Radeon R9 290X Review: AMD's Back In Ultra-High-End Gaming

[Memnarchon]

Temperature is irrelevant at this point unless you hear it kills the card like 480 did(hell, even without overclocking). You're also forgetting that 780 has issues with throttling, noone in the sane mind would overclock it by themselves when you can buy better chip already overclocked.
Again and again, HOF has the best chips while you're comparing OCed versions of just realeased reference cards backing up with data that will be irrelevant in a few months.

If you are trying to troll the you have succeded 100%.
Temperature is irrelevant in o/c, really??? And we don't know if it will kill the card, cause they didn't release it yet, in the stores for the masses to get the card.
And I didnt compared it with HOF, I compared it with 7970, cause you said it might get GE...

 

[Hoboville]

This card is great performance for the price, but the throttling and insane temps keep it from being a truly amazing card. There's no doubt it would be the fastest if it maintained it's 1 GHz speed.

Chris hit the nail on the head--something those eager to purchase one should heed--third party coolers and waterblocks will make this card so much better, and so much more valuable (reliable Titan+ performance @ $550). Putting GPUs on water has been shown in many cases to drop them down 20-30c, which is grand, and will make Crossfire really shine. Sometimes waiting a little bit can be worth it!

 

[17seconds]

Good to see AMD hasn't abandoned their title for being the hottest and loudest. It's not like nVIDIA couldn't do the same. And for that, I'm not all that impressed with this. It's quite funny how when AMD has a 95C card everyone is happy, but when nVIDIA makes a 95C card, everyone whines.

I find such thermals troubling as well. The real story here really is the price/performance of this card is nearly double that of Titan. If it takes a 95c beast to cause a bit of a price war, I am all for it.

Just going to throw this out there... My top (in an SLI config) stock-cooled GTX 580 ran at 94°C under high 90%s utilization and I never once had a problem with it. It was within spec (either 99°C or 104° was actually the max rated temp for that card). It - and the rest of that X58 system - ran fantastically. I'm not so sure the heat is what I'd worry about so much as the noise.

When the Mfgs come out with proprietary cooling solutions, the noise and the heat both will be less of an issue.

The temperatures are bad all around, particularly when you factor in that these are reviewer test systems, many on an open bench. End users almost ways see higher temps than reviewers. Add in that AMD has a recent history of shipping cherry-picked GPUs that run cooler than retail samples (check Tom's 7990 Red Wedding article). So overall these review temps are generally best case scenarios.

But the real problem, and why the GTX 580/480 analogy doesn't hold, is that neither of those cards displayed any heat related throttling under normal gaming conditions. And as opposed to the 680/780/Titan that never throttle below their standard 3D load speeds, the 290x will throttle well below its standard stock clocks,. Its heat related throttling is taken to a whole other level, with frequencies almost even approaching 2D clock speeds during full on 3D gaming. The impacts on performance haven't been fully investigated as far as I have seen, but this should be a top priority of subsequent reviews.

 

[ingtar33]

But the real problem, and why the GTX 580/480 analogy doesn't hold, is that neither of those cards displayed any heat related throttling under normal gaming conditions. And as opposed to the 680/780/Titan that never throttle below their standard 3D load speeds, the 290x will throttle well below its standard stock clocks,. Its heat related throttling is taken to a whole other level, with frequencies almost even approaching 2D clock speeds during full on 3D gaming. The impacts on performance haven't been fully investigated as far as I have seen, but this should be a top priority of subsequent reviews.

well the 480 didn't throttle at all and as a result it burst into flames, many dying within a month of ownership from heat related damage.

When nvidia fixed that (making it throttle back under extreme temps, and changing the stock fan profile) the 480 was a passable gpu, that only got better when nvidia worked on the cooler. The 580 had most of the issues fixed, so you're right, once nvidia got it straightened out it didn't really have throttling issues.

Of course the original probably should have been throttling.

