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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Sunburn74 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Too hot and too loud for any activity other than gaming on a headset. Maybe aftermarket coolers will salvage this card.megalee - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Well, I have the headphones on while gaming so I don't care about the noise. Sounds like a good deal to me. Good to see some competition!asphix - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
1st -- to anyone claiming that after market coolers will solve the heat/noise issue... you are correct.. but it will come at a cost. Say hello to a $450-$500 R9 290. Only time will tell, but my guess is they will either be mediocre solutions to keep the price down, or expensive (as will need to be to deal with that kind of dissipation).2nd -- AMD has one goal and only one goal with these extreme price points and that's to get themselves out of this catch 22 situation with mantle. In order for developers to program for mantle, there needs to be a user base. The user base will grow if there is mantle. Release cards that are relatively cheap with steep trade-offs to grow userbase. I feel the next release cycle will have more expensive cards with less trade-offs (noise/heat) and even better performance. It all depends on if mantle takes off which depends on people purchasing these cards.
I love the competition! I really dislike these sacrifices AMD are making to compete with Nvidia. However, i understand why the're doing it the way they are and I hope they're successful with it.
haukionkannel - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
If you compare the price of reference 7970 and aftermarket cooler version of 7970, the difference is 10-50$ Nothing too bad... This just shows how bad this AMD reference is... ingredible!http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-...
But we vary, there may be something fishy with AMD press cards! It may be that retail makers are making even worse job with reference cooler, but now it is time to wait some good aftermarket cooler cards!
MarkcusD - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
"290 is essentially twice as loud as the GTX 780"Lol. What a POS. Seriously it may improve with some non-stock coolers, but I wouldn't touch this card.
willis936 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
If you convert to linear sound levels it's actually three times as loud. That's mostly academic though.supamark - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Actually, it's just short of 10 times as loud - it's a log scale.jonjonjonj - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
i get that anand cant recommend the card because of the noise. but i think amd is going to sell a lot of these cards because in the end its all about performance and price. plus who buys a reference card anyway? on the asus cards i have owned you can turn the fan to 100% and its silent. some 3rd party card will come out with a quiet cooler that also unleashes the 290.superjim - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Wait for OEMs to get out their custom cards with the quiet/cooler open air fans and the 290 will be near perfect at $400.jb14 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
This card is like a drag race car. Pedal flat to the floor, screamingly loud, burning through petrol, pretty cheap (50W increase - crazy)! The only good thing here is the price/performance shaking things up alittle. NV could also quite happily dump an extra 50W through their cards and we could have to two screaming cards next to each other!I have an AMD card in my laptop but wouldn't consider touching this card in the desktop unless it had some seriously beefed up non-custom coolers. Let's see what the AMD partners can do to try and tame this beast!