R9 290 Still A Good Choice

[Mac070]

So basically I got a R9 290 and sold it . It worked great but I didn't see that card having much life left considering the condition it was in . Although it worked great . I loved the card . I sold it to get the 380X and got a doa. So I returned it and got my full $220 refund . I can pick up the 290 again in very good condition. Should I ?
Is DX 12 going to boost this cards performance?
Thank you !

 

[Robert Cook]

for 1080p gaming the R9 290 is all you need. it can max just about every game out there while keeping smooth frame rates. I would get it back, as it is better than the R9 380X. noticeable performance boosts are unlikely however, that does not mean this is still not a great card.

 

[Dulith1118]

yes going to a 380x is downgrading 290 is a good card

 

[photonboy]

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_380X_Strix/23.html

Using stock, 1440p results the R9-290 is 33% faster than an R9-380X. So yeah, the R9-380X is a downgrade.

*If you'd asked me before this I'd have said to wait and get an upcoming AMD Polaris or NVidia Pascal card. We may see some in JUNE though availability, pricing etc is not certain.

If you buy a used card you'll likely have limited or no warranty so unless it's pretty cheap it's hard to recommend that.

So... not certain what to tell you otherwise. You have the performance results above, the warranty question, and the fact that new cards are coming (though you'd have nothing now).

*I'd take a new R9-380X over a used R9-290 however. Also... depending on the R9-290 model a good R9-380X may overclock better helping close the gap slightly so maybe 20 to 25% difference. May also be a difference in NOISE as some of the 300 series have much better coolers.

DX12 boost?
Yes and no.

1) Performance won't change for current games.

2) Performance in future DX12 games should see a boost in performance vs running on DX11 (i.e. optimizing for ASync Compute etc). However, future games are also going to be more demanding as well.