Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC Review: Our First Custom Cooled 290
by Ryan Smith on December 24, 2013 3:45 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Sapphire
- Radeon 200
Gaming Performance
Diving into our performance benchmarks, we’ll be running light on the commentary here due to the fact that there’s really not much to say about the gaming performance of the 290 Tri-X OC. Sapphire’s 6% core overclock and 4% memory overclock translates into a real world performance difference of 3% on average. This makes the 290 Tri-X OC a bit faster than a reference 290, but it doesn’t otherwise change the relative rankings of various cards. At most this slightly extends the lead over the GTX 780 to 9% and wipes out the 290X quiet mode’s marginal lead over the 290.
In the end the difference is slight enough that the bulk of the interest in this card should rightfully be on the card’s cooler, and ultimately whether that cooler justifies the $50 premium.
On a quick note looking at Rome, as one of the games the 290X throttles in the most, this is also the game where the Sapphire 290 Tri-X OC takes the largest lead over the 290X. The 6% performance lead here reflects on the fact
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Drumsticks - Wednesday, December 25, 2013 - link
More or less exactly! Anandtech can do what they want but I do kind of hate our silly system of measurement. It isn't going anywhere sadlymond0 - Wednesday, December 25, 2013 - link
From his tone, it's clear that he's not being defensive, but merely pointing out the reasons why AnandTech uses imperial measurements to a person who felt like it was Ryan's *duty* to spoon feed him metric measurements so he wouldn't have to do "calculations in the head" while the majority of the viewerbase would. Calling him "defensive" is the closest thing to "you mad bro" you can say.juhatus - Wednesday, December 25, 2013 - link
Sorry, I was not trying to be smart ass about this. I bet the split for readers is 50% US and 50% international. I really tried to be as neutral as I can and no I don't help calculating.Ryan any comment? Is there any policy about standards?
bigboxes - Thursday, December 26, 2013 - link
Sorry. It's not 50/50. I'm sure that it's >70%, but you've got me curious as to the real numbers. Almost everything on this site is for American buyers. You get the occasional "it's only available in Europe", but usually it's US-centric. So inches it is. You can get an android conversion app if you don't want to google it.bigboxes - Thursday, December 26, 2013 - link
HA! I was wrong. US only 33.6% of traffic. D'oh!ShieTar - Wednesday, December 25, 2013 - link
"the majority of the buyers of this level of video card are also in the U.S."I'm confused, how would you figure that? The European markets for consumer electronics have overtaken the North-American market in volume about a decade ago, and 2-3 years ago the combined volume of both have become smaller than the Asian market. Even with a relatively high-end card like this, I would be surprised if more than 25% of sales go to the U.S. these days.
Also, why would a majority of AT readers be American? Funny measurement units and the price comparisons aside, there is nothing on here that is specifically tailored to the US market. As the majority of tech-savy Europeans is rather fluid in English, I'm sure AT gets just as many European readers, keeping in mind the much larger overall population.
TheJian - Saturday, December 28, 2013 - link
I didn't realize Europe was a country...Silly me. This is a USA site, get over it. The site is based in NC, USA last I checked and am unaware of it having any server in another country. You're more than welcome to FUND the development of a FOREIGN soil based expansion.Does any single country buy more than your assumed 25% that goes to USA? Germany, Russia, France etc? You're counting europe as one entity and it's not. There is nothing wrong with catering to his OWN audience. If you want to read it from outside, fine. But don't expect anyone to alter their world to suit yours. It's just not this site's job. There are not many other web sites with multi language and I don't know of many USA sites using multi-language or even metric.
With US traffic being 33%, there is no other larger country coming to read this site correct? I translate chinese/german tech pages all the time. Sure I wish they'd put them up in English for me, but realize that it is cost prohibitive to do so. No point in asking as I'd rather have that cost go to reviewing more products etc. That's what translators are for anyway :)
ShieTar - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
You seem to be a little confused about my statement. Try reading it again, and point out to me where I demanded that AT change anything? I merely pointed out some weak points in the comment of "wetwareinterface". I also did not pretend Europe was a country, merely an economic entity, which it is. I live in Europe, working for a European company, I can order products from any European shop without having to bother about any customs/tariff, I can move to and work in any other European Union country without any paperwork, etc. The different national governments at this point are merely another level of administration, but not something that seriously affects our everyday life.More importantly though, none of that matters to my original point, which was just to point out that an estimated 25% are a far way from "the majority", as the other 75% who come from "metric system nations" would be clearly the majority.
mpdugas - Thursday, December 26, 2013 - link
Since number systems are purely imaginary, what difference does how you measure an object make?Some folks find fractions easy, some like decimals better, but they are just fractions, too.
It really just comes down to which you prefer; the object does not change, no matter which fraction system you use.
xTRICKYxx - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
Wow, that cooler is something else.