[H] AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire Video Card Review

Yaayuh! · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:28

LtMatt said:
They definitely are. Pick out the one thing in common about the following posters. Granted not all of them screaming bias, but I did say back near the start these results would ruffle feathers. This is a good example of feathers being ruffled.

Matt, i said they were bias and they are, in general. Companies (including Galaxy and Corsair) pay them money. They shouldn't be taken seriously regardless of the product.
Stop making a mountain out of a mole hill.

ICDP · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:29

Eyefinity/surround monitor setups are fairly cheap and quite popular. Proclaiming these tests as pointless for you does not equate to pointless for all.

Gregster · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:29

LtMatt said:
The only ones kicking up a fuss are Nvidia users worried by these results.

I like [H] and always have done. I don't see the review as 'bad on Nvidia' and enjoyed the write up.

Gripen90 · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:30

I have 3x GTX 780's and 2x HD7970's.... I cheer for 3dfx

LtMatt · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:31

Rossi~ said:
Matt, i said they were bias and they are, in general. Companies (including Galaxy and Corsair) pay them money. They shouldn't be taken seriously regardless of the product.
Stop making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Well thats down to user himself. No harm in having that point of view though mind you. I am only saying how it looks from the outside looking in.

Rusty0611 · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:31

ICDP said:
Eyefinity/surround monitor setups are fairly cheap and quite popular. Proclaiming these tests as pointless for you does not equate to pointless for all.

I'm glad more sites are comparing performance at surround/eyefinity resolution. When me, Neil and Greg were all looking to go Surround there was literally no performance charts available on the web so you're pretty blind until you get the card(s) and monitors. It's much better now though.

Suarez7 · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:31

ICDP said:
Eyefinity/surround monitor setups are fairly cheap and quite popular. Proclaiming these tests as pointless for you does not equate to pointless for all.

Yeah a couple of monitors and a couple of cards to run them fully is cheap :rolleyes:

not forgetting the awful bezel in between each.

Besides it still isn't anywhere near as common as single 1080p displays.

By the time most of us care there'll be new cards.

Post us your 4k benchmarks if it bothers you that much.

Gerard · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:31

Rusty0611 said:
Fanboyism in general is extremely boring but I don't think it's really present in this thread. I do completely agree with your sentiment though that people sometimes put you into a camp just based on what GPU you have. I find that particular mentality absolutely crazy. I've been called an AMD and NVIDIA fanboy on these forums .

What I say is buy what suits your needs best, for me going Eyefinity in 2011 it was amd, and I've now bought a 7990 because of the £400 Asus price at the time. I just don't get fanboyism especially when it comes to pc hardware, some people would cut off their nose to spite their face rather than using a vendors card that might offer more. Wind yer necks in the lot of ye!

LtMatt · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:34

LtMatt said:
Cos the titan just got its ass handed to it at 4k.

Rusty0611 said:
Calm down love - they're just GPUs .

Yes maybe that was a bad call.

Its easy to get carried away sometimes especially when you see something positive written by H regarding AMD for once.

To be fair though the margin is pretty big, but perhaps i could have phrased it better.

Arcane · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:40

I think that anybody currently using SLI or Crossfire with the latest high end cards has to be happy unless you're one of the 0.0001%* of users running some odd combination that favours one vendor or another. It's a great time to be a PC Gamer.

* I made this number up.

LtMatt · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:45

Agreed!

humbug · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:48

Is the "Nvidia is smoother, SLI is better than CF" now dead and buried?

ICDP · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:52

Suarez7 said:
Yeah a couple of monitors and a couple of cards to run them fully is cheap not forgetting the awful bezel in between each.

Besides it still isn't anywhere near as common as single 1080p displays.

By the time most of us care there'll be new cards.

Post us your 4k benchmarks if it bothers you that much.

Why do you keep posting your opinion as fact? The fact that you don't like eyefinity/surround gaming, or bezels is irrelevant to the salient point that it is indeed quite popular among gamers. Again, the fact that "you" don't care does not render these results pointless.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-097-IY&groupid=17&catid=510

3X decent 1080p 24" monitors are actually cheaper than a single GTX780 or R9 290X. Considering everyone already has a monitor they only need to purchase an extra 2 for eyefinity/surround. When it comes to powering these monitors the R9 290X is clearly far superior. This isn't about fanboyism for Nvidia or AMD, it's about the best solution for ultra res gamers.

Suarez7 · 1 Nov 2013 at 14:54

ICDP said:
Why do you keep posting your opinion as fact? The fact that you don't like eyefinity/surround gaming, or bezels is irrelevant to the salient point that it is indeed quite popular among gamers. Again, the fact that "you" don't care does not render these results pointless.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-097-IY&groupid=17&catid=510

3X decent 1080p 24" monitors are actually cheaper than a single GTX780 or R9 290X. Considering everyone already has a monitor they only need to purchase an extra 2 for eyefinity/surround. When it comes to powering these moitors the R9 290X is clearly far superior.

I haven't posted my opinion as fact, I posted it as my opinion.

Although the facts are there if you want to see which resolution is still the most common.

oweneades · 1 Nov 2013 at 15:05

Interesting results. Taking them at face value it does look like the extra ROP's on the 290X are coming into effect at these very high resolutions.

One thing that might have been useful to include would have been single card results for each test (just the Titan and 290X would have sufficed)*. This would have shown how well each card is scaling and whether it is the scaling itself causing the performance delta.

*Eyefinity/Surround wasn't included on the 290X review.

My 780 performs quite nicely at 3600x1920 but it would be nice to try out a 290x to see for myselft how well it performs. I can't be putting up with the stock cooler though.

LtMatt · 1 Nov 2013 at 15:06

Owen they mention the crossfire scaling somewhere in the review. It went from 77-90% roughly.

oweneades · 1 Nov 2013 at 15:11

LtMatt said:
Owen they mention the crossfire scaling somewhere in the review. It went from 77-90% roughly.

Thanks

I tend to skim read the HardOCP reviews (wording wise at least) so miss that sort of thing.

More scaling potential possible at least. Custom cooled 290's in CF should be interesting.

ICDP · 1 Nov 2013 at 15:13

They don't mention SLI scaling so it would not be possible to figure out relative performance for single GPUs.

ICDP · 1 Nov 2013 at 15:15

Suarez7 said:
I haven't posted my opinion as fact, I posted it as my opinion.

Although the facts are there if you want to see which resolution is still the most common.

You mentioned Eyefinity/Surround is horrible because of the bezels. This is a matter of opinion and not a fact and should not have been presented as a reason to "prove" that 3x 1080p monitors are not a viable and popular solution to other gamers. This is what I meant when I said you were presenting your opinion as a fact, ie an absolute.

Suarez7 thinks bezels are horrible, does not equate to all people think bezels are horrible.

Also posting that 1080p is the most common resolution thereby implying all others resolutions are irrelevant is getting petty.

Suarez7 · 1 Nov 2013 at 15:22

ICDP said:
You mentioned Eyefinity/Surround is horrible because of the bezels. This is a matter of opinion and not a fact and should not have been presented as a reason to "prove" that 3x 1080p monitors are not a viable and popular solution to other gamers. This is what I meant when I said you were presenting your opinion as a fact, ie an absolute.

Suarez7 thinks bezels are horrible, does not equate to all people think bezels are horrible.

Also posting that 1080p is the most common resolution thereby implying all others resolutions are irrelevant is getting petty.

I never stated my opinion was fact though but many people comment that the bezels in between displays is a huge downside.

My 1080p comment isn't saying other resolutions are irrelevant but the comments screaming about 4k is just as daft when there's tiny amounts of people here who even use that res...