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
Battlefield 3
Our major multiplayer action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 3, DICE’s 2011 multiplayer military shooter. Its ability to pose a significant challenge to GPUs has been dulled some by time and drivers, but it’s still a challenge if you want to hit the highest settings at the highest resolutions at the highest anti-aliasing levels. Furthermore while we can crack 60fps in single player mode, our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, so hitting high framerates here may not be high enough.
With Battlefield 3 generally favoring NVIDIA GPUs the 290X fell just short of the GTX 780, and consequently the 290 will fall back a bit further. As such the 290 trails the GTX 780 by 7% while trailing the 290X by a narrower 5%. Furthermore in this case the 290 just hits the cutoff for a 60fps average at 2560, which means the card should have no problem sustaining minimum framerates above 30fps in even the most hectic firefights.
Elsewhere the 290 doesn’t get to enjoy quite the massive performance advantages over the 280X and GTX 770 that it enjoyed earlier, but it’s still ahead of its cheaper competitors. Against the 280X the 290 is 23% faster, while against the GTX 770 it’s a narrower 12%.
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TempAccount007 - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
What part of REFERENCE COOLER do you not understand?johnny_boy - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
The IF isn't so big, I think. A lot of gamers already have blocks for their graphics cards, or don't care much about the additional noise, or want a block anyway at some point and the 290 presents an opportunity to get one now (and then cooling is quieter/better than the competing nVidia cards for the same price when figuring in the watercooling costs for the AMD card). I'd rather get the 290 (over the 780) and use my current watercooling solution. If I didn't have watercooling then I'd still rather buy the 290 and upgrade to watercooling.Eniout - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
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tgirgis - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
That's really extremely one sided, first of all, AMD already has a response to G-Sync, (their version for now has been dubbed "Free-Sync" but no idea if that nomenclature is final) and they have TressFX (which, at the moment, does look better than Nvidia's "Hairworks" but Nvidia will probably soon catch up), and they've got Mantle, which is definitely a massive advantage.Not to mention the R9 290 comes with 4GB Vram, as opposed to the GTX 780's 3GB, though it's really not a huge issue except in 4k gaming. Finally, shield compatibility isn't really a benefit, it's a $250 handheld game system, it's only beneficial if you interested in purchasing one of those, as opposed to being an included feature.
Nvidia is not without it's advantages however, they still have lower power consumption and thermals which is great for mini-itx systems (although manufacturer custom cooled cards can help bridge the gap for thermals) and they do still have Physx.
If Mantle keeps going the way it is now, Nvidia might be forced to pay royalties to AMD similar to how they did with Intel a few years back. If anything, AMD should throw "Allow us to use Physx" in the negotiations :)
slickr - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
O yeah, Nvidia at this point has no choice, but to lower its prices again. I mean for $400 this card is amazing. It performs on the same level as the $1000 Titan and on the same level as the $550 290X, so a giant performance at a very cheap price.Even with the high noise(just wait 2 weeks for custom cooler) this card blows the GTX 780 out of the water, the performance is so much better.
I think if Nvidia wants to stay in the competition they would need to cut the GTX 780 price to at least $400 as well and try and get sales due to better acoustics and a lower power consumption, but if it was just performance in question they would need to lower the price of the 780 to $350 or 300 euros.
Of course that would mean that the 770 should get a price reduction as well and be around $270.
holdingitdown - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Yes this card is incredibly disruptive. The performance makes the 780 look like a mess. Expect to see at least another $100 slashed off the 780 and the 770 needs a little more taken off.The R9 290 is a monster!
crispyitchy - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Best card to release yet as far as I am concerned.The noise profile is not perfect, but every card is noisy once gaming to one degree or another.
What is perfect is the giant performance for this perfect price.
Newegg here I COME
Wreckage - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I doubt NVIDIA will cut their price. This card is so loud that most people will stay away and get a 780 or 770. AMD is so desperate to increase performance that they sacrifice everything else. It's like the last sad days of 3DFX.Da W - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Remember what happened after 3Dfx died? Higher price and mediocre performance.I'd buy AMD if only to keep them alive and force Nvidia to drop their prices.
HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Actually, traditionally, 3dfx was overpriced until the very end. ATI was always there competing with nVidia and 3dfx, anyway.So competition existed for as long as we've had discrete GPU's in any meaningful way. It's AMD that wants to end competition by standardizing PC gaming high performance around a GCN-based API only they can use meaningfully.