How is the R9 290 now that it's priced like a budget card?

[afyeung]

For starters, a lot of people will argue with me saying that since this card is pretty pricy when sold brand new online, it can't be considered a budget card. However, this card is EOL anyways and usually when people are on a budget, they should also consider used, refurbished, or clearance. Used, this card can go for around $160-170 (My friend just bought a Windforce 290x for $175). I got my MSI R9 290 gaming for $143 basically brand new from Micro Center excluding tax(included receipt for proof). HardOCP even had an article comparing the r9 290 with the gtx 960 since PowerColor decided to release a $200 MSRP aftermarket 290 mid early 2015 for whatever reason. Now that we got pricing out of the way, let's get into an actual review of the card and how it stands in 2015.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/22/powercolor_turboduo_r9_290_4gb_oc_video_card_review#.VkO7ka6rSfQ

I will be using a scale 1- 5, 1 being very poor, 5 being exceptional.

 

Drivers and Software- 4.5/5

 

A lot of people use AMD drivers as a reason not to get an AMD card. I think everyone on both sides can agree that Catalyst is pretty lackluster when it comes to UI and looks. This however shouldn't really affect your experience with the card. Although the software is clunky, actions like setting custom 3d profiles for games are really easy to do. My 2 favorite features by far are VSR and the ability to override tessellation levels. VSR works very well. With my 1440p monitor, I am given the option to downscale from 1800p which improves the texture sharpness in older titles like Deus Ex HR while maintaining a high frame rate. The only issue I've had with VSR is that it screws up aspect ratio profiles in some games like FC4 so running borderless windowed mode at native resolution does not work. The ability to override tessellation is very helpful in games like Witcher 3 which makes the hairworks feature more optimized and enjoyable to play with. So far with the latest Catalyst drivers on Windows 10, I have had zero crashes in all my games, GTA 5, Witcher 3, Watch Dogs, BF4, etc.

In addition to AMD software you also have the MSI gaming app, which should be avoided(overclock yourself please), but looks nice. That's about it for card specific software.

 

Design- 4/5

 

The R9 290 gaming is based on MSI's now older version of the Twin Frozr cooler. The cooler itself looks very nice(pictures below), but the main attraction is the backplate. MSI has done a wonderful job of outlining the GPU core and neatly soldered points with cutouts in the backplate, it looks far better than a full cover backplate in my opinion because you can also have a glimpse of the PCB. However, a cooler can look nice and all but fails in the end if it cannot keep the GPU cool. My main gripe with the cooler is the fans. The fan blades are spaced fairly far apart and have a weird spear shape. I have no idea how they came up with the design because cooling fans in general should be optimized for static pressure(New twin frozr does a good job at this). I can actually feel a significant amount of cool air blowing back from the fans even under load. I guess this gets rid of dust and also might be how most open air GPU coolers work. But like I said, it was cool air that didn't feel heated by the gpu. 

 

Temperatures and Sound- 4/5

 

Make no mistake, this card can get hot, but not unreasonably hot for 2560 stream processors and the noise level. 

(default fan profile)

Stock temps- Idle: 35c Load: 79c

Overclocked temps- Idle: 35c Load: 87c

At stock speeds, the cooler does a fairly decent job of cooling the GPU and doesn't need to go above 60%. I have 3 NZXT FN V2 120mm fans in the front of my case. At 60%, the cooler is about on par with the noise level of those 3 fans at 100% which are rated at 23db. 

Overclocked speeds is a different story. The cooler needs to ramp up to 100% to cool the core. At this point, you can hear quite a bit of fan noise, especially if your side panel is off, but most of the sound is coming from the rush of air which is far more pleasant than smaller fans running at high RPMs. 

Overall, I am happy that I did not need to tweak the fan profile to keep temps in check, so my PC can get really quiet once the load is gone. However, I feel that if the cooler was designed a bit better like other aftermarket 290s, temps and noise could have been better.

 

Overclocking- 2.5/5

 

Wow, where do I start? Overclocking this card for absolute stability was a very painful process. I have probably spent more than 10 hours on just overclocking. Overclocking to me can be really fun, however the R9 290 is very finicky in general. Most R9 290s can get to about 1080 on the core and 1350 on the memory without needing any extra voltage boost. Overclocking the memory on the 290 is not as pleasant if you have Elpida VRAM which was used during Hynix memory shortages. Elpida is usually more inferior and doesn't want to go above 1450 on the mem, while Hynix is rated to run at 1500mhz. Luckily, MSI R9 290s have hynix. Core clock is king anyways, so let's go over that first. My strategy was to find my max stable clock with 0 voltage offset(1085mhz) then go up in 10mhz increments. At first I thought my max stable Core OC was 1140mhz with +69mv offset. I played quite a bit of GTA 5 and benched with Valley/Heaven to test for stability. GTA 5 ran smoothly, but I realized that GTA 5 is actually very tolerant to bad overclocks. Once I jumped into Tomb Raider, I got artifacts almost immediately. What's worse than crashing in my opinion is artifacting. Crashing at least tells you that your overclock is bad immediately, while artifacts can take up to 20 min. to occur. It's very embarrassing when you are showing your friend a game and artifacts show up. After a bit of testing, I found that I only needed +15mv on the core to get to 1100/1350 stable. MSI actually defaults the card at +25mv which is too much compared to other factory overclocked cards which default with +0. To get to 1140 on the core, I needed a full +100mv to get stable. This raised my max GPU temps by about 15%. I found that overclocking the core is what caused instability. After I was done with the core, overclocking the memory was a breeze. I already knew that hynix could be clocked fairly high, so I just bumped up the aux(mem on 290s) voltage to +25 and maxed out the mem slider to 1625. Note that if you don't turn up the aux voltage before overclocking the memory by a fair amount, you will black screen which is quite annoying. At first I tried +13mv aux which a lot of people recommended but I black screened after exiting Tomb Raider. +25mv aux worked well and had no affect on temperatures. The reason why I gave the 290 a low overclocking score is because it's really easy to black screen if you input the wrong values and instability can show up way after you are in to a game which is annoying.