Meanwhile your claims that the 780 or Titan won't throttle in normal games is flat untrue (btw: do you even own those cards?). In a test bench you're probably right. but i can assure you as someone who works on and troubleshoots computers daily that both nvidia cards (especially with the stock cooler) will throttle in a poorly ventilated case or an un-AC'ed room. I'm not talking about the ones that came from the factory with defective coolers or too much thermal paste (which happens to every gpu out there) i mean those cards will thermal throttle. (the 780 ESPECIALLY, i've only seen a titan 1 time... the 780 is much more common).

Now in the grand scheme of things they throttle from temps at a pretty low rate. Those are excellent cards with solid stock heatsinks. Nothing like the stupid hairdrier put on the 290x (sorry that thing cracks me up). I'm sure MOST 290xs will throttle as a matter of course. but lets not talk about this like nvidia has some magical tech that makes their gpus immune to this phenomenon.

 

[Binxy]

There is no way Nvidia can drop the price of the Titan to 290x levels as the card is just a more expensive card. Makes me laugh though with a chip 40 percent bigger and twice as much memory it now struggles against a more compact and economical card. Bloatware comes to mind. Imagine a radeon card with the same chip size it would no doubt have near 10 billion transisters and completely ridicule the Nvidia.

 

[Binxy]

There is no way Nvidia can drop the price of the Titan to 290x levels as the card is just a more expensive card. Makes me laugh though with a chip 40 percent bigger and twice as much memory it now struggles against a more compact and economical card. Bloatware comes to mind. Imagine a radeon card with the same chip size it would no doubt have near 10 billion transisters and completely ridicule the Nvidia.

 

[John Bauer]

300W of power consumption?1?!?

Holy CRAP

 

[redeemer]

I live in Canada - the heat the 290 puts out helps keep the house warm in winter . . .bonus!

:lol:

Takes me back to the SLI GTX 480 days

 

[redeemer]

There is no way Nvidia can drop the price of the Titan to 290x levels as the card is just a more expensive card. Makes me laugh though with a chip 40 percent bigger and twice as much memory it now struggles against a more compact and economical card. Bloatware comes to mind. Imagine a radeon card with the same chip size it would no doubt have near 10 billion transisters and completely ridicule the Nvidia.

AMD has always been more efficient per mm2, of course take the GTX 680 into consideration however the GK104 had no compute. Nvidia has always gone with the big die strategy.

This round is the biggest PWNAGE to date a $549 428mm2 die GPU beats a 550mm2 GPU @ $1K!!

 

[redeemer]

How can you give this leaf blower an "ELITE" award, especially given the crossfire situation? "ELITE" award should be handed out regardless of price. Nvidia's TITAN and 780 cards are just as "ELITE", far quieter, and do not have stuttering problems in multi-GPU configurations. I think you should hand them "ELITE" awards as well. Otherwise this is just an AMD fanboy site.

With that logic, Core i7-3960X should have won Elite. Instead, I gave it to the Core i7-3930K. Elite has to be able all-out performance done *intelligently*.

If you stick with the Quiet mode, as I suggested over and over and over in the story, then it's not the acoustic monstrosity that AMD's reference Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition was. The company was at least smart enough to apply a "limiter" this time around. And again, as is mentioned in the story, where it comes up shortest is that reference cooler.

I guess I'm confused as to why you felt the Elite award was necessary..." the first time a graphics card has received this honor, I believe, during my tenure". I may be wrong, but if I were bestowing a first-ever Elite award, I would expect the product to be peerless, beyond reproach and as near flawless as one can get. This card certainly does not meet that criteria by a long shot.

In terms of performance, it seems like this card is basically even with, even slightly slower than a GTX Titan in the recommended Quiet mode, which, apparently is the only reasonable way to run this card. When you describe the fan noise as: "potentially bad for your long-term hearing. The noise is simply unbearable without commercial-grade ear protection", that just doesn't seem worthy of an Elite award. Add in the cheap, plastic construction materials and a normal operating temperature of 95c that causes severe throttling with as-yet untested consequences to performance, then its not hard to recognize the source of the confusion.

