AMD Radeon R9 290 4 GB

[W1zzard]

AMD is launching their new Radeon R9 290 today. It comes with slightly weaker specifications than the R9 290X, but can compete with its bigger brother in benchmarks. Thanks to the fantastic price of just $399, the card is also extremely affordable.

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[v12dock]

Wow what an incredible price! Awesome review as usual

 

[Mussels]

nice speed, but doesnt this make the 290x redundant?

 

[Novulux]

Alright well, I'm definitely picking up this card. Hopefully it comes with some games.

 

[Slomo4shO]

Great price, $100 less for 780 performance... an echo from 2 weeks ago?

 

[Pandora's Box]

I'd be interested in seeing a review where they take all these cards and overclock them and re-evaluate.

 

[Nordic]

With how these cards throttle, I really want to see how they do with custom coolers as to most of us. I think that is where we can see these cards really begin to look good.

Hey w1zz, does the 290 perform pretty much the same as the 290x because it didn't throttle as much?

 

[W1zzard]

Hey w1zz, does the 290 perform pretty much the same as the 290x because it didn't throttle as much?

yes, 290x in quiet mode throttles very often, and 290 non-x throttles less due to the higher maximum fan speed setting

 

[sweet]

290x is still the killer with a better cooling solution. But Titan performance at 400$? You can't go wrong with 290

 

[radrok]

Wow this thing pisses so hard on nvidias parade that their logo has lost some of its green in favor of yellow today.

GREAT review, great card, bad cooler and very competitive price.

This plus a good AIB cooler infusion and it'll become a nightmare more than it is now for the competition.

Good job AMD. Bravo.

 

[THE_EGG]

hmmmm next card for me!! Although only if it comes out with a decent third-party/aftermarket cooler. That noise is insane!

 

[HumanSmoke]

Awesome bang-for-buck card.
Pity AMD enforce a waiting period before AIB's can release their own proprietary designs. A Windforce3 or Vapor-X on day 1 would have my money

 

[manofthem]

I've been waiting for this review; thanks W1zz, great work yet again
I'm pretty much sold at this price. While the price of the 290x was steep, the 780 price drop looked attractive, but now that this is coming out, I think this will have to be my next card! Slap a water block on it and I'll be good to go, no need to worry about heat and noise

 

[Mussels]

I'd be interested in seeing a review where they take all these cards and overclock them and re-evaluate.

cant really be done accurately, since every card OC's differently. you can have a card thats unstable at 1050MHz but stable at 1100, and unless a reviewer spends days testing each card they'll never get each card to their absolute maximum, which is why most reviews skim over the OCing side of things briefly.

 

[btarunr]

Awesome bang-for-buck card.
Pity AMD enforce a waiting period before AIB's can release their own proprietary designs. A Windforce3 or Vapor-X on day 1 would have my money

They'll be out by the month's end, don't worry. Expect WindForce 450W, TF4, and DCU2 triple-slot.

 

[SIGSEGV]

what an incredible card...
it reminds me with gtx 670 back then...

i wonder if my ek full water block for 290x is compatible with 290.. anyone?
damn, this card is tempting me hard to get 2 of this and crossfire them instead getting 2 290x..

 

[manofthem]

what an incredible card...
it reminds me with gtx 670 back then...

i wonder if my ek full water block for 290x compatible with 290.. anyone?
damn, this card is tempting me hard to get 2 of this and crossfire them instead getting 2 290x..

I gotta say we think alike. I'm pretty sure I'm steered toward the non-X now, and hope to get 2 down the road.

 

[haswrong]

why delay everything to christmas? i dont do christmas.. i just want to upgrade my g card with a nonref design.. so worn out..

i wonder if my ek full water block for 290x is compatible with 290.. anyone?

why would it not be? the chip only lacks some tmus, everything else should be the same, me guesses..

 

[Shinshin]

So you knew that the price would be 400$ all that time.....

Good card and I like that AMD is back in high end GPU market.
We need AMD to sit and design a CPU now and do the same to against Intel.

The customers will win!

 

[Totally]

Looks like the 8800GT all over again. I'm hoping a Sapphire Toxic version like the 270/280X shows up quickly to take my money.

 

[Rebel333]

Is possible the 290X performance will be much better with custom cooler, heatsink?

It would have been interesting to see bf4 test too.

 

[mascotzel]

Why is this important in a 2013 highend GPU to be listed as a negative (not another card has this anyway)?

No analog VGA outputs

 

[btarunr]

Why is this important in a 2013 highend GPU to be listed as a negative (not another card has this anyway)?

Because noobs still buy/own $100 21.5-inch 1080p monitors that only have D-Sub.

 

[Nihilus]

wow slam dunk for amd. it would be that much better with a custom cooler. hilarious that team green is trying so hard to win on the top end when amd crushes them up the middle. a gtx 770 ti would be a better move than a $700 gtx 780 ti

 

[Totally]

Why is this important in a 2013 highend GPU to be listed as a negative (not another card has this anyway)?

Well if you're still using an old CRT with no desire or need to upgrade that is kind of a big negative.