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

Make said:
So useless for anyone who is not running 4k / 1600p at the least?

:p
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Matching Titan at lower resolutions, 2560x + and up it shines the way gpu power today are used.
DX dosnt help and the reason for Mantle is to put more work onto the gpu which then are able to work more efficient at 1920x and such resolutions.
4k resolution/eyefinity is where you need a lot of horsepower due to DX and again Mantle will help there also, but the 290 cards will be highly sought after there for multi gpu set ups.

Today a OC 7970 for example or 280x, match stock 780 performance at 1920x1080 or such, its just awesome.
you dont need new cards for that resolution due to new cards dont make much difference there at all.
the overhead today with DX make us PC gamers lackluster.
 
MjFrosty said:
People keep saying the GPU-Z readout is wrong, which it may well be - but weigh that against the stonking power draws shown so far...doesn't look good does it lol.
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I don't think it is wrong. Match that with the power draw and it is looking pretty accurate to me. When I was benching my Titan on a modified BIOS without it being under water, the power draw was very high and so was the temps and that was running 3D Mark 11 (which is a very quick bench).
 
Exactly. To be fair it's not the end of the world. The Titan isn't exactly a cool running card hence the hefty throttling out of the box (albeit with a ridiculously timid fan profile).

Right out of the box in GPU heavy games with 3 cards you'll see 85c easy without tampering. One card hitting 93c through just a benchmark or two is a tad on the toasty side though.
 
Jono8 said:
But the trouble is, the framerate. Look at Heaven. If it were a game and you wanted to keep the framerate at optimum levels (60fps) you haven't really got anywhere to go.

Sure 290x's may fair better than Titan's on Heaven at 4k and 8xAA but then it will probably be the 290x's 20 fps vs the Titan's 16fps :p

It is the same argument that blights the 2gb vs 3gb discussion. In almost all occasions, by the time 2gb becomes the limiting factor for say a 680 vs a 7970, both are getting such low framerates it doesn't matter.
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I don't think there's really that much interest in 4K gaming yet (due to the high 4K monitor pricing mainly)...lots people like me are more interest in SuperSampling for 1920 res, and there's what cards like 290X/GTX780 comes in.

Heaven is never gonna be a good representation for a game in real-world anyway. I mean we are talking about using Tessellation to extreme level which no game in real-world would use. Sympathetic bench is what it is at the end of the day, designed for the sole purpose of torture test for hardware, rather than trying to strike the best balance between graphic details and performance like games engines do.

Also for the 7950/7970 vs GTX670/GTX680, the problem is that we always get the same people dragging the discussion toward 2GB vs 3GB, when it should really be memory bandwidth vs memory bandwidth. Just look at the overclocked 7970/280x results...even the overclocked GTX770 struggle to keep up, due to the lower memory bandwidth.
 
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Kaapstad said:
You have a GTX 690, have you thought about putting another one in your setup if you need more performance.

You may be able to pick a second hand one up for a bargain.

Two GTX 690s do look very good together.:D:)
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Ahh you see I play at 1600p resolution and also I tend to play games when they first came out. I remember the hassle I had with assassin creed 3 with the 690 and the flickering snow but ofc by the time they fixed it I had completed the game.

It will be nice to have a card thats not SLI or crossfire. Also some games do not like SLI so I have to disable the function. ( obscure adventure games / old Gog games admittedly )

Mostly there's no problems with SLI but also I have some extra money to spend. My wife has preordered and paying for the Killshock PS4 mega bundle from amazon and I have paid off my xbox one as well ( amazon vouchers ).
 
Think the more all this goes on I'm more interesting in just the 290. Hoping it'll be the good middle ground on performance and price.

Anyone have any idea's on what Nvidia have scheduled for their live stream next week?
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Also for the 7950/7970 vs GTX670/GTX680, the problem is that we always get the same people dragging the discussion toward 2GB vs 3GB, when it should really be memory bandwidth vs memory bandwidth. Just look at the overclocked 7970/280x results...even the overclocked GTX770 struggle to keep up, due to the lower memory bandwidth.
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You're right but the frame rates of the cards are affected by the memory bandwidth already. So what he said is still true.
 
So were not going to get the non reference cards until mid December?

If that timeline is correct then I may as well wait until about February to see were the price/performance ratio sits and hopefully by then more Maxwell info is out.

