Choose R9 290 Series for its 512-bit Memory Bus: AMD

[Aquinus]

AMD's products' at the moment are in competitive inferiority and that's why the prices are such, both of them are responsible for it.

The bad things for AMD are yet to come if they are indeed "not in a rush".

Performance graphics are not the majority of AMD or nVidia sales. Also power consumption isn't too far off the mark (even though the AMD GPU does consume more.) Ever use an APU? They're nifty little CPUs that most consumers will be happy with. So maybe you should take your fanboy hat off and understand that AMD and nVidia have a lot more markets than just performance 3D.

All in all, I think memory interface width has little to do with my decision to buy a new GPU. If AMD doesn't release something new and half decent soon, I'll be switching to the green camp. Not because AMD is bad, but because nVidia (like Intel) has been making decent progress unlike AMD who seems to be milking everything for what they're worth.

Also on the side: I could never see myself paying more than 300-350 USD for a GPU which puts the GTX 970 is a really sweet spot compared to AMD's aging products.

 

[Eroticus]

Unless comments AMD ...

just release the 390x =] and make the green team cry again to 1 more year =D

 

[arbiter]

Yeah, and I wonder why people are so mean to AMD. At least they try to please the gaming community with low prices and good products. Maybe they are not the best, but the price is great. Hell, people do you remember 700$ GTX 780 Ti? And 3000$ Titan Z?

Well 290x probably still be selling at 500+$ if nvidia didn't release gtx970 at 330$. So most recent price drops were forced by nvidia.

Nvidia likely kept the bus at 256bit on the 28nm maxwell to keep the chip small and cheap to make. Probably can say that when die shrunk on 20/16nm (which ever) will most likely have at least 384bit maybe even 512bit. One thing for sure though Nvidia is not sitting on their arse doing nothing.

 

[NC37]

It's like saying "choose AMD FX-8350 for 8 integer cores" when a Core i5 has the same amount of FPUs and is completely competitive with half the integer cores.

i5 can't match the FX on heavy multitasking. Only area where an FX actually hits i7 or beats some i7s is in heavy multithreading. Video encoding/etc. If AMD had Intel's performance with their multithreading ability, Intel would be blown right out of the market.

And yeah, everyone likes to rag on AMD for falling so far behind. But if AMD wasn't around, Intel would probably still be floundering on Pentium 4s. nVidia would be still riding G92s forever. And who knows what chips the current consoles would be using. Not the mention Intel would have never started investing in IGPs that don't insanely suck.

Competition is good, even if AMD kinda sucks at it right now.

 

[arbiter]

i5 can't match the FX on heavy multitasking. Only area where an FX actually hits i7 or beats some i7s is in heavy multithreading. Video encoding/etc. If AMD had Intel's performance with their multithreading ability, Intel would be blown right out of the market.

Might want to check some benchmarks, FX doesn't beat an i7. Even 9590 at 5ghz still loses to 4770k at stock clock. Same as nvidia, Intel likely aint sitting around either.

 

[dj-electric]

I can't remember the last time I had an issue with AMD drivers. Oh wait, yeah I can, 4 years ago in 2010, and it was an easy fix. Before that, I can't remember...

If you can't allow others to remind you. There were and still are problems that are user-wide, stuff that nobody who had a red card could avoid.

 

[bobalazs]

except the fact that the gtx-s dont need that memory bus they're built to run better.

 

[las]

Who cares if its 512 bit when it losses to 256 bit cards in pretty much all games, while using more watts + higher temps. It takes alot more RPMs to cool down these GPUs compared to Maxwell.

My old 290 was a terrible card. My new 970 is whisper quiet even at 1567/2000. And the performance in Far Cry 3, Dragon Age Inquisition and Bioshock Infinite, which are the games that i play right now, is much better with zero stuttering and strange fps drops.

