AMD Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire Video Card Review

[LtMatt]

AMD Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire, or QuadFire as it is commonly called, provides the best gaming performance we have ever experienced. Two of these AMD video cards, costing $3,000, offers up the absolute best gameplay experience. You will be able to take all your games to the highest possible settings on a single-display, or sub-4K Eyefinity configurations. Even at the very demanding 4K resolution you will be able to enjoy a high-end gaming experience with the highest graphics settings, and this is what is important.

AMD Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire ensures you will always have the highest settings when you play your games. In every game we played today we experienced never before achieved playable settings at 4K and Eyefinity. In Crysis 3 we were able to play at "Very High" and 4X MSAA at 4K and Eyefinity. The only reason we couldn't go to the maximum 8X MSAA was because 4GB of RAM per GPU is not enough VRAM for 8X MSAA at 4K or 5760x1200 Eyefinity. However, the performance is there to do it, if these cards had more RAM.

Spoiler

Source
http://hardocp.com/article/2014/04/...2_crossfire_video_card_review/14#.U1_NtPldWio

 

[old gamer]

For a moment when i saw this thread i thought you might of splashed out and bought yourself a couple

 

[LtMatt]

For a moment when i saw this thread i thought you might of splashed out and bought yourself a couple

Lol i wish.

 

[old gamer]

Well ive decided im buying two, all i need to do is win the lottery and im sorted

 

[Final8y]

Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire at 4K - Quad Hawaii GPU Powerhouse

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Radeon-R9-295X2-CrossFire-4K-Quad-Hawaii-GPU-Powerhouse

Matt how did you miss that one.

 

[LtMatt]

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Radeon-R9-295X2-CrossFire-4K-Quad-Hawaii-GPU-Powerhouse

Matt how did you miss that one.

It didn't pop up on my twitter feed, that's how.

 

[Gregster]

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Radeon-R9-295X2-CrossFire-4K-Quad-Hawaii-GPU-Powerhouse

Matt how did you miss that one.

Some interesting points from PCper.

Bioshock Infinite

Gaming with the Quad R9 295X2 is an interesting discussion. If you looked at the average frame rate alone you’d find that the game scales by 32% with the addition of the second. That’s not great but it’s measureable and acceptable. What is not acceptable though is the drastic increase in the stutter and frame time variance found with the quad setup. Just look at our Frame Times graph above – the orange line is a complete mess. Frame Variance hits 5ms (a sort of shelf of experience) at the 85th percentile, meaning that 15% of all the frame being rendered have variance higher than that. Bioshock infinite plays better with a single card without a doubt.

Skyrim

Skyrim, being based on DirectX 9, still has problems with CrossFire support at UHD (and Eyefinity) resolutions. I don’t suppose a fix will ever make its way to consumers, which is bad, as that means any DX9 content will forever remain in this deprecated state. While the average frame rate “increased” from the ~83 FPS to the ~135 FPS mark, it does so with a huge amount of runt frames, frames that are rendered but never show in any significant way to the gamer. The result is the frame time variance data you see with the overbearing black “blob”. That’s real bad. The game still plays smoothly, you just aren’t seeing the frame rate you are being told you are seeing.

Metro Last Light

This was a game I was really hoping would shine with the four Hawaii GPUs in our test system but that clearly didn’t turn out to be the case. In fact, I saw essentially zero scaling by adding in the second R9 295X2 card and instead was rewarded only with some additional frame time variance for the trouble and cost.

But other than those AAA titles, everything else they tested seemed to be pretty decent.

 

[LtMatt]

Anyone who buys two 295x2's to play Skyrim or Bioshock infinite is mad lol. Regarding Metro Last Light it does not scale at all on four gpu's regardless of vendor.

 

[old gamer]

On a serious note im not convinced by quadfire or 4 way sli i think 3 cards is the sweet spot for multi gpu setups

 

[LtMatt]

On a serious note im not convinced by quadfire or 4 way sli i think 3 cards is the sweet spot for multi gpu setups

Agree.

 

[Gregster]

Anyone who buys two 295x2's to play Skyrim or Bioshock infinite is mad lol. Regarding Metro Last Light it does not scale at all on four gpu's regardless of vendor.

When you are at 4K, you need the extra boost and 4 way would be better but agreed that 4 way scaling in a few games does leave a lot to be desired. Maybe Kaap can enlighten us more on what is what.

 

[Uncle Petey]

Anyone who buys two 295x2's to play Skyrim or Bioshock infinite is mad lol.

Yep, especially considering that it only looks good with ENB and ENB hates multi gpu from the red team. Dunno about the greens.

 

[Gibbo]

Agree.

Be interesting to see a 295 X2 paired with a 290X. To see how well that works if at all.

 

[LtMatt]

Be interesting to see a 295 X2 paired with a 290X. To see how well that works if at all.

That would be the ideal setup i think.

 

[Uncle Petey]

Can you imagine how horrible that would look unless both had blocks?

 

[Gerard]

When I win the lottery tonight I'm buying 2 Vesuvius systems and 2 4 k monitors, 1 to use and 1 to post pics of and generally just let it sit there to gather dust "just cause I can".



I wish