ASUS Radeon R9-290X DirectCU II OC review
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-Tj-
so 8% faster and 150-200€ more, idk not worth it.. Also Amd drivers could get a 10-20% boost later, remember GCN1 7970.
R9-290 non x with possible unlock at max 340-380€ is a steal imo 😀
Anarion
^^Zero chance for that here in Finland. Cheapest reference model is 399€ and these custom ones are likely going to be really close to custom GTX 780's. Also I don't believe the custom ones are unlockable.
On air. Did you accidentally read that I hit 1,4 GHz with the GPU? 🤓 Just a bit over 1,2 GHz for the core, pretty typical (although I haven't tested with maximum voltage).
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Interesting...
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/R9-290X-ASUS/R9-290X-ASUS-47.jpg
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/R9-290X-ASUS/R9-290X-ASUS-46.jpg
gunrunner
Don't hold your breath with the unlocking. The % seems fairly low, also then if you were expecting to have top raw power and you purchased a r9 290 that isn't unlockable, you are stuck without the top of the line performance. If thats what you were going for.
Right now, reference r9 290x are going for $620, while a gtx 780 ti is $699 with aftermarket cooling and pcb. gtx 780ti is faster as well.
Koniakki
In the EU a custom 290X and 780Ti are similarly priced.
So I would take the 780Ti any day since they are priced the same.
Now on the 290. Yeap, thats indeed a steal. I saw a couple returned ones going for 350-360euros. They were reference tho but oh boy, was I tempted for a CF FOR 700euros!! You couldn't beat that price/perf! :thumbup:
Loophole35
Not likely to get that bump in performance from drivers again. That is a pipe dream. There will be improvements yes but not the 25-35% jump they got with the 12.11's.
Still neither(290x or 780Ti) have enough performance over the 780 or 290 non-x to justify the huge price premium.
Probably returned because if random black screening would tread lightly on open box R9's.
Anarion
If this costs a lot more than (heck, or more than some OC'd custom GTX 780's), this doesn't seem to be such a good deal.
-Tj-
Yes now for pre-order.
idk why people keep forgetting that, remember 780Ti were 700-750€ for pre-order, now its 575-650€.. Well at least in most German shops, in my local its a disaster though avg 650€, lol i dont buy here anymore.
dragomirc
This review is kind of misleading.
Custom cooled overclocked card compare vs only reference cooled and ctock clocked card is not best way to do it.
Adding other custom cooled/overclocked card would be right way to do it.
Afterall you reviewed GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB OC so it should be presented in all future charts. Apple to apple...
gunrunner
lol if thats true, 94c after 15 min of load? These high overclocks will cause instability. My gtx 780 ti overclocked to 1,240mhz which is about 26% overclock from stock 986mhz doesn't get higher than 72c. Which I just noticed is on this chart 🙂 I mean after the 5.0ghz Amd chip that uses 240watts and can only be watercooled, we should have expected AMD to do just that, try to catch up by launching a power hungry, very hot piece of hardware.
Koniakki
Are you talking about the reference or custom?
Ryu5uzaku
mind its the direct cu on silent. in it's normal working mode it cools the card down just fine and lets one overclock just fine.
gunrunner
Ahh I do see that now, performance stock it is hitting 78c with a performance fan profile. Thanks for pointing that out.
---TK---
doesnt work for me either, though nvidia inspector says I got sammy`s
IcE
I'm pretty sure it only works for AMD cards. Nvidia Inspector is the only way to read memory vendor on Nvidia cards that I know of.
PhazeDelta1
Where at on Inspector? I'm not seeing it.
Pill Monster
Do you mean Nvidia? Hynix chips are used in both AMD and Nvidia cards. AMD don't use Samsung though afaik.
poornaprakash
R9290X is amazing
AMD Radeon R9 290X is now firing all cylinders :bang:
Robbo9999
I think this card looks great - good aesthetics. It's nice that it runs cool and quiet in comparison to the reference designs, but performance wise there doesn't seem to be much of an advantage - overclocking seems limited too. I wonder if it would be possible to overclock this one further, because the temperatures are good. They talk about a power limitation for the overclock - can't that be overridden? That seems to be what's holding this card back from higher voltages & higher overclocks?
Rich_Guy
Another review here :- http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/23/asus_r9_290x_directcu_ii_oc_video_card_review/#.UsIKRLRbdhE
Again showing it to be on par with the 780 Ti. 🙂
---TK---
Hover the mouse on the gdrr5 aka memory type.
