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
A Bit More On Graphics Core Next 1.1
With the launch of Hawaii, AMD is finally opening up a bit more on what Graphics Core Next 1.1 entails. No, they still aren’t giving us an official name – most references to GCN 1.1 are noting that 290X (Hawaii) and 260X (Bonaire) are part of the same IP pool – but now that AMD is in a position where they have their new flagship out they’re at least willing to discuss the official feature set.
So what does it mean to be Graphics Core Next 1.1? As it turns out, the leaked “AMD Sea Islands Instruction Set Architecture” from February appears to be spot on. Naming issues with Sea Islands aside, everything AMD has discussed as being new architecture features in Hawaii (and therefore also in Bonaire) previously showed up in that document.
As such the bulk of the changes that come with GCN 1.1 are compute oriented, and clearly are intended to play into AMD’s plans for HSA by adding features that are especially useful for the style of heterogeneous computing AMD is shooting for.
The biggest change here is support for flat (generic) addressing support, which will be critical to enabling effective use of pointers within a heterogeneous compute context. Coupled with that is a subtle change to how the ACEs (compute queues) work, allowing GPUs to have more ACEs and more queues in each ACE, versus the hard limit of 2 we’ve seen in Southern Islands. The number of ACEs is not fixed – Hawaii has 8 while Bonaire only has 2 – but it means it can be scaled up for higher-end GPUs, console APUs, etc. Finally GCN 1.1 also introduces some new instructions, including a Masked Quad Sum of Absolute Differences (MQSAD) and some FP64 floor/ceiling/truncation vector functions.
Along with these architectural changes, there are a couple of other hardware features that at this time we feel are best lumped under the GCN 1.1 banner when talking about PC GPUs, as GCN 1.1 parts were the first parts to introduce this features and every GCN 1.1 part (at least thus) far has that feature. AMD’s TrueAudio would be a prime example of this, as both Hawaii and Bonaire have integrated TrueAudio hardware, with AMD setting clear expectations that we should also see TrueAudio on future GPUs and future APUs.
AMD’s Crossfire XDMA engine is another feature that is best lumped under the GCN 1.1 banner. We’ll get to the full details of its operation in a bit, but the important part is that it’s a hardware level change (specifically an addition to their display controller functionality) that’s once again present in Hawaii and Bonaire, although only Hawaii is making full use of it at this time.
Finally we’d also roll AMD’s power management changes into the general GCN 1.1 family, again for the basic reasons listed above. AMD’s new Serial VID interface (SIV2), necessary for the large number of power states Hawaii and Bonaire support and the fast switching between them, is something that only shows up starting with GCN 1.1. AMD has implemented power management a bit differently in each product from an end user perspective – Bonaire parts have the states but lack the fine grained throttling controls that Hawaii introduces – but the underlying hardware is identical.
With that in mind, that’s a short but essential summary of what’s new with GCN 1.1. As we noted way back when Bonaire launched as the 7790, the underlying architecture isn’t going through any massive changes, and as such the differences are of primarily of interest to programmers more than end users. But they are distinct differences that will play an important role as AMD gears up to launch HSA next year. Consequently what limited fracturing there is between GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 is primarily due to the ancillary features, which unlike the core architectural changes are going to be of importance to end users. The addition of XDMA, TrueAudio, and improved power management (SIV2) are all small features on their own, but they are features that make GCN 1.1 a more capable, more reliable, and more feature-filled design than GCN 1.0.
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DMCalloway - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Once again, against the Titan it's $450 cheaper, not $100. Against the gtx 780 it is a wash on performance at a cheaper price point. Eight months late to the game I'll agree on, however it took time to get in bed with Sony and Micro$oft which was needed if they (AMD) ever hope to get to the point of being able to release 'at a competitive time'. I'm amazed that they are still viable after the financial losses they suffered with the whole Intel paying OEM's to not release their current cpu gen. along side AMD's business . Sure, AMD won the law suit but the financial losses in market share was in the billions , Intel jumped ahead a gen. and the damage was done. Realistically, I believe AMD chose wisely to focus on the console market because the 7970ghz pushed hard wasn't really that far behind a stock gtx780.Bloodcalibur - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Ever wonder why the TItan costs $350 more than their own GTX 780 while having only a small margin of improvement?Oh, right, compute performance.
anubis44 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
and in some cases, the R9 290X is as much as 23% faster in 4K resolution than the Titan, or in the words of HardOCP: : "at Ultra HD 4K it (R9 290X) just owns the GeForce GTX TITAN."Bloodcalibur - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Once again, Titan is a gaming/workstation hybrid, that's why it costs $350 more than their own GTX 780 with only a small FPS improvement in gaming.TheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Depends on the games chosen. For instance All 4K:Guru3d:
Tombraider tied 4k 40fps (they consider this BARELY playable-though advise 60fps)
MOH Warfighter Titan wins 7%
Bioshock Infinite Titan wins 10% (33fps to 30, but again not going to be playable min in teens?)
