still a far better choice
than a 780 for instance...