Caporegime
So, as many of you will be aware, I am somewhat of a staunch nVidia fanboy and I imagine a few were double taking when I said I was going for an AMD card 
Anyways, I went for the MSI 290X LE, as I had previous 680 Lightnings and was very impressed with the build quality on those and the LE 290X isn't any different in the quality department. On opening the box and taking the card out of the ant-static bag, you could see straight away that the build quality was top notch. Nothing feels like it is about to break and everything has a real solid feel to it. Plenty of connections on it as well with DL-DVI, HDMI, DP all an option.
So after taking the 3 Titans out and popping in the LE, it was time to fire it up. After some initial black screens prior to putting the driver on, I ran into another issue.... I couldn't get the screen to run at 120Hz (I knew prior that AMD can't do 144Hz at 1440P). It would strobe flicker for a couple of seconds before going to a black screen. I finally got round it by connecting another monitor and setting 60Hz on the ROG Swift. It might go higher on the refresh but I was happy, so left it there. A bit of a small issue and not something that was going to deter me but I did expect to be able to run 120Hz at 1440P. This has me also thinking that Freesync 144Hz monitor and 1440P might well have some teething issues on certain systems but time will tell on that.
Right then, screen is working and I am now ready to hit some games. The first game I fire up is Tomb Raider, as this is a problem free game for both AMD and nVidia users and kudos to Square/Enix on this game. Still a wonderful looking game and one I am happy to put time into. The game flows along very nicely and with Ultra settings, I was getting around 50 fps at 1440P and it felt nice and smooth. No stutter or judder and very free flowing. A very good start
Next up was one of my current favourites, which is Elite Dangerous. I have put a lot of time into this and it didn't disappoint on the 290X. Free flying saw me sitting at around 120 fps and in and around stations, it was dropping to 50 ish, which is very acceptable. The commodities market/menu felt very sluggish but not anything to moan about and not as important as combat (which I didn't get into).
Third game was BF4 and time to give Mantle a try And I can see why people like it. It ran very smooth, felt very responsive and on one of the big snow maps, I was sitting around 72-75 fps constant at ultra and 1440P. No slow downs and a good feel to the game. Mantle gets a plus from me here.
And my last game of trying is Assassins Creed: Unity... So much has been made about this game and how it runs poorly for the 970/980/290/290X and I found it to be "ok".... That is a bit of a lame response but that's all I can say. It ran ok, it felt ok and it played ok. I played this to death on my Titans and on those it ran ok. Neither the 290X or the Titans was as smooth as the previous games and goes to show that UBI made a fantastic game with some poor optimisations. Nothing I could whinge at on either system and it has the same judder I got on the Titans. Frames were quite low as well but I only played AC:U on a minimum of a pair of Titans, so that wouldn't be fair to compare.
Overall, I am very pleased with the 290X and I was very impressed with how well Mantle felt in BF4 (Kudos AMD/Dice). The only downside I can see at present is the refresh rate. Because of how low the refresh rate is, this in turn brings masses of tearing to games. I purposefully turned off G-Sync when I knew I was getting rid of the Titans but I left the refresh rate at 144Hz, as I expected there to be little difference between 120hz and 144Hz but as I can't run 120Hz @ 1440P either, I was a little disappointed. Not one of the games tested ran without tearing and this is a little bit of a thumbs down moment. If AMD can get the 144Hz working (or even 120Hz), that would be me pretty much set and free gaming without a care in the world.
Temps were very good and surprised me a bit. I have the fan curve set at AB's recommnded setting and whilst I could hear the fan, it wasn't loud and temps didn't go over 75c that I observed.
So, to wrap up my very quick review, a very good card indeed. Solid with a decent build quality. Mantle is very good and runs very nice. If they could get 144Hz and 1440P working, that would seriously help with the tearing and they could even have converted me to being a fan of AMD. A small moan but overall an enjoyable couple of hours gaming
Anyways, I went for the MSI 290X LE, as I had previous 680 Lightnings and was very impressed with the build quality on those and the LE 290X isn't any different in the quality department. On opening the box and taking the card out of the ant-static bag, you could see straight away that the build quality was top notch. Nothing feels like it is about to break and everything has a real solid feel to it. Plenty of connections on it as well with DL-DVI, HDMI, DP all an option.
So after taking the 3 Titans out and popping in the LE, it was time to fire it up. After some initial black screens prior to putting the driver on, I ran into another issue.... I couldn't get the screen to run at 120Hz (I knew prior that AMD can't do 144Hz at 1440P). It would strobe flicker for a couple of seconds before going to a black screen. I finally got round it by connecting another monitor and setting 60Hz on the ROG Swift. It might go higher on the refresh but I was happy, so left it there. A bit of a small issue and not something that was going to deter me but I did expect to be able to run 120Hz at 1440P. This has me also thinking that Freesync 144Hz monitor and 1440P might well have some teething issues on certain systems but time will tell on that.
Right then, screen is working and I am now ready to hit some games. The first game I fire up is Tomb Raider, as this is a problem free game for both AMD and nVidia users and kudos to Square/Enix on this game. Still a wonderful looking game and one I am happy to put time into. The game flows along very nicely and with Ultra settings, I was getting around 50 fps at 1440P and it felt nice and smooth. No stutter or judder and very free flowing. A very good start
Next up was one of my current favourites, which is Elite Dangerous. I have put a lot of time into this and it didn't disappoint on the 290X. Free flying saw me sitting at around 120 fps and in and around stations, it was dropping to 50 ish, which is very acceptable. The commodities market/menu felt very sluggish but not anything to moan about and not as important as combat (which I didn't get into).
Third game was BF4 and time to give Mantle a try
And I can see why people like it. It ran very smooth, felt very responsive and on one of the big snow maps, I was sitting around 72-75 fps constant at ultra and 1440P. No slow downs and a good feel to the game. Mantle gets a plus from me here.And my last game of trying is Assassins Creed: Unity... So much has been made about this game and how it runs poorly for the 970/980/290/290X and I found it to be "ok".... That is a bit of a lame response but that's all I can say. It ran ok, it felt ok and it played ok. I played this to death on my Titans and on those it ran ok. Neither the 290X or the Titans was as smooth as the previous games and goes to show that UBI made a fantastic game with some poor optimisations. Nothing I could whinge at on either system and it has the same judder I got on the Titans. Frames were quite low as well but I only played AC:U on a minimum of a pair of Titans, so that wouldn't be fair to compare.
Overall, I am very pleased with the 290X and I was very impressed with how well Mantle felt in BF4 (Kudos AMD/Dice). The only downside I can see at present is the refresh rate. Because of how low the refresh rate is, this in turn brings masses of tearing to games. I purposefully turned off G-Sync when I knew I was getting rid of the Titans but I left the refresh rate at 144Hz, as I expected there to be little difference between 120hz and 144Hz but as I can't run 120Hz @ 1440P either, I was a little disappointed. Not one of the games tested ran without tearing and this is a little bit of a thumbs down moment. If AMD can get the 144Hz working (or even 120Hz), that would be me pretty much set and free gaming without a care in the world.
Temps were very good and surprised me a bit. I have the fan curve set at AB's recommnded setting and whilst I could hear the fan, it wasn't loud and temps didn't go over 75c that I observed.
So, to wrap up my very quick review, a very good card indeed. Solid with a decent build quality. Mantle is very good and runs very nice. If they could get 144Hz and 1440P working, that would seriously help with the tearing and they could even have converted me to being a fan of AMD. A small moan but overall an enjoyable couple of hours gaming
