Sapphire's Vapor-X R9 290X 8GB: The More, The Merrier?

[Rexer]

I'm humored by the double specs of ram giving way to bigger is better. I love this. Last month I jumped on the band wagon for a 4gb card and bought an EVGA 970sc. I had to question myself if being assured the 256 bit pipe was enough to handle the overkill publicity the 970 got, being that it was touted with it's larger brother, the 980 with 512.
I replaced an XFX HD7950 3gb with 384 bit pipe which I was happy with aside from few heat related crashes. I tooled this card a bit to suit my peace of mind.
Well, being a big fan of mulit-player fps death match, I was impressed by being at least 15c cooler @ load with the EVGA 970sc but I still manage to crash it in some pretty heavy traffic. As for performance, I didn't notice any difference which now leads me to believe my internet connection path to the servers may be compromised at times. If that's the case, I could be throwing a lot of money away buying 8gb to solve a non-equipment problem. I've been taking a que to sitting out a game a minute or two to watch every player's ping. It's pretty jumpy. Some rise and fall over 75 points. BF3 & BF4 is pretty intense gaming.

 

[Idonno]

An inadequate review.

While saying that this card is unnecessary for 1920 x 1080 resolutions and only slightly better at 4k is absolutely correct but, I believe it misses the point of this card entirely.

I believe this card won't really shine until resolutions of 5670 x 1080 or more are reached. Eyefinity is after all why a dedicated group of us have been buying AMD cards all along.

It's a shame and somewhat misleading (or at the very least incomplete) that the author didn't even touch on these higher resolutions.

I just ordered this card from newegg today. I'll post back in a week or two and give my opinion of how it does @ 5670 x 1080 on three 24in monitors.

 

[rizdhan]

390X and 980Ti will come up each with 8GB GDDR5 ... ooo i hope... laugh ...

 

[Rexer]

390X and 980Ti will come up each with 8GB GDDR5 ... ooo i hope... laugh ...

 

[Rexer]

Interesting article. It still amazes me that now the r9 290X is $350 due to the 970 being $350 with r9 290X performance.

But back to topic, you guys never tested crossfire and SLI with those cards. I think there would be some great improvements to the r9 290X 8GB at 4k if it was CrossFired. Since 4k I would say still needs two high performance cards to be very enjoyable.

Even if I had the option for a radeon 8GB r9 290X, I think I would still go to the gtx 970 since that card really impressed me at what it can do at 4k, and mainly because both are pretty much equal even though the frame buffers are completely different sizes.

A month ago I bought a EVGA gtx 970sc breaking my tradition of ATI/AMD cards. My last AMD card was the HD7950 3gb which I really enjoyed. I'm sorry that it sits in my closet. I had my mind set to get a R9 290x but I got swayed by the specs and reviews about the 970. Yeah, it's as impressive as they say it is but I thought all this ram was pretty much over kill. Then I heard Assassin's Creed- Unity was coming out and I looked at the specs. For recommended play (not minimum) you need Windows7-64, an i7 3770 or the AMD equivalent, 8gb of ram, (now get this) an Nvidia gtx 780 4gb or a Radeon R9 290x. Plus 50gb of hard drive space. I'm sure everyone expected the time would come and so it has in one big leap.
Sure, my gear can handle it but next year, I'm wondering if the gaming industry is planning to take that leap. Right now, for big game maps, the best 2gb cards need to be clocked to hit ultra (which may not be achievable in BF3 or 4 without warp or shutter step). Most 2gb cards only have a 256 bit bus to pass information, but so does the 780 & 970sc (which 256 really works fine -right now).
If the gaming industry decides to go in mass quantities and bulk up in 64, I think you'd certainly be justified if you choose a video card with 8gb 512 bit pipe, lol.

 

[Idonno]

Well, I got the Vapor-X R9 290X 8GB a few days ago and all I can say is WOW what a card!!!! @ 6048 x 1080 (w/bezel adjustment) on 3 - 24" this card really shines. Gameplay couldn't be smoother. When I bought this card it was with the possible intention of buying another for Crossfire but, after using this single card I just don't see the point unless I was to add more monitors.

@ 6048 x 1080 this card doesn't miss a beat even at high settings. A card with this much GDDR5 is made for extreme resolutions so, I find it a real shame and very incomplete that the best the reviewer could do was one 4K monitor.

That would be like reviewing a Ferrari and never going over 60mph or 100mph, whatever you get the point.
Like this review it would be very incomplete.

