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
Battlefield 3
Our major multiplayer action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 3, DICE’s 2011 multiplayer military shooter. Its ability to pose a significant challenge to GPUs has been dulled some by time and drivers, but it’s still a challenge if you want to hit the highest settings at the highest resolutions at the highest anti-aliasing levels. Furthermore while we can crack 60fps in single player mode, our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, so hitting high framerates here may not be high enough.
For our Battlefield 3 benchmark NVIDIA cards have consistently been the top performers over the years, and as a result this is one of the hardest fights for any AMD card. So how does the 290X fare? Very well, as it turns out. The slowest game for the 290X (relative to the GTX 780) has it losing to the GTX 780 by just 2%, effectively tying NVIDIA’s closest competitor. Not only is the 290X once again the first single-GPU AMD card that can break 60fps average on a game at 2560 – thereby ensuring good framerates even in heavy firefights – but it’s fully competitive with NVIDIA in doing so in what’s traditionally AMD’s worst game. At worst for AMD, they can’t claim to be competitive with GTX Titan in this one.
Moving on to 4K gaming, none of these single-GPU cards are going to cut it at Ultra quality; the averages are decent but the minimums will drop to 20fps and below. This means we either drop down to Medium quality, where 290X is now performance competitive with GTX Titan, or we double up on GPUs, which sees the 290X CF in uber mode take top honors. This game happens to be another good example of how the 290X is scaling into 4K better than the GTX 780 and other NVIDIA cards are, as not only does AMD’s relative positioning versus NVIDIA cards improve, but in heading to 4K AMD picks up a 13% lead over the GTX 780. The only weak spot here for AMD will be performance scaling for multiple GPUs, as while the 290X enjoys a 94% scaling factor at 2560, that drops to 60% at 4K, at a time where NVIDIA’s scaling factor is 76%. The 290X has enough of a performance lead for the 290X CF to hold out over the GTX 780 SLI, but the difference in scaling factors will make it cut close.
Meanwhile in an inter-AMD comparison, this is the first game in our benchmark suite where the 290X doesn’t beat the 280X by at least 30%. Falling just short at 29.5%, it’s a reminder that despite the similarities between 290X (Hawaii) and 280X (Tahiti), the performance differences between the two will not be consistent.
Looking at our delta percentages, this is another strong showing for the 290X CF, especially as compared to the 280X CF. AMD has once again halved their variance as compared to the 280X CF, bringing it down to sub-10% levels. This despite the theoretical advantage that the dedicated CFBI should give the 280X. However AMD can’t claim to have the lowest variance of any multi-GPU setup, as this is NVIDIA’s best game, with the GTX 780 SLI seeing a variance of only 6%. It’s a shame not all games can be like this (for either vendor) since there would be little reason not to go with a multi-GPU setup if this was the typical AFR experience as opposed to the best AFR experience.
Finally, looking at delta percentages under 4K shows that AMD’s variance has once again risen slightly compared to the variance at 2560x1440, but not significantly so. The 290X CF still holds under 10% here.
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Sandcat - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
That depends on what you define as 'acceptable frame rates'. Yeah, you do need a $500 card if you have a high refresh rate monitor and use it for 3d games, or just improved smoothness in non-3d games. A single 780 with my brothers' 144hz Asus monitor is required to get ~90 fps (i7-930 @ 4.0) in BF3 on Ultra with MSAA.The 290x almost requires liduid...the noise is offensive. Kudos to those with the equipment, but really, AMD cheaped out on the cooler in order to hit the price point. Good move, imho, but too loud for me.
hoboville - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Yup, and it's hot. It will be worth buying once the manufacturers can add their own coolers and heat pipes.AMD has always been slower at lower res, but better in the 3x1080p to 6x1080p arena. They have always aimed for high-bandwidth memory, which is always performs better at high res. This is good for you as a buyer because it means you'll get better scaling at high res. It's essentially forward-looking tech, which is good for those who will be upgrading monitors in the new few years when 1440p IPS starts to be more affordable. At low res the bottleneck isn't RAM, but computer power. Regardless, buying a Titan / 780 / 290X for anything less than 1440p is silly, you'll be way past the 60-70 fps human eye limit anyway.
eddieveenstra - Sunday, October 27, 2013 - link
Maybe 60-70fps is the limit. but at 120Hz 60FPS will give noticable lag. 75 is about the minimum. That or i'm having eagle eyes. The 780gtx still dips in the low framerates at 120Hz (1920x1080). So the whole debate about titan or 780 being overkill @1080P is just nonsense. (780gtx 120Hz gamer here)hoboville - Sunday, October 27, 2013 - link
That really depends a lot on your monitor. When they talked about Gsync and frame lag and smoothness, they mentioned when FPS doesn't exactly match the refresh rate you get latency and bad frame timing. That you have this problem with a 120 Hz monitor is no surprise as at anything less than 120 FPS you'll see some form of stuttering. When we talk about FPS > refresh rate then you won't notice this. At home I use a 2048x1152 @ 60 Hz and beyond 60 FPS all the extra frames are dropped, where as in your case you'll have some frames "hang" when you are getting less than 120 FPS, because the frames have to "sit" on the screen for an interval until the next one is displayed. This appears to be stuttering, and you need to get a higher FPS from the game in order for the frame delivery to appear smoother. This is because apparent delay decreases as a ratio of [delivered frames (FPS) / monitor refresh speed]. Once the ratio is small enough, you can no longer detect apparent delay. In essence 120 Hz was a bad idea, unless you get Gsync (which means a new monitor).Get a good 1440p IPS at 60 Hz and you won't have that problem, and the image fidelity will make you wonder why you ever bought a monitor with 56% of 1440p pixels in the first place...
eddieveenstra - Sunday, October 27, 2013 - link
To be honnest. I would never think about going back to 60Hz. I love 120Hz but don't know a thing about IPS monitors. Thanks for the response....Just checked it and that sounds good. When becoming more affordable i will start thinking about that. Seems like the IPS monitors are better with colors and have less blur@60Hz than TN. link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS_panel
Spunjji - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Step 1) Take data irrespective of different collection methods.Step 2) Perform average of data.
Step 3) Completely useless results!
Congratulations, sir; you have broken Science.
nutingut - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
But who cares if you can play at 90 vs 100 fps?MousE007 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Very true, but remember, the only reason nvidia prices their cards where they are is because they could. (Eg Intel CPUs v AMD) Having said that, I truly welcome the competition as it makes it better for all of us, regardless of which side of the fence you sit.valkyrie743 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
the card runs at 95C and sucks power like no tomorrow. only only beats the 780 by a very little. does not overclock well.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lZ3Z6Niir4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OHKWMgBhvA
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/am...
i like his review. its pure honest and shows the facts. im not a nvidia fanboy nore am i a amd fanboy. but ill take nvidia right how over amd.
i do like how this card is priced and the performance for the price. makes the titan not worth 1000 bucks (or the 850 bucks it goes used on forums) but as for the 780. if you get a non reference 780. it will be faster than the 290x and put out LESS heat and LESS noise. as well as use less power.
plus gtx 780 TI is coming out in mid November which will probably cut the cost of the current 780 too 550 and and this card would be probably aorund 600 and beat this card even more.
jljaynes - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
you say the review sticks with the facts - he starts off talking about how ugly the card is so it needs to beat a titan. and then the next sentence he says the R9-290X will cost $699.he sure seems to stick with the facts.