AMD Radeon R9 290X 4 GB

[Solaris17]

im not worried about noise or power draw but iv ran cards that hot 470 260 all have died what is the thermal junction of these cards? 105?

 

[repman244]

Wiz can you somehow measure the FPS over time - like at the start when the GPU has low temperature and at the end when it starts throttling?
I mean if the performance hit is big due to throttling the card doesn't look so good anymore...

 

[Fourstaff]

Hot, fast and noisy. Welcome to 2010. Still faster than Titan, and price competitive against 780, so all in all an enthusiast card.

 

[theJesus]

I told y'all it would sound like a jet engine.

No analog VGA outputs is a moot point for a thumb down. All cards just about come with a vga adapter.

Those adapters only work with DVI-I (I for integrated, meaning analog signal integrated). The ports on the card are DVI-D (D for digital, meaning digital signal only). You can tell this by looking at them. Also, if you had actually read the review, you'd see that W1zard even mentions this specifically.

 

[Xzibit]

Hot, fast and noisy. Welcome to 2010. Still faster than Titan, and price competitive against 780, so all in all an enthusiast card.

Now we go LIVE! to get a reaction of Nvidia TITAN owners after showing them the R9 290X priced at $549.99

 

[GSG-9]

I am very happy I kept my 690 right now.

Titans go cheep, something faster comes out from camp N, or in a generation AMD and Nvidia will be competing again as they release their flagship products (in price and performance).

 

[mmaakk]

Great review boss, thanks!

I dunno why but looking at the gpu core brought me memories of the R600 (also a hot card) and same 512 bit wide mem.

 

[Nortrop]

That thing sure is loud when not crippled by the 'quiet' BIOS setting. The cooler really let's it down.

http://youtu.be/1W5OXvIzRKc?t=2m40s

Power draw is also on the high side. Some of the other tests i've come across show above 300 watts at the uber setting. Guess that's the price you pay for 6.2B transistors.

I'm not completely sold on the whole AMD bruteforcing it deal, kinda leaves the image of going backwards instead of actually progressing

I sure do like the price though, it definitely seems to be the card's best feature atm.

 

[JDG1980]

Very well said, I feel the same way. It also looks very ugly, it should have a much better quality look at that kind of money. Unless we see some non stock coolers - which AMD won't allow until perhaps even 2014 - I don't see the point of getting this.

I don't understand why AMD would want to cripple their flagship card in this way. With Nvidia's Titan, it makes sense that they would want to enforce the stock design because it was actually good. But all the reviews conclude that the stock 290X cooler sucks. Why wouldn't they let companies like Asus and MSI use their superior cooling solutions?

 

[wolf]

So it beats the 780 and titan at the cost of a fair amount more power consumption, heat output and noise...

so ~2 years after the 7970 we get a card that is in the ballpark of ~25% faster, with the trade-offs I just mentioned, gotta say I'm not impressed.

The impressive part is the price/perf, as it will force Nvidia to re-jig their lineup a bit to remain more competitive, which they inevitably will. yes you may have payed a grand for a Titan, but how long ago were you enjoying that single card awesomeness? it's hard to compare the price now because Nvidia will obviously change it.

Given the power consumption/heat output, Nvidia have a lot of room to clock up GK110 and throw one back in there that matches the R9 290X and can price it the same, or perhaps 50$ more if its cooler, quieter and chews a bit less power.

all in all, good and bad, sure as hec not enough to get me to leave a GTX670 oc or leave Nvidia which is an ecosystem I am invested in.

I really hoped for more, the next 3 months will see some great re positioning in line-ups and great prices for everyone.

 

[razaron]

and why do I have to buy a card and THEN watercool it to be even competitive with the other card?

I'm not sure about other people that WC, but, if I was to get a new graphics card it would be WCed regardless of what card it is (other than backup cards, obviously).
So, for me, I'm not comparing a WCed 290x vs a ACed 780. I'm comparing a WCed, overvolted, max 24/7 OC 290X vs a WCed, overvolted, max 24/7 OC 780. Both at 2560x1600.

It would be nice to see some WCed results within the week.

 

[punani]

Noise and heat .... meh.


speed and pricetag

 

[GSG-9]

I'm not sure about other people that WC, but, if I was to get a new graphics card it would be WCed regardless of what card it is (other than backup cards, obviously).
So, for me, I'm not comparing a WCed 290x vs a ACed 780. I'm comparing a WCed, overvolted, max 24/7 OC 290X vs a WCed, overvolted, max 24/7 OC 780. Both at 2560x1600.

I run my card close to stock on water, but my goal is to keep all my fans @ 800rpm, and the GPU under 45c. I have grown into a stickler for noise.

 

[Xzibit]

I don't understand why AMD would want to cripple their flagship card in this way. With Nvidia's Titan, it makes sense that they would want to enforce the stock design because it was actually good. But all the reviews conclude that the stock 290X cooler sucks. Why wouldn't they let companies like Asus and MSI use their superior cooling solutions?

