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
Total War: Rome 2
The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Rome 2 is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a forested area with a large number of units, definitely stressing the GPU in particular.
For this game in particular we’ve also gone and turned down the shadows to medium. Rome’s shadows are extremely CPU intensive (as opposed to GPU intensive), so this keeps us from CPU bottlenecking nearly as easily.
With Rome 2 no one is getting 60fps at 2560, but then again as a strategy game it’s hardly necessary. In which case the 290X once again beats the GTX 780 by a smaller than average 6%, essentially sitting in the middle of the gap between the GTX 780 and GTX Titan.
Meanwhile at 4K we can actually get some relatively strong results out of even our single card configurations, but we have to drop our settings down by 2 notches to Very High to do so. Though like all of our 4K game tests, it turns out well for AMD, with the 290X’s lead growing to 13%.
AFR performance is a completely different matter though. It’s not unusual for strategy games to scale poorly or not at all, but Rome 2 is different yet. The GTX 780 SLI consistently doesn’t scale at all, however with the 290X CF we see anything from massive negative scaling at 2560 to a small performance gain at 4K. Given the nature of the game we weren’t expecting anything here at all, and though getting any scaling is a nice turn of events to have negative scaling like this is a bit embarrassing for AMD. At least NVIDIA can claim to be more consistent here.
Without working AFR scaling, our deltas are limited to single-GPU configurations and as a result are unremarkable. Sub-3% for everyone, everywhere, which is a solid result for any single-GPU setup.
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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