The AMD Radeon R9 290X Review
by Ryan Smith on October 24, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Hawaii
- Radeon 200
A Note On Crossfire, 4K Compatibility, Power, & The Test
Before we dive into our formal testing, there are a few brief testing notes that bear mentioning.
First and foremost, on top of our normal testing we did some additional Crossfire compatibility testing to see if AMD’s new XDMA Crossfire implementation ran into any artifacting or other issues that we didn’t experience elsewhere. The good news there is that outside of the typical scenarios where games simply don’t scale with AFR – something that affects SLI and CF equally – we didn’t see any artifacts in the games themselves. The closest we came to a problem was with the intro videos for Total War: Rome 2, which have black horizontal lines due to the cards trying to AFR render said video at a higher framerate than it played at. Once in-game Rome was relatively fine; relatively because it’s one of the games we have that doesn’t see any performance benefit from AFR.
Unfortunately AMD’s drivers for 290X are a bit raw when it comes to Crossfire. Of note, when running at a 4K resolution, we had a few instances of loading a game triggering an immediate system reboot. Now we’ve had crashes before, but nothing quite like this. After reporting it to AMD, AMD tells us that they’ve been able to reproduce the issue and have fixed it for the 290X launch drivers, which will be newer than the press drivers we used. Once those drivers are released we’ll be checking to confirm, but we have no reason to doubt AMD at this time.
Speaking of 4K, due to the two controller nature of the PQ321 monitor we use there are some teething issues related to using 4K right now. Most games are fine at 4K, however we have found games that both NVIDIA and AMD have trouble with at one point or another. On the NVIDIA side Metro will occasionally lock up after switching resolutions, and on the AMD side GRID 2 will immediately crash if using the two controller (4K@60Hz) setup. In the case of the latter dropping down to a single controller (4K@30Hz) satisfies GRID while allowing us to test at 4K resolutions, and with V-sync off it doesn’t have a performance impact versus 60Hz, but it is something AMD and Codemasters will need to fix.
Furthermore we also wanted to offer a quick update on the state of Crossfire on AMD’s existing bridge based (non-XDMA) cards. The launch drivers for the 290X do not contain any further Crossfire improvements for bridge based cards, which means Eyefinity Crossfire frame pacing is still broken for all APIs. Of particular note for our testing, the 280X Crossfire setup ends up in a particularly nasty failure mode, simply dropping every other frame. It’s being rendered, as evidenced by the consumption of the Present call, however as our FCAT testing shows it’s apparently not making it to the master card. This has the humorous outcome of making the frame times rather smooth, but it makes Crossfire all but worthless as the additional frames are never displayed. Hopefully AMD can put a fork in the matter once and for all next month.
A Note On Testing Methodologies & Sustained Performance
Moving on to the matter of our testing methodology, we want to make note of some changes since our 280X review earlier this month. After having initially settled on Metro: Last Light for our gaming power/temp/noise benchmark, in a spot of poor planning on our part we have discovered that Metro scales poorly on SLI/CF setups, and as a result doesn't push those setups very hard. As such we have switched from Metro to Crysis 3 for our power/temp/noise benchmarking, as Crysis 3 was our second choice and has a similar degree of consistency to it as Metro while scaling very nicely across both AMD and NVIDIA multi-GPU setups. For single-GPU cards the impact on noise is measurably minor, as the workloads are similar, however power consumption will be a bit different due to the difference in CPU workloads between the benchmarks.
We also want to make quick note of our testing methodologies and how they are or are not impacted by temperature based throttling. For years we have done all of our GPU benchmarking by looping gaming benchmarks multiple times, both to combat the inherent run-to-run variation that we see in benchmarking, and more recently to serve as a warm-up activity for cards with temperature based throttling. While these methods have proved sufficient for the Radeon 7000 series, the GeForce 600 series, and even the GeForce 700 series, due to the laws of physics AMD's 95C throttle point takes longer to get to than NVIDIA's 80C throttle point. As a result it's harder to bring the 290X up to its sustained temperatures before the end of our benchmark runs. It will inevitably hit 95C in quiet mode, but not every benchmark runs long enough to reach that before the 3rd or 4th loop.
For the sake of consistency with past results we have not altered our benchmark methodology. However we wanted to be sure to point out this fact before getting to benchmarking, so that there’s no confusion over how we’re handling the matter. Consequently we believe our looping benchmarks run long enough to generally reach sustained performance numbers, but in all likelihood some of our numbers on the shortest benchmarks will skew low. For the next iteration of our benchmark suite we’re most likely going to need to institute a pre-heating phase for all cards to counter AMD’s 95C throttle point.
The Drivers
The press drivers for the 290X are Catalyst 13.11 Beta v5 (The “v” is AMD’s nomenclature), which identify themselves as being from the driver branch 13.250. These are technically still in the 200 branch of AMD’s drivers, but this is the first appearance of 250, as Catalyst 13.11 Beta v1 was still 13.200. AMD doesn’t offer release notes on these beta drivers, but we found that they offered distinct improvements in GRID 2 and to a lesser extent Battlefield 3, and have updated our earlier results accordingly.