AMD needs to step up their game. I seriously hope their upcoming GPUs will do better than the 290 series. I've had many AMD cards, but the 290 series was the worst of all time imo. It seemed so rushed to counter GK110..

 

[Eroticus]

Who cares if its 512 bit when it losses to 256 bit cards in pretty much all games, while using more watts + higher temps. It takes alot more RPMs to cool down these GPUs compared to Maxwell.

My old 290 was a terrible card. My new 970 is whisper quiet even at 1567/2000. And the performance in Far Cry 3, Dragon Age Inquisition and Bioshock Infinite, which are the games that i play right now, is much better with zero stuttering and strange fps drops.

AMD needs to step up their game. I seriously hope their upcoming GPUs will do better than the 290 series. I've had many AMD cards, but the 290 series was the worst of all time imo. It seemed so rushed to counter GK110..

Yeah !!! finally after 1 year nvidia beat amd in single core !!! wow amazing !!! please remember that !!!!! 295 is still most powerful single slot card on the market and last time when nvidia controlled it was with 690 ? 3 years EGO ? =O

I own my 290x over a year ... and you guys got ur new cards months ego

i think yeah .. you finally deserve to control the market after 1 long year =] for some months like always ....

finally green team is not only posting unless facts about "but nvidia energy saves" blabla ...

 

[sergionography]

If you can't allow others to remind you. There were and still are problems that are user-wide, stuff that nobody who had a red card could avoid.

yes because you go online on some forum about a common problem and that automatically means to you "everyone has problems with red". I have owned mostly nvidia cards since the days of fx and had my share of troubles too, I had a gts250 that gave me a heck lot of driver headache then I got an hd5770 which was flawless and still running until today on one of my older rigs, and after the 5770 I built a newer rig which had a gtx460 which also had so many driver issues and died on me after 2 years, started with screen artifacts until it started doing bsod n became useless. Now to be honest even with all of this I won't go out of my way to bash neither amd nor Nvidia because while I told u these problems I hardly told u what caused them, first and foremost on both the gts250 and gtx460 I used to overclock the life out of them, and on those specific rigs my Windows is completely bloated as it was kinda a test rig where I switch hardware and what not, therefore before you keep blaming amd or nvidia just remember how broken windows in general is with its driver system, so unless you have a Fresh clean Windows installed when you get new hardware don't be complaining about drivers.

And as for the previous comments on how every nvidia fan here is obsessed with the whole efficiency thing well its completely beyond me how all for sudden that's number one priority, because if that's the case then we can easily say amd was completely superior up until kepler, though I hardly think any nvidia fan will see it that way because efficiency only matters if nvidia does it. Totally biased for sure.

As for everyone complaining about the 290x being inefficient well no card is efficient when clocked to its limits(everyone is comparing the uber mode). remember amd has configurable tdp which no one seems to be considering here. Set the tdp to 175-200 then compare it to a gtx970, I'm sure performance won't be too far off since in the clockspeed world that extra 10-15% clock speed towards higher clocks could very well mean 30%+ extra power consumption.

 

[las]

Yeah !!! finally after 1 year nvidia beat amd in single core !!! wow amazing !!! please remember that !!!!! 295 is still most powerful single slot card on the market and last time when nvidia controlled it was with 690 ? 3 years EGO ? =O

I own my 290x over a year ... and you guys got ur new cards months ego

i think yeah .. you finally deserve to control the market after 1 long year =] for some months like always ....

finally green team is not only posting unless facts about "but nvidia energy saves" blabla ...

Ehh.. The 780 Ti beat 290X.. Sigh.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_295_X2/24.html

Even an OCed 780 rivaled an OCed 290X. Because the scaling and OC headroom was better.

295X2 is the worst dual card in recent times.. Pump is rattling and coilwhine is insane.

Proof:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...2-graphics-card-coil-whine-investigation.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_295_X2/23.html

35dB idle lmao. But who buys dual cards anyway..

