The AMD Radeon R9 290X Review
by Ryan Smith on October 24, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Hawaii
- Radeon 200
Total War: Rome 2
The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Rome 2 is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a forested area with a large number of units, definitely stressing the GPU in particular.
For this game in particular we’ve also gone and turned down the shadows to medium. Rome’s shadows are extremely CPU intensive (as opposed to GPU intensive), so this keeps us from CPU bottlenecking nearly as easily.
With Rome 2 no one is getting 60fps at 2560, but then again as a strategy game it’s hardly necessary. In which case the 290X once again beats the GTX 780 by a smaller than average 6%, essentially sitting in the middle of the gap between the GTX 780 and GTX Titan.
Meanwhile at 4K we can actually get some relatively strong results out of even our single card configurations, but we have to drop our settings down by 2 notches to Very High to do so. Though like all of our 4K game tests, it turns out well for AMD, with the 290X’s lead growing to 13%.
AFR performance is a completely different matter though. It’s not unusual for strategy games to scale poorly or not at all, but Rome 2 is different yet. The GTX 780 SLI consistently doesn’t scale at all, however with the 290X CF we see anything from massive negative scaling at 2560 to a small performance gain at 4K. Given the nature of the game we weren’t expecting anything here at all, and though getting any scaling is a nice turn of events to have negative scaling like this is a bit embarrassing for AMD. At least NVIDIA can claim to be more consistent here.
Without working AFR scaling, our deltas are limited to single-GPU configurations and as a result are unremarkable. Sub-3% for everyone, everywhere, which is a solid result for any single-GPU setup.
396 Comments
View All Comments
rituraj - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
So that "PROSUMER" cookie that nv tried to sell was just a grandma's cookie and it's proven now. I will buy the next maxwell flagship AND AT $600. (Lol.. I have to pay 20% more here in India)dazaj - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
why is there no titan sli in all these benches but there is 290x cfRyan Smith - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Because we only have 1 Titan.just4U - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
They likely didn't have two on hand..dazaj - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
why is there no titan sli in any of these benchesdrinkperrier - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Just 1 question.Can i have the possibility to buy this videocard from AMD brand and not asus, sapphir and etc??
Ryan Smith - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Unfortunately no. AMD does not directly sell Radeon cards to consumers. They only directly sell Radeons to OEMs, while FirePros are directly sold to everyone.rituraj - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
The best thing I can get out of this release is that nVidia is not going to be able to charge $1000 for its next flagship or ultra-flagship. Because it's been proven that no matter what crazy performance it gives, it can be released at a 500-600 range by AMD and therefore by nVidia too. Even if they do, charge that much people will j7st wait for a few months for AMD to release an equally powerful card at 600 or 500. Good move AMD...SunLord - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
Saturday and I'm still not sure the reviews done or at least Anandtech has dropped making explaining and commenting on test resultspolaco - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
Origin PC will loose lots of possible sells by having dropped AMD. NVidia monopolistic friends pay the consequences...