Why is everyone hating on the R9 290X?

[S1lentThund3r]

At this point, do you guys see AMD giving up on the GPU market in the near future?

The 7970 was one of the best cards on the market for quite some time, and the 280x is consistently as good as or better than a 770. Just because their very high end cards don't perform quite as well as the competition doesn't mean they aren't a brilliant company making great cards for affordable prices. 

 

On the 290x, I had a 4890 which had the exact same cooler design, ran at almost the same temps and made almost the exact same amount of noise and I loved that card. I only upgraded this year from that card and never had any issues with it. But really, why would anyone get a 290x when the 290 is just as good for a much better price.

 

We already know that aftermarket coolers make the card far better and can hold the card to very good temperatures and noise, just look at the guys using coolers like Arctic products and Geil coolers.

[lhikari]

amd's r9 290x is nearly as good as a 780

reviewers were given hand picked gpu's that dont get throttled

retail cards couldnt get near the 780 without 10 to %40 perfomance not achieved

even with amd's latest patch retail cards are not even as good as the ones given to reviwers what bs

and the fact that amd said"it is supposed to run at 95 degree" are you out of your mind? What gpu runs that freaking hot? EVEN WITH AFTERMARKET COOLERS YOU CANT OVERCLOCK THAT MUCH CUZ THE GPU IS ALREADY PUSHED TO ITS LIMITS hence the 95 degree thing

i bet amd will be releasing a "ghz edition" and fuk up everyone who got an 290x these days

guy on overclockers watercooled his 290x and got %2 of perfomance and i pissed myself laughing at him, but the temps stayed at 50 which is a bit warm but better than 95

[gylmir]

people just hate the 290x because they buy overpriced nvidia cards and then amd release lower price cards with better performance for you buck.

 

i don't mind if a card runs at 50° or at 150° if its designed for it and not heavily affect ambiance temps of the case.

and if you want to put 600€ in a decent card just watercool it more quiet and betetr to oc

[GamerDude]

I don't know why people are saying the R9 290X is almost as good as the GTX780, it even trades wins against the GTX Titan from the guru3d reviews of it. Sorry, if Linus did a benchmark review of the R9 290X, I didn't watch his as I've always preferred and trust guru3d's reviews. The GTX 780 isn't quite up to the R9 290X, especially at higher than 1080P res, the Titan wins some, loses some. OC'in is bad for the R9 290X but it's something that a good waterblock can't help overcome.

 

Let me emphasize that nVidia had been laughing all the way to the bank at the number of peeps buying their Titan, GTX780 and GTX770, it's only due to the release of the R9 that nVidia decided to lower the prices of the latter two When I'd said that at 1kUSD and 650USD for a Titan and GTX780 respectively, nVidia was simply being greedy (they deliberately sold the GTX Titan at a very high price, so when they launched the GTX 780 at 650USD, nV peeps were going, "Oh, that's so reasonable!". The rationale behind their thinking is that these cards are s expensive to make, so the higher cost is justified. What now? An EVGA GTX780 is going for 525USD now over at newegg.......you mean to say it's being sold at lower than cost? Knowing nVidia, I highly doubt this.....they are still making a nice profit even at the new price.

[MegaTechPC]

I think its pretty well established that the 290X is faster than the vanilla 780.  The catch is that the 780 clocks higher and the non-reference cards can clock so high (mid-1400's MHz) that they can overtake the 290X which is faster clock-for-clock.  It looks like the 290X is around even with the Titan and slightly slower than the 780Ti, all at max OC.  The good news is that all of the high end cards from both companies are within spitting distance of each other...

[Saladin]

I think that AMD made some choices with the 290x that were designed to make it look better in benchmarks but that aren't of particular use to actual gamers. Namely the decision to target higher than 1080p resolutions by adding more V-ram. While this makes the 290x perform much better at resolutions such as 4k (where even there it doesn't perform well, pulling less than 30FPS in games, not that other GPUs do any better) it doesn't particularly help it in the resolution(s) that most gamers are actually using (primarily 1080p, with increasing demand for 1440p) making this mostly a marketing gimmick. When the 290x is compared to the 780 and 780 ti at 1080p the performance gaps decrease dramatically (I will leave Titan out as I personally consider it more of an entry level professional card due to the double precision stuff).

 

One interesting way to look at the 290x is to compare performance. The two major ways I look at cards are listed below (all numbers are for 1080p as that is the resolution I personally game in).

