AMD Radeon R9 290X with Hawaii GPU pictured, has 512-bit 4GB Memory

LtMatt · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:14

Kaapstad said:
On the transistor count the difference is nothing like 33%

The GTX 780 and 290X have about the same number of active transistors.

How does that affect what i said though Kaap?

Mei said:
AMD launch is like dickinson's real deal hehe

I hope its not as Orange!

(no offence Orangey)

mmj_uk · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:15

Why don't AMD just release at the normal price point instead of trying to rip people off? NVidia will soon drop their prices in order to compete. Are they both price fixing or what? GPU prices are becoming ridiculous.

Like people are saying the NVidia GPU is more expensive to manufacture so NVidia have a valid reason for charging more.

Locky · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:16

£550 to £600

I'm out..

Matson · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:18

I do wonder what a 290x overclocked edition overclocked even more will be able to pull of if a 280x can get near a ref 780.

Orangey · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:19

humbug said:
DIE

Why do you always write that in allcaps?

humbug · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:20

LtMatt said:
I hope its not as Orange! (no offence Orangey)

lol.... brown as chips...

Gregster · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:21

mmj_uk said:
Why don't AMD just release at the normal price point instead of trying to rip people off? NVidia will soon drop their prices in order to compete. Are they both price fixing or what? GPU prices are becoming ridiculous.

Like people are saying the NVidia GPU is more expensive to manufacture so NVidia have a valid reason for charging more.

A good shout.

AMD released the 7970 at a very high price and it only just beat a GTX 580 and quite a few months later, they sort the drivers out and drop the price by half. Not very fair on the early adopters. I hope they don't do the same again with the 290X and release it with sub standard drivers.

@ Raven. They released the 7990 and it was/is a great card but when they released it, there was poor support for CF and micro stutter was a big issue with runt frames being dropped etc, so they missed the opportunity and should have held off the release or just not bothered.

humbug · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:27

@ Greg

The 7990 was a ridicules launch price, absolutely.
The 7970 was 30% faster than the GTX 580 and £50 more expensive, ok that's perhaps not great.
The GTX Titan was again 30% faster than the 7970 and £650 More expensive.

No getting away from that.

Kaapstad · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:27

LtMatt said:
How does that affect what i said though Kaap?

If you go on the density of the active transistors they are also about the same on a GTX 780 or 290X so my guess is the yields are probably not that much different producing the chips.

The chips used for the GTX 780 are partly disabled GK110s which may have defects on the non active parts.

LtMatt · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:29

Gregster said:
AMD released the 7970 at a very high price and it only just beat a GTX 580 and quite a few months later, they sort the drivers out and drop the price by half. Not very fair on the early adopters. I hope they don't do the same again with the 290X and release it with sub standard drivers.

The 290X launch drivers are already out Greg and they're very good.

Mei · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:36

Locky said:
£550 to £600

I'm out..

Do not hotlink images please - w3bbo

humbug · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:37

LtMatt said:
The 290X launch drivers are already out Greg and they're very good.

They also improve performance on the HD 7k, and allow for better overclocking, and run cooler.

I cranked mine up to 1200 / 1550 from 1150 / 1500 and its still running cooler than it was.

I'm actually considering testing it at 1225 or 1250 to see how it does there, give it a couple more days gaming @ 1200 and then take it up some more, lets see

Kaapstad · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:40

humbug said:
They also improve performance on the HD 7k, and allow for better overclocking, and run cooler.

What went wrong with the 280X

I hope the 290Xs perform a bit better.

LtMatt · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:40

humbug said:
They also improve performance on the HD 7k, and allow for better overclocking, and run cooler.

I require 1.194V for 1125/1500. Any less and i crash after a short while. I will test that theory using 1.188v I hope you're correct. If you're not i will be expecting compensation.

Silent_Scone · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:44

I'll go with the latter, Matt

Martini1991 · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:46

humbug said:
@ Greg

The 7990 was a ridicules launch price, absolutely.
The 7970 was 30% faster than the GTX 580 and £50 more expensive, ok that's perhaps not great.
The GTX Titan was again 30% faster than the 7970 and £650 More expensive.

No getting away from that.

The 7970 was a brand new generation on a new fabrication.
The Titan was just something else entirely (But overpriced)

The 7970's launch compared to the 5870's launch was pitiful.

There'll never be anything like the 5870 again at this rate.

Silent_Scone · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:48

Thank god for that. The 5870 was an abomination of a card. Honestly never had so much grief before. Especially when in Crossfire.

That isn't an invitation for yet another slanging match. It's not a reflection on any other card.

Gregster · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:49

LtMatt said:
The 290X launch drivers are already out Greg and they're very good.

Post your results then for the 290X or are you under NDA?

Rroff · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:49

MjFrosty said:
Thank god for that. The 5870 was an abomination of a card. Honestly never had so much grief before. Especially when in Crossfire.

That isn't an invitation for yet another slanging match. It's not a reflection on any other card.

I guess you'd always bought nVidia before the 5870 then?

/me runs and hides.

Martini1991 · 10 Oct 2013 at 16:51

MjFrosty said:
Thank god for that. The 5870 was an abomination of a card. Honestly never had so much grief before. Especially when in Crossfire.

That isn't an invitation for yet another slanging match. It's not a reflection on any other card.

The 5870 was far from an abomination.