Meanwhile for NVIDIA we’re using the recently released “game ready” 331.58 WHQL drivers.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz |
| Motherboard: | ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
| Monitor: | Asus PQ321 |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon R9 290X XFX Radeon R9 280X Double Dissipation AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 5870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA Release 331.58 AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta v1 AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta v5 |
| OS: | Windows 8.1 Pro |
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TheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
LOL. Tell that to both their bottom lines. I see AMD making nothing while NV profits. People who bought titan got a $2500 Tesla for $1000. You don't buy a titan just to game (pretty dumb if you did) as it's for pro apps too (the compute part of the deal). It's a steal for gamers who make money on the card too. Saving $1500 is a great deal. So since you're hating on NV pricing, how do you feel about the 7990 at $1000. Nice to leave that out of your comment fanboy ;) Will AMD now reap what they sow and have to deal with all the angry people who bought those? ROFL. Is the 1K business model unsustainable for AMD too? Even the 6990 came in at $700 a ways back. Dual or single chip the $1000 price is alive and well from either side for those who want it.I'd bet money a titan ultra will be $1000 again shortly if they even bother as it's not a pure gamer card but much more already. If you fire up pro apps with Cuda you'll smoke that 290x daily (which covers just about all pro apps). Let me know when AMD makes money in a quarter that NVDA loses money. Then you can say NV pricing is biting them in the A$$. Until then, your comment is ridiculous. Don't forget even as ryan points out in this article (and he don't love NV...LOL), AMD still has driver problems (and has for ages) but he believes in AMD much like fools do in Obama still...LOL. For me, even as an 5850 owner, they have to PROVE themselves before I ponder another card from them at 20nm. The 290x is hot, noisy and uses far more watts and currently isn't coming with 3 AAA games either. NV isn't shaking in their boots. I'll be shocked if 780TI isn't $600 or above as it should match Titan which 290x doesn't do even with the heat, noise and watts.
And you're correct no OC room. Nobody has hit above 1125.
If NV was greedy, wouldn't they be making MORE money than in 2007? They haven't cracked 850mil in 5 years. Meanwhile, AMD's pricing which you seem to love, has cause their entire business to basically fail (no land, no fabs, gave up cpu race, 8 months to catch up with a hot noisy chip etc). They have lost over $6B in the last 10yrs. AMD has idiots managing their company and they are destroying what used to be a GREAT company with GREAT products. They should have priced this card $100 higher and all other cards rebadged should be $50 higher. They might make some actual money then every quarter right? Single digit margins on console chips (probably until 20nm shrink) won't get you rich either. Who made that deal? FIRE THAT GUY. That margin is why NV said it wasn't worth it.
chizow - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
AMD's non-profitability goes far beyond their GPU business, it's more due to their CPU business. People who got Titan didn't get a Tesla for $1000, they got a Tesla without ECC. Compute apps without ECC would be like second-guessing every result because you're unsure whether a value was stored/retrieved from memory correctly. Regard to 7990 pricing, you can surely look it up before pulling the fanboy card, just as you can look up my comments on 7970 launch pricing. And yes, AMD will absolutely have to deal with that backlash giving that card dropped even more precipitously than even Titan, going from $1K to $600 in only 4-5 months.I don't think Nvidia will make the same mistake with a Titan Ultra at $1K. I also don't think Nvidia fans who only bought Titan for gaming will fall for the same mistake 2x. If Maxwell comes out and Nvidia holds out on the big ASIC, I doubt anyone disinterested in compute will fall for the same trick if Nvidia launches a Titan 2 at $1K using a compute gimmick to justify the price. They will just point to Titan and say "wait 3 months and they'll release something that's 95% of it's performance at 65% of it's price". As they say, Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
And no, greed and profit don't go hand in hand. In 2007-2008, Nvidia posted record profits and revenue for multiple consecutive quarters as you stated on the back of a cheap $230-$270 8800GT. With Titan, they reversed course by setting record margins, but on reduced revenue and profits. They basically covet Intel's huge profit margins, but they clearly lack the revenue to grow their bottomline. Selling $1K GPUs certainly isn't going to get them there any faster.
FragKrag - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
great performance, but I'll wait until I see some better thermals/noise from aftermarket coolers :pShark321 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
As with the Titan in the beginning, no alternate coolers will be available for the time being (according to computerbase). This means even if the price is great, you will be stuck with a very noisy and hot card. 780Ti will outperform the 290x in 3 weeks. It remains to bee seen how it will be priced (I guess $599).The Von Matrices - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
This is the next GTX 480 or HD 2900 XT. It provides great performance for the price, that is if you can put up with the heat and noise.KaosFaction - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Work in Progress!!! Whhhhaaaattttt I want answers now!!masterpine - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Good to see something from AMD challenging the GK110's, I still find it fairly remarkable that in the fast moving world of GPU's it's taken 12 months for AMD to build something to compete. Hopefully this puts a swift end to the above $600 prices in the single GPU high end.More than a little concerned at the 95C target temp of these things. 80C is toasty enough already for the GTX780, actually had to point a small fan at the DVI cables coming out the back of my 780 SLI surround setup because the heat coming out the back of them was causing dramas. Not sure i could cope with the noise of a 290X either.
Anyhow, this is great for consumers. Hope to see some aftermarket coolers reign these things in a bit. If the end result is both AMD and Nvidia playing hard-ball at the $500 mark in a few weeks time, we all win.
valkyrie743 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
HOLY TEMPS BATMAN. its the new gtx 480 in the temp's departmentkallogan - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
No overclocking headroom with stock cooler. That's for sure.FuriousPop - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
can we please see 2x in CF mode with eyefinity!? or am i asking for too much?also, Nvidia will always be better for those of you in the 30% department of having only max 1080p. for the rest of us in 1440p and 1600p and beyond (eyefinity) then AMD will be as stated by previous comments in this thread "King of the hill"....
but none the less, some more testing in the CF+3x monitor department would be great to see how far this puppy really goes...
i mean seriously whats the point of putting a 80 year old man behind the wheel of the worlds fastest car?!? please push the specs on gaming benchmarks pls (eg; higher res)