[WCCFTech] 290X Specs Confirmed and Benched

[Erenhardt]

I wonder why they clocked the memory so conservatively. They have a chance to regain the performance crown, it would be a shame if they missed it by clocking the card too conservatively. OTOH the titan is in another price bracket

That would be funny if stock 290x is slower than titan, but can be overclocked by 30-50% due to extremely conservative clocks, and see how suddenly overclocking becomes irrelevant and only stock performance is what matters

I miss those times where +100MHz to core clock of my 8800 GTS 320MB was +20% overclock. Now if a GPU is able to go with +100MHz clocks only, people are disappointed.

 

[YBS1]

That would be funny if stock 290x is slower than titan, but can be overclocked by 30-50% due to extremely conservative clocks, and see how suddenly overclocking becomes irrelevant and only stock performance is what matters

I miss those times where +100MHz to core clock of my 8800 GTS 320MB was +20% overclock. Now if a GPU is able to go with +100MHz clocks only, people are disappointed.

While I think a lot of purchasing consideration is dependent upon overclocking for individual end users, I don't think it should be relevant to product reviews for the most part (with the exception of products that exist for the sole reason of overclocking, Lightning, Classified, etc.). Reason being...Overclocking is a lottery, it always has been. Yes, there are certain products where the typical sample does really well and people do buy based on that assumption, but it's not a guarantee. The clock speeds were set where they were for a reason, be it yield, lifespan, or efficiency considerations. My current Classifieds will spend 95% of their life at stock speeds, just as my Lightnings did before them, simply because even at stock clocks they will keep most games above my 120Hz refresh rate.

 

[ozzy702]

My 7970 is clocked at 1160mhz any time I'm playing BF3, that's about as high as this Sapphire card wants to go. OC potential is certainly important to me and I really hope that the 290x has some serious headroom since it's on a very mature node and AMD has had two years to prep for it. If it doesn't have much OC headroom I'll just stick with the 7970 until 20nm hits and we see a real jump.

 

[sushiwarrior]

No such thing as "base speed", simply DMA states. It does not clock from a bottom state and add boost on top, it is always boosting and the states (should be 7) range from 300-~1050MHz, there should not be a base clock. Base simply depends on your silicon quality, cooling, power delivery settings, ambient temp etc.

 

[Elfear]

Does using 512 bus + lower speed save power vs 384 bit and high clock RAM?

Thats the only reason I can think why....

Dave Bauman seemed to be hinting at that over at the B3D forum.

I don't think the memory clocks need to be that high to maintain enough bandwidth to feed the chip. Rumored throughput is 300GB/s+ so it may end up like the 7970 where memory overclocking didn't scale well in games because it already had enough bandwidth.

 

[tviceman]

Does using 512 bus + lower speed save power vs 384 bit and high clock RAM?

Thats the only reason I can think why....

I don't think power has anything to do with it. Look at gtx770 power consumption vs. gtx680 - they're virtually the same despite the 1ghz memory speed difference.

I think its a yield issue. The more memory controllers and die space dedicated to memory interfacing, the more difficult it is for all the controllers to maintain reliability as speeds ramp up. There will probably be a high variability among all the cards as to how high the vram can be clocked by end users.

 

[n0x1ous]

I don't think power has anything to do with it. Look at gtx770 power consumption vs. gtx680 - they're virtually the same despite the 1ghz memory speed difference.

I think its a yield issue. The more memory controllers and die space dedicated to memory interfacing, the more difficult it is for all the controllers to maintain reliability as speeds ramp up. There will probably be a high variability among all the cards as to how high the vram can be clocked by end users.

770 is 230w 6 + 8 pin and 680 is 195w 6 + 6 pin. Seems there is a tangible difference.

I think the Hawaii mem overclocks will be more determined by whether its Samsung/Hynix or Elpida RAM but we'll soon see.

