AMD R9 290X Review

[barnsley]

conclusion for AMD in my opinon: parts for people who don't want to spend a whole lot of money and aren't interested in anything older than 3 years.

Or rather they have budgetary constraints. That is an abysmal experience you got right there D: . In terms of games that are older, Arma 2 and GTA IV are both older than three years and they run fine for me. Heck isn't crisis 1 older than three years as well now? You're definatly right about the three year rule for the bulldozer chips though, piledrivers (my friend has a 4300/7850 and he plays those games fine) seem to cope (arma 2 can be a pain for 4350 and below) /do well with those games.


Also I wonder if the PCB is a browny-black? People with asrock boards rejoice, something else has a brown 'board thing!

 

[Wraith]

Excellent no holds barred review TTL I'll wait and see what the wizards at Gigabyte can do with the Windforce cooler.

 

[ugiboy]

AMD290X Fastest single GPU available today

I have spent the last six hours reading reviews on AMD's flagship card. Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective gives it his Gold award. Tom's Hardware's Chris Angelini gives it the "Elite award—the first time a graphics card has received this honor, I believe, during my tenure." Elric, Tech of tomorrow agrees. Why does this review seem to contradict the general consensus? At this price it has to be better "Bang for Buck" than "The Green Team" at the moment. What will the GTX780 TI bring to the table????

 

[SeekaX]

Or rather they have budgetary constraints. That is an abysmal experience you got right there D: . In terms of games that are older, Arma 2 and GTA IV are both older than three years and they run fine for me. Heck isn't crisis 1 older than three years as well now? You're definatly right about the three year rule for the bulldozer chips though, piledrivers (my friend has a 4300/7850 and he plays those games fine) seem to cope (arma 2 can be a pain for 4350 and below) /do well with those games.


Also I wonder if the PCB is a browny-black? People with asrock boards rejoice, something else has a brown 'board thing!

heck i have budgetary constraints, but i rather wait a couple months longer than getting half arsed stuff.
it wasn't the CPU causing the artifacts in quake/cod4 and the horrible framerate in bc2 because the 6870 dealt with those games perfectly fine.

 

[Ghosthud1]

I think it's a little too early to take a side to be honest, I've waited months and i can wait some more, be it green or red i want the side that offers me the best performance for my money.

Company gimmicks such as PhysX and Mantle will not help determine my choice, it's raw performance data that will.

The AMD card is a solid performer but comes with that stupid headache of a cooler. I use open headphones so i don't want to have a jet taking off next to me for my gaming sessions.

If what Tom said was true about the aftermarket parts then it's a shame really as it doesn't take a genius to notice how much of a fumble that cooler really is.

I come to OC3D first to get an unbiased look at technology and that's what i got, i agree with most points and i disagree with others.

Overall i think the card deserves a lesser award and i think the stance Tom took is greatly appreciated, he isn't hating on AMD for the sake of it, he's pointing out cold hard facts.

 

[WYP]

I have spent the last six hours reading reviews on AMD's flagship card. Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective gives it his Gold award. Tom's Hardware's Chris Angelini gives it the "Elite award—the first time a graphics card has received this honor, I believe, during my tenure." Elric, Tech of tomorrow agrees. Why does this review seem to contradict the general consensus? At this price it has to be better "Bang for Buck" than "The Green Team" at the moment. What will the GTX780 TI bring to the table????

its an odd release, the reviews i have read generally are good.

those who do 4k testing love this card, those who use 1080p testing think its good bang per buck but not a TITAN-KILLER. Cooling issues aside these cards seem generally well received.

hopefully a few aftermarket designs come out for this card and put this cooling disaster behind us.

 

[SuB]

I have spent the last six hours reading reviews on AMD's flagship card. Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective gives it his Gold award. Tom's Hardware's Chris Angelini gives it the "Elite award—the first time a graphics card has received this honor, I believe, during my tenure." Elric, Tech of tomorrow agrees. Why does this review seem to contradict the general consensus? At this price it has to be better "Bang for Buck" than "The Green Team" at the moment. What will the GTX780 TI bring to the table????

are you trying to be a walking advert or something?

 

[d3rrial]

Interesting would be to know how well it does Litecoin mining and Folding

 

[ugiboy]

I am not on either team, before I got 7970's I had (and still have for sale) 2 x 590's. I just point out what I am reading.

 

[SeekaX]

I am not on either team, before I got 7970's I had (and still have for sale) 2 x 590's. I just point out what I am reading.

well the second you mentioned elric the entire thing got kinda invalid.

 

[barnsley]

heck i have budgetary constraints, but i rather wait a couple months longer than getting half arsed stuff.
it wasn't the CPU causing the artifacts in quake/cod4 and the horrible framerate in bc2 because the 6870 dealt with those games perfectly fine.

I saved for a while to get my rig I have now, probably because unlike you I couldn't just keep adding better bits on (such as cpu cooler, ram, case etc although I could get the graphics card) due to the Dell motherboard of my old pc being a pain in the butt. For builds on behalf of friends I only use AMD up to a point. If they have more than £600 for everything (monitor etc) I will use intel. In all honesty all the people I've done builds for with AMD parts haven't had a problem. The same can't be said for Nvidia and in terms of intel builds, all of the ones I have done have had 3770s or greater so obviously no problems in terms of performance but then again I would expect nothing less than chips costing upwards of 150.


-edit- Yeah Elric isn't the best out there and while I don't mind him, there is only so much I can take from a man who endorses Thermaltakky.

