Reviews - Asus Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II OC

[HEXUS]

Can Asus tame the trailblazing Radeon R9 290X?

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[Meowmatt]

The Asus cooler really seems to be rather meh. Basically all the other after-market coolers are better than this one but it remains one of the most expensive...

[3s-gtech]

Despite the price bump to the 780Ti, it's the obvious choice if you're in this area of the market - the noise, temp, power consumption and second-rung performance really hamper this. I hope that AMD can work on a revised version of the 290X that can fulfill its potential to really rival the green cards. Just shows what an awesome card the 780Ti is though.

[abychristy]

In terms of price/performance ratio and the 1440p benchmarks, this card is good value for money but in terms of power consumption, temperature and noise Asus 290X is not that good. I'd rather pick the Sapphire's 290X and they did a great work on that card and perfect for 1440p and 4K if you want that.

[kompukare]

318W vs 360W (780Ti vs this 290X) is not that huge a difference.

But what is more interesting is the big differences different reviewers get:
Asus 290X vs AMD 290X reference vs 780Ti reference
Hexus: 360W vs 277W vs 318W
TechPowerUP 251W vs 271W vs 269W*
Computerbase 421W vs 423W vs 407W
*(note TPU measure card consumption only not the whole system)
Note that each cards wins once!

I guess that's to be expect since a) each reviewer uses a different methodology and b) not all cards are the same as ASIC quality makes a different to voltages and power consumption as GPU-z explains:


Plus the temp the card runs at should make a difference too (higher temp = more leakage) but to really see that would involve taking the exact same card with a constant load (FurMark or Unigine Valley) and setting the fan to constant speed while using a lot of deskfans to get the temp down like that legendary article which Idoncare made on the AT forums a few years ago:
Effect of Temperature on Power-Consumption with the i7-2600K
(there was also a 3770K follow-up)

Any volunteers?

[VijaySathyan]

Nice card. But disappointed by the cooler.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

despite the price bump to the 780ti, it's the obvious choice if you're in this area of the market - the noise, temp, power consumption and second-rung performance really hamper this. I hope that amd can work on a revised version of the 290x that can fulfill its potential to really rival the green cards. Just shows what an awesome card the 780ti is though.

[Hicks12]

Its a new rolo in the making haha.

The 290x is cheaper and very good in performance, bang for buck its better (this asus is rather meh though!). I love the performance of the 290 for the price its pretty solid, cant wait till the 300 series so I can either pick one of these up cheap or grab a new 390 , need it for solid FPS for my oculus rift!

Keep it up AMD

[kompukare]

Any volunteers?

Ok, guess not. So I did some myself!

Gigabyte 7950 running Furmark with its fan set to 20% to aim to hit 95°C for the GPU. Which I did once I played with the core clocks.

FurMark HD7950 running at 800/1400
Without my deskfan: 96°C GPU core and pulling 209W
With deskfan: 78°C GPU core and pulling 192W

Not an ideal test since I had a few issues:

1. My mains power meter gizmo is not great as the loads keep fluctuating (as the should but what I mean ideally it should allow me to grab the total pulled in 5/10/etc. minutes).
2. My 12" deskfan was not powerful to get the temp down below 78°C. I suspect 96°C vs 40°C would see a much bigger difference.

Still think the HT4U.net tests were better but then they have the proper equipment. They were able to reduce the reference 290's power consumption from 289W down to 257W.

[Zeven]

Its a new rolo in the making haha.

The 290x is cheaper and very good in performance, bang for buck its better (this asus is rather meh though!). I love the performance of the 290 for the price its pretty solid, cant wait till the 300 series so I can either pick one of these up cheap or grab a new 390 , need it for solid FPS for my oculus rift!

Keep it up AMD

Do you know when the 300 series will come out, by chance?