AMD R9 290X Review

What if you don't play Battlefield?
the question is do you game on 3x 1920x1080 , cause google : guru3d crysis 3 vram - beacuse i think it is not allowed to give a direct url but maybe i am wrong about that , there you see that crysis 3 - on highest settings ofcourse - uses 2,2gb vram on just 1 1920x1200 , and 3 times 1920x1200 is higher than 3x 1920x1080 so you will have to subtract some vram , but i think crysis 3 uses 4gb vram (i noticed that 3x 1920x1080 uses not 3 times the vram that is needed for 1x 1920x1080 but only 2 times , so 2,2 x 2 is 4,4 minus 10% from 1200 > to 1080 is 4gb) so even a 290x is barely enough , i am glad i took the 6gb 7970 instead of the 3gb standard version

don't know about call of duty ghosts but minimal requirements for hard disk is 40gb , and the rumours are that it uses so much space so you can get lots of goodies on your screen , i think that game may also be a vram hog

i just think my point F is something people should know and maybe look at when they are looking for a gpu upgrade
 
I won't pretend I know how GPU's perform on 3x 1920x1080 screens, but I'd be personally looking for a Titan with three monitors, might not be needed but multi-monitor, or 3x just acts as a switch in my head to think right go for the top.
 
Happy days dude :)

Price cuts are good, a cheaper 780 is a good thing. Also, if Nvidia cut the price of the 780 then hopefully AMD will drop the price of the 290x as well.
Competition is always good, since we (the consumer) are always the winner. I definitely wouldn't say no to a GTX 780 if it came down in price by like 20% or so.

You're already seeing a lack of it in the high end CPU side of things, ie. Intel pretty much planning to coast on Haswell for at least 2 years, maybe even more.
 
Great review Tom, I completely agree with you on this, the fact that a gigabyte GTX 780 WF oc is £479.99 I honestly can't see why you would buy the 290x. Unless of course you're going to water cool it.

I had high hopes for the 290x, performance is good but the cooling is naff. Hopefully third party vendors will release the card with their coolers.

The best value/performance card out there is this imo:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-225-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigaby...xpress-3-0-hdmi-oc-8Y96.html?q=GTX 780&src=16

Edit: £399.95 for a 7990?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-327-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1515

£371
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-...ffers344&utm_source=scanshot&utm_medium=email

If you don't mind a dual gpu then that's one hell of a deal.
 
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Great review Tom, I completely agree with you on this, the fact that a gigabyte GTX 780 WF oc is £479.99 I honestly can't see why you would buy the 290x. Unless of course you're going to water cool it.

I had high hopes for the 290x, performance is good but the cooling is naff. Hopefully third party vendors will release the card with their coolers.

The best value/performance card out there is this imo:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-225-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigaby...xpress-3-0-hdmi-oc-8Y96.html?q=GTX 780&src=16

Edit: £399.95 for a 7990?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-327-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1515

£371
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-...ffers344&utm_source=scanshot&utm_medium=email

If you don't mind a dual gpu then that's one hell of a deal.
I hadn't seen the Scan one (without the PSU)!

I will say though that OcUK will deal with the warranty for the full 3 years on the Asus card though (and you get what is basically a 14 day DSR period).

It's also possible to get an MSI (I think) 290X on dabs.com for around £390 with a voucher code (from www.hukd.com).
 
Don't understand the 'TTL=nVidia fanboi' business around the 'net. They need to spend more time on OC3D. If he were Vulcan, he'd still bleed red when cut :p

People looking at this card wrong, imo (looking at it from an enthusiast pov). It has the performance, doesn't have the looks ? (like I'd personally care about that), price at launch is ok for a higher end card.

If you particularly want one - so it get's hot..... be prepared to do something about it then!

My cpu get's hot when I clock the sheet out of it!

Look forward to seening the pro-overclockers getting there hands on them and churning out stats to compare with the 780/Titan. Like to see where the world records come from myself.
 
What also bothers me is I saw some comments saying that everyone in OC3D is an Nvidia fanboy. Ummmmm I'm pretty sure we're less fanboy than the majority of sites out there... :confused:
 
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To be fair it did look pretty bad in the review video when instead of reviewing the 290x most of the time was spent showing Nvidia cards and during the whole of the conclusion having 2x 780 boxes and a Titan box clearly on display as if he was advertising them.

I know Tom isn't a fanboy, but you can't deny that doing the vid in that way makes it look like he is. The review and points brought up could have been done without including the Nvidia cards and the points about the cooler could still have been made.
 
His reviews are always like that, You cant do a review without comparisons.

Whether the Nvidia cooler is better or not, the review is for a 290x. The cooler could have been discussed and opinions given on it without throwing three Nvidia cards in there. And there was certainly no reason to have the Nvidia boxes displayed the way they were in the conclusion. Fair enough discuss the differences between the cards and coolers in the conclusion but as for the review itself, it should have been based on how the card and cooler performs without comparisons to Nvidia cards. There is a difference between a review and a comparison.

How do you expect people to respond to something like that?

As I said, I know Tom isn't a fanboy but for other people watching the vid how do you expect them to react to a review about a AMD card with more screen time and talk about Nvidia cards than the actual AMD card itself?
 
If their goal is to dethrone nVidia of course the reviewer should tell if the card meets that goal.
 
You have a direct cu2.. anyone who has experienced the vacuum will completly understand where hes coming from. AMD deserved to get there asses kicked for it the thing is appalingly bad. Everyone gave them the ok maybe next time approach with the 7xxx series. They failed to do so for 3 generations now. Time for some whipping I think.
 
I just think AMD should've paid someone else to design the cooler. I think sapphire or gigabyte could've done a great job on it.
 
I just think AMD should've paid someone else to design the cooler. I think sapphire or gigabyte could've done a great job on it.

they tried to be nvidia and this is the result. it really is a shame because now they will still be behind nvidia till 2014, that's already 3/4 of a year behind.
 
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