AMD Explains Performance Variance Among Retail and Press Sample Radeon R9 290X Cards (Somewhat Copy/Paste)

[malaki]

AMD explained the reason why some of the 290/290X's sent to reviewers were performing better than the retail cards.

Quote: "Based on feedback from the enthusiast community, we’ve implemented an all new PowerTune mechanism in the AMD Radeon R9 290 series that exploits the full capability of the individual GPUs rather than clamping performance to a least-common-denominator type of capability level. This has the advantage of improving overall performance but does result in some degree of performance variability," 

 "These changes will also result in some degree of run-to-run test variability based on environmental and operational conditions in un-controlled test environments"

 

Check out the full article here: http://www.maximumpc.com/amd_explains_performance_variance_among_retail_and_press_sample_radeon_r9_290x_cards

[stevv]

only this last sentence mattered....
 

  "however it appears that most reported performances are biased towards the low side." That being the case, AMD said it is "actively investigating" the cause and promises to provide another update at the conclusion of its investigation.

[I'm Batman]

This is not true look at Guru3d's(not sure) 290/X showcase they test both the press card and retail card in the same testbench and the press model performed %10+ better.

[lhikary]

r9 290X has the worst thermalpast in the world

not only that ut the gpu stock cooler surface is scratched and beat up

from tomshardware:

Removing the paste revealed the heat sink’s

scratched and uneven contact surface, which did

not exactly match the quality you would expect

from a brand new and professionally mounted

cooler

source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-thermal-paste-efficiency,3678.html

still i will buy an amd card but a 3rd party one

no mattre how amd tries and beat up nvidia, they just cant match the quality of nvidia's products

[Mooshi]

r9 290X has the worst thermalpast in the world

not only that ut the gpu stock cooler surface is scratched and beat up

from tomshardware:

Removing the paste revealed the heat sink’s

scratched and uneven contact surface, which did

not exactly match the quality you would expect

from a brand new and professionally mounted

cooler

source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-thermal-paste-efficiency,3678.html

still i will buy an amd card but a 3rd party one

no mattre how amd tries and beat up nvidia, they just cant match the quality of nvidia's products

 

 

That looks pretty nasty..was someone drunk and went on a stabbing rampage with a pocket knife? I still want an R9 290, though. Will def want to get one from Asus or MSI and swap the thermal compound with some PK-1 I have laying around.

[KakaoDj]

This is not true look at Guru3d's(not sure) 290/X showcase they test both the press card and retail card in the same testbench and the press model performed %10+ better.

Silicon lottery maybe

[I'm Batman]

Silicon lottery maybe

those cards wasnt overclocked even if it was a silicon lottery luck it wouldnt have made that much diffrence without O.C'ing

[ShiverMePenguins]

those cards wasnt overclocked even if it was a silicon lottery luck it wouldnt have made that much diffrence without O.C'ing

Look. Auto over clocks.I doubt guru 3d bothered to manually clock each card to the same spec. And tomshardware has the worst community ever. I doubt they didn't destroy the heatsink

[Humbug]

For a long time AMD and Nvidia have been hand picking the review samples. The difference is that in the past silicon lottery only affected overclocking results. But now with the way this architecture works combined with a crappy cooler means that silicon lottery has a big effect on stock results too.

Power tune plays with voltages and clock speeds dynamically to get max performance while staying within temp threshold.

[Eroda]

Time to Lap that sucker flat and put some good paste on there and then re-bench it and see how much of a performance increase there is

[JAKEBAB]

I don't think this is right u spend money based on these numbers reviewers give u and then u don't get the same performance?! That's rediculous also it's not fair if u spend the exact same amount of money on a card as joe from down the street and his performes better that's wrong IMO this needs to be fixed!

[sof006]

I'm glad I bought my 7990

 

Was going to get a R9 290X but thought... Hey I have the money, why not?

