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
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.
Crysis 3 happens to be another game that the 290X sees significant throttling at, and as such this is another game where the 290X and 290 are neck and neck. With all of a .4fps difference between the two, the two cards are essentially tied, once more showcasing how the 290X is held back in order to get reasonable acoustics, and how fast the 290 can go when it does the opposite and lets loose.
This also ends up being a very close matchup between the 290 and the GTX 780, with the 290 losing to the GTX 780 by just 1%, making for another practical tie. Which coincidentally will make our power and noise tests all the more meaningful, since this is the game we use for those tests.
Meanwhile compared to the GTX 770 and 280X, this is actually the narrowest victory for the 290. Despite the solid performance of the 290 and 290X, it beats the GTX 770 by just 11%. The margin of victory over the 280X however is closer to normal at 29%.
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A5 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Yeah, just spend an extra $300+ on custom WC gear to make your $400 GPU usable. That's a viable solution.jnad32 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
They said anyone with a water cooling loop.madwolfa - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
And that's 10 people including you?Da W - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Ryan.I usually like your reviews. But this one feels like a review of AMD's reference cooler. I think it fails to demonstrate the full potential of this GPU IF it was properly cooled.
Tom's hardware have a nice demonstration of what Hawaii could be with a custom cooler installed on their 290. In short: it blows away everything.
Hawaii in a monster, may be too much for AMD's cooling crew.
Homeles - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
AMD has needed to retrofit their stock coolers for ages. Hopefully this will get the point across to them.jnad32 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Do people still buy ref cards who aren't putting water blocks on them?MrHorizontal - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
With the release of various water blocks for the 290(X), could you test to see what the effect would be with a proper cooling solution that makes the cards not throttle so much - it'd be good to see what would happen if these GPUs actually had a proper cooler on board.Nevertheless, I expect down the line, this provides an amazing opportunity for OEMs down the line to put on a proper cooler - but more importantly, shouldn't AMD get their act together and put on a first rate cooler like the greenies have done?
Homeles - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
"Shouldn't AMD get their act together and put on a first rate cooler like the greenies have done?"Yes. Honestly, thermal management is just as important as the silicon itself.
silverblue - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
It could be the main reason for the price differential (or inversely, why AMD is able to price them so low).jnad32 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Do people still buy ref cards who aren't putting water blocks on them?