 

[el etro]

Furmark power consumption don't reflect gaming power consumption. Nvidias GPUs have tech to control their power consumption under this extreme circumstances.

 

[n0x1ous]

Furmark power consumption don't reflect gaming power consumption. Nvidias GPUs have tech to control their power consumption under this extreme circumstances.

Its valid comparing between two nvidia gpus of the same chip though

 

[Tempered81]

Overclocked R9 290x @ 1340/1950. Old driver & old GPUZ though, information is kinda mixed up.

 

[Saylick]

Overclocked R9 290x @ 1340/1950. Old driver & old GPUZ though, information is kinda mixed up.

3 GB of RAM?

EDIT: Ohhh, weird driver... thought it was a 280X for a second there.

That's a sweet OC though.

 

[toyota]

3 GB of RAM?

what part of "information is kinda mixed up" did you get lost on? lol

based on your edited comment you are more lost than I thought.

 

[Saylick]

what part of "information is kinda mixed up" did you get lost on? lol

based on your edited comment you are more lost than I thought.

Heh, yeah, I jumped the gun there. Went straight to the image without as much as to read the text.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Overclocked R9 290x @ 1340/1950. Old driver & old GPUZ though, information is kinda mixed up.

That thing is probably ridiculously fast...

I can't wait for benches.

 

[SiliconWars]

Yeah, have to wonder if AMD will let their partners release OC cards more than the usual 10%. Surely they have to if that kind of OC is possible.

 

[ShintaiDK]

That screenshot screams fake.

The 1002-6798 ID is also a HD7970. Not to mention GPU-Z 0.7.2 predates Hawaii by quite some time.

Amazing how big lack of source critisism there is.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Seems fake, 384 bit bus and 3 GB of VRAM? Maybe the driver is messing things up, but I doubt it.

 

[Jacky60]

http://videocardz.com/45324/possible-specs-of-the-amd-volcanic-islands-hawaii-gpu

If there's going to be a dual 290x card please call it Krakatoa or Tambora, I want it to blow out half of the side of my PC and cause another year without a summer because I'll be indoors gaming all year!

 

[ShintaiDK]

http://videocardz.com/45324/possible-specs-of-the-amd-volcanic-islands-hawaii-gpu

If there's going to be a dual 290x card please call it Krakatoa or Tambora, I want it to blow out half of the side of my PC and cause another year without a summer because I'll be indoors gaming all year!

Just as likely as dual GTX780/Titan. About Zero.

 

[Jacky60]

I need to believe, please don't pee on my imaginary parade:|

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Seems fake, 384 bit bus and 3 GB of VRAM? Maybe the driver is messing things up, but I doubt it.

I think it's GPU-z and the driver reporting things incorrectly. Look at the ROPs and TMU's.

 

[HurleyBird]

I think it's GPU-z and the driver reporting things incorrectly. Look at the ROPs and TMU's.

If that's the case what's to say it's not reporting the clocks incorrectly too?

 

[Grooveriding]

I think it's GPU-z and the driver reporting things incorrectly. Look at the ROPs and TMU's.

It's possible. A lot of the information GPUz reports is not based on actual readings, but a database of information corresponding to the various video cards GPUz can identify. If GPUz has not yet been updated with the R9 2XX series cards information, it will incorrectly report on specs.

 

[Jacky60]

Overclocked R9 290x @ 1340/1950. Old driver & old GPUZ though, information is kinda mixed up.

If the overclock is for real and not too unusual this could get emotional.

 

[XiandreX]

Seriously. I am disappoint if the R290X launches at $699. $599 is more reasonable for the rumored performance and $499 woud be even better.

As much as I wish the prices would fit your $500 and $400 the reality is that it was never going to be less than $600. Its a premium product aimed squared at the 780/Titan cards.

My personal opinion is these prices are early price gouging and it should settle over the next couple months but I doubt it will be less than $650 and hitting $600 would be a decent goal considering what its up against.