Final overclock settings: 1140/1625 +100mv core +25 aux(changes mem voltage) + 20% power(no difference from +50 in my testing)

Stock R9 290: 947/1250, 20% boost on the core and 30% boost on the memory.

 

Performance- 5/5

 

Despite what people say, I have benched the 290 and 290x quite a bit and there is no significant difference between performance with the 390 and 390x especially at the same clock speeds. Before, I think that AMD improved tessellation on the 390/390x vs. the 290/290x when it first launched. But now after driver updates, the cards perform basically the same. Basically every benchmark site benches the 290 at stock speeds when comparing it to other cards. I feel that this is unfair because the stock core clock was limited on the 290 mainly because of the reference cooler because the card was throttling anyways. However, with aftermarket cooling the 290 stays fairly cool and can go up to +150mhz on the core with stock voltages. This actually makes a significant performance improvement because Nvidia cards have GPU boost 2.0 which automatically overclocks the card when temps are in check.  The 290 has a lot of sheer horsepower but its stock clocks are relatively low which limits the card. 1440p resolution which is what most gamers are moving towards these days is a good resolution to stretch the legs of this card.

Now for benchmarks: (benched with i7 5820k @ 4.5ghz so no cpu bottlenecks)

Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor 1440p Ultra preset (Pics Below):

Stock: 60fps

Overclocked: 71fps (MSI 390x gets 71, GTX 980 gets 64)

Assassin's Creed Unity 1440p(very playable with latest patch and if you turn off gimp works features) Ultra High, FXAA, High Shadows, SSAO

Stock: 45fps

Overclocked: 54fps (Gpu usage dips below 100 most of the time)

Call of Duty Advanced Warfare 1440p Everything Maxed out 2x Filmic SMAA (very well optimized game now IMO. Looks great and runs well)

Stock: 82 fps

Overclock: 96

Witcher 3 1440p Maxed Out Everything 2x AA, Hairworks set at 16x Tesselation (Pics below)

Stock: 31fps

Overclock: 37fps

GTA 5 1440p Completely Maxed Out, Softest Shadows, Maxed Out Advanced Graphics Settings, 2x MSAA and 2x Reflection MSAA

Stock: 38fps in city, 20fps in very grassy areas, 35fps on the ocean

Overclock: 45fps in city, 25fps in very grassy areas, 40fps on the ocean

 

As you can see by the benchmarks. This card is more than capable of maxing out most games at 1440p and can easily handle 1080p. However, if you want to play the latest and greatest titles at enjoyable frame rates at 1440p you are going to need 2 R9 290s which can run you up to $350+. I will be testing crossfire between my R9 290 and a 290x so stay tuned for that. I think that the R9 290 is a great deal for the price. I have actually owned multiple 290s in the past and have gotten all of them below the price of a 960. As you can tell, the 960 isn't even close to the performance league of the R9 290 which can compete with modern upper range cards especially when overclocked. I'm not trashing 960/950 owners because if all of them bought up the 290s floating around there would be none for the rest of us. I can definitely say that if any of my friends are planning a sub $700 build, I would definitely recommend the 290. It's interesting how the 290 was extremely overpriced by the bit coin mining craze but now that it's long over, these cards can be found at a very good price for consumers.

 

Overall 4.5/5

 

Pros:

-Price

-Performance

-Drivers

 

Cons:

-Heat

-Overclocking is a pain

 

Note: For whatever reason My ACU and W3 screenshots are huge in file size. Might upload them later if you guys request.

[Coaxialgamer]

Good review man !

[DXMember]

Hawaii has aged well indeed

[afyeung]

Good review man !

Thanks!

[Morgan MLGman]

Good review. More people should know about those cards right now, they're basically the best in price/performance ratio right now.

[Coaxialgamer]

Also how did you get a 290 for that cheap ?

On their site the cheapest on is 240 $ and last time i went they told me it was discontinued or something ...

[Sauron]

143 bucks for that beast? damn! who would even consider a 950/960 range card if they could get this?

