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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fingerbob69 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Yeah, saw that. Dba with the Artic under load equivelant to the stock cooler at idle!I couldn't find any mention of what core temp was recorded. Am I right to assume this would still have been 95C?
colonelclaw - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
What difference to noise levels would it make if you put this card into a case that has noise dampening? I'm thing the Fractal Design Define R4 or similar.Homeles - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
The vast majority (>90%) of people who would be in the market for a R9 290 won't have a case like you describe.aTaoZ - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Acoustic dampening cases will make everything quieter. However only to a certain degree, if you have a 60dB Delta fan in the case, it will still sound like jet engines even if you reduce the noise by half. Also nothing can reduce the annoyance of high frequency noise.That's why I down graded from HD6950 to a HD 5770 with my Antec Mini P180 case.
kedesh83 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
WTS Evga GTX 780 SC.fingerbob69 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I was comparing dbA numbers ...db mearsurements are somewhat different.And going all grammar-nazi doesn't alter the fact that this review sites numbers for sound produced are so out of wack with that of other sites that this site needs to revisit them.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I think it is time to move my pc into the closet and run a 12 ft hdmi cable.aTaoZ - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Ryan, could you run some test with after market coolers. Tomshardware did their review with Arctic Accelero Xtreme III, and it looks really impressive. Both in performance and in acoustic.jljaynes - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
"Feel free to keep telling yourself that" - I will.http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Sound-Judgement-Fiv...
Hardware sites review gaming headphones too - at least some people must like them.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-07/vi... - Here's an article on Bloomberg regarding hardware sales related to heaphones for turtle beach.
And here's an article referencing NPDs study on the explosion of $100+ headphones.
"Sales of headphones priced over $100 have become the engine of growth in the audio market as a result, growing 65 percent (units) in the first half of 2012 and accounting for 43 percent of all headphone revenue, according to The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service."
Feel free to look at *any* picture from any LAN event and tell me how many photos you can find of gamers not using headphones if you prefer anecdotal evidence.
jljaynes - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
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