 

[Idonno]

Well, I've had this card for a few weeks now and I should correct an inaccuracy in my 2nd post (I've since edited it). Before I got this card I had 2-6870's in crossfire which could not play BF2 on the highest settings. @ 6048 x 1080 (I had to lower them substantially) or BF3 on any setting without stutters and freezes. (just 2 examples of many.) I had stopped buying any new games because of this.

When I got this card all those older games played great on the highest settings so in my first review I stated "@ 6048 x 1080 this card doesn't miss a beat even at the highest settings"(edited to high). For newer games that is an overstatement.

However, This card does perform very well on a triple monitor Eyefinity set up @ 6048 x 1080 on new games if you lower the settings from the very highest just a little.

This is an awesome card!

This card over clocks well, @ a GPU clock of 1100MHz, a memory clock of 1460MHz and a +31 VDDC Offset it is very cool, quiet and stable.

Even at that OC the temps only rise to around 71C w/a heavy load like 3DMark 11 and for most loads like gaming the temp stays between 60-65.

On "3DMark 11" I scored 14700 with a Intel Core i7-980X Processor. With the same CPU other (single) cards highest results are as follows:

R9 295X2 - 13575
GTX 980- 13812
GTX 780 Ti- 12724
GTX 970- 11374
GTX Titan - 10585
GTX Titan Black- 10448
R9 290X (4GB) - 10397

With "CompuBench CL Desktop Edition (x64)" it also gets some impressive scores although there is no way to compare it only to systems with the same CPU that I have. Examples are:

Face detection: 125.250 MP/s
Beaten only by the GTX 980 @ 146.133 MP/s

TV-L1 Optical Flow: 33.682 MP/s
Beaten by none even the 295x2 comes in lower

Ocean Surface Simulation: 2209.599 fps
Beaten only by the firePro W9100 @ 2299.515 fps

Particle Simulation - 64k: 695.599 mInteraction/s
Beaten badly by the GTX 980, 970 and a little by the 780ti while coming in just ahead of the regular 290X, Titan Black and the 295X2 (in that order)

T-Rex: 11.425 fps
While that sounds slow this card was again beaten by no single card including the dual GPU 295x2

Video Composition: 150.134 fps
Beaten buy none.

Bitcoin Mining: 705.146 mHash/s
Also, Beaten buy none.

Now I realize that these are only synthetic benchmarks but, it's still pretty impressive as is the real world use of this card, especially at high resolutions.

If you buy this card you won't be disappointed!

 

[Roger Rogers-1382392]

My i5 on 1080p Firestrike.....
Everything Stock.

9690 with AMD Radeon R9 280(2x) and Intel Core i5-4570S

Run details
View benchmark run

This score 9690

How does this Fire Strike score compare?
Better than 89% of all results

Happy at the price for my backup rig.

P.S.
My7 i7 4770 rig with twice the RAM (both ASUS Mobos) scored much lower (all stock settings) with an iChiLL UIltra.

7613
with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780(1x)
and Intel Core i7-4770

So the R9 295x2 really is ROCKIN.

 

[Idonno]

My i5 on 1080p Firestrike.....
Everything Stock.

9690 with AMD Radeon R9 280(2x) and Intel Core i5-4570S

Run details
View benchmark run

This score 9690

How does this Fire Strike score compare?
Better than 89% of all results

Fire Strike: 10813
Better than 93% of all results

Sky Diver: 29529
Better than 96% of all results

Cloud Gate: 30915
Better than 99% of all results

Ice Storm: 158690
No % for some reason. just a chart. Only one system scores higher than the group my systems in.

 

[upuu]

Games like Warthunder have settings that require quite a bit of VRAM.

 

[Roger Rogers-1382392]

My i5 on 1080p Firestrike.....
Everything Stock.

9690 with AMD Radeon R9 280(2x) and Intel Core i5-4570S

Run details
View benchmark run

This score 9690

How does this Fire Strike score compare?
Better than 89% of all results

Fire Strike: 10813
Better than 93% of all results

Sky Diver: 29529
Better than 96% of all results

Cloud Gate: 30915
Better than 99% of all results

Ice Storm: 158690
No % for some reason. just a chart. Only one system scores higher than the group my systems in.

I updated the drivers this week and got a 10392 score in firestrike. The Omega driver is real nice.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5077161
I would have liked the 8Gb card, but price is an issue here per performance; where these two cords cost the equivalent of $400 the pair. But a single Sapphire 8Gb 290X is well over the equivalent of $700. So, for now, as I only use a 1080p TV is is fine.

 

[Roger Rogers-1382392]

The 4GB 290X with OEM cooling is hitting $300 after rebate
XFX Double Dissipation R9-290X

Its well over the equivalent of $700 on Amazon here in Japan.

Few retail companies globally post this far out.