R9 290 - Tomshardware thoughts on consistency

[Exotath]

 

I have two issues with this. First, at 47% duty cycle, the fan is too loud. It’s obviously not as bad as the 290X’s Uber mode, but I don’t see any compelling reason to compromise acoustics when quieter solutions exist. AMD points out that you can turn the fan down if you want, and that's true, but you'd watch 290's performance erode at the same time. Second, I simply don’t trust the numbers I’m getting from the 290 we have on-hand to review. Even if it’s a total fluke that the R9 290X cards we have are so diametrically opposed, the mere existence of this much variance means Radeon R9 290 is either as fast as a GeForce GTX Titan and priced phenomenally or somewhere behind a retail R9 290X, just ahead of GeForce GTX 770, and priced to slot into the market (unspectacularly). I’m not comfortable making a recommendation one way or the other on 290 until we see some retail hardware.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-20.html

 

 

Clearly there’s something wrong when the derivative card straight from AMD ends up on top of the just-purchased flagships. So who’s to say that retail 290s won’t follow suit, and when we start buying those cards, they prove to underperform GeForce GTX 780?

 

What are your thoughts on this? Any 290X owners care to share opinions/results?

[RatedBlam]

Well With overclocking some msi 670s or 660tis(can't remember) Were as fast as 680. I guess It's a problem With these powerful but slightly cut Down cores

[eshbop]

With everything at stock the 290x runs around 850Mhz (40% max fan speed) and the 290 is consistently maxed out at 947Mhz (47% max fan speed). So it's got ~10% faster clocks with ~10% fewer stream processers. The 290x at 1Ghz is around 10% faster than when it runs at the stock ~850Mhz. Makes sense to me.

[ACatWithThumbs]

Well With overclocking some msi 670s or 660tis(can't remember) Were as fast as 680. I guess It's a problem With these powerful but slightly cut Down cores

The 670 OC is faster then a GTX680 stock.

And if you get it to 1300mhz then the GTX670 beats even an GTX680OC.

 

[Vitalius]

With everything at stock the 290x runs around 850Mhz (40% max fan speed) and the 290 is consistently maxed out at 947Mhz (47% max fan speed). So it's got ~10% faster clocks with ~10% fewer stream processers. The 290x at 1Ghz is around 10% faster than when it runs at the stock ~850Mhz. Makes sense to me.

This. 

You can just multiply clock speed by streaming processors (equivalent to cores on a CPU essentially) on same architecture GPU's to get a somewhat accurate estimate in regards to performance. Though memory clocks can be hard to compare. 

This is interesting though. If this is true, doesn't this basically mean that the 290X's are just cherry picked 290's? ... Holy crap. Then what's the difference going to be between the reference normal 290X's and the non-reference special edition 290X's? Cherry picks of the cherry picks? Da fuq?

Edit:

After thinking about it, that's not exactly true either. They aren't cherry picks. It's more like both cards perform the same because the thermal capacity of the coolers basically makes it so that they are both limited to the same effective TDP, and thereby, speed/performance. The 290 has less streaming processors, but can make up for it with higher clock speed. The 290X has more streaming processors but lower clock speed. 

And the only thing keeping the 290X lower on clock speed, imo, is heat. But then, water cooled 290X's should blow the Titan out of the water (i.e. get 5+ more FPS in same benchmarks). Da fuq? I'm just so confused.

Hopefully when Mantle gets here, having those extra Streaming Processors will make a bigger difference. Otherwise, I'm going to be a little irritated I bought a $580 GPU that performs basically the same as a $400 one. This is silly.