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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jljaynes - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
to be fair, he says it's expected to be - he doesn't call out price explicitly.and i am not making this up - i skipped ahead in the video because he was annoying me - and he was still talking about the looks of the card. to me the reviews seem more like an nvidia commercial. i clicked around the entire video - he spends the entire tests talking about specs and thermals.
looncraz - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
I've read a few reviews and noticed a trend you can verify:While gaming, the 290x only draws about the same amount as the 780, while putting out 10% or better average performance. It is only when you REALLY push the 290x that it draws its highest power - and to do that requires special tweaks from the reviewers, negating reality.
The noise is a problem, the heat is a problem, the performance and power draw really are not. An overclocking a video card is about the dumbest thing ever... yeah, let's risk damaging a $500+ part for an extra 5% higher frame rate... It isn't like a $200 CPU where you go from 3.2GHz to 5GHz...
No, we're talking about going from 1GHz to 1.1GHz.... and spending a premium for better cooling on top of it all...
siliconwizard - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Sure does and an amazing price that is. RIP Titanchizow - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Article chart says $550, Newegg has them in stock now for $580 which may just be BF4 bundle premium: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...Noble07 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Yup. The bundled version will cost $580. If you look at the newegg page, you'll see is manufacturer has two products up, one with bf4 and one without.patrioteagle07 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Newegg normally charges $20+ over msrp launch week... MSRP is $549 ...PCboy - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
And the Titan is $1000. Just face the facts, Nvidia got rolled.dragonsqrrl - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Rolled? Price drops sir. 8 months on, price drops.tuklap - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
but will they drop to the same level as r9 290x? seems to me that 290x is a great buy. take note. that is just the reference performer. What more for the AIB partners ^_^ PRICE DROPS PLEASE!!Shark321 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Titan is a compute card. In 3 weeks there will be 780Ti for $599, about 5-10% faster than 290X.