Strategy...

Once AMD lets them put on better cooling solutions the sustained clock go up. Its the equivalent of a overclock.

Instead of being around 800mhz-900mhz these cards will sustain a higher clock depending on the cooler during gaming/benchmarks

The difference it made from 7970-7970GHZ with only a 75mhz boost. The limiting factor is temp so you can overclock as far as 95C lets you 1000mhz+. The way PowerTune works on these cards now they might not need different bioses for each manufacture either now (except for Identification purposes).

I suspect the AIB solution will come in Late November maybe

 

[HD64G]

Whatever NVidia does with pricing someone is going to complain. NVidia made the mistake of touting Titan as a high end gaming card when they really shouldn't have. If they drop the price of Titan (I don't think they should) then they will have complaints from current owners. If they don't drop the price, then the enthusiast community will continue to complain about it. Titan is a niche card.

My predictions:

NVidia will drop the GTX 780 to around $579, $30 over the R9 290X and the same price as the R9 290X BF4 bundle. The GTX 780's better power consumption, better thermals and noise, and game bundle make up for the performance difference.

Titan will stay where it is because it's a compute card, not a gaming card. For the people complaining about the price, it's like complaining that Quadros or FirePros are too expensive; gaming performance is not it's primary purpose.

The GTX 780 Ti will be faster than the R9 290X for the same or less power and noise and will be priced around $700.

In which world do you live? Did you read the review carefully? Did you see the difference in FPS in most games between 290X and green's Top GPUs? It beats the $900 TITAN comfortly with a BETA driver. Amd if TITAN is a compute card, you have no idea how much more the 290X is with 512bit memory bus...

And if you actually read the review, if you buy a later custom model of 290X with better cooling, it clocks much better and wins easier every GPU on planet today...

 

[TheMailMan78]

Ya know you can get two 670's for less money and it will blow the 290x out of the water. Not seeing a point to this new generation from NVIDIA and ATI.

 

[btarunr]

Curious to see how the 780ti stacks up in price and performance.

GTX 780 Ti will have to be faster than Titan, and cheaper than GTX 780 to stand a chance against R9 290X.

 

[RCoon]

GTX 780 Ti will have to be faster than Titan, and cheaper than GTX 780 to stand a chance against R9 290X.

Or NVidia will likely use the excuse that AMD Engineers could have taken a shit on the 290X and it would have cooled it more effectively. NVidia are usually blissfully arrogant when it comes to their cards price/performance, and will just rearrange prices and probably still be worse in terms of AMD price/performance anyway, but you know, they're elitist jerks like that.
That being said, I'd rather have a reference 780 than a reference 290X.

 

[GSG-9]

In which world do you live? Did you read the review carefully? Did you see the difference in FPS in most games between 290X and green's Top GPUs? It beats the $900 TITAN comfortly with a BETA driver. Amd if TITAN is a compute card, you have no idea how much more the 290X is with 512bit memory bus...

And if you actually read the review, if you buy a later custom model of 290X with better cooling, it clocks much better and wins easier every GPU on planet today...

Did YOU see the difference in FPS between the top GPUs at every resolution?
At some resolutions/programs you are correct, some you are not. I am not sure a single 290X with water cooling will close the 20 fps gap between the 690 at ultra high resolutions.

But I hope it does.

 

[refillable]

One word for AMD, BRAVO.

One of the best cards, if not the best card I've see in terms of price/performance.

Thermal and Power Wise, Not good, doesn't really matter to me anyway. I hope it'll be fixed when they implement 20nm process.

Gamers, this is the right card for you...

Just Wait for the Titanfall.

 

[TheMailMan78]

GTX 780 Ti will have to be faster than Titan, and cheaper than GTX 780 to stand a chance against R9 290X.

In the over all market I cannot argue with that. I'm all about best bang for the buck and if a NEEDED a new card the 290X would have my attention. Problem is NVIDIA's last generation was so over priced that it makes the 290X the better deal at less over priced. At the end of the day you can get way better performance for less money with one generation past. That's my biggest problem with the 290X. It should be $420 not $550.

 

[morphy]

Just Wait for the Titanfall.

Not sure if the pun was intended or not but I like it

 

[refillable]

Actually this is great for me, where prices favour AMD so much.

 

[JDG1980]

Here's how I think Nvidia is going to respond:
* Drop the existing 780 to $549 to match the 290X
* Introduce the new 780 Ti at the old 780 price point ($649). Give this card the same shader performance (2688 cores) as the Titan, but it will only have 3GB RAM, and the usual crippling of FP64 performance.
* Replace the Titan with the Titan Plus (or whatever they want to call it) which would be a full GK110 part with no disabled SMXs. This would up the core count from 2688 to 2880. This would still be a compute-oriented card and the price would remain the same.

 

[dwade]

Great card and all, but damn GTX Titan is one efficient card.