 

[Cataclysm_ZA]

I use both GTX 980s and R9 290Xs. I have 4 of each and find the 980s are better most of the time @1080p and the 290Xs are better most of the time @4K.

With these cards it comes down to what games and resolutions you use as there is no clear winner.

You have four each for now, until you're also subject to our racist load shedding and Eskom claims them all after some lovely surges.

 

[Eroticus]

Ehh.. The 780 Ti beat 290X.. Sigh.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_295_X2/24.html

Even an OCed 780 rivaled an OCed 290X. Because the scaling and OC headroom was better.

295X2 is the worst dual card in recent times.. Pump is rattling and coilwhine is insane.

Proof:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...2-graphics-card-coil-whine-investigation.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_295_X2/23.html

35dB idle lmao. But who buys dual cards anyway..

do you remember how much 780ti 3gb cost ? vs 290x ? 200~250$ more ?

Pump what ? i didn't heard or had any problem with amd pump

35dB do you using stock fans ? really ? if you have enough money for this card you have enough money to change the stock fans.

i think the temperature pretty amazing ! for dual hawai gpu , with pump problems and stock fans ...

"meh who's using dual cards"

not poor people like for you sure =]

 

[las]

do you remember how much 780ti 3gb cost ? vs 290x ? 200~250$ more ?

Pump what ? i didn't heard or had any problem with amd pump

35dB do you using stock fans ? really ? if you have enough money for this card you have enough money to change the stock fans.

i think the temperature pretty amazing ! for dual hawai gpu , with pump problems and stock fans ...

"meh who's using dual cards"

not poor people like for you sure =]

You are clueless. It's the pump, not the fans that are noisy. Like on all cheap CLCs. Besides that, the coilwhine is the real issue here.

Yeah I'm sooo poor Thanks why I'm only using an i7-5930K at 4.8 GHz on custom water.

 

[Eroticus]

You are clueless. It's the pump, not the fans that are noisy. Besides that, the coilwhine is the real issue here.

Yeah I'm sooo poor Thanks why I'm only using an i7-5930K at 4.8 GHz on custom water.

Ahh that's why you are crying ;P 2 stock 295 is still doing better score then ur custom water cooled setup =[ awww ... but ok blame the ones who is buying dual cards cuz it's "useles"" when you are using custom water cooling setup and getting for that 2 fps more =]

 

[las]

Ahh that's why you are crying ;P 2 stock 295 is still doing better score then ur custom water cooled setup =[ awww ... but ok blame the ones who is buying dual cards cuz it's "useles"" when you are using custom water cooling setup and getting for that 2 fps more =]

You are the one whining here

 

[Frick]

Might want to check some benchmarks, FX doesn't beat an i7. Even 9590 at 5ghz still loses to 4770k at stock clock. Same as nvidia, Intel likely aint sitting around either.

I just want to point out that there are actually benchmarks in which the FX is faster than even a 3960x. And that there are some more where the FX and the 3770 trades punches, and then there are ones where the FX is slower than the lowliest i3. How useful is this IRL? Well only the customer can answer that.

EDIT: And the fanboyism (which is a word I hate because it's stupid but it actually makes sense to use it here) in this forum is getting dumb. Just look at your wallet, then look at some data, then purchase whatever gets your job done in the shortest amount of time/gives you the biggest numbers. Or buy stuff from the company you're loyal to, but for the love of god be realistic about it.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Might want to check some benchmarks, FX doesn't beat an i7. Even 9590 at 5ghz still loses to 4770k at stock clock. Same as nvidia, Intel likely aint sitting around either.

What I find so hilariously stupid is that people compare 2 products in total different price classes, you dont compare a Honda s2000 to a Ferrari Enzo do you? both sports cars but thats about it.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Ahh that's why you are crying ;P 2 stock 295 is still doing better score then ur custom water cooled setup =[ awww ... but ok blame the ones who is buying dual cards cuz it's "useles"" when you are using custom water cooling setup and getting for that 2 fps more =]

Are you 12 or what?