Now everyone is glad to see the launch price, the same as the 7970, the GTX 680, the GTX 580, the GTX 480, the 6970, and so on, but it seems like price was the main criteria for the Elite award. And I know custom models will show up eventually, but those were not the subject of this review. What we have is this card, reference cooler, great performance, poor aesthetics and a price that only looks good when compared to an over-priced-because-it-can card.

Most sites have the 290x ahead of the Titan in most benchmarks. If heat and noise is your cocern Matto, wait for after market solution in November or use a waterblock. Wake up man were talking about $549 vs $1k LOL

Crossfire 290x vs SLI Titan is even more interesting, the scaling on AMD is impressive... Dont forget full DX11.2 support

 

[redeemer]

But the real problem, and why the GTX 580/480 analogy doesn't hold, is that neither of those cards displayed any heat related throttling under normal gaming conditions. And as opposed to the 680/780/Titan that never throttle below their standard 3D load speeds, the 290x will throttle well below its standard stock clocks,. Its heat related throttling is taken to a whole other level, with frequencies almost even approaching 2D clock speeds during full on 3D gaming. The impacts on performance haven't been fully investigated as far as I have seen, but this should be a top priority of subsequent reviews.

well the 480 didn't throttle at all and as a result it burst into flames, many dying within a month of ownership from heat related damage.

When nvidia fixed that (making it throttle back under extreme temps, and changing the stock fan profile) the 480 was a passable gpu, that only got better when nvidia worked on the cooler. The 580 had most of the issues fixed, so you're right, once nvidia got it straightened out it didn't really have throttling issues.

Of course the original probably should have been throttling.

Meanwhile your claims that the 780 or Titan won't throttle in normal games is flat untrue (btw: do you even own those cards?). In a test bench you're probably right. but i can assure you as someone who works on and troubleshoots computers daily that both nvidia cards (especially with the stock cooler) will throttle in a poorly ventilated case or an un-AC'ed room. I'm not talking about the ones that came from the factory with defective coolers or too much thermal paste (which happens to every gpu out there) i mean those cards will thermal throttle. (the 780 ESPECIALLY, i've only seen a titan 1 time... the 780 is much more common).

Now in the grand scheme of things they throttle from temps at a pretty low rate. Those are excellent cards with solid stock heatsinks. Nothing like the stupid hairdrier put on the 290x (sorry that thing cracks me up). I'm sure MOST 290xs will throttle as a matter of course. but lets not talk about this like nvidia has some magical tech that makes their gpus immune to this phenomenon.

Actually throttling issues with the GK110 variants were the biggest complaints

 

[hero1]

Wow! Just wow! I know it count touch my GTX 780 clocked at 1345 MHz but this is a BIG WIN FOR EVERYONE except Nvidia. Now to find someone who will take my card and I will be buying 2 x R9 290X!

The card does overclock well and I am sure there will be factory overclocked models that will outperform that 780 eventually.

Nvidia is going to be including Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Splinter Cell Blacklist with the GTX 770 and 780 starting the 28th of this month and there is going to be a price drop of the 780 once the 780Ti is released in November. This should make for an interesting Holiday season

Lets just say that October 31st will be a frightful night for Nvidia:

I really can't wait for the price drop. Mind you, my 780 HC does 1325 on water. So 2 of those should be awesome for smooth gaming experience!

 

[redeemer]

Wow! Just wow! I know it count touch my GTX 780 clocked at 1345 MHz but this is a BIG WIN FOR EVERYONE except Nvidia. Now to find someone who will take my card and I will be buying 2 x R9 290X!

The card does overclock well and I am sure there will be factory overclocked models that will outperform that 780 eventually.

Nvidia is going to be including Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Splinter Cell Blacklist with the GTX 770 and 780 starting the 28th of this month and there is going to be a price drop of the 780 once the 780Ti is released in November. This should make for an interesting Holiday season

Lets just say that October 31st will be a frightful night for Nvidia:

I really can't wait for the price drop. Mind you, my 780 HC does 1325 on water. So 2 of those should be awesome for smooth gaming experience!