[LAwLz]

That's rediculous also it's not fair if u spend the exact same amount of money on a card as joe from down the street and his performes better that's wrong IMO this needs to be fixed!

To be fair, this is already happening when you take overclocking into consideration. Your card might only run at stock settings while Joe down the street might get 15% higher performance from overclocking, with barely any increase in heat.

If the average performance of cards is higher, then I think this is a good move from AMD. I really think it's a douchebag move of them to cherry pick cards to give to reviewers, if they are doing that (nothing has been confirmed).

[TheMissxu]

I thought we already discovered it was the bios' that made the differences, not the silicon

[JAKEBAB]

To be fair, this is already happening when you take overclocking into consideration. Your card might only run at stock settings while Joe down the street might get 15% higher performance from overclocking, with barely any increase in heat.

If the average performance of cards is higher, then I think this is a good move from AMD. I really think it's a douchebag move of them to cherry pick cards to give to reviewers, if they are doing that (nothing has been confirmed).

yea i know but thats not running at "spec" overclocking voids your warranty they arnt guaranteeing this much performance when overclock but they are when u buy it stock it should be the same as everyone else's otherwise why is Joe's $600 worth more than mine! 

[IPCharger]

r9 290X has the worst thermalpast in the world

not only that ut the gpu stock cooler surface is scratched and beat up

from tomshardware:

Removing the paste revealed the heat sink’s

scratched and uneven contact surface, which did

not exactly match the quality you would expect

from a brand new and professionally mounted

cooler

source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-thermal-paste-efficiency,3678.html

still i will buy an amd card but a 3rd party one

no mattre how amd tries and beat up nvidia, they just cant match the quality of nvidia's products

Custom coolers to the rescue!

[KakaoDj]

those cards wasnt overclocked even if it was a silicon lottery luck it wouldnt have made that much diffrence without O.C'ing

Powertune mayyyne

[exyia]

I really wouldn't hate AMD so much for all this crap circulating on the 290/290x if they didn't hype themselves up for all this crap - titan killer this, next big thing that, blah blah blah

 

I still agree that the 290/290x is a compelling value argument, but it's nowhere near the engineering marvel of nvidia's offerings (still). Pulling crap like this to salvage their overhyped marketing is just going to leak someday and make things worse. People aren't stupid, and the internet spreads news like wildfire

[LAwLz]

I really wouldn't hate AMD so much for all this crap circulating on the 290/290x if they didn't hype themselves up for all this crap - titan killer this, next big thing that, blah blah blah

Pretty sure it was fanboys that claimed it would be a titan killer and a ton of other claims, before any proof was even posted.

Personally I don't buy into any hype because most people just end up being disappointed when something doesn't live up to the hype. Well, either that or they come up with excuses as to why it is still as good as it was hyped to be.

Anyway, you shouldn't really hate AMD for something the fans of AMD does.

[exyia]

Pretty sure it was fanboys that claimed it would be a titan killer and a ton of other claims, before any proof was even posted.

Personally I don't buy into any hype because most people just end up being disappointed when something doesn't live up to the hype. Well, either that or they come up with excuses as to why it is still as good as it was hyped to be.

Anyway, you shouldn't really hate AMD for something the fans of AMD does.

 

mmmm, sort of. don't forget the (unprofessional) twitter banter, the constant headline quotes how "it will outperform titan on BF4", etc etc. and the press conference "across the street" from nvidia's. hell - the major hype of hawaii's event IN HAWAII and flying out nearly everyone just for that. IIRC, nvidia didn't go so extreme when unveiling the titan

 

all AMD had to do was release a new card. it didn't have to be marketed as an anything-killer. Release a card at the right price point - the reviews and benchmarks will speak for themselves. but instead they tried to "play the internet" and now NOBODY can view a 290/290x review without thinking about a GTX Titan

 

god I hate the internet...I miss when companies just stood on their own product

[Zeo2002]

god I hate the internet...I miss when companies just stood on their own product

And yet you're here... must not hate it that much.

