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

[btarunr]

In one of the first interviews post GeForce GTX 900 series, AMD maintained that its Radeon R9 290 series products are still competitive. Speaking in an interview with TweakTown, Corporate Vice President of Global Channel Sales, Roy Taylor, said that gamers should choose the Radeon R9 290X "with its 512-bit memory bus" at its current price of US $370. He stated that the current low pricing with R9 290 series is due to "ongoing promotions within the channel," and that AMD didn't make an official price adjustment on its end. Taylor dodged questions on when AMD plans to launch its next high-end graphics products, whether they'll level up to the GTX 900 series, and on whether AMD is working with DICE on "Battlefield 5." You can find the full interview in the source link, below.



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[dj-electric]

There's no need to tell AMD that the GTX 900 launch critically damaged R9 290 series viability. They know that. Luckily, the R9 290 street price is at about 270$. Which is somewhat compeling to those who insist on red. It is still in a better price to performance ratio. Now, power and drivers or at-launch optimization? well...

All there's left to do is wait for their next series i guess.

 

[ZoneDymo]

damn it amd, I want a new card, GET TO IT

 

[Steevo]

Considering the number of high end cards sold out again both companies are doing well enough.

 

[KarymidoN]

when AMD learn to optimize energy consumption and make a decent stock cooling system, so Nvidia will have competition. Today AMD has stratospheric consumption of energy with poorly optimized drivers and ridiculously high (I have a CrossfireX).

 

[Jstn7477]

The GM204 is a little lean on memory bandwidth, even with 8GHz GDDR5 (I can hit ~90% memory controller utilization in Furmark at ~1300MHz core clock), but it still eats my R9 290 for breakfast.

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.

 

[phanbuey]

If you can't get an R290, you can maybe find a 2900XT somewhere, that too has a 512-bit memory bus, and everyone knows more bits is better.

 

[LinkPro]

I would have gotten an R9 290 or 290X had I not known about their black screen issue and all the driver-related problems. Did research for a couple months and it still seems like "I will get a beast of a card if I get lucky". I was on AMD for 2 generations - 5830 and 6950 - the 5830 had the black screen problem and driver crashes for a while and it was really annoying while the 6950 was a beast. Until AMD finally figures out how to write proper drivers I will stay with nVidia. It's 2014 and they still manage to churn out drivers that work worse compared to previous versions. Surely nVidia has problems too but they don't seem to affect me that much.

 

[ManofGod]

I would have gotten an R9 290 or 290X had I not known about their black screen issue and all the driver-related problems. Did research for a couple months and it still seems like "I will get a beast of a card if I get lucky". I was on AMD for 2 generations - 5830 and 6950 - the 5830 had the black screen problem and driver crashes for a while and it was really annoying while the 6950 was a beast. Until AMD finally figures out how to write proper drivers I will stay with nVidia. It's 2014 and they still manage to churn out drivers that work worse compared to previous versions. Surely nVidia has problems too but they don't seem to affect me that much.

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.

 

[Fx]

There's no need to tell AMD that the GTX 900 launch critically damaged R9 290 series viability. They know that. Luckily, the R9 290 street price is at about 270$. Which is somewhat compeling to those who insist on red. It is still in a better price to performance ratio. Now, power and drivers or at-launch optimization? well...

All there's left to do is wait for their next series i guess.

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...

 

[cedrac18]

The $190 used on Ebay is my price point. Thank you Nvidia, i have never and will never pay more than $200 for a single component.

 

[Lionheart]

Lolz thanks AMD but I will stick with my GTX 970

Give me Windows 10, DX12, More Mantle support, a 12 or 16 core CPU based on the Excavator architecture, <--- games that take advantage of those cores properly & the R9 390 series please, & I will definitely consider purchasing your hardware Nom Nom!

 

[Sony Xperia S]

All of the Avago, Freescale, LG, MediaTek, NVIDIA, Renesas and Xilinx are on list with projects waiting the 16 nm TSMC mass production later next year.

Where is AMD?

Speaking nonsense. :lol:

 

[jigar2speed]

This looks bad, Roy has no idea what he is talking about.

 

[qubit]

If you can't get an R290, you can maybe find a 2900XT somewhere, that too has a 512-bit memory bus, and everyone knows more bits is better.

lol, that's funny, I nearly spilled my coffee. I have a 2900XT with its 512-bit bus and an 8800 GTX with only a 384-bit bus and the 8800 GTX eats it for breakfast.

AMD better up the overall performance of their current cards rather than trying to bamboozle techies with bus width.

 

[SteveS45]

Personally I don't think AMD is the only camp with a driver issue. Both camps in my opinion are equally meh.
I have two systems one with a R9 280X and HD7970 in crossfire, and a new MSI Gold(Bronze) edition GTX970.

The GTX970 has been having a lot of problems on Display Port with screen tearing after coming back from sleep state. Google GTX900 Display Port tearing/black screen, a lot of people have the same problem. And sometimes switching from Nvidia surround to normal triple monitor or vice versa causes BSOD on Windows7.

On the HD7970, I wouldn't say AMD had better or flawless drivers, we all know they don't. But I don't see the Nvidia drivers superior in any way.

So I think driver and feature wise, both camps are equally meh.

 

[GAR]

Its all marketing, of course im going to tell you my product is better than my competitions. That being said, the 290 is a good card but it produces too much heat and uses too much power, 100 watts more to be exact, heats up other components in your PC because of the massive heat the PCB produces, the gtx 970 is the sweet spot right now for a gpu, the 512bit bus is meaningless when a card with 256bit bus beats it, even in 4K the gtx 980 is equal to or faster than the 290x, not to mention the gtx 970/980 overclock like beasts, 1400mhz+ on all cards with most hitting 1500+ on stock cooling and even the reference models. Gsync is an amazing feature and I for one cannot go back to a non gsync monitor.

 

[Kaapstad]

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.

 

[f2bnp]

 

[chinmi]

I change from a 290x to a 970. It maybe not be faster, but it sure is more convenient.
For me the 970 is Is cooler, consume less watt, and the noise level is more silent then my 290x.
All of those non-performance improvement really makes the 970 beats my old 290x.
And sadly my experience with the 290x is not quite good. First I got an elpida memory one, which is prone to artifact on high memory clock, and i got the black screen problem when it's under heavy use. It's not psu error cause my ax1200i is enough to power 2 of those card.... Thankfully i can rma my 1st card and get a new one... But it's still an elpida one, so fml. I rma it again and ask for a non elpida one, and finally i got it. Which is perfect, no black screen and artifact. But the noise and heat really turn me down. So thats why I quickly change to a 970 when i got the chance.
The 290x sure have more bits, but it's not faster, it's louder, it's hotter, and it's consume more power.
So for me the 512bit vs 256bit is not a game breaking deal.

 

[Animalpak]

AMD show me your FreeSync tech and make a better job to cool down your GPU's and i may think to buy a Radeon card.

 

[Eukashi]

when the HBM technology is loaded into RADEON, a problem in a memory band is cleared.
there is no need to increase the secondary cache as Maxwell.

 

[Naito]

AMD maintained that its Radeon R9 290 series products are still competitive.

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

 

[eroldru]

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?

 

[Sony Xperia S]

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

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?

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".