I always thought the prices listed in the comparison charts on the first page of the review were MSRP, seems I was wrong...
Yea, when did AMD raise the MSRP for a R9 290X... by $30 hadn't read that?
When you directly compare this Asus to the Asus GTX 780Ti W1zzard did a while back this isn't bad. First they appear to have the same cooler and fans, so other than the difference in what heat load they displace and the fan profiles Asus chooses for either, would be what differentiates thermal performance and noise... correct?
Power consumption at peak (actual gaming loads) the Asus 290X show it’s draws 4-5% less power,
didn’t expect that! Noise the Asus GTX 780Ti at load was 39dbA, and the 290X had either 32dbA (quiet mode) or 42dbA (performance). Temperature the Asus GTX 780Ti was 80°C, the 290X (quiet mode) was 94°C while 78°C (performance). Now what I need to know is what (program/game) is used to stress and achieve those results, hopefully both the noise/temperature number are from the same stress test.
So, from that we see less power, while higher heat produced from the AMD Hawaii, while even faster fan (or at least by the noise that would be the case). Transistor density of Hawaii might point to one issue, while the abundance of that heat (some say inefficiency) uses a die area 30% smaller to dissipate it with. Just look at the two pictures W1zzarrd has of die outline of both the Asus heat-pipe coolers to realize the disparity. So is there problems with Hawaii perhaps, or did the push to much on the envelope of the 28Nm process packing it a little to much? By what little OC headroom I think a little of both is apparent.
Then look at performance, by the 2650x summary there’s something like 12% between the two Asus models, that’s noteworthy. However can one contend the Asus GTX 780Ti could logically be priced somewhere like $70 more (12%) than a Asus 290X @$600. They're basically similar BOM’s other than the chips, so what gives with $730? While then look at the perf/watts at 2650x this Asus 290X bests a reference 780Ti, although the Asus version by all account accounts would pull ahead perhaps by 4-7% using the gaming titles used currently. Surprising given what was unearth above, I thought it would’ve been much more lopsided.
So from all this we grasp while AMD went with a more densely packed part that provides a better cost, Nvidia has a large die that is less densely packed but at a higher cost per chip. Although it seems there's another 9% tack-on above the logical perf/$.
AMD obviously hit some issue’s with such a design, chiefly being able to dissipate the amount of heat from the chip surface, but after that most of the parameters aren’t all that different as perf/watt noise or temperatures. I’d like to see the 290X temperature if Asus had set the fans to provide the same 80°C or 39dbA as they did with their 780Ti.
- any chance we can have all 290x custom cards in the other custom cooler review comparison charts? (or, at least, the noise chart). Would make it much easier to see whose custom cooler is best.
)
