Radeon R9-290X Crossfire vs GeForce GTX 780 SLI review 1440p & 4k

LtMatt · 25 Oct 2013 at 19:59

The first Multi gpu review and it is a comfortable and flawless victory for the 290x crossfire setup. Guru3d went easy by disabling TressFX on Tomb Raider and using DDOF on Bioshock.

AMD has a very impressive product at hand with the new 290 series. And amongst the things they did right they kept the pricing level rather competitive. With that 499 EUR price-tag in mind we have no doubt that several of you guys will go for Crossfire. And yeah, it is impressive to see what kind of number a R9-290X combo poops out in terms of framerates. Two of these cards are priced roughly similar to say a GeForce GTX Titan, yet you'll gain a good chunk in performance. Obviously though, Crossfire is not for everybody. Even myself, I'd rather have the fastest single GPU based graphics card over a multi-GPU solution. Then again, over time things like micro-stuttering are slowly becoming a thing of the past. On that note the latest frame-pacing drivers definitely seem to work nicely, AMD still will need to support UHD frame-pacing though.

With an MSRP pricing for R9-290X at EUR 399 excl. VAT, (means roughly 499 EUR incl VAT depending on your country) we feel this product is priced fair. It is a very reasonable price, especially when you consider that it is the suggested retail price. Shave off another 10% in about four weeks and that will be the final pricing (roughly). Two cards set up in Crossfire will still cost you say 900 to a 1000 EUR, for that money you'll gain a truckload of performance kicking your configuration into the highest gear performance wise. We'll admit it though, if you are on a single monitor up-to 2560x1440 then there's just no need for it unless you like to break 3DMark scores. Realistically, once you reach multi-monitor gaming with three monitors or Ultra HD at 3840x3160, that's where a Crossfire configuration makes more sense. We hope you enjoyed this review, we had a blast making it with the cool gear at hand of course.

1440P

4K

Full Article
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_r9_290x_crossfire_vs_sli_review_benchmarks,1.html

Uncle Petey · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:07

Tbh, most of those winning margins don't look that dramatic to me and not really anything you'd notice in game.

Gibbo · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:08

Very impressive.
They scale extremely well in crossfire.

sin · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:10

Gibbo when can I pre order 2 290s?

LtMatt · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:14

Uncle Petey said:
Tbh, most of those winning margins don't look that dramatic to me and not really anything you'd notice in game.

I worked out the percentages of how much faster the 290X was. I have to admit, ive seen bigger percentages on other sites. Nonetheless...

1440P
MOH WF 17%
TR 8%
Hitman 17%
MLL 15%
Crysis 6%
BF3 16%
Bioshock 0%

4K
TR 8%
Hitman 16%
MOH 7%
bioshock 7%

Can't argue with the bang for buck considering the price difference between the cards.

Angerer · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:14

Cheers LtMatt nice artical.

Anyone know if there has been any official word on the non ref cards release?

Cheers

sin · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:15

Its late Nov for non ref cards

Angerer · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:16

sin said:
Its late Nov for non ref cards

Cheers sin

Gonna be crazy month November

thewanted · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:23

The 7990 looks really good now at £399...

Uncle Petey · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:23

LtMatt said:
I worked out the percentages of how much faster the 290X was. I have to admit, ive seen bigger percentages on other sites. Nonetheless...

snip

Can't argue with the bang for buck considering the price difference between the cards.

Yeah, it's all about the bang for buck. In those terms, the results are lovely.

It's just that when it's a matter of literally a few fps at framerates that are already way above playable levels, I ain't bovvered

At that point, it's just bragging rights.

Rusty0611 · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:25

Did they not do an overclocked comparison? 780 stock clocks are very conservative even considering GPU boost.

LtMatt · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:26

Uncle Petey said:
Yeah, it's all about the bang for buck. In those terms, the results are lovely.

It's just that when it's a matter of literally a few fps at framerates that are already way above playable levels, I ain't bovvered
At that point, it's just bragging rights.

I see your point but they're likely not using much if any AA and things like TressFX are disabled. At 1440p you can never have too much grunt unless you have three or more cards so i wouldn't pay too much attention to the high fps.