Hey you going to give up that awesome IPS of your for G-Sync??

 

[hero1]

Wow! Just wow! I know it count touch my GTX 780 clocked at 1345 MHz but this is a BIG WIN FOR EVERYONE except Nvidia. Now to find someone who will take my card and I will be buying 2 x R9 290X!

The card does overclock well and I am sure there will be factory overclocked models that will outperform that 780 eventually.

Nvidia is going to be including Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Splinter Cell Blacklist with the GTX 770 and 780 starting the 28th of this month and there is going to be a price drop of the 780 once the 780Ti is released in November. This should make for an interesting Holiday season

Lets just say that October 31st will be a frightful night for Nvidia:

I really can't wait for the price drop. Mind you, my 780 HC does 1325 on water. So 2 of those should be awesome for smooth gaming experience!

Hey you going to give up that awesome IPS of your for G-Sync??

I might do so but I am saving for a 4K monitor atm

 

[_Pez_]

I'm buying 3 of these big beasts... BUT only with aftermarket coolers makes sense 😉.

 

[alextheblue]

Thank goodness AMD had some sense with the pricing. Finally, at long last, Nvidia can stop raping consumers' wallets due to lack of competition.

This is win-win-win for everyone (except maybe Nvidia).

Hope we never have to deal with a $1000 single GPU fiasco again. Good riddance.

I was certain it would hit the market at $600 - and it would have been a winner even at that price. But to start life at $550? That's a bit surprising. Better yet, it has lots of headroom too, with the right cooling. A nice aftermarket 290X with an upgraded cooler will yield substantially better results at high resolutions with the limiter pushed up.

So now a lot of people (myself included) are looking forward to the non-X 290, I'm curious where it is going to land in terms of performance and price. I really would like to see it hit the $400-450 mark (again depending on performance) and help fill the gap and further pressure Nvidia on pricing. We'll find out soon!

 

[Lessthannil]

I don't get why it's such a crime to like NVIDIA at all but it's perfectly OK to be a die-hard AMD fanboy. Just keeping it real here.

 

[smeezekitty]

I don't get why it's such a crime to like NVIDIA at all but it's perfectly OK to be a die-hard AMD fanboy. Just keeping it real here.

NVidia fanboys are more obnoxious

 

[seth89]

AMD playing catch up, I like this. We need a strong 2nd player in the GPU field. With another GPU company making good products we should see a price war. Team Red or Green we all win.

I predicted the low cost of this card a few weeks ago. I felt like AMD was going to blow us all away with a powerful card ( I didnt think it would be as fast as a titan!) with a low price tag. I dont think they are going to make alot of money on this product. however they will get their name back on the market. That should be well worth the investment.

Another factor that should help the struggling company is the strong hold on xbox,ps, & wii u. With their hardware in all three systems games developers will create games that run a bit better on the AMD architecture.

 

[eddieroolz]

As others have said, this will likely be known as one of the most important graphic card launch in history down the road. And as a guy that tends to favor NV, I don't say this lightly. Just look at the math: $1000 performance for $550. $2000 performance for $1100. It's amazing any way you cut it, and it would compel a lot of people to overlook the dismal acoustics and disappointing "feel" of the product. Plus, the acoustics issue can be addressed with third party vendors.

For me, the acoustics is a deal-breaker, but this is crazy performance for the money.

 

[yyk71200]

Funny thing, I want to get rid of my two 7870s slammed together in crossfire with no space in between mostly because of high temperatures (the overall experience, while not perfect, was decent). Now I have to wait for models with proper 3rd party coolers. Pleasantly surprised with the price though.

 

[hytecgowthaman]

AMD says you’ll find it flagship Hawaii-based board for $550 . $550 beat $1000

 

[Pherule]

What the hell happened to the 8000 and 9000 series? Why the sudden change to something weird like this?

 

[sanilmahambre]

Now which is the fastest single GPU?

 

[redeemer]

I bet Nvidia phases out the Titan, the GTX 780Ti will take on the 290x and the 780 after price drop will compete with the 290!