 

In terms of performance per clock (I'm using OC3D benchmark numbers from Tomb Raider at 1080p though this could be repeated with any benchmarks you want, this was just the first one I clicked http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/nvidia_gtx780_ti_review/17) :

• GTX 780 (clock 863, fps 56.6, fps/clock 0.06559)
• R9 290x (clock 947, fps 78.5, fps/clock 0.08289)
• GTX 780 ti (clock 857, fps 87.8, fps/clock 0.10245)
• GTX 780 ti OC (clock 1101, fps 104.7, fps/clock 0.09509)

As you can see here the 290x sits between the 780 and the 780 ti in terms of performance per clock at 1080p with the 780 ti having a sizable lead. You can also see that there are diminishing returns on clock speed, that is to say as you increase the clock speed, the corresponding fps boost you receive increases at a lower rate.

 

The other way I like to compare cards is in terms of price to performance (same benchmark numbers, cost in USD, ratio shows frames gained per dollar spent) (I also use a formula 100-(1/price to performance) to get a score) :

• GTX 780 (cost $499.99, fps 56.6, performance/price 0.1132) (score 91.116)
• R9 290x (cost $549.99, fps 78.5, performance/price 0.14273) (score 92.994)
• GTX 780 ti (cost $699.99, fps 87.8, performance/price 0.1254) (score 92.026)
• GTX 780 ti OC (cost 699.99, fps 104.7, performance/price 0.1496) (score 93.316)

What these numbers tell you is that the R9 290x has better price to performance than either the stock 780 or the stock 780 ti (higher is better), however the overclocked 780 ti has better price to performance than the 290x. As you can easily see from both metrics it pays to overclock if possible.

 

Here is a comparison of performance per watt, these numbers are not particularly useful for buying a card but due give interesting information about how efficiently the cards use power in producing performance. All numbers are for stock cards not overclocks as the power draw for a given overclock and vary greatly, you will also see variations in power draw between cards even at stock clocks though these should ideally be much smaller.

• GTX 780 (fps 56.6, TDP 250 watts, performance/watt 0.2264)
• R9 290x (fps 78.5, TDP 270-300 watts depending on source, performance/watt 0.29074-0.26167)
• GTX 780 ti (fps 87.8, TDP 250 watts, performance/watt 0.3512)

For a final metric I have included here a performance to temperature ratio, this is a useful way to look at the efficiency of the stock coolers. The data gives you the frames per degree Celsius. Using the same OC3D benchmarks and using their thermal data for these cards all temps are at load.

• GTX 780 (fps 56.6, max temp 65, fps/temp 0.8707)
• R9 290x (fps 78.5, max temp 95C, fps/temp 0.8263)
• GTX 780 ti (fps 87.8, max temp 71C, fps/temp 1.2366)
• GTX 780 ti OC (fps 104.7, max temp 79C, fps/temp 1.3253)

As you can see the stock Nvidia cooler is significantly better than the stock AMD cooler; not only is it better out of the box but it scales very well as temperatures increase.

 

I haven't included the overclocked 780 as I could not readily find the OC3D overclock speed for the card they used in their benchmarks, if some one can find them I will update this. I will add the R9 290 (non-x) when/if OC3D reviews it, I do not want to mix benchmarks. I chose to use OC3D because I trust their reviews; the reviews are very in depth with excellent charts. I always recommend doing something similar to this before buying a new GPU, this is not necessarily the best way, but it is how I do it. Hope this is helpful.

 

Edit. Added thermal data

Edited November 11, 2013 by Saladin

[NinjaStyle013]

They moan because it runs hot and loud or in a shortened form it runs like a reference card.

(Off topic I love NVIDIAs reference cooler it looks sooo sick)

[Gunjob]

amd's r9 290x is nearly as good as a 780

reviewers were given hand picked gpu's that dont get throttled

retail cards couldnt get near the 780 without 10 to %40 perfomance not achieved

even with amd's latest patch retail cards are not even as good as the ones given to reviwers what bs

and the fact that amd said"it is supposed to run at 95 degree" are you out of your mind? What gpu runs that freaking hot? EVEN WITH AFTERMARKET COOLERS YOU CANT OVERCLOCK THAT MUCH CUZ THE GPU IS ALREADY PUSHED TO ITS LIMITS hence the 95 degree thing

i bet amd will be releasing a "ghz edition" and fuk up everyone who got an 290x these days

guy on overclockers watercooled his 290x and got %2 of perfomance and i pissed myself laughing at him, but the temps stayed at 50 which is a bit warm but better than 95

The lack of grammar gave me a headache, I currently have my 290x overclocked on reference cooling, 1075core 1425mem and I get no throttling. Once I get a water block on it I hope to get some extra MHz but I don't think its a thermal limit issue more a silicon lottery thats holding my clock back, some overclock better than others this is the way things have always been. Just the other week I was reading about how someones 4770K was failing Prime95 @ stock volts/clocks and needed more voltage just to be stable. 

