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
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite is Irrational Games’ latest entry in the Bioshock franchise. Though it’s based on Unreal Engine 3 – making it our obligatory UE3 game – Irrational had added a number of effects that make the game rather GPU-intensive on its highest settings. As an added bonus it includes a built-in benchmark composed of several scenes, a rarity for UE3 engine games, so we can easily get a good representation of what Bioshock’s performance is like.
The first of the games AMD allowed us to publish results for, Bioshock is actually a straight up brawl between the 290X and the GTX 780 at 2560. The 290X’s performance advantage here is just 2%, much smaller than the earlier leads it enjoyed and essentially leaving the two cards tied, which also makes this one of the few games that 290X can’t match GTX Titan. At 2560 everything 290X/GTX 780 class or better can beat 60fps despite the heavy computational load of the depth of field effect, so for AMD 290X is the first single-GPU card from them that can pull this off.
Meanwhile at 4K things end up being rather split depending on the resolution we’re looking at. At Ultra quality the 290X and GTX 780 are again tied, but neither is above 30fps. Drop down to Medium quality however and we get framerates above 60fps again, while at the same time the 290X finally pulls away from the GTX 780, beating it by 14% and even edging out GTX Titan. Like so many games we’re looking at today the loss in quality cannot justify the higher resolution, in our opinion, but it presents another scenario where 290X demonstrates superior 4K performance.
For no-compromises 4K gaming we once again turn our gaze towards the 290X CF and GTX 780 SLI, which has AMD doing very well for themselves. While AMD and NVIDIA are nearly tied at the single GPU level – keep in mind we’re in uber mode for CF, so the uber 290X has a slight performance edge in single GPU mode – with multiple GPUs in play AMD sees better scaling from AFR and consequently better overall performance. At 95% the 290X achieves a nearly perfect scaling factor here, while the GTX 780 SLI achieves only 65%. Curiously this is better for AMD and worse for NVIDIA than the scaling factors we see at 2560, which are 86% and 72% respectively.
Moving on to our FCAT measurements, it’s interesting to see just how greatly improved the frame pacing is for the 290X versus the 280X, even with the frame pacing fixes in for the 280X. Whereas the 280X has deltas in excess of 21%, the 290X brings those deltas down to 10%, better than halving the variance in this game. Consequently the frame time consistency we’re seeing goes from being acceptable but measurably worse than NVIDIA’s consistency to essentially equal. In fact 10% is outright stunning for a multi-GPU setup, as we rarely achieve frame rates this consistent on those setups.
Finally for 4K gaming our variance increases a bit, but not immensely so. Despite the heavier rendering workload and greater demands on moving these large frames around, the delta percentages keep to 13%.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
396 Comments
View All Comments
Blamcore - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Wow, I was just remarking yesterday that NV fanbois had sunk to the level of apple fanbois, when I was seeing the argument "you just like AMD because you can't afford NV" on a few boards. Now here is apple fanbois famous argument "my company is better because they have a higher profit margin" Gratz your unreasonable bias just went up a level!I know, you aren't a fanboy, you are really a business expert here to recommend that a company should gain market share by releasing a card roughly equal to what it's competitor had out for months and pricing it the same as they do! Maybe the could have asked 650 if they released it last January
puppies - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
R+D costs come from the sale price of the card. Are you tring to claim a $300 GPU costs $300 in materials? R+D costs also come from the fact that shrinking the process enables the manufacturer to get more cards per die each time.Look at Intel and AMD their chips don't go up in price each time they get faster, they stay at the same price point. The last 2 cards I have bought have been Nvidia but the next one will be AMD at this rate. I expect a 660TI to be faster and more energy efficient than a 560TI and at the same price point WHEN IT IS RELEASED and I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Nvidia is trying to push people into spending more each time they release a new model line up and it stinks.
I don't care if a 660 is faster than a 560TI, forcing people to move down the GPU lineup just smacks of NVIDIA price gouging.
Samus - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
I have to disagree with you Berzerker. Although his post clearly "overpromotes" the 290, it is incredible value when you consider it is faster and cheaper (by hundreds of dollars) than the Titan.-Geforce 660TI owner
Laststop311 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
For people that value a quiet computer, this card is trashSpunjji - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
For people that value a quiet computer, all stock coolers are useless.People that value a truly quiet computer won't even be playing at this end of the GPU market.
Samus - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
This card is a great candidate for water cooling since the back of the PCB is essentially empty. Water cooling the face side is cheaper/easier, and this card can clearly use it.HisDivineOrder - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
He didn't say "silent." He said "quiet." I'd argue the Titan/780/690 coolers were all "quiet," but not "silent."Since he said quiet, I don't think his expectation is unreasonable to expect a certain level of "quiet" at the $500+ range of discrete cards.
Nenad - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
780 with stock cooler is not useless, and it IS quiet (it is not 'silent')BTW, going by posted numbers it seems 290x will be TWICE as noisy as GTX780 ?
ballfeeler - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Methinks Berzerker7 is just salty and perhaps partial to nvidia. Nothing itchy wrote is inaccurate, including the $550 price that Salty-Berzerker7 claimed was $600.- Fastest card ? - yup
- Free game ? – yup
- Pooped all over titan ? –yup
Do not be salty mr. Berzerker7. AMD just roundhouse kicked nvidia square in the gonads with performance above Titan for half the price.
Shark321 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
At 1080p it's actually slower than Titan if you average all reviews across the sites. With some reviews even slightly slower than the 780. It's also the loudest card ever produced after 30 minutes of playing (9,6 Sone in Battlefield 3 according to PCGamesExtreme). With this noise it's not acceptable and there will be no other coolers for the time being.