I'm annoyed that I missed out on the Asus 7970 Matrix Platinum at £220 last weekend, superb deal:mad:
 
Not meaning to state the obvious and apologies to those who tut and say we know but there may be the odd person who doesn't.

The 290X is being touted as a 4K card. Now you try playing Crysis 3 at 4K on a 290X, the same for BF3/FarCry3/MetroLL in fact any modern AAA title and regardless of the memory being 512 Bit, you are still going to see 20fps or below with max settings (which you will want if you have splashed the cash on a 4K screen). You will be needing 3 of these at a minimum for any 4K gaming at decent settings.
 
AMD are putting the hurt on Nvidia with the 280x pricing making the 770 look stupid price wise. They can do the same to the 780/titan by bringing the 290x in a £450, make it happen AMD.
 
Gregster said:
Not meaning to state the obvious and apologies to those who tut and say we know but there may be the odd person who doesn't.

The 290X is being touted as a 4K card. Now you try playing Crysis 3 at 4K on a 290X, the same for BF3/FarCry3/MetroLL in fact any modern AAA title and regardless of the memory being 512 Bit, you are still going to see 20fps or below with max settings (which you will want if you have splashed the cash on a 4K screen). You will be needing 3 of these at a minimum for any 4K gaming at decent settings.
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I do agree on this...but (hopefully) people would be able to get three 290x at no higher than pair of Titan's price :p

But smart people that want to do 4K gaming and can wait and know the issue at hand, they'd wait for the next gen 20nm cards ;)

But in a sense, if people MUST game on 4K now, the 290 are really the only sensible choice, since we all know the higher the res, the more important the memory bandwidth is. It's probably a bit similar to Crysis 1 back then...the 8800GTX/Ultra was THE go to card. Could the 8800Ultra run the game smoothly? Nope, but it was the best available at the time, and people with powerful enough PSU could get 2 of 3 of them to SLI.
 
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It's a tough call no matter what you're willing to spend (RE 4K). Is anyone happy with spending over 1,000 pounds on video cards only to get 30fps?

Good year till it's even worth talking about. Which is why I think it's a bit laughable that AMD are bigging it up with these new cards.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
I do agree on this...but (hopefully) people would be able to get three 290x at no higher than pair of Titan's price :p

But smart people that want to do 4K gaming and can wait and know the issue at hand, they'd wait for the next gen 20nm cards ;)

But in a sense, if people MUST game on 4K now, the 290 are really the only sensible choice, since we all know the higher the res, the more important the memory bandwidth is. It's probably a bit similar to Crysis 1 back then...the 8800GTX/Ultra was THE go to card. Could the 8800Ultra run the game smoothly? Nope, but it was the best available at the time, and people with powerful enough PSU could get 2 of 3 of them to SLI.
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Ahhh yes but is the 290 the sensible choice? What is the point of all that bandwidth if it doesn't have enough VRAM to cope? I keep saying it and sounding like a broken record and I am tired of typing it but I used 4.6GB of VRAM at 5760x1080. Regardless of 3x290X costs the same as 2 Titans, I would rather have 2 Titans that will not run out of VRAM.

Just saying :p
 
Gregster said:
Ahhh yes but is the 290 the sensible choice? What is the point of all that bandwidth if it doesn't have enough VRAM to cope? I keep saying it and sounding like a broken record and I am tired of typing it but I used 4.6GB of VRAM at 5760x1080. Regardless of 3x290X costs the same as 2 Titans, I would rather have 2 Titans that will not run out of VRAM.

Just saying :p
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What AA settings Greg? To use the argument i always have put against me, caching. :p


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If the 3gb vram buffer was limiting im sure the 7970/780 would be much slower no?
 
Gregster said:
Ahhh yes but is the 290 the sensible choice? What is the point of all that bandwidth if it doesn't have enough VRAM to cope? I keep saying it and sounding like a broken record and I am tired of typing it but I used 4.6GB of VRAM at 5760x1080. Regardless of 3x290X costs the same as 2 Titans, I would rather have 2 Titans that will not run out of VRAM.
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Sorry but it's the first time I see you saying that so I was not aware. I was under the impression that vram would not be an issue, since loads of people saying 2GB is fine even for 5760x1080? So may be even I got brain-washed by them without knowing /facepalm :/
 
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