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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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. ;)