Rusty0611 said:
Did they not do an overclocked comparison? 780 stock clocks are very conservative even considering GPU boost.

Nope stock vs stock. It all comes down to the lottery anyway on overclocking. I doubt the results would change dramatically.

Suarez7 · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:27

What clocks are the 780 at? Change the power/temp target on a 780 and some of them will boost themselves to 1100.

johny dolan · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:29

Well AMD clocked these new cards to beat a stock 780 but many 780s are now sold with overclocks and they still have head room to spare so id like to see tests done with both sides cards overclocked to the max then we can see whats what.

Suarez7 · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:32

johny dolan said:
Well AMD clocked these new cards to beat a stock 780 but many 780s are now sold with overclocks and they still have head room to spare so id like to see tests done with both sides cards overclocked to the max then we can see whats what.

Well Linus did overclocked vs overclocked but Linus is considered pro nvidia, anti AMD and a fail reviewer by many here.

You'd have to wait for custom cards though and by then drivers will have matured a bit.

bakes0310 · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:49

May go the 290x crossfire route after xmas, but it sounds a bit complicated compared to my problem free (touch wood) 670 SLI.

old gamer · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:54

found myself very impessed by the 7990

Rroff · 25 Oct 2013 at 20:59

Suarez7 said:
Well Linus did overclocked vs overclocked but Linus is considered pro nvidia, anti AMD and a fail reviewer by many here.

You'd have to wait for custom cards though and by then drivers will have matured a bit.

I'm not a great fan of Linus - far too often he seems to be in over his head - however I suspect those results aren't that far off the truth - pretty much everyone says the 290X comes out the box with pretty agressive clocks and around 15% boost clock increase seems average - whereas take a bunch of random GTX780 reviews and its more like 23-24% average attainable boost overclock (though keep in mind these won't directly translate into ingame gains). User overclocks of the GTX780 are showing quite often in the region of 28% so given the numbers in the link at the start of the thread I can imagine it will be quite a close fight at the top with an average overclock 290X v average overclock GTX780.

This pretty much stands to reason as the GTX780 is based on a top end part with quite a bit of the core disabled (see GTX470 or even 7950 for overclocking as its a similiar sort of position compared to the full fat core) whereas the 290X is pretty much the full fat version of the core.

TheRealDeal · 25 Oct 2013 at 21:11

Rroff said:
I'm not a great fan of Linus - far too often he seems to be in over his head - however I suspect those results aren't that far off the truth - pretty much everyone says the 290X comes out the box with pretty agressive clocks and around 15% boost clock increase seems average - whereas take a bunch of random GTX780 reviews and its more like 23-24% average attainable boost overclock (though keep in mind these won't directly translate into ingame gains). User overclocks of the GTX780 are showing quite often in the region of 28% so given the numbers in the link at the start of the thread I can imagine it will be quite a close fight at the top with an average overclock 290X v average overclock GTX780.

This pretty much stands to reason as the GTX780 is based on a top end part with quite a bit of the core disabled (see GTX470 for overclocking as its a similiar sort of position compared to the full fat core) whereas the 290X is pretty much the full fat version of the core.

I think Gibbo has proved with a bit of voltage amd's clock's are not that aggressive with 800 being the base and 1000 being the boost. He managed to run 1200 without artifacts which is what a lot of 7970's will reach. With better cooling and cards like the lightning almost certainly coming there's probably still a bit left in the tank. I think gtx780's boost up to around 1050 or so out of the box from what a few users around here have said. That's higher than what the stock r9 290x is running at. Lets not forget for the gtx780 to run much above 1200 people are flashing the bios to get voltage control. This comes with the r9 290x so for most it could end up being 1200 core v 1200 core as not all people are willing to flash in case they brick there card.

Rroff · 25 Oct 2013 at 21:16

^^ I'm talking stock cooling v stock cooling - once you start putting volt mods and aftermarket cooling into the question you've got people hitting what ~40% overclocks over the reference boost clock on the GTX780? - 1200MHz _so far_ seems to the top end of whats attainable of the 290X on stock not the average though that might change as more get into people's hands.