BF3 TIE (32fps, again avg, so not playable)
The only victory at 4K is Hitman absolution here. So clearly it depends on what your settings are and what games you play. Also note the fps at 4K at hardocp. They can't max settings and every game is a sacrifice of some stuff (or a lot). Even at 2560 Kyle notes all were unplayable with everything on with avg's at 22fps and mins 12fps for all 3 basically...ROFL. How useful is it to win (or even lose) at a res you can't play at?
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290X/24....
Techpowerup tests all the way to 5760x1080, quoting that unless not tested. Here we go again...LOL
World of Warcraft domination for 780 & Titan (over 20% faster on titan 5760!)
SKYRIM - Both Titan and 780 win 5760
Starcraft2 only went to 2560 but again clean sweep for 780/Titan bot over 10%
Splintercell blacklist clean sweep at 2560 & 5760 for Titan AND 780 (>20% for titan both res)
Farcry3 (titan and 780 wins at 5760 but at 22fps who cares...LOL but 10% faster than 290x)
black ops 2 (only went to 2560, but titan wins all res)
Metro TIE (26fps, again neither playable)
Crysis 3 Titan over 10% win (25fps vs. 22, but neither playable...LOL)
At hardocp, metro, tombraider, bf3, and crysis 3 were all UNDER 25fps min on both cards with most coming in at 22fps or so on both. I wish they would benchmark at what they find is PLAYABLE, but even then I'm against 4K if I have to turn all kinds of stuff off in the first place. Only farcry3 was tested at above 30fps...LOL. You need TWO cards for 4K gaming. PERIOD. If you have the money to buy a 4K monitor or two monitors you probably have the cash to do it right and buy 2 cards. Steampowered survey shows this as most have 2 cards above 1920x1200! Bragging about 4K gaming on this card (or even titan) is ridiculous as it just ends up in an exercise of turning crap off that devs wanted me to SEE. I wouldn't care if 290x was 50% faster than Titan if you're running 22fps who cares? Neither is playable. You've proven NOTHING. If we jump off a 100 story building I'll beat you to the bottom...Yeah but umm...We're both still dead right? So what's the point no matter who wins that game?
Funfact: techspot.com tombraider comment (2560/1080p both tested-4xSSAA+16af)
"We expected AMD to do better in Tomb Raider since they supported the title's development, but the R9 290X was 12% slower than the GTX Titan and 3% slower than the GTX 780"
LOL. I hope they do better with BF4 AMD enhancements. Resident Evil 6 shows titan win also.
http://www.techspot.com/review/727-radeon-r9-290x/...
Tomshardware 4K quote:
"In Gaming At 3840x2160: Is Your PC Ready For A 4K Display?, I concluded that you’d want at least two GeForce GTX 780s for 4K. And although the R9 290X is faster than even the $1000 Titan, I maintain that you need a pair in order to crank your settings up to where they should be."
That was their ARMA quote...But it applies to all 4K...TWO CARDS. But their benchmarks are really low compared to everyone else for Titan in the same games. It's like took 10-15% off Titan's scores. IE, Bioshock infinite at guru3d shows titan winning 10%, but at toms losing by 20% same game, same res...WTF? That's odd right? Skyrim shows NV domination at 4k (780 also). Almost 20% faster for Titan & 780 (they tied) over Uber. Of course they turned off ALL AA modes to get it playable. Again, you can't just judge 4K by one site's games. Clearly you can find the exact opposite at 4K and come back down to reality (a res you can actually play at above 30fps) and titan is smacking them in a ton of games (far more wins than losses). I could find a ton more if needed but you should get the point. TITAN isn't OWNED at 4K and usually when it is as toms says of Metro "the win is largely symbolic though", yeah at 30fps avg it is pointless even turned down!
bronopoly - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Why shouldn't one of the cards you mentioned be bought for 1080p? I don't know about you, but I prefer to get 120 FPS in games so it matches my monitor w/ lightboost enabled.Bloodcalibur - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Except the Titan is a gaming/workstation hybrid due to its computing ability. Anyone who bought a Titan just for gaming is retarded and paid $350 more than they would have on a 780. Titan shouldn t be compared to 290X for gaming. Its a good card for those who do both gaming and a little bit of computing.looncraz - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Install a new cooler and the last two of those problems vanish... and you've saved hundreds... you could afford to build a stand-alone water-cooling loop just for the 290x and still have money to spare for a nice dinner.teiglin - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
I haven't finished reading the article yet, but isn't that more than a little hyperbolic? It just means NVIDIA will have to cut back on the amount it gouges for GK110. The fact that it was able to leave the price high for so long is nearly all good for them--it's just a matter of how quickly they adjust their pricing to match.It will be nice to have a fair fight again at the high-end for a single card.
bill5 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Heh, I'm the biggest AMD fanboy around, but these top two comments almost smell like marketing.It's a great card, and the Titan was deffo highly overpriced, but Nvidia can just make some adjustments on price and compete. That 780 Ti they showed will surely be something in that vein.