Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

The most interesting thing about the R9 290 is the fact that is is a slightly slower 290X, yet is 100 EUR cheaper in price. That's going to make a lot of people really happy is realistically this product is gonna perform really well for the money. And yeah, again this is a value for money product. The R9 290 will manage all performance scores in pretty much any game to date really well and with that much rendering power it will bring options to the table. You play your games at 2560x1440 and flick on every quality setting that you can think of. Even then the card will do a terrific job. For the few of you that already made the step towards UHD or 4K gaming at 3840 x 2160 that where these card do make sense. Admittedly just one 290 would probably be borderline acceptable when you select the finest image quality settings. So I for-see that the Ultra High Definition games simply will go for two R9-290 cards setup in Crossfire, which would be my recommendation. The product is often as fast or faster than a GeForce GTX 780 whilst it is going to be priced a good chunk below the GeForce GTX 780. So that in retrospect means (even at this price level) performance for money. Honestly I am really excited to see prices below 399 EUR (incl VAT) for this powerhouse of a graphics card.
 

Cooling and noise levels

The cooling itself wellm you can't complain about but it definitely could have been better. New for the R9-290 series are of course the temperature targets that AMD now is using. The default setting for this will a rather high 94 degrees C, this is configurable though. If you like to have a temperature target of 80 Degrees C you can select that, but at the cost of performance. But sure, what brings flexibility and a nice balance in-between performance, power consumption and temperature. Honestly the R290 and X reminds me a little of the GTX 480. Most of you would however prefer something a little lower temperature wise. You can obviously change the temperature target of the fan RPM yourself. In idle you cannot hear the cooling solution and under stress, well you can hear airflow but that's it. The R9 290 will become a bit noisy once it passes a certain RPM threshold, admittedly it takes the R9 290 a longer time to reach that point then the 290X. So that at the very least is a bit of an advantage. But yeah, average noise levels would sum it up well. 

AMD On This: We have designed the 290 Series to operate at a steady state of 95C. By running at 95C, we are both maximizing the performance and minimizing the acoustics of the product. Be assured, that 95C is a perfectly safe temperature at which the GPU can operate for its entire life. There is no technical reason to reduce the target temperature below 95C. 

Power consumption

Honestly, I expected worse, power consumption is not bad, the card is rated by us having a 250~260 Watt TDP. That a bit on the high side, but in perspective, it is close to say a GTX 780 or Titan. So that definitely could have been worse. I think enthusiast consumers at this performance level will not mind that much about the power draw and be forgiving. 250+ Watt TDP will make running multi-GPU solutions a bit more complicated. With two cards we think an 800~900 Watt PSU would be sufficient. So yeah, it's not great to have a GPU consuming that much power, but it could have been a lot worse.

Game performance

The AMD R9 290 can be compared to the GTX 780 performance wise quite well, and that is a nice spot to be in considering you are just using one GPU. Don't forget that you will receive a free copy of Battlefield 4 (Deluxe version with extras and DLC) as well with certain SKUs. Performance wise really there's not one game that won't run seriously good at either of the cards, and that is at the very best image quality settings. And you do it all with a nice 30" monitor of course, at 2560x1440/1600. I mean BioShock infinite at Ultra quality levels is still oozing out 55+ FPS there. Or what about Hitman Absolution with 60+ FPS at 2560x1600 High quality and 2xMSAA?  It's really nice performance. And especially for those with Ultra High Definition gaming in mind, the 290 will make a lot of sense with two 290 cards setup in Crossfire. That would be a sweet spot and you'd have 4 GB of graphics memory per GPU, nice! On game performance, I noticed some media reviews with far greater performance differences, they probably have not updated their GeForce results with new driver. We have been using the latest GeForce 331.58 WHQL Driver with the GeForce GTX 780 and Titan, just so that you know, ok?

Overclocking

Overclocking then, a thing or two have changed, the new boost modes for example. Just set your BIOS at Uber mode and disable that stuff. You will now have 50% extra on the power limiter and can play around with a fixed core and memory frequency. I applaud AMD for giving us enthusiasts the option for that Uber mode, NVIDIA can learn from that. Voltage tweaking still needs to be supported by the tweaking tools though with these heat levels we do not advise it unless you water cool the product. These GPUs can take 1050~1075 MHz fairly well but after then run into problems really fast. But at that stage you added another 10% performance which is nice. The memory can definitely take 5.5 Gbps, but not a lot higher. Please do read-up on what I noted with overclocking through CCC, we highly recommend against it.

Price and final words 

The 28nm 6.2 Billion transistor based GPUs empowering the 290 and 290X will be a tough cookie to bake. We expect low yields and thus high wafer prices. As such we think the 290 and 290X cards will become available in perhaps multiple thousands in the first weeks then maybe 10K~20K in the first batched and we are sure we'll see additional batches fairly soon depending on sales.

Pricing wise you can expect this:

This is all based on MSRP, street/retail and etail prices as such will vary when time passes. Included with selected SKUs until stock runs out will be a download coupon for Battlefield 4 Deluxe Edition, including all DLC and I think some extra weapons. Sound like really good pricing, eh? That's even a serious chunk cheaper then GTX 780. And considering the R290 is continuously at 780 like performance levels I think you guys will definitely like these cards.
 

Concluding

Overall I am very impressed with the R9-290/290X cards that AMD brought to the table. And hey 6.2 Billion transistors baked at a 28nm fabrication is an accomplishment all by itself. The end-result is a product that can compete with the GeForce GTX 780 and Titan really well, and hey that is what it's all about. Pricing is obviously trivial here and AMD is playing theit best card card with a 399 USD /349 EUR pricetag, this card offers incredible value for money. So thanks to that low price the most interesting product for us guru's will be the R9 290m in fact it is so intersting that you need to wonder why you should buy the X model. The 'regular' 290 is an attractive product with 4GB of graphics memory that will bring a truckload of gaming performance into your PC. Good value for money, and at this price it is the one to get. As such we can and will seriously recommend it and give even this reference product an award for great value !

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