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*** AMD Radeon R9 290X Reviews Thread ***
- Thread starter Orangey
- Start date
Seems the price/performance is the biggest boon. Doesn't seem to be any anything killer in terms of performance, it's matching but rarely exceeding by any notable amount. Price is the main thing going for it though for sure, I'm not even tempted with the volume/temp though. I shall re-evaluate when the proper ones comes out.
Caporegime
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Soldato
Look no hands:
Anyway, I think that price is key here. It's funny that £450 is being celebrated but compared to nVidia's last two releases it is a good launch price. And you're getting a lot of hardware for your pounds.
Anyway, I think that price is key here. It's funny that £450 is being celebrated but compared to nVidia's last two releases it is a good launch price. And you're getting a lot of hardware for your pounds.
Read anand review.
Great to see amd produce a high performing good value card, they need to do something with their reference cooling though, the noise makes this a no go for me.
I suspect the 780s have more overclocking headroom than 290, especially if the noise becomes excessive
Great to see amd produce a high performing good value card, they need to do something with their reference cooling though, the noise makes this a no go for me.
I suspect the 780s have more overclocking headroom than 290, especially if the noise becomes excessive
Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
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Quite frankly, quiet mode will be good enough for me. I can not see myself needing to overclock this card and am hoping it'll see me through the next 3 years of gaming.
I'm moving up from a Sapphire HD 6870 1GB (with reference cooler) to the Sapphire 290x 4GB with reference cooler. Spookily/coincidently the 6870 HD shipped on October 24th 2010! At the time it was £182 as opposed to £480 though!
I've no real plans to go 4K anytime soon. It was less than 6 months ago that I bought my (1080p) Panasonic 55" VT50 Plasma and that is my primary gaming screen.
It does look like if you had two of these in crossfire that 4k @ 60fps is a reality though, for future proofing.
And the blower fan suits me as well as I need a card that will expel air from the back of the case when I downsize my case to Mini ITX in the form of the Ncase N1 (http://www.ncases.com/)
It's a lot to pay for a GPU, but I think i'll be happy with it.
I'm moving up from a Sapphire HD 6870 1GB (with reference cooler) to the Sapphire 290x 4GB with reference cooler. Spookily/coincidently the 6870 HD shipped on October 24th 2010! At the time it was £182 as opposed to £480 though!
I've no real plans to go 4K anytime soon. It was less than 6 months ago that I bought my (1080p) Panasonic 55" VT50 Plasma and that is my primary gaming screen.
It does look like if you had two of these in crossfire that 4k @ 60fps is a reality though, for future proofing.
And the blower fan suits me as well as I need a card that will expel air from the back of the case when I downsize my case to Mini ITX in the form of the Ncase N1 (http://www.ncases.com/)
It's a lot to pay for a GPU, but I think i'll be happy with it.
Noise is quieter than my 6970 and i never notice that. Temps are hot alright but I suppose that's what you get with titan performance for half the price
Come on, it's not like you'll care for a 60watt difference in any other home equipment or even other components..
I don't know why it does that, but it really is not important. Such a small difference matters less than 1 pound on your energy bill per year, unless you watch blurays 4 hours a day for 365 days on average..
Caporegime
Look no hands:
Anyway, I think that price is key here. It's funny that £450 is being celebrated but compared to nVidia's last two releases it is a good launch price. And you're getting a lot of hardware for your pounds.
Anands BF3 bench has always been an extremely poor indicator of performance. I've covered this many times. They use such non demanding part of the game that it always inflates the Nvidia cards scores.
That said even with that the 290X is still faster, just.
They're ok, its just unfortunate their Battlefield 3 ones don't really represent the general level of performance you get.
EDIT
After some digging i found out why. They use a part of the single player campaign called Thunder Run, which ironically is a very un-demanding part of the game. Basically their bf3 benchmark results mean nothing in real world.
Dave Bauman - AMD comments on the anand review
Ryan @ anand replies about it
Source
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/22
So basically they admit they use a non demanding part of the game to bench.
TL : DR If you want accurate representation of battlefield 3 performance probably best to look elsewhere.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
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Come on, it's not like you'll care for a 60watt difference in any other home equipment or even other components..
I don't know why it does that, but it really is not important. Such a small difference matters less than 1 pound on your energy bill per year, unless you watch blurays 4 hours a day for 365 days on average..
The review also states there is likely an issue with AMD's driver when it comes to x264 decoding as it shouldn't be that high.
Soldato
Anands BF3 bench has always been an extremely poor indicator of performance. I've covered this many times. They use such non demanding part of the game that it always inflates the Nvidia cards scores.
That said even with that the 290X is still faster, just.
Their bench procedure doesn't magically inflate the nVidia scores while harming the AMD ones lol. I should state that I don't really believe the guff that either company puts out themselves.
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Indeed, so that might be fixed eventually. But looking at power consumption figures on low-load tasks is just looking for faults, only the max(load). really matters for heat etc.
Seriously the difference is just a pound or two in a year in regards to costs. Guru3d calculates these in their reviews.
Caporegime
Yes it does, read my post. That's why their BF3 bench is always in complete contradiction to others. Believe it or not, that is the case. End of comment from me on the matter as this one has been done to death and we're going off topic.
Soldato
AMD says it does. But Anand say they're just benching the on rails post. They don't themselves say that's the case. At least not in that post from you.
EDIT: looked at another:
4% difference
I was only taking issue with 16% not the it's faster part.
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Absolutely true, the amount of heat a gpu generates its equal to wattage consumed minus the amount it can vent outside the case, temps are irrelevant to how much heat is added inside the case
Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
- Posts
- 29,413
Just checked back at some reviews from 2010 of the 6870 HD.
Under load it was 80C and overclocked it was hitting 90C, and that's been fine in my PC (at stock) for 3 years.
I don't see 95C throttling as a huge issue. Like the man said it won't actually increase your case temperatures anyway.
Under load it was 80C and overclocked it was hitting 90C, and that's been fine in my PC (at stock) for 3 years.
I don't see 95C throttling as a huge issue. Like the man said it won't actually increase your case temperatures anyway.
I tend to trust Guru3d reviews, they have stated they are using the latest 331.58 drivers which probably accounts for the lower differentials than in other reviews. In addition I like the fact they post videos of the section of the game they bench.
Still looks a great card and for the price can't complain (well except the reference cooler).
Still looks a great card and for the price can't complain (well except the reference cooler).
Soldato
Well done AMD, well done.
I am impressed.
I am impressed.