Reviews - AMD Radeon R9 290X

[MustardCutter]

It looks like my 560Ti is finally gonna get replaced! Need to see what happens with nvidia's pricing and non-reference coolers on this card first though and of course what mantle can do for BF4 on the 290x. This looks to be one hell of a bargain beast but the high temps and noise make me a little nervous...

[sirtrouserpress]

Seems like I'll be getting my self one (or two ) of these!

[valhar2000]

Well...

Though this is undeniably a great card with an even better price tag, I am a little disappointed. The specs that had been released hinted that it would beat the Titan, but it has not.

It still a much better buy than the Titan, as it gives much better value for money, but it would have been cool if it had beaten it in terms of pure performance.

[kalniel]

Well...

Though this is undeniably a great card with an even better price tag, I am a little disappointed. The specs that had been released hinted that it would beat the Titan, but it has not.

It still a much better buy than the Titan, as it gives much better value for money, but it would have been cool if it had beaten it in terms of pure performance.

It does beat Titan in pure performance, and costs half as much. What's not to like?

[davemaster000]

This one is really fast and has a great pricing, now I will wait for nVidia's move.

[GoodZE]

AMD doing big things just before Christmas, I would wait to see what NVidia's response will be, and then start the GFX upgrades

[3dcandy]

What's the compute performance like? I'll get me coat...

[Dooms]

As CAT-THE-FIFTH linked a list of non-reference cards can be found here but there doesn't seem to be any reviews as of yet.

My mistake! They are just rebranded reference cards boooo!

[Lil-Diabo]

This does make things interesting... Very interesting.
Great price point too, hopefully nVidia will bring along a price drop

Personally I'm gonna hold on to my 680 and probably shop around for a another second hand one
(Hopefully the early adopters will be selling their cards for cheap)

Read some of the reviews, and noticed that resolution plays a big role.
At the ridiculously high resolutions (4K) the 290x does take the lead
The lower resolutions not so much with the gap being much smaller and in some cases the GTX taking the lead

[MrJim]

Prices seem to be from around 440 quid:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=18551534

This seems around the same as the HD7970 and does make the Geforce Titan quite expensive looking in comparison.

Seems that Scan are doing a bit of price gouging at the moment, if those Overclockers prices are accurate:

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-...(2560-streams)

Kudos to AMD for releasing the 290X at such a competitive price - I'll be waiting for custom designs with a better cooler though, personally. What's almost as exciting is the effect the 290X will have on the rest of the market; nVidia's prices are now in dire need of 'correction'.

[Kumagoro]

Is the die size officially out? Is it as small a what was previously stated?

if so and they have good yeilds I can't see nvidia being able to compete on price and maintain margins.

[Kushan]

HEXUS praised AMD like god. Even the load temp is ridiculously high the reviewer is still giving "Designed to run this hot". ROFL. How about a card that does not throttle that much and runs cool like the 780? 30% constant load performance penalty is just unacceptable.

Did you bother reading the rest of the review? Hexus made it quite clear that they DON'T like seeing the card run this hot and see it as a cheap way of increasing performance.

[krazy_olie]

It's the pricing that makes it a win.

If AMD are confident that running at those temps is fine then I don't see it as much of an issue. Fan volume increases proportionally to the power of five to the speed, so a slight drop in speed can give much lower volumes.

[Domestic_Ginger]

What's the compute performance like? I'll get me coat...

I'm interested too. It pretty much performs as expected on perf/core rating. Above a 7970 but below 7970. Interestingly I imagine this 'could' impact any vs. 780 argument as the compute being hobbled on the 780 forces people into buying Titans.

Unfortunately the tests seem to swing in either direction based on the benchmark vs brand. AMDs poaching the dude form NV to improve the computing software may reap benefits over the entire suite. We'll see.

With aftermarket cooling with a higher boost clock there should be instant gains.

[CK_1985]

This completely kills the Titan off then... NVidia will have to make the 780Ti faster than the Titan in order to reclaim the 'fastest single GPU' title, but AMD's pricing means they'll have to do it at the 780 price point... or lower in fact!

Having a 'top of the range' card that is slower and more expensive than the next one down is never going to work, so the Titan has to go, surely?

Not that it will be missed much - it was always an insane price for only marginally better performance than the next card down. Its only purpose as far as I can see was to give NVidia an excuse to charge stupid money for the 780 by making it look 'cheap' in comparison!

[63jax]

they should've let the partners to make custom built card for the launch, this cooler is not apt for the task. great performance though!!!