The AMD Radeon R9 290 Review
by Ryan Smith on November 5, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Hawaii
- Radeon 200
Company of Heroes 2
Our second benchmark in our benchmark suite is Relic Games’ Company of Heroes 2, the developer’s World War II Eastern Front themed RTS. For Company of Heroes 2 Relic was kind enough to put together a very strenuous built-in benchmark that was captured from one of the most demanding, snow-bound maps in the game, giving us a great look at CoH2’s performance at its worst. Consequently if a card can do well here then it should have no trouble throughout the rest of the game.
Unlike Metro, Company of Heroes 2 isn’t a title that the 290X gets throttled by nearly as much in our benchmarking, but it’s still something that once again demonstrates just how close 290 gets to 290X. 290 trails 290X by just 5%, a far cry from the $150 difference in price tags. Meanwhile because this is a game that AMD cards are doing so well in, the 290 also fares extremely well against the GTX 780, surpassing it by 23%. The performance gaps versus the 280X and GTX 770 are even larger yet, at 34% and 55% respectively.
Minimum framerates are similarly in AMD’s favor. On a relative basis the 290 falls behind the 290X by a little more here – by about 7% – due to the shader heavy workload of this benchmark’s most difficult scene, but that’s still only 7% behind a card 38% more expensive. Or to once again draw a GTX 780 comparison, it’s 33% faster.
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DMCalloway - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I agree. My major concern at this point isn't noise or that custom coolers will not be able to dissipate given thermals, but 95*C is a LOT of heat to dissipate into the case. Usually custom coolers are open. It's going to be like running a serious hair dryer in the case.looncraz - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
The 95C figure doesn't matter, only the TDP. This card is by no means in new territory - just in new territory for a stock AMD card with this cooler. A better cooler will still run at 95c if that is the driver and fan speed target, so you will have to rely on the quieter, better, coolers AND custom fan profiles or CCC lower target temperatures. Set the target temperature too low for the cooler and the speed will throttle... so performance will be directly related to the quality of the cooling - which really makes me wonder why AMD didn't consider upgrading their cooler... just looking at their design I can see several ways to improve it for virtually no R&D and very little extra manufacturing cost... a card that has to throttle at stock is a card that needed a little more love before release.DMCalloway - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
Yeah, I get that part. It's still a chip running at higher temps. while drawing at least 50 more watts of juice. Of course the chip will run fine at 95*C+ temps, my concern is with an open heat sink the amount of thermal energy being dissipated into the case is going to be higher. Better coolers more effectively cool the chip, irrelevant for case temps.jjj - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
THG got some retail 290x and they perform a lot worse than the review sample so at this point it seems unclear what the actual perf is for 290 and 290x. You guys need to check if AMD cherry picked the review samples,sending cards that clock well and they sell far slower cards.HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I'd love it if they'd start testing these cards in some cases. Testing them on open air benches is the best way to ignore the obvious heat that's going to build up in a case that's got one, let alone two of these boards, using passive heat loss to help them.Boards this hot running continuously need to be in a case to test for how long it can maintain its boost.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
We do test in a case. All of our tests take place in a NZXT Phantom 630 WE.techkitsune - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
"All of our tests take place in a NZXT Phantom 630 WE."That's about as acoustically horrible as the old black and purple SGI Irix cases. No wonder you registered such a high noise level.
Nikhilanand - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
R9 290 is a performance beast for its price. Almost nearing its big brother R9 290x. Nvidia's latest price cut won't help GTX 780's further sales now. But AMD's partners need to make this one cooler and quieter.woolfe9998 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I never comment on reviews, but I was taken aback by the reviewer's final comments. Presuming on behalf of every enthusiast that the noise generated by this card makes it unacceptable even with such a strong price/performance ratio is odd. Everyone has a different noise tolerance. Judging from the comments, most of us are excited about this card, in spite of the reviewer's final remarks which seem to suggest the card's status as a bad product as objective fact when actually the issue of noise tolerance is subjective. The reviewer doesn't seem to understand that even if the noise level actually IS unacceptable, we're not stuck with the reference cooler for very long. Better coolers will come quickly. What a strange review.techkitsune - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Some of us won't wait for the aftermarket cooler if we want it quiet. We'll rig a water block to it and hook it into the loop. :) Then it will be absolutely silent, the only noise coming from the radiator fans. Three 9,000 RPM Delta fans. ;)