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
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite is Irrational Games’ latest entry in the Bioshock franchise. Though it’s based on Unreal Engine 3 – making it our obligatory UE3 game – Irrational had added a number of effects that make the game rather GPU-intensive on its highest settings. As an added bonus it includes a built-in benchmark composed of several scenes, a rarity for UE3 engine games, so we can easily get a good representation of what Bioshock’s performance is like.
With Bioshock we once again see the 290 trailing the 290X by a small margin, this time of 5%. It’s the difference between technically sustaining a 60fps average at 2560 or just falling short, but only just. Meanwhile compared to the GTX 780 the 290 is handed its first loss, though by an even narrower margin of only 3%. More to the point, on a pure price/performance basis, the 290 would need to lose by quite a bit more to offset the $100 price difference.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting to note not only how much faster the 290 is than the 280X or the GTX 770, but even the 7950B. The 290 series is not necessarily intended to be an upgrade for existing 7900 series, but because the 7950’s performance was set so much lower than the 7970/280X’s, and because 290 performs so closely to the top-end 290X, it creates a sizable gap between the 7950 and its official replacement. With a performance difference just shy of 50%, the 290 is reaching the point where it’s going to be a practical upgrade for 7950 owners, particularly those who purchased it in early 2012 and who paid the full $450 price tag it launched at. It’s nowhere near a full generational jump, but it’s certainly a lot more than we’d expect to see for a GPU that’s manufactured on the same process as 7950’s GPU, Tahiti.
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Leyawiin - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I'd just wait for the ASUS DirectCU II version or something equivalent. Something as hot, loud and power hungry as the old GTX 480 isn't acceptable to me, but drop a couple of those cons and I'd be on board.FuriousPop - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
No... But..........the.......................noise...................is........... just............too........ loud.......... are....you......getting..............this.......*puts on headphones*
Now then, as i was saying its very loud but but i want it whisper quiet, so buzz off else where then. your 2cents here is not appreciated.
as a CFx7970 owner (not to mention i had 2xgtx670's just before that which 1 became DOA and yes just as loud as current GPU's) i can safely say - noise is NOT a reason to be placing the whole argument onto when deciding about price/performance wise when there are sooo many different things you can do to reduce the noise generated from your case - if your unwilling to then obviously logic dictates that you would NOT purchase this, clearly.... but but i still wanna compare my 6 month old GPU to this one....... of course you can junior.... of course you can...
Custom coolers will come and will reduce the temps/noise, maybe not by a massive amount, but maybe just enough to convert some of those green boys over!
stangflyer - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
I am a older gamer at almost 50. I have had many cards since my first 3DFx card. Both AMD/ATI and Nvidia have been in my cases. I have a 1440p monitor but also game at 5040x1050 eyefinity.Currently run 2x7950 sapphire flex boost cards. They run relatively quiet as I have a empty slot in-between the cards.
I listened to some of the sound clips of the 290/x and they reminded me of my 5970 that I ran before my 7950's. I swore I will never have anything that loud in my pc again.
Will wait and see what the custom coolers bring to the table as I am hoping to go to one card even though I know I will lose some performance. Or just wait for 20nm.
I was over at my cousins and he showed me his new 780gtx with the acx cooler. Mild OC and it was extremely quiet.
I will play with either red or green cards but I do know that I will pay 100 bucks for the noise diff of the 780gtx.
We will see.
lnanek - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Hmm, loud cards are good for me, I always use earbuds anyway.Sancus - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
Everyone who says "just use headphones" probably doesn't realize that these AMD cards are so loud that they would actually be quite disturbing to anyone else in the room, and in the case of Crossfire, probably your entire house or adjacent apartments. 2x 290X's in CF Uber mode are approaching vacuum cleaner levels of noise.Not recommending these cards due to noise is not 'biased' it's merely a common sense, practically based choice.
ClexRex - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
Agrred ive played with the 290x and unless you keep your pc in the other room defiantly hold out till the aftermarket cool is here otherwise youll be pissed and havto spend another 50 on aftermarket cooling once available.Also a lot of people hatng on the 780 forget one thing..that it overclocks better than the 290/290x flat out...it also have the option for custom bios which in return will boost the 780 above the 290 and do it at a lower power comsumption/noise/heat
Also to crossfire the 290 you will need a min. of 1000w psu as we ran intoissues with 800w psu's during testing with crossfire and heavily overclocked cpu's.
rtho782 - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
This card actually hits louder noise levels than the old FX5800 Ultra! http://techreport.com/review/4966/nvidia-geforce-f... Not exactly the same method to measuring but this was 10 years ago...AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
The above statement I feel is an over-simplication.
I would imagine the actual instantaneous clock-for-clock power consumption will actually decrease due to the lower computation units. However, R290 or R290X cannot sustain their boost clock and are nearly always throttled by their thermal limits. Hence, the practical power consumption is similar, and since at the same power output R290 would have to have a higher clock to match the speed to R290X, the theoretical efficiency is somewhat lower, but I don't think they differ by much.
UGMan - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
Come on AMD, get this beauty out with coolers from ASUS, MSI, Sapphire et. al. and then TAKE MY MONEY ! Please !!!Nothing out there touches it for the price, and AMD have finally sorted out crossfire. I've got a feeling that Mantle is going to shock and awe with it's performance.
Bring it on !!!
Vorl - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
for everyone using stupid sound comparisons, like "a 747 taking off". Here are some real comparisons.Whisper Quiet Library at 6' 30dB
Normal conversation at 3' 60-65dB
Telephone dial tone 80dB
http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.h...
I think that the reviewer is biased considering how big a deal they make of noise now, but in the past with noisy nvidia cards it was more like "meh, they are noisy, BUT FAST". Now they are all over "how loud the card is".