[malaki]

Whenever I hear "Titan Killer" used to describe the 290X, I always think of Attack on Titan

 

Man I watch too much anime...

[JaeDee884]

mmmm, sort of. don't forget the (unprofessional) twitter banter, the constant headline quotes how "it will outperform titan on BF4", etc etc. and the press conference "across the street" from nvidia's. hell - the major hype of hawaii's event IN HAWAII and flying out nearly everyone just for that. IIRC, nvidia didn't go so extreme when unveiling the titan

all AMD had to do was release a new card. it didn't have to be marketed as an anything-killer. Release a card at the right price point - the reviews and benchmarks will speak for themselves. but instead they tried to "play the internet" and now NOBODY can view a 290/290x review without thinking about a GTX Titan

god I hate the internet...I miss when companies just stood on their own product

Even without the hype train it would of been compared to the titan, when a top of the line product is released you compare it to the top of the line from the competitors. Your blaming the internet but that's just how marketing works and has worked for a long time.

Take two cars, one released and one coming soon, the coming soon car gets a released spec sheet, it's rocking more torque and higher kilowatts, a tighter gearbox and a big greedy turbo, but has a tiny intercooler. All the specs say it'll be faster but they never released the cooling system, so when it comes out you find it performs worse because the engine overheats and can't be pushed as hard.

But soon a bigger better intercooler is coming, and when she's running as cool as the first car then we'll see a true performance comparison.

Sorry I'll try keep the car talk to the workshop :-P

[exyia]

Even without the hype train it would of been compared to the titan, when a top of the line product is released you compare it to the top of the line from the competitors. Your blaming the internet but that's just how marketing works and has worked for a long time.

Take two cars, one released and one coming soon, the coming soon car gets a released spec sheet, it's rocking more torque and higher kilowatts, a tighter gearbox and a big greedy turbo, but has a tiny intercooler. All the specs say it'll be faster but they never released the cooling system, so when it comes out you find it performs worse because the engine overheats and can't be pushed as hard.

But soon a bigger better intercooler is coming, and when she's running as cool as the first car then we'll see a true performance comparison.

Sorry I'll try keep the car talk to the workshop :-P

 

Stupid people would have put it against the Titan (there will always be forum trolls), but the press and general public would have viewed it as a product on it's own merit. AMD brought all the "vs Titan" upon themselves.

 

IB-E launch - it was just marketed as IB-E. Intel never said it was going to be the next best thing since sliced bread; it was just IB-E. It came out, was as expected. People moved on, no drama was raised past the usual amount of forum trolls

 

What 290/290X could have been:

"Hey, AMD came out with a card with close/better performance to GTX Titan/780, but at a surprisingly lower price point that's hard to argue with. AMD's new gpu is a great new value addition to the GPU market."

 

What we got:

"Well.....they came close, sometimes beat it. But with major caveats to noise, thermals, power consumption. It's hard to say they "beat" the Titan. Oh but the saving grace, at least, the price is competitive."

[malaki]

Stupid people would have put it against the Titan (there will always be forum trolls), but the press and general public would have viewed it as a product on it's own merit. AMD brought all the "vs Titan" upon themselves.

 

IB-E launch - it was just marketed as IB-E. Intel never said it was going to be the next best thing since sliced bread; it was just IB-E. It came out, was as expected. People moved on, no drama was raised past the usual amount of forum trolls

 

What 290/290X could have been:

"Hey, AMD came out with a card with close/better performance to GTX Titan/780, but at a surprisingly lower price point that's hard to argue with. AMD's new gpu is a great new value addition to the GPU market."

 

What we got:

"Well.....they came close, sometimes beat it. But with major caveats to noise, thermals, power consumption. It's hard to say they "beat" the Titan. Oh but the saving grace, at least, the price is competitive."

 

+1 Agree