[H] AMD Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire Review

[3DVagabond]

The Good:
Here's one I've been waiting for. [H] reviewing the R9 295x2 in crossfire. So, Quadfire @ 4K and Eyefinity, max playable settings. Also, since they don't simply run 2 minute benches this is performance you could expect with such a setup. Too bad no nVidia equivalent to compare with the Titan-Z being shelved (for now?).

The Bad:

Comparison Cards? Not So Much.

We wanted to bring you a full and worthy comparison to the competition today, that being the latest and greatest NVIDIA has to offer. There is the Titan Black, and the new Titan-Z that we were anxious to give a go to bring you performance from the competition that would best match AMD Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire. We reached out to NVIDIA's Senior PR Manager of Consumer Products Bryan Del Rizzo and asked:

We are planning a R9 295X2 QuadFire review. Would NVIDIA like to have a contender in this review? If so, let me know what you might have.

The reply we got back from Bryan Del Rizzo was:

No Thanks.

The Ugly:

The PSU Wattage Problem

In our evaluation system we are using an Enermax MaxRevo 1350W PSU. This is a beefy power supply that has served us well in testing and has allowed us to use any combination of video cards, up to 4 GPUs on previous generations without issue. In fact, the max support amperage is 30 amps per 12V rail, so the ratings in terms of amps are are than what AMD recommends. We had no issues with this power supply and one AMD Radeon R9 295X2 video card. However, we did have problems with two.

The problem was a simple one to diagnose, we ran out of wattage. Our 1350W was not enough to run two AMD Radeon R9 295X2 video cards in CrossFire on our overclocked system. Note that our system runs lean, we do not have an optical drive, we have only one SSD, everything on the motherboard is turned off except what we need. The two major power drains are our CPU which is an overclocked Intel Core i7 3770K at 4.8GHz and the GPUs.

 

[Zanovar]

For a few dollars more the GeForce GTX Titan Z?

 

[3DVagabond]

For a few dollars more the GeForce GTX Titan Z?

Yeah, just a few.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Nvidia needs to improve it's dual GPU card cooling solution or it will not be able to compete. It looks like we need 1500 watts PS to properly utilize two of these bad boys, damn

 

[james1701]

I liked Tom at OC3D running two of them for the Corsair 1500i review. No performance numbers for the card, but that power supply ran it with no problems.

 

[Wild Thing]

Hey nice read!
ROLFCOPTER at the Nvidia guy's quote: "No thanks" :biggrin::whiste:

Not nearly as funny as you thinking you're fooling anyone with this alt account, Will.
-- stahlhart

 

[Lepton87]

I think they should have had compared it to nvidias best configuration anyway. They mentioned that it was VRAM limited, it would be nice to see how nvidias 6 GB cards compare.

 

[tviceman]

Nvidia needs to improve it's dual GPU card cooling solution or it will not be able to compete. It looks like we need 1500 watts PS to properly utilize two of these bad boys, damn

Lets see.... GTX 780 TI SLI pulls 170 less watts than 295x crossfire

Yeah... I don't think Nvidia has nearly as much to worry about with respect to cooling as AMD does when it comes to a dual-GPU card.

 

[thilanliyan]

1350W PSU not enough??!!

 

[Gikaseixas]

Lets see.... GTX 780 TI SLI pulls 170 less watts than 295x crossfire

Yeah... I don't think Nvidia has nearly as much to worry about with respect to cooling as AMD does when it comes to a dual-GPU card.

No need to be so defensive hehehe
by bad boys i meant the 295x's on the review.
Nvidia is looking for ways to surpass AMD's king, that's why they could not release Titan Z this week. Cooling will come to play for them too.

 

[Leadbox]

Lets see.... GTX 780 TI SLI pulls 170 less watts than 295x crossfire

Yeah... I don't think Nvidia has nearly as much to worry about with respect to cooling as AMD does when it comes to a dual-GPU card.

Yeah, but the Tis are coping quite the spanking there performance wise.
Once you start to adress the performance deficit:

 

[tviceman]

Yeah, but the Tis are coping quite the spanking there performance wise.
Once you start to adress the performance deficit:

Nvidia is not going to release an over-volted 1200mhz Titan Z. It just isn't going to happen. Therefore their cooling solutions are just fine.

Anyone who is spending money on either of these cards to begin with are idiots to begin with. AMD wins the extreme halo crown, but at the sheer expense of power consumption, which IMO is laughably ridiculous now.

 

[caswow]

Lets see.... GTX 780 TI SLI pulls 170 less watts than 295x crossfire

Yeah... I don't think Nvidia has nearly as much to worry about with respect to cooling as AMD does when it comes to a dual-GPU card.

You forgot the perf. screenshots.

Nvidia is not going to release an over-volted 1200mhz Titan Z. It just isn't going to happen. Therefore their cooling solutions are just fine.

Anyone who is spending money on either of these cards to begin with are idiots to begin with. AMD wins the extreme halo crown, but at the sheer expense of power consumption, which IMO is laughably ridiculous now.

you would not say this if it was the other way around.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Nvidia is not going to release an over-volted 1200mhz Titan Z. It just isn't going to happen. Therefore their cooling solutions are just fine.

