The AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Review
by Ryan Smith on April 8, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Radeon 200
GRID 2
The final game in our benchmark suite is also our racing entry, Codemasters’ GRID 2. Codemasters continues to set the bar for graphical fidelity in racing games, and with GRID 2 they’ve gone back to racing on the pavement, bringing to life cities and highways alike. Based on their in-house EGO engine, GRID 2 includes a DirectCompute based advanced lighting system in its highest quality settings, which incurs a significant performance penalty but does a good job of emulating more realistic lighting within the game world.
There’s little to say about GRID 2 other than that we continue to get amazing performance out of the game even though it’s still one of the best looking games in our benchmark suite. For what it is worth the 295X2 holds a distinct advantage over the GTX 780 Ti SLI at both resolutions we test – especially at 2160p – but even the relatively slow GTX 780 Ti SLI is delivering better than 120fps at 1440p and better than 60fps at 2160p, so the difference is somewhat academic (ed: 120Hz 4K monitors, anyone?)
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ruggia - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I'm looking at results from pcper and toms too and I see nothing "broken". In most cases variances are better than 780 sli or low enough to not be an issuemagnusmundus - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
With a closed loop cooler for both GPU and CPU, you might as well go for a full custom loop and get better cooling and nicer aesthetics.kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Er... no? Two CLCs are still quite a bit different from setting up a custom loop.cknobman - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Your gaming test suite kinda sucks, please update it.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The gaming test suite is a constant work in progress, so we're always looking for new games to add to it.Do you have anything in particular you'd like to see? (Keeping in mind that it needs to be practical to benchmark it)
Earballs - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Titanfall at or above 1440 would be most lovelyjkhoward - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I still think that WoW should still be included in these benchmarks..devione - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Is it really impossible to cool this card without using an AIO cooler, like the Titan Z?mickulty - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
That would require either huge amounts of binning that drives price right up (like the Titan Z), and/or significant reductions in clock speed to accommodate reduced voltage (almost certainly like the Titan Z), resulting in a card that's both overpriced and underpowered (like...). Of course, it's not really fair to compare a card that's with reviewers now and on the shelves in 2 weeks with a card that has only ever been seen as a mockup on one of nvidia's slides =).devione - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Fair points.I just have an irrational dislike for AIO coolers. I would hope to see custom aire cooled via 3rd party variants, but for a variety of practical reasons I doubt that is going to happen.