 

The guy who runs the Unigine bench over on the GPU section has a balls to the wall unicorn Titan that thing is awesome. Now I'd argue anyone who wants to doing heavy overclocking on a card shouldn't be buying reference unless they plan on putting it underwater, to which the gains are on a lottery basis. 

 

Your post sounds very "fanboy" I'd suggest not being a fanboy of anything and picking cards which suit your use case.

 

@Saladin has some of the most non-bias and reasonable opinions on this forum and should be recognized as such.

Edited November 11, 2013 by Gunjob

[martinrox1568]

I feel that the 290x has a lot more power left in it. On water I won't be surprised if it beats the 780ti. And remember guys, drivers have yet to mature. The 780 had up to a 15% increases due to drivers alone. Wait a couple months and then we can get back to this question.

[Cs342]

I feel that the 290x has a lot more power left in it. On water I won't be surprised if it beats the 780ti. And remember guys, drivers have yet to mature. The 780 had up to a 15% increases due to drivers alone. Wait a couple months and then we can get back to this question.

Didn't the 7970 get a massive boost from drivers recently? What was it, 30%?

[Gunjob]

Didn't the 7970 get a massive boost from drivers recently? What was it, 30%?

CCC 12.11 was anywhere from 75% to 50% (depending on each game ofcourse) for HD7000 it was the driver that launched the whole Never Settle thing.

[Cs342]

CCC 12.11 was anywhere from 75% to 50% (depending on each game ofcourse) for HD7000 it was the driver that launched the whole Never Settle thing.

75%?!!!!wtf?!!!

[_ASSASSIN_]

Reference cards are for watercooling. Only that. Ever. Don't even think about running a reference cooler. Ever. No. Ever.

that glorious member title

[Gunjob]

75%?!!!!wtf?!!!

http://i.imgur.com/IP15CIg.png

Was an awesome driver, brought HD7000 into the lead. I'd imagine the same sort of power will be got from 290x, just like HD7000 had alot of unrealized performance. 

[Najuno]

Since I decided to go with water cooling I don't care too much about coolers anyway. I am at this point just kinda stuck between a GTX780 Ti and the R9 290X. Both cards are fine...maybe I'll buy both of them and see myself which one I like better, but that remains to be seen.

 

But btt I am very sure that third party coolers will improve this heat situation on the R9 highend series, no doubt about it. But there is one thing that a lot of people seem to forget.

Most of the people, even when they decide to get a highend computer, don't put this machine together on their own. So I speak with quite some expirience on that because I build up most of the systems for all my family and friends (and even friends of my friends lol). These people are neither able nor willing to buy an extra cooler for a card they spent 550 USD on, and why would they do so? Most of them don't even know that it is possible and others are just afraid of doing that.

Due to the fact that you could loose indeed your warranty on the item.

So they want something for a long term, at least 2-4 years and just start the machine and have fun with it. And that's it, no hardcore thrid party cooler not water cooling, just a working item.

And this is where I tell these people at the moment rather to buy an nVidia card or wait until christmas if they want an AMD graphics card, cause when some one spends 3 grants or more on a machine they expect flawless performance and nothing else.

For this reason I usually decline if someone asks me for a Raid 0 setup.

 

GreetZ Naj

[ChrisxIxCross]

290x is an AMAZING card sure AMD made a mistake with a reference only launch but i'm sure a DC2 290x or Vapor-x version + mantle will just absolutely smash a 780!

Heres proof that the stock cooler is literally CRIPPLING the cards -

www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-19.html

[Najuno]

290x is an AMAZING card sure AMD made a mistake with a reference only launch but i'm sure a DC2 290x or Vapor-x version + mantle will just absolutely smash a 780!

Heres proof that the stock cooler is literally CRIPPLING the cards -

www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-19.html

 

Your link is from a R9 290, but yeah it shows the potential of the Hawaii chips for sure. Hopefully the board partners bring similar coolers for these cards!

 

I personally can't wait for the watercooled tests for the R9 290X, cause yeah the R9 290 has the better price performance but if I'd go with an AMD card at this point it would only be the R9 290X.

[delet my acc pls]

ty

*boop* *boop* kid snitch alert.