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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heflys - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Slightly slower than a 780 overall? Even in Uber mode? Can you link me to these reviews if possible?Shark321 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
I didn't say that. It's slightly slower in Uber Mode than Titan overall in 1080p (across all sites combined). In Quiet mode it's usually slightly faster than 780, slighttly slower in the minority of the reviews.heflys - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
I see now.Jumangi - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
What noob would buy a 290x or a Titan and run it in 1080p? A pointless resolution for these cards.
inighthawki - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
What an arrogant post. There are tons of people who game on 1080p displays and buy a 290X or a Titan. Having a high framerate (i.e. consistently greater than 60fps) reduces the likelihood of stuttering while playing, while also making your system a bit more future-proof as new games come out. Not everyone cares about pixel count, some care more about quality per pixel. As you start seeing titles ship on Unreal 4, post-Crysis 3, etc, I will be laughing at you when I can still run my games at native resolution without the need to upscale or reduce quality.puppies - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
Anyone who buys a titan to play games at 1080p is insane, seriously they need locking up. You claiming otherwise does nothing.Samus - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
agreed. this card is for 2560x1440+ or multimonitorTheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
ROFL...Only if you don't believe in MAXING your games. Which nobody can do with a single card. Many sites comment on this, and show mins, even here with lower settings they hit below 30fps in a few of their games at 2560. In multiplayer you'd get crushed by guys hitting much higher fps at 1080p in many games. Maybe you'll be right at 20nm, but certainly there are far too many games you have to jockey settings around on to make you right today.reddev - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Both LinusTechTips and OC3D, two reviewers I trust quite a bit, have it below the 780.randomhkkid - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Linus tech tips over clocks all the cards it tests, since the 780 has much more headroom (on the stick cooler) the gains were larger than the 290x so at stock the 290x is faster.