 

[ugiboy]

Elric was actually the third person I quoted. This is not my opinion, I will post that when i have purchased one.

 

[Zoot]

You know, this actually reminds me of the days of the HD4870.

Nvidia brought out the GTX 200 series and charged jaw dropping prices for them, then AMD came along with the HD4870, which really decisively beat Nvidia's top offering of the time; the GTX 280, while costing significantly less. I actually went away and bought one back then (~5 years ago), as it was the best bang-for-buck card at the time. Nvidia was then forced into a price war in response, I think we saw up to 50% price cuts at the time from them in response. :lol:

I suspect we're going to see the same with the GTX 760, 770, 780 & Titan. Yay competition! It's going to be an interesting Xmas when it comes to those of us shopping for a new GPU.

 

[ugiboy]

I hope you are right, I agree 100%. Bring it on!

 

[SeekaX]

You know, this actually reminds me of the days of the HD4870.

Nvidia brought out the GTX 200 series and charged jaw dropping prices for them, then AMD came along with the HD4870, which really decisively beat Nvidia's top offering of the time; the GTX 280, while costing significantly less. I actually went away and bought one back then (~5 years ago), as it was the best bang-for-buck card at the time. Nvidia was then forced into a price war in response, I think we saw up to 50% price cuts at the time from them in response. :lol:

I suspect we're going to see the same with the GTX 760, 770, 780 & Titan. Yay competition! It's going to be an interesting Xmas when it comes to those of us shopping for a new GPU.

but...the 290x doesn't beat the 780 and it's not that much cheaper either. nvidia has currently got no reason to drop prices. nvidia is general isn't forced to do anything by AMD, let's not forget that the only reason AMD still is in the GPU business is that nvidia released their 660ti as the 680 in response to the 7970, who knows what else they hide in their pockets because AMD doesn't challenge them enough to play with open cards.

 

[SieB]

At the end of the day the 290x is a very good performing bang for your buck card.

It has a shit cooler, doesn't change the fact it is a good card. Aftermarket coolers will fix the temps.

Also, like Tom said in the video the card is designed to run at 95c so temps are not high if that is what the card is designed to run at.

He also said that the reason temps stay high for so long is because the fans drop right down strait away not staying high enough to cool the card. This can be fixed by making a fan profile in MSI Afterburner.

I think the vid was a bit OTT when basically it's supposed to be a 290x review but turned into Nvidia makes better coolers than AMD discussion. And having two 780 boxes and a Titan box clearly on show during the conclusion to take the piss was a bit OTT as well.

There was no need for any of that and it could of been a vid on the 290x without throwing Nvidia cards in there. The issues with the cooler could have still been discussed without the "oh look how shiny and pretty he Nvida cooler is compared to the AMD one"

I don't take sides on GPU manufacturers or any other product, I just buy what is the best for my money at the time of buying.

To say the 290x is a bad card is wrong, it has a bad cooler and runs hotter. It still beats the Titan and is £350 cheaper. There is no denying that without aftermarket coolers for the 290x, the 780 for only £30 more is the better buy.

 

[Zoot]

but...the 290x doesn't beat the 780 and it's not that much cheaper either. nvidia has currently got no reason to drop prices. nvidia is general isn't forced to do anything by AMD, let's not forget that the only reason AMD still is in the GPU business is that nvidia released their 660ti as the 680 in response to the 7970, who knows what else they hide in their pockets because AMD doesn't challenge them enough to play with open cards.

According to the majority of other reviews it seems to hang quite well with even the Titan.
http://techreport.com/review/25509/amd-radeon-r9-290x-graphics-card-reviewed
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review
Others too...

Sure there isn't much of a difference between the 780 and 290X in terms of pricing, but it seems to be hanging with the Titan despite costing slightly more than half as much, that's a kick in the pants for Nvidia whatever way you look at it.

 

[SeekaX]

According to the majority of other reviews it seems to hang quite well with even the Titan.
http://techreport.com/review/25509/amd-radeon-r9-290x-graphics-card-reviewed
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review
Others too...

Sure there isn't much of a difference between the 780 and 290X in terms of pricing, but it seems to be hanging with the Titan despite costing slightly more than half as much, that's a kick in the pants for Nvidia whatever way you look at it.

the 780 outperforms a titan when overclocked, did nvidia now kick themselves in the balls? the only one that got kicked in the balls is AMD for getting completely kicked out of the highend market for half a year and now they didn't even take the crown, so they can now do their price battle thing with nvidia till they decide to wreck them with the 8xx which will happen in about 6 months i'd say.

 

[Zoot]

I don't take sides on GPU manufacturers or any other product, I just buy what is the best for my money at the time of buying.

I'm the same, I've owned cards from both camps, with actually more from Nvidia rather than AMD.

CPUs on the other hand, I'm a major AMD fan, no Intel in this house. Although that's more because of a lack of courtesy from said company, certainly not because of their products performance, that I can't argue with.

the 780 outperforms a titan when overclocked, did nvidia now kick themselves in the balls? the only one that got kicked in the balls is AMD for getting completely kicked out of the highend market for half a year and now they didn't even take the crown, so they can now do their price battle thing with nvidia till they decide to wreck them with the 8xx which will happen in about 6 months i'd say.

As I look back the thread, I see you've done your fair share of anti-AMD ranting. Whatever dude, I'm not going to argue with you, you're entitled to your opinion like everyone else, I ain't going to attempt changing it.

Anyway, I stand by my prediction of some nice chunky Nvidia price cuts.

 

[antihero]

Sorry had to do it

I wonder what the ASIC on that thing is. :lol: