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AMD Radeon R9-290 review





We review the AMD Radeon R9-290. We'll benchmark these cards with FCAT Frametimes, Ultra High Definition and of course we'll check out game performance with the latest games next to power consumption and heat levels as well. This is one review you don't want to miss! The new second to best flagship product has been long awaited and anticipated. The Radeon R9-290 will compete with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780. The card as such is a beast. As such this in-depth review will cover the Volcanic Islands GPU architecture, Hawaii for the 290 series.
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· Radeon R9-290X Crossfire vs GeForce GTX 780 SLI review »
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lmimmfn
Senior Member
Posts: 10288
Senior Member
Posts: 10288
Posted on: 11/06/2013 01:01 PM
Reading around the web, the stocks fan profile of the 290 is 47%, whereas the 290x is 40%, this is probably why the 290 is showing faster sometimes, makes me wonder what the performance difference is with the fans on both at the same speed.
We are testing a HIS as well, no differences.
Reading around the web, the stocks fan profile of the 290 is 47%, whereas the 290x is 40%, this is probably why the 290 is showing faster sometimes, makes me wonder what the performance difference is with the fans on both at the same speed.
Rich_Guy
Senior Member
Posts: 11752
Senior Member
Posts: 11752
Posted on: 11/06/2013 01:50 PM
I saw that one, got mightly tempted, but im resisting for the customs
Yeah, plus theres no uber or quiet modes on the 290s either.
in 7 weeks (xmas) the reference 290 will be under £300 (you can already buy the reference Sapphire r9 290 for £309, free delivery). I'm guessing a half decent 290 will be under £350. A dual-x or similar. Top models will cost more.
I saw that one, got mightly tempted, but im resisting for the customs

Reading around the web, the stocks fan profile of the 290 is 47%, whereas the 290x is 40%, this is probably why the 290 is showing faster sometimes, makes me wonder what the performance difference is with the fans on both at the same speed.
Yeah, plus theres no uber or quiet modes on the 290s either.
Rich_Guy
Senior Member
Posts: 11752
Senior Member
Posts: 11752
Posted on: 11/06/2013 04:16 PM
Yeah seen that, talking about AMD giving reviewers 'Golden Samples'.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-2.html
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=90345
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33066-toms-finds-retail-r9-290x-card-runs-much-slower
Can you do a review of the card with aftermarket cooling and some OC. tomshardware had a review where the retail version was different(slower) than the ones in reviews. So the most reliable results are the ones with a solid cooler. 

Yeah seen that, talking about AMD giving reviewers 'Golden Samples'.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-2.html
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=90345
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33066-toms-finds-retail-r9-290x-card-runs-much-slower
Cooper
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Posted on: 11/06/2013 05:36 PM
I'm hoping for a new "AMD presents the fixer" video where the fixer destroys 780/Titan and installs 290/290X.
Shove your 1K cards wherever you want NV. Now AMD is the one who knocks.
I'm hoping for a new "AMD presents the fixer" video where the fixer destroys 780/Titan and installs 290/290X.
Shove your 1K cards wherever you want NV. Now AMD is the one who knocks.

PhoBos82
Member
Posts: 33
Member
Posts: 33
Posted on: 11/10/2013 08:46 PM
nVidia is still producing more efficient, faster cards. However for the price AMD cannot be beat. And it seems price matters more with this generation of cards rather than maxing out FPS. AMD is on the right track and understands what majority of the market is looking for.
nVidia is still producing more efficient, faster cards. However for the price AMD cannot be beat. And it seems price matters more with this generation of cards rather than maxing out FPS. AMD is on the right track and understands what majority of the market is looking for.
negachampa
Member
Posts: 62
Member
Posts: 62
Posted on: 11/12/2013 01:15 AM
I just upgraded from gtx 680 sli to 3 290 in trifire. Wow these card are fast. Able to max bf 4 with the resolution slider at 150% at 2560x1600 Above 60fps. What a sight to behold. Very impressive.
Plus 3 x 290 costs less then two 780ti with way faster performance and more vram. Can't go wrong with that.
They do run hot though, I have all 3 cards at 1075mhz stable at full load. But to maintain 90 c I need to set the fan at 80% max. It is noisy but I sit about 15 feet away from my rig so it doesn't bother me.
If you can overcome the heat and noise these cards are extreme value.
I have been a long time nvidia fan but have no regrets with switching to amd.
Also I was concerned about doing trifire and all the possible issues but tbh the framepacing works great on all the games so far I have tested other the. Cod ghost which I hear is having lots of crossfire issues right now. Will wait for new drivers for it.
I just upgraded from gtx 680 sli to 3 290 in trifire. Wow these card are fast. Able to max bf 4 with the resolution slider at 150% at 2560x1600 Above 60fps. What a sight to behold. Very impressive.
Plus 3 x 290 costs less then two 780ti with way faster performance and more vram. Can't go wrong with that.
They do run hot though, I have all 3 cards at 1075mhz stable at full load. But to maintain 90 c I need to set the fan at 80% max. It is noisy but I sit about 15 feet away from my rig so it doesn't bother me.
If you can overcome the heat and noise these cards are extreme value.
I have been a long time nvidia fan but have no regrets with switching to amd.
Also I was concerned about doing trifire and all the possible issues but tbh the framepacing works great on all the games so far I have tested other the. Cod ghost which I hear is having lots of crossfire issues right now. Will wait for new drivers for it.
yasamoka
Member
Posts: 4443
Member
Posts: 4443
Posted on: 11/12/2013 01:50 AM
I just upgraded from gtx 680 sli to 3 290 in trifire. Wow these card are fast. Able to max bf 4 with the resolution slider at 150% at 2560x1600 Above 60fps. What a sight to behold. Very impressive.
Plus 3 x 290 costs less then two 780ti with way faster performance and more vram. Can't go wrong with that.
They do run hot though, I have all 3 cards at 1075mhz stable at full load. But to maintain 90 c I need to set the fan at 80% max. It is noisy but I sit about 15 feet away from my rig so it doesn't bother me.
If you can overcome the heat and noise these cards are extreme value.
I have been a long time nvidia fan but have no regrets with switching to amd.
Also I was concerned about doing trifire and all the possible issues but tbh the framepacing works great on all the games so far I have tested other the. Cod ghost which I hear is having lots of crossfire issues right now. Will wait for new drivers for it.
I haven't seen any trifire microstutter testing recently for the new AMD cards. Now it's going to be really hard to bring them down to 60FPS @ 1600p, but (especially) once you dip below 60FPS, VSync off, in a GPU-limited scenario (GPU usage maxed out), does the game feel = reported FPS?
This is a subjective test I guess, but whatever.
I just upgraded from gtx 680 sli to 3 290 in trifire. Wow these card are fast. Able to max bf 4 with the resolution slider at 150% at 2560x1600 Above 60fps. What a sight to behold. Very impressive.
Plus 3 x 290 costs less then two 780ti with way faster performance and more vram. Can't go wrong with that.
They do run hot though, I have all 3 cards at 1075mhz stable at full load. But to maintain 90 c I need to set the fan at 80% max. It is noisy but I sit about 15 feet away from my rig so it doesn't bother me.
If you can overcome the heat and noise these cards are extreme value.
I have been a long time nvidia fan but have no regrets with switching to amd.
Also I was concerned about doing trifire and all the possible issues but tbh the framepacing works great on all the games so far I have tested other the. Cod ghost which I hear is having lots of crossfire issues right now. Will wait for new drivers for it.
I haven't seen any trifire microstutter testing recently for the new AMD cards. Now it's going to be really hard to bring them down to 60FPS @ 1600p, but (especially) once you dip below 60FPS, VSync off, in a GPU-limited scenario (GPU usage maxed out), does the game feel = reported FPS?
This is a subjective test I guess, but whatever.
Deathchild
Senior Member
Posts: 3971
Senior Member
Posts: 3971
Posted on: 11/12/2013 02:05 AM
Damn can't wait for those custom cards. Maybe I'll sell this 7950 and go single 290 lol, although.. I could get a 2nd 7950 quite a bit cheaper.. which would give me a lot more performance. 7950 crossfire ftw tbh..
I just upgraded from gtx 680 sli to 3 290 in trifire. Wow these card are fast. Able to max bf 4 with the resolution slider at 150% at 2560x1600 Above 60fps. What a sight to behold. Very impressive.
Plus 3 x 290 costs less then two 780ti with way faster performance and more vram. Can't go wrong with that.
They do run hot though, I have all 3 cards at 1075mhz stable at full load. But to maintain 90 c I need to set the fan at 80% max. It is noisy but I sit about 15 feet away from my rig so it doesn't bother me.
If you can overcome the heat and noise these cards are extreme value.
I have been a long time nvidia fan but have no regrets with switching to amd.
Also I was concerned about doing trifire and all the possible issues but tbh the framepacing works great on all the games so far I have tested other the. Cod ghost which I hear is having lots of crossfire issues right now. Will wait for new drivers for it.
Nice upgrade man, maybe you can put em on water?
Damn can't wait for those custom cards. Maybe I'll sell this 7950 and go single 290 lol, although.. I could get a 2nd 7950 quite a bit cheaper.. which would give me a lot more performance. 7950 crossfire ftw tbh..
I just upgraded from gtx 680 sli to 3 290 in trifire. Wow these card are fast. Able to max bf 4 with the resolution slider at 150% at 2560x1600 Above 60fps. What a sight to behold. Very impressive.
Plus 3 x 290 costs less then two 780ti with way faster performance and more vram. Can't go wrong with that.
They do run hot though, I have all 3 cards at 1075mhz stable at full load. But to maintain 90 c I need to set the fan at 80% max. It is noisy but I sit about 15 feet away from my rig so it doesn't bother me.
If you can overcome the heat and noise these cards are extreme value.
I have been a long time nvidia fan but have no regrets with switching to amd.
Also I was concerned about doing trifire and all the possible issues but tbh the framepacing works great on all the games so far I have tested other the. Cod ghost which I hear is having lots of crossfire issues right now. Will wait for new drivers for it.
Nice upgrade man, maybe you can put em on water?
negachampa
Member
Posts: 62
Member
Posts: 62
Posted on: 11/12/2013 03:11 AM
Yeah , I was trying to find any info on trifire R9 but there does not seem to be much out there right now. I guess cause it is still so new, I figured that I would take the plunge and if it didn't work well I would just sell one of the cards. As for the microstutter below 60fps, some games are better then others but generally I have not noticed any more stuttering then my previous Nvidia cards. I have been running SLI Nvidia cards for like the past 5 gens, so this AMD microstutter is new to me but I do not find it to be an issue at all. Mind you I have not tested many older games but so far , BF4, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3 , SWTOR, Metro 2033, all run super smooth no issues.
When I first got them installed and finished re-installing win 8.1, it took me a bit to figure out my way around the amd drivers but one big thing I noticed with framepacing was it works much better to enable v-sync though CCC and not in the game. I found that many games I would enable v-sync in would conflict with the framepacing and I noticed the micro-stutter. However I found that in all the games I tested forcing v-sync in CCC , framepacing worked much better. I would imagine that framepacing and v-sync are sync'd some how.
Thanks man, yeah water crossed my mind for sure, the only draw back to these cards are how hot they run. The only thing making me second guess about water is void warranty (HIS cards have 2 years and these cards run so hot that I might need that warranty =), also about re-sale value. I am a sucker for new tech so I know in about in a year or so i will try to sell and upgrade again. It is easier to sell un-modded cards then ones that are.
Although I do believe until I make the switch to 4k ( can't see that until at least 2 years for the panels to become affordable ) I will not need to think about upgrading.
Also one other main factor that made me switch to the red team is Mantle.... I think this is a big question mark that could have a huge plus to AMD, if developers use it. Also, i know they will have lots of driver optimizations over the next while for the R9 series. The 780 drivers are pretty mature right now and can't see much more optimizations with them.
I haven't seen any trifire microstutter testing recently for the new AMD cards. Now it's going to be really hard to bring them down to 60FPS @ 1600p, but (especially) once you dip below 60FPS, VSync off, in a GPU-limited scenario (GPU usage maxed out), does the game feel = reported FPS?
This is a subjective test I guess, but whatever.
This is a subjective test I guess, but whatever.
Yeah , I was trying to find any info on trifire R9 but there does not seem to be much out there right now. I guess cause it is still so new, I figured that I would take the plunge and if it didn't work well I would just sell one of the cards. As for the microstutter below 60fps, some games are better then others but generally I have not noticed any more stuttering then my previous Nvidia cards. I have been running SLI Nvidia cards for like the past 5 gens, so this AMD microstutter is new to me but I do not find it to be an issue at all. Mind you I have not tested many older games but so far , BF4, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3 , SWTOR, Metro 2033, all run super smooth no issues.
When I first got them installed and finished re-installing win 8.1, it took me a bit to figure out my way around the amd drivers but one big thing I noticed with framepacing was it works much better to enable v-sync though CCC and not in the game. I found that many games I would enable v-sync in would conflict with the framepacing and I noticed the micro-stutter. However I found that in all the games I tested forcing v-sync in CCC , framepacing worked much better. I would imagine that framepacing and v-sync are sync'd some how.
Nice upgrade man, maybe you can put em on water?
Thanks man, yeah water crossed my mind for sure, the only draw back to these cards are how hot they run. The only thing making me second guess about water is void warranty (HIS cards have 2 years and these cards run so hot that I might need that warranty =), also about re-sale value. I am a sucker for new tech so I know in about in a year or so i will try to sell and upgrade again. It is easier to sell un-modded cards then ones that are.
Although I do believe until I make the switch to 4k ( can't see that until at least 2 years for the panels to become affordable ) I will not need to think about upgrading.
Also one other main factor that made me switch to the red team is Mantle.... I think this is a big question mark that could have a huge plus to AMD, if developers use it. Also, i know they will have lots of driver optimizations over the next while for the R9 series. The 780 drivers are pretty mature right now and can't see much more optimizations with them.
Blackops_2
Senior Member
Posts: 319
Senior Member
Posts: 319
Posted on: 11/12/2013 09:25 AM
290x but none the less impressive.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1436635/ocn-gk110-vs-hawaii-bench-off-thread/1090#post_21166617
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/1127196
watercooled
290x Gpu clock: 1340/1740
3960x Cpu clock: 5.1ghz
Gpu Score: 6912
Physics Score: 18131
Overall Score: 6639

290x but none the less impressive.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1436635/ocn-gk110-vs-hawaii-bench-off-thread/1090#post_21166617
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/1127196
watercooled
290x Gpu clock: 1340/1740
3960x Cpu clock: 5.1ghz
Gpu Score: 6912
Physics Score: 18131
Overall Score: 6639
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Senior Member
Posts: 4902
Dont really fancy reference card. Would rather wait a little bit for the aftermarket coolers!