Sapphire AMD R9 290 or 290X

[ValkyrieOneNiner]

Decided to go with the Sapphire AMD R9 290X for a possible crossfire solution. However, the 290 is slightly cheaper. What are the significant differences between the 290X and 290 to justify spending more?

I know the 290X is slightly more powerful, but only by around 4-10 FPS in certain games.

 

[Iron124]

I believe the 290 is just a 290X with a very slightly lower core clock speed. Really, if you can get the 290 for a bit of a cheaper price, you will barely notice any difference whatsoever. Why the 290 even exists is beyond me, as it basically performs on-par with the X version for less...But hey, thanks AMD.

 

[ValkyrieOneNiner]

Amazon have the 290 for £284.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Graphics-Card-PCI-E/dp/B00HFA44YQ/ref=pd_sim_sbs_computers_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1K5Y6A8YVMSQYRWC33JH

 

[clutchc]

I guess it all depends on how much the difference in fps is worth to you. A full Hawaii chip vs a pared-down, slightly disabled Hawaii chip.
http://www.techspot.com/review/762-gigabyte-radeon-r9-290-oc/

 

[terry4536]

The R9-290 is just R9-290X that didn't meet the specifications.

All of these cards are based on the same Hawaii GPU manufactured at 28 nm with either 2560 (in the case of the Radeon R9 290) or 2816 (for the Radeon R9 290X) shaders and a 512-bit memory bus. The differences between these cards, aside from their coolers, are limited to the core and memory clock frequencies.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-2.html