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
Metro: Last Light
As always, kicking off our look at performance is 4A Games’ latest entry in their Metro series of subterranean shooters, Metro: Last Light. The original Metro: 2033 was a graphically punishing game for its time and Metro: Last Light is in its own right too. On the other hand it scales well with resolution and quality settings, so it’s still playable on lower end hardware.
For the bulk of our analysis we’re going to be focusing on our 2560x1440 results, as monitors at this resolution will be what we expect the 290 to be primarily used with. A single 290 may have the horsepower to drive 4K in at least some situations, but given the current costs of 4K monitors that’s going to be a much different usage scenario. The significant quality tradeoff for making 4K playable on a single card means that it makes far more sense to double up on GPUs, given the fact that even a pair of 290Xs would still be a fraction of the cost of a 4K, 60Hz monitor.
With that said, there are a couple of things that should be immediately obvious when looking at the performance of the 290.
- It’s incredibly fast for the price.
- Its performance is at times extremely close to the 290X
To get right to the point, because of AMD’s fan speed modification the 290 doesn’t throttle in any of our games, not even Metro or Crysis 3. The 290X in comparison sees significant throttling in both of those games, and as a result once fully warmed up the 290X is operating at clockspeeds well below its 1000MHz boost clock, or even the 290’s 947MHz boost clock. As a result rather than having a 5% clockspeed deficit as the official specs for these cards would indicate, the 290 for all intents and purposes clocks higher than the 290X. Which means that its clockspeed advantage is now offsetting the loss of shader/texturing performance due to the CU reduction, while providing a clockspeed greater than the 290X for the equally configured front-end and back-end. In practice this means that 290 has over 100% of 290X’s ROP/geometry performance, 100% of the memory bandwidth, and at least 91% of the shading performance.
So in games where we’re not significantly shader bound, and Metro at 2560 appears to be one such case, the 290 can trade blows with the 290X despite its inherent disadvantage. Now as we’ll see this is not going to be the case in every game, as not every game GPU bound in the same manner and not every game throttles on the 290X by the same degree, but it sets up a very interesting performance scenario. By pushing the 290 this hard, and by throwing any noise considerations out the window, AMD has created a card that can not only threaten the GTX 780, but can threaten the 290X too. As we’ll see by the end of our benchmarks, the 290 is only going to trail the 290X by an average of 3% at 2560x1440.
Anyhow, looking at Metro it’s a very strong start for the 290. At 55.5fps it’s essentially tied with the 290X and 12% ahead of the GTX 780. Or to make a comparison against the cards it’s actually priced closer to, the 290 is 34% faster than the GTX 770 and 31% faster than the 280X. AMD’s performance advantage will come crashing down once we revisit the power and noise aspects of the card, but looking at raw performance it’s going to look very good for the 290.
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chizow - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
It's really strange what AMD has done with the 290. Sure it has great price and performance, but AMD has also ramped it up in the key complaint areas, power and noise to get there. As a result, the performance of the 290 is close enough to the 290X that you have to wonder if AMD even wants to sell any 290Xs at all. They are hard enough to find to begin with, but at a $150 price difference for ~5% difference in performance, it seems as if AMD is cannibalizing their own SKUs and dissuading people from purchasing the 290X and choosing the much cheaper 290 instead. It also comes close enough to the 280X while thoroughly stomping it to make the 280X seem much less attractive in that $300-$400 range.In the end the 290 seems like a strong buy for anyone who is willing to tolerate the heat and the noise. It's amazing that the 290 is even hotter and louder than the 290X, even taking the crown from the previous high-end, noisy fireball GTX 480 (thanks for including it in these results this time btw). It's certainly possible AMD wants this SKU to sit by itself in that $400 slot, safely away from the 770/280X below it and the GTX 780/290X above it.
dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
The GTX480 is not the previous 'noisy fireball'. AMD has introduced many cards since that make the 480 seem downright reasonable. Take the 6990 and 7970GHz for example. AMD has gone so far and beyond Nvidia in terms of heat and noise it seems comical to still hear people talk about the 480 as though it's some kind of benchmark to compare these cards against. The stock coolers on these recent gen high-end cards from AMD have been much louder.HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Everyone who knows anything knows the FX5800 is the benchmark of loud cards. Seriously, that thing was, is, and will always be the Leaf Blower of Legend.That said, the 290 is a very well executed attempt to catch the myth and make real the loud card of lore we once thought dead and gone.
creed3020 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
LOL, I too remember the term Leaf Blower being used with the FX5800 for the first time. A friend had it in his rig and we couldn't stop bugging him about it. This was coming from another friend who have three 80 mm Antec Tornados in his case!chizow - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Agreed that the 480 was probably not as loud, it's fan had issues but didn't have the same high pitched whine characteristic of AMD's blowers. But it was the previously hottest, highest power consuming single-GPU and as an owner of 2 in SLI I can say for sure the heat was a lot to deal with.Mariosti - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Now think about this:290X with new drivers, and proper cooling enabling it not to just "not throttling" but also to get some minor oc. The difference will be much bigger. That's why nvidia must go all the way with GK110 unlocking to make the 780Ti a viable competitor.
TheJian - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Or NV can just OC their cards until they hit another 10DB or 50-70watts and laugh right? This is all AMD has done. Why didn't AMD just include this magical fan in the ref design? Overclocks show there isn't much in the tank either. Don't forget they're using NV ref here also. You can buy OC cards that are already clocked 10%+ faster out of the box and reviews show they are quiet in comparison which NOBODY buys.jnad32 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
The way I look at it, AMD is looking like an absolute genius. Everyone was ripping them on the 290X for it being too hot and too loud anyway. So instead of keeping the sound levels down they just went for what they do best, price/performance. They are now blowing every other card out of the water. There isn't a card on the planet that can touch this card in price/performance. Yea its loud as hell but, at least you have to think about it now just because of the price. What I really want to see is them unleash the 290X sound threshold and see what kind of raw numbers it can put up. Lets be honest, the only people who should buy reference cards are the ones who are putting water blocks on them.Dal Makhani - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
hmm seems like this card in a somewhat "uber mode" fan profile cannibalizes AMD's own R9 290X?HanzNFranzen - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Ok, fine, the reference cooler sucks. But we all know that sooner rather than later there will be several versions with non-reference coolers available. So instead of get 106% of a 780's performance for $100 lees, we will get it for $70 less. (and possibly some more OC headroom?)Any way you slice it, AMD has done a service for all of us enthusiasts no matter if you're an NVidia or AMD fan... The price/performance has come back down to earth. I will be buying one of these cards, no doubt. But I will be waiting to see what Sapphire or Asus come up with as far as cooling or I may just drop for a 3rd party cooler and a reference board.