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
GRID 2
The final game in our benchmark suite is also our racing entry, Codemasters’ GRID 2. Codemasters continues to set the bar for graphical fidelity in racing games, and with GRID 2 they’ve gone back to racing on the pavement, bringing to life cities and highways alike. Based on their in-house EGO engine, GRID 2 includes a DirectCompute based advanced lighting system in its highest quality settings, which incurs a significant performance penalty but does a good job of emulating more realistic lighting within the game world.
For as good looking as GRID 2 is, it continues to surprise us just how easy it is to run with everything cranked up, even the DirectCompute lighting system and MSAA (Forward Rendering for the win!). At 2560 the 290X has the performance advantage by 9%, but we are getting somewhat academic since it’s 80fps versus 74fps, placing both well above 60fps. Though 120Hz gamers may still find the gap of interest.
Moving up to 4K, we can still keep everything turned up including the MSAA, while pulling off respectable single-GPU framerates and great multi-GPU framerates. To no surprise at this point, the 290X further extends its lead at 4K to 21%, but as usually is the case you really want two GPUs here to get the best framerates. In which case the 290X CF is the runaway winner, achieving a scaling factor of 96% at 4K versus NVIDIA’s 47%, and 97% versus 57% at 2560. This means the GTX 780 SLI is going to fall just short of 60fps once more at 4K, leaving the 290X CF alone at 99fps.
Unfortunately for AMD their drivers coupled with GRID 2 currently blows a gasket when trying to use 4K @ 60Hz, as GRID 2 immediately crashes when trying to load with 4K/Eyefinity enabled. We can still test at 30Hz, but those stellar 4K framerates aren’t going to be usable for gaming until AMD and Codemasters get that bug sorted out.
Finally, it’s interesting to note that for the 290X this is the game where it gains the least on the 280X. The 290X performance advantage here is just 20%, 5% lower than any other game and 10% lower than the average. The framerates at 2560 are high enough that this isn’t quite as important as in other games, but it does show that the 290X isn’t always going to maintain that 30% lead over its predecessor.
Without any capturable 4K FCAT frametimes, we’re left with the delta percentages at 2560, which more so than any other game are simply not in AMD’s favor. The GTX 780 SLI is extremely consistent here, to the point of being almost absurdly so for a multi-GPU setup. 4% is the kind of variance we expect to find with a single-GPU setup, not something incorporating multiple GPUs. AMD on the other hand, though improving over the 280X by a few percent, is merely adequate at 17%. The low frame times will further reduce the real world impact of the difference between the GTX 780 SLI and 290X CF here, but this is another game AMD could stand some improvements, even if it costs AMD some of the 290X’s very strong CF scaling factor.
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Ryan Smith - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Patch 3, which was the patch released right before the 280X, settled the major GPU problems. I can't speak for the turn sequences, which are still CPU bottlenecked, but as far as GPU reviews go it's good for use.TheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Total War Rome2 has had at least 4 patches with the 4th on 10/13. Might be a 5th by now.v1.4 = v1.4.0 = v1.00.7573 = #7573.461942 last one
But site shows:
https://help.sega.com/entries/22535104-Total-War-R...
So new on 18th says post date. 5 patches to date.
Arbie - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Thanks for the Crysis Warhead benchmark. The game still leads in some ways and I still enjoy playing it. But more relevant here is that we can see the progression of GPU power over a long time span. Given the slower pace of PC graphics now, some of us haven't replaced our cards in quite a while. With this benchmark I can compare apples-to-apples with anything I own.
The 290X looks great fundamentally, but 93 deg C at full load is too hot and will lead to a short card lifetime. This will probably be addressed by vendor cooling designs, and I'd wait for that.
polaco - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
this remmembers me the ATI4850. from factory settings it reached almost 100%. I tuned the bios to adjust the fan throttling hysteresis and max rpms or something like that, that turned my card to 80°C. So I wouldn't be surprised if just tunning this card settings a bit will take you lower temps, powertune allows for much cool things that wasn't available at the 4850 moment. Vendor cooling solutions probably do better as you stated. :)TheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Warhead is played by ZERO people on servers. How do you play alone? Servers I checked were empty ages ago and still just a month ago. They need to be using the games with the most users active, or highest sales (which might include games we can't tell active users if they're not server based like single player etc). Warhead is played by nobody, so it shows nothing. It's the same as firing up Doom 1. Nobody cares.NeonFlak - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
So the review is released but unfinished? I'm getting work in progress for a couple pages.WeaselITB - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
This is a really poor showing on AnandTech's part. I don't come to AT because of the speed that your reviews are posted, I come because of the quality and depth of the commentary that makes up the reviews. Charts are meaningless without the commentary surrounding them.Please, in the future, throw up a one-page benchmark chart with a paragraph stating "preliminary results" or something, and come back with an actual full-fledged review. This "[work in progress]" crap is just that -- crap -- especially now that I'm reading this at 10:20am Central and still seeing a half-article. I know you guys are capable of better.
lamovnik - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Here is 290x fan noise test http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5MbOGoEMDYNotmyusualid - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
P1SSED MYSELF laughing!And I only came by to smile at the fan boi-ish comments.
Well done.
Kutark - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Honestly, no. The fanboism is rampant in these comments. And i don't know what they're smoking about it being faster than a titan, in most cases its barely equaling and usually slightly slower. Now, is that impressive for a card thats $600? Yes, absolutely. Am i impressed? No, not in the slightest. Titan was released in FEBRUARY. That was 8 months ago. And though i am pissed at nvidia for making it so expensive, and subsequently the 780/770's so expensive. The ONLY reason they were able to pull that kind of crap is because AMD was nowhere to be found. AMD literally couldn't compete until almost a year later? I'm sorry im just not impressed. I am glad they're finally stepping up their game, because one company having no real competition is never a good thing for the consumer.