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ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II Graphics Card Review

humbug

humbug

humbug

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Edit- More reviews added thanks to Fulax

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_290x_directcuii_oc_review,1.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...64694-asus-r9-290x-directcu-ii-oc-review.html

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/ASUS-Radeon-R9-290X-DirectCU-II-Graphics-Card-Review


The ASUS DirectCU II card is only listed as being 50 MHz faster than the Sapphire reference card if you just look at the box or the text on the retailers websites. But, in my testing, that difference is more like 178 MHz, or 17.8% of the reference spec. That's a HUGE difference and is more than enough to raise eyebrows. Considering the minimal $20 MSRP jump ASUS is asking for, over the stock designs, how could AMD have not come up with a similarly performing solution for their flagship cards?


Once we bring the NVIDIA cards into the picture, we can see that the GeForce GTX 780 Ti is once again fighting for its dominance. When it was released, the R9 290X had clock variance and noise concerns that kept the $699 juggernaut in the driver's seat. With the release of the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II (and others) coming down the pipe that seat might have a new resident. The ASUS card performed better than the GTX 780 Ti in Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3 while the GTX 780 Ti's only definitive victory came in Battlefield 3. In the three other games tested, the cards were so close that I'll call it a performance tie.
Click to expand...




Seems a decent cooler has made a huge difference, with power consumption, noise and heat the same or better that the 780TI and a tie in performance its an awesome card IMO.
 
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humbug said:
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/ASUS-Radeon-R9-290X-DirectCU-II-Graphics-Card-Review







Seems a decent cooler has made a huge difference, with power consumption, noise and heat the same or better that the 780TI and a tie in performance its an awesome card IMO.
Click to expand...

I still cant believe they are using the reference 290x in quiet mode for the comparison charts.

its like they are saying we will shoot that guy in the foot and see how much faster this guy is .

anyway yes these asus cards look the business.
 
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Yes, but, to thier credit they said
The clock speeds reported over the same 25 minute period are interesting. For most of the recorded period, the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II in quiet mode is able to maintain the same 1050 MHz clock speed as it does in the performance mode.
Click to expand...
So its all good.
 
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Seems a decent cooler has made a huge difference, with power consumption, noise and heat the same or better that the 780TI and a tie in performance its an awesome card IMO

am i to presume the 780 and 780 ti are also non reference to make this even?
 
If you take the ref gtx 780 ti and compare it to the non-ref 290x then yes now that it has proper cooling and a non-ref pcb design it does tend to tie or come within 1-3 fps which is really good for the money you are paying. (minus physx of course :( )

Which of course makes this review very biast..... but nevertheless when the lighting 290x comes out and gets reviewed against the gtx 780 ti kingpin that's when things will get interesting!
 
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Nice review and as expected a decent cooler makes all the difference.

Personally waiting to see what the MSI Lightning has to offer.
 
According to Guru3D-review on thermal imaging, the DirectCU cooler actually exhausts most of the air outside the case. I find it very surprising, as the cooler itself looks like it would just blow it sideways inside the case.

It seems that first "Special fan" combined with the second "normal fan" has it's uses. This is an important point to me personally, as I do not want my internal case temps to rocket when I change my GPU because my CPU is being cooled with inside-case temps through a rad.

Nice card.
 
weldon855 said:
can bios from these overclocked cards be flashed to a reference 290x or is there a lot more going on in there.
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I doubt this is a Reference PCB, so, No. you could try. they have dual BIOS so if it goes wrong your not pulling your hair out.
 
The PCB is custom made and features ASUS’s Super Alloy Power technology with a robust 8-Phase DIGI+ VRM power delivery which gives the core enough power to overclock and run with maximum stability. The back of the PCB comes with specialized SAP CAPs which increase the overclocking headroom while the custom concrete alloy chokes help reduce the buzzing noise produced on reference variants. Juice is provided through an 8+6 Pin power configuration. The PCB is specifically designed for ASUS ROG enthusiasts hence has voltage read points at the back which are visible through the backplate.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/asus-radeon-r9-...cked-1050-mhz-red-gold-flavors/#ixzz2nvZzvtS5
Click to expand...

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Got'ta hand it to Asus, they know what they are doing while not charging the earth for it.

I have always been a big fan of their Motherboards, they are almost perfect, about as close to that as you can get while again not really expensive.
 
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