Anyone who is spending money on either of these cards to begin with are idiots to begin with. AMD wins the extreme halo crown, but at the sheer expense of power consumption, which IMO is laughably ridiculous now.

Being faster is ridiculous?

I'm sure increasing power target for the 780ti's would result in increased performance as well as a large increase in power consumption. What is laughably ridiculous is thinking that any enthusiast who is actually going to use 780ti's would not increase their power target and overclock which would result in similar power draw from the cards.

 

[Skurge]

Nvidia is not going to release an over-volted 1200mhz Titan Z. It just isn't going to happen. Therefore their cooling solutions are just fine.

Anyone who is spending money on either of these cards to begin with are idiots to begin with. AMD wins the extreme halo crown, but at the sheer expense of power consumption, which IMO is laughably ridiculous now.

When you are using Dual cards or Dual GPU cards. You don't care about power use. Heat and noise maybe.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I wonder what game they used to test power consumption in that review because here's a test using Crysis 3 where the 780ti SLI uses close to 800 watts.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-780-ti-sli_5.html#sect1

Did they use a game where crossfire scales and SLi doesn't? Something strange about the [H] number in that power consumption test.

 

[caswow]

I wonder what game they used to test power consumption in that review because here's a test using Crysis 3 where the 780ti SLI uses close to 800 watts.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-780-ti-sli_5.html#sect1

Did they use a game where crossfire scales and SLi doesn't? Something strange about the [H] number in that power consumption test.

Its simple.

At full-load the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 peaked at 730W system wattage, which was the highest out of all the video cards. This is 30W higher than two AMD R9 290X CrossFire video cards. There are several reasons that account for this. A consistent clock speed, no throttling, a higher 1018MHz clock speed, and the added power required for the radiator pumps and fan. The most efficient power usage is with GTX 780 Ti SLI which tops out at 532W.

The 295x2 outperformes everything in this test.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/04/08/amd_radeon_r9_295x2_video_card_review/3

 

[VulgarDisplay]

That doesn't explain why 780ti SLi is using over 300 watts more at this other website.

 

[Enigmoid]

I wonder what game they used to test power consumption in that review because here's a test using Crysis 3 where the 780ti SLI uses close to 800 watts.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-780-ti-sli_5.html#sect1

Did they use a game where crossfire scales and SLi doesn't? Something strange about the [H] number in that power consumption test.

Well the idle power is about 120W higher.

A SB-E vs. 3770k both at 4.8 ghz are going to have a massive power delta.

The system used by HardOcp is pretty stripped down, x-bit has quite a bit of peripherals.

But most importantly: X-bit has overclocked the cards.

 

[tviceman]

You forgot the perf. screenshots.
you would not say this if it was the other way around.

Yes, I would. AMD did exactly that with their OEM only 250 watt cpu and if you take a step back and look at Hawaii for what it is, it's already overvolted and overclocked at reference settings. Versus GK110 its much smaller, yet consumes more power and can't clock as high. On top of that, it was released nearly 18 months after GK110, yet didn't get any perf/w improvements that comes with new chips and node maturity.

 

[tviceman]

When you are using Dual cards or Dual GPU cards. You don't care about power use. Heat and noise maybe.

I would care. You say you dont but since they are all affected by one another, saying you dont care is ignorance.

 

[Skurge]

I would care. You say you dont but since they are all affected by one another, saying you dont care is ignorance.

295x2 is neither hot nor loud. It is very power hungry though. Aftermarket cards are not loud. Some maybe hot. very few are loud.

 

[Lepton87]

Yes, I would. AMD did exactly that with their OEM only 250 watt cpu and if you take a step back and look at Hawaii for what it is, it's already overvolted and overclocked at reference settings. Versus GK110 its much smaller, yet consumes more power and can't clock as high. On top of that, it was released nearly 18 months after GK110, yet didn't get any perf/w improvements that comes with new chips and node maturity.

Quadro and Tesla cards are irrelevant to Radeon R290 so those 18 months become much less when comparing products that actually compete with each other. Titan is also a special case not directly comparable to Radeons. Geforce 780/Ti are direct competitors to Hawaii cards whose release dates aren't so significantly apart. Saying that a card is already overclocked and overvolted from factory just shows you don't have a clue what you are talking about. What you wanted to say is that Hawaii is already clocked past its sweet spot from performance per watt perspective because it needs high voltage to maintain that clock (overvolted) and that it doesn't have much frequency headroom left (overclocked).

 

[Erenhardt]

Hawaii is already clocked past its sweet spot from performance per watt perspective because it needs high voltage to maintain that clock (overvolted) and that it doesn't have much frequency headroom left (overclocked).

Which is funny to say given geforce cards boost to 1200MHz by itself. Kind of hypocrisy

 

[Lepton87]

Which is funny to say given geforce cards boost to 1200MHz by itself. Kind of hypocrisy

Well, my Titan doesn't OC at all moreover it only boosts to a meager 1006MHz so I wouldn't single AMD out for offering products without much overclocking headroom.