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
Hitman: Absolution
The second-to-last game in our lineup is Hitman: Absolution. The latest game in Square Enix’s stealth-action series, Hitman: Absolution is a DirectX 11 based title that though a bit heavy on the CPU, can give most GPUs a run for their money. Furthermore it has a built-in benchmark, which gives it a level of standardization that fewer and fewer benchmarks possess.
Hitman is another game that makes the 290X shine, with the 290X taking a 16% lead over the GTX 780. In fact we’re getting very close to being CPU limited here, which may be limiting just how far ahead the 290X can pull. However this also means there’s plenty of GPU headroom for enabling MSAA, which we don’t use in this benchmark.
Moving on to 4K, the 290X once again extends its lead, this time by among the largest such leads to 30% over the GTX 780. This is actually good enough for 43fps even at Ultra quality, but for better than that you’ll need multiple GPUs.
To that end we’re CPU limited at 2560, though for some reason the GTX 780 SLI fares a bit better regardless. Otherwise at 4K the GTX 780 SLI achieves better scaling than the 290X CF – 64% versus 56% –so while it can’t take the lead it does at least close the gap some. Though enough of a gap remains that the GTX 780 SLI will still come a bit short of 60fps at 4K Ultra settings, which makes the 290X CF the only setup capable of achieving that goal.
When it comes to minimum framerates the 290X is able to build on its lead just a bit more here at both 2560 and 4K. In both cases the performance advantage over the GTX 780 grows by a further 3%.
Finally, for our delta percentages we can see that unfortunately for AMD they are regressing a bit here. The variance for the 290X CF at 2560 is 24%, which is greater than what the 280X CF was already seeing, and significantly greater than the GTX 780 SLI. Consequently Hitman is a good example of how although AMD’s CF frame pacing situation is generally quite good, there are going to be games where they need to buckle down a bit more and get it under control, as evidenced by what NVIDIA has been able to achieve. Though it is interesting to note that AMD’s frame pacing at 4K improves over 2K, by over 8%. AMD would seem to have an easier time keeping frame times under control when they’re outright longer, which isn’t wholly surprising since it means there’s more absolute time to resolve the matter.
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SolMiester - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
So you can OC a 780 on stock, but not the 290x to sustain the OC, which means 780 wins!, especially after the price drop to $500!, oh dear AMD 290x just went from hero to zero...TheJian - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
I gave links and named the games previously...See my post. At 1080p 780 trades blows depending on the games. Considering 98.75% of us are 1920x1200 or less, that is important and you get 3 AAA games with 780, on top of the fact that it's using far less watts, less noise and less heat. A simple drop in price of $50-100 and 780 seems like a no brainer to me (disregarding the 780TI which should keep the same price as now I'd guess). Granted Titan needs a dunk in price now too, which I'm sure will come or they'll just replace it with a full SMX up-clocked titan to keep that price. I'm guessing old titan just died as 780TI will likely beat it in nearly everything if the rumored clock speed and extra smx are true. They will have to release a new titan ULTRA or something with another smx or up the mhz to 1ghz or something. OR hopefully BOTH.I'm guessing it's easier to just up the 100mhz or put it to 1ghz as surely manufacturing has gotten them to where all will do this now, more than having all SMX's defect free. Then again if you have a bad SMX just turn a few more off and it's a 780TI anyway. They've had 8 months to either pile up cherry picked ones, or just improve totally anyway so more can do this easily. Clearly 780ti was just waiting in the wings already. They were just waiting to see 290x perf and estimates.
eddieveenstra - Sunday, October 27, 2013 - link
Titan died when 780gtx entered the room at 600 Euro. I'm betting Nvidia only brings a 780gtx ti and that's it. Titan goes EOL.anubis44 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
This is the reference card. It's not loud unless you set it to 'Uber' mode, and even then, HardOCP thought the max fan speed should be set to 100% rather than 55%. Imagine how quiet an Asus Direct CUIII or Gigabyte Windforce or Sapphire Toxic custom cooled R9 290x will be.Crossfire and frame pacing all working, and R9 290X crushes Titan in 4K gaming (read HardOCP's review of this 4K section), all while costing $100 less than GTX780, and the R9 280X (7970) is priced at $299, and the R9 270X (7870) is now going for $180, and now Mantle API could be the next 3dfx Glide, and boost all 7000-series cards and higher dramatically for free...
It's like AMD just pulled out a light sabre and cut nVidia right in half while Jsen Hsun just stares dumbly at them in disbelief. He should have merged nVidia with AMD when he had the chance. Could be too late now.
Shark321 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
There will be no custom cooling solution for the time being. It's the loudest card ever released. Twice as loud as 780/Titan in BF3 after 10 minutes of playing. Also Nvidia will bringt the 780Ti in 3 weeks, a faster cart at a comparable price, but quiet. AMD releases the 290x one year after NVidia, 2 years after NVidias tipeout. Nvidia will be able to counter this with a wink.just4U - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Shark Writes: "It's the loudest card ever released."Guess you weren't around for the Geforce5...
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
The FX5800 is not ever dead. Not if we remember the shrill sound of its fans......or if the sound burned itself into our brains for all time.
Samus - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
I think the 65nm GeForce 280 takes the cake for loudest card ever made. It was the first card with a blower.ninjaquick - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
lol, the Ti can only do so much, there is no smaller node for either company to jump to, not until March for enough shipments to have stock for sales. The 290X just proves AMD's GCN design is a keeper. It is getting massively throttled by heat and still manages to pull a slight lead over the titan, at sometimes 15% lower clocks than reference. AMD needed a brand for this release season, and they have it.Both Nvidia and AMD are jumping to the next node in 2014. Nvidia will not release Maxwell on the current node. And there is no other node they would invest in going to.
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
The Ti could theoretically open up all the disabled parts of the current GK110 part. Doing that, who knows what might happen? We've yet to see a fully enabled GK110. I suspect that might eat away some of the Titan's efficiency advantage, though.