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
Crysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers and still holds “most punishing shooter” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to drive games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2013.
Much like Battlefield 3, at 2560 it’s a neck and neck race between the 290X and the GTX 780. At 52fps neither card stands apart, and in traditional Crysis fashion neither card is fast enough to pull off 60fps here – never mind the fact that we’re not even at the highest quality levels.
Meanwhile if we bump up the resolution to 4K, things get ugly, both in the literal and figurative senses. Even at the game’s lowest quality settings neither card can get out of the 40s, though as usual the 290X pulls ahead in performance at this resolution.
As such, for 60fps+ on Crysis 3 we’ll have to resort to AFR, which gives us some interesting results depending on which resolution we’re looking at. For 2560 it’s actually the GTX 780 SLI that pulls ahead, beating the 290X in scaling. However at 4K it’s the 290X CF that pulls ahead, enjoying a 53% scaling factor to the GTX 780’s 40%. Interestingly both cards see a reduction in scaling factors here versus 2560, despite the fact that both cards are having no problem reaching full utilization. Something about Crysis 3, most likely the sheer workload the game throws out at our GPUs, is really bogging things down at 4K. Though to AMD’s credit despite the poorer scaling factor at 4K the 290X CF in uber mode is just fast enough to hit 60fps at Medium quality, and not a frame more.
Moving on to our look at delta percentages, all of our AFR setups are acceptable here, but nothing is doing well. 20-21% variance is the order of the day, a far cry from the 1-2% variance of single card setups. This is one of those games where both vendors need to do their homework, as we’re going to be seeing a lot more of CryEngine 3 over the coming years.
As for 4K, things are no better but at least they’re no worse.
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TheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
It's comic these people forget it's a $2500 card when supported as a pro card (tesla - with all the driver support). You are practically stealing it for $1000 already. It's not meant for GAMERS only. It's really meant for people who GAME that also like to make MONEY from their gpu with REAL apps...That concept always seems lost on the AMD lover (and even some NV people who apparently just don't understand the product or pricing on it).Sandcat - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
AMD plant.looncraz - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Anything like an nVidia shroom?Homeles - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
I'd love to trip on some of those.jasonelmore - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
i'm reading the review and tbo the 290x peformance is around 5% lower than the GTX 780. Now if you go "uber mode" yes it does beat the 780 in several benchmarks, and does not in some, but ubermode is nothing more than a 15% overclock.. Stock for Stock 780 still is winning.jordanclock - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Uber mode IS stock. Just like CPUs will boost up speed bins when they have the thermal headroom, so will the 290X. Excluding Uber mode is just trying to avoid the fact that the 290X tops the 780 in the highest of settings and sounds disengenuous.looncraz - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
As jordanclock stated uber mode is just a simple thermal mode setting.Just imagine what will happen with a better cooler and the card can run at full-tilt non-stop... With its clock often reduced by 10-15%, we could very well see some jumps where it currently doesn't beat everything outright - and crossfire configurations should greatly benefit. The power draw is unfortunate, but the reality is that few will really worry about it beyond their power supply limits...
If you leave the 290x in quiet mode and install better cooling, you will have the same performance as in uber mode (actually, probably better considering some are reporting bugs in the uber mode profile). Add to that the standard 5% or so gained in a few months of driver revisions, and the 780TI will need to be 5-10% faster than Titan to match the 290x in its non-reference clothing.
Steelytuba - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Are you reading the same review I just read? The 780 is only slightly faster in a small number of the 1080p benchmarks against the 290x running quiet mode. If you run any resolution higher than 1080p (which is really the only reason you would need a card in this category) and even if you do run 1080p the 290x is the better performer for $100 less.Rontalk - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Freqen Nvidia, give me back my $1000 !!!rituraj - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Burn their office and then sue them