 

[dj-electric]

People will hold their mighty swords and protect their purchases until their last breath escapes them. Humanity in a nutshell.

 

[Frick]

People will hold their mighty swords and protect their purchases until their last breath escapes them. Humanity in a nutshell.

I do that too, but it's OK because I'm the one doing it.

 

[Sony Xperia S]

Ever use an APU?

Usually I try to avoid it but for a secondary system (laptop) used for entertainment like browsing and watching movies, then possibly yes.

So maybe you should take your fanboy hat off and understand that AMD and nVidia have a lot more markets than just performance 3D.

Yes, AMD has more products in its portfolio but the overall condition of the company is showing a catastrophe. Remember that just from a decade ago ATi and AMD as separate corporations dwarfed the current size of AMD.

And please, do not turn to me personally because there are many others who would say the same and you will not say anything.

 

[GhostRyder]

Well AMD is not far from the truth on their comment, the 290X is still pretty close to a GTX 980's performance and even beats it at times depending on the game. Even some of the recent benchmarks here show that plus the 512bit bus is good for high resolution which is where AMD generally aims their top end cards anyway (Eyefinity, 1440p, 4K, etc). Most of the top cards from recent years all will do 1080p Ultra gaming without even breaking a sweat which makes any side you purchase so long as its at least the medium cards+ a good buy for that with only 1440p+ where the real comparisons come into play.

Right now Nvidia have great power efficiency due to improvements in the performance of the Cuda cores in Maxwell which allows less to be more in that area. But the GTX 980 was not really any leap other than the lowered power efficiency and the 4gb of GDDR5 over its 780ti counterpart which is something shocking. If you consider the GTX 670 and 680 bashed the previous GTX 580 last go round then this does not look as good wit hteh GTX 980 to 780ti comparison. When we can see plenty of games where the GTX 980 and R9 290X are neck and neck even trading the top single GPU position back and fourth then things like that cause the market to move at a slower pace.

 

[LinkPro]

I have had an X850 Pro, X1900 Pro, 2 x 2900 Pro Crossfire, HD 4870 - HD 4890 Crossfire, 2 x HD 6950 and I now have a R9 290X Reference model. (XFX) So far, I have not had any driver issues, black screens, gray screens, BSODs (Unless I created them myself) nor any other issues. The drivers are actually quite good so far, not perfect but good enough for me.

Last Nvidia product I owned was a 6600GT. I just do not see any reason to switch when I have not personally had any issues. Also, going with the 512 Bit bus on these cards is a good reason to get one if you need the bandwidth. Oh, and I did have a 9800 Pro back in the day as well without any issues that I can remember. Honestly, I think problems come down more to hardware combinations than anything else.

Then you must be really lucky. I was googling the issue and there are people already on their 3rd RMA of their 290's and the black screeen is still not going away. My 5830 was also fixed with a driver update but that was 3 months after I bought it.

That reminds me, I actually was on AMD for 3 generations (4870 as well). The fan failed after a year or so but that's more of Asus's fault. I wouldn't mind going back to red, so let's see if their 300 series is any good. I game on 1080p so a flagship card is overkill anyway, it pretty much comes down to which looks better and is more reliable, and so far nVidia is winning for me.

 

[RealNeil]

This to me sounds like they are in no rush to bring out their next generation of GPUs.

Maybe they are in a rush, but nothing is ready yet. In this situation, one would expect a public statement like that.
But I can't imagine them not being extremely motivated at this point. Taylor's assertion that AMD didn't make an official price adjustment on its end seems a little suspect to me.
Team Green's offerings are power saving and good performers.

I like the GTX-970 for it's performance and power saving, but I'm still reading about coil whine on a lot of forums.
I can buy a pair of the 970's right now if I want to, but I'll wait to see what develops first. In a few months (if I can save enough) I can either get two GTX-980s, or take a serious look at whatever AMD releases.