[DXMember]

Btw, what I did with my XFX 290 was put power limit to the max, voltage only a little bit (+38 mV if I remember correctly) and that allowed me to get 1200 on core and 1400 memory.

So basically what I found is that power limit contributed to stability and overclock-ability much more than the voltage

[afyeung]

Also how did you get a 290 for that cheap ?

On their site the cheapest on is 240 $ and last time i went they told me it was discontinued or something ...

Honestly, I'm not sure. The box was basically sealed and I was supposed to get it for $191. I think due to the programming in the central system, based on how long the card has been sitting there, they had to mark down the price by a lot. The mining craze drove up the price of these cards like crazy to $700+. Shortly, the 970 came out and crushed the 290/290x in price to performance so people just bought that and AMD already had a bad rep. So these cards have just been sitting there for a while now especially since the 390 has replaced the 290. I have seen crazy stuff like piles of 290x's for $190. 

[Knaj]

290 for $150.

 

This bothers me a lot..

[afyeung]

Btw, what I did with my XFX 290 was put power limit to the max, voltage only a little bit (+38 mV if I remember correctly) and that allowed me to get 1200 on core and 1400 memory.

So basically what I found is that power limit contributed to stability and overclock-ability much more than the voltage

I have done quite a bit of testing and fairly high asic cards don't need a big power boost. It actually doesn't make a big difference whether I bump up to 50% because my card doesn't use more than 20% of the stock power consumption anyways. For example, in Keith from RTP's r9 290 OC'ing video he only needed +20% to reach 1200/1500. 

[Starelementpoke]

Honestly, I'm not sure. The box was basically sealed and I was supposed to get it for $191. I think due to the programming in the central system, based on how long the card has been sitting there, they had to mark down the price by a lot. The mining craze drove up the price of these cards like crazy to $700+. Shortly, the 970 came out and crushed the 290/290x in price to performance so people just bought that and AMD already had a bad rep. So these cards have just been sitting there for a while now especially since the 390 has replaced the 290. I have seen crazy stuff like piles of 290x's for $190. 

And I thought the 7950 I got for $95 was a good deal...

[Counter-Strike Player]

Honestly, I'm not sure. The box was basically sealed and I was supposed to get it for $191. I think due to the programming in the central system, based on how long the card has been sitting there, they had to mark down the price by a lot. The mining craze drove up the price of these cards like crazy to $700+. Shortly, the 970 came out and crushed the 290/290x in price to performance so people just bought that and AMD already had a bad rep. So these cards have just been sitting there for a while now especially since the 390 has replaced the 290. I have seen crazy stuff like piles of 290x's for $190. 

 

Good theory about the 970, although it pains me to see so many people opted for a 970+1080p screen, although this was way before cards like the 960. Your 290 was probably an open-box item that probably got mislabeled.

 

And btw everyone, these 2xx cards are ripe for Black Friday deals so if you've been waiting for years and years about upgrading your gpu, soon will be the time to pick up the stale inventory as you mentioned the 3xx are now replacing inventory and my bet is that brick stores want to get rid of all the 2xx stock by the end of this month.

[Samfisher]

I know you'r eusing a HTC One M7

[afyeung]

Good theory about the 970, although it pains me to see so many people opted for a 970+1080p screen, although this was way before cards like the 960. Your 290 was probably an open-box item that probably got mislabeled.

 

And btw everyone, these 2xx cards are ripe for Black Friday deals so if you've been waiting for years and years about upgrading your gpu, soon will be the time to pick up the stale inventory as you mentioned the 3xx are now replacing inventory and my bet is that brick stores want to get rid of all the 2xx stock by the end of this month.

It wasn't open box. The card was sealed and everything was there. I've purchased open box items and I've returned stuff myself. This was in factory condition.

[Mew]

You might want to white out the phone number as well because you can find the microcenter store using the phone number. 

[DarkBlade2117]

I paid $140 for my 750Ti LOL.

What MicroCenter? I live near one

[Chasem121]

290 for $150.

 

This bothers me a lot..

Tell me about it man, I bought bought mine used not to long ago for $235 and $220 each

[MEC-777]

Long live Hawaii GPUs! Reigning kings of performance per dollar - by miles!  

 

Great review. Hawaii's and Grenada's don't get anywhere near the credit they deserve.  

[afyeung]

Long live Hawaii GPUs! Reigning kings of performance per dollar - by miles!

 

Great review. Hawaii's and Grenada's don't get anywhere near the credit they deserve.  

I actually haven't building PC's for very long. I wonder if this has happened before with older generation GPUs? I know that this also happened with the 780(ti) but now they are still slightly more expensive and aren't as powerful as the 290(x). I wonder next year when AMD rebrands the r9 Fury at $330, will the r9 Fury have a similar price drop like the 290 did when the 390 came out even though they are essentially the same GPU? R9 Fury(x) for $200 would be stellar. 

[Knaj]

Tell me about it man, I bought bought mine used not to long ago for $235 and $220 each

 

Mine was $260 ._.