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R260/270/280/290/290x Review thread

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For the first time in a long time this card has me excited when seeing the price.

To put it in perspective, it's beating the 780 which a week ago was $650, and clobbers the 770 which was at $400 a week ago.

AT sure went all out on complaining about the cooler, perhaps too far imo since that's subjective and some people can tolerate it. Now that they've added noise to the critical criteria (apparently) let's see how they rate all the $100-$400 reference cards in the future. Everyone agrees the cooler is pretty underwhelming anyway.

You could buy an aftermarket cooler and still spend less than a 780, or turn the fan down a touch since it's 20% cheaper and performing as good or better than the 780 for $100 less.

I think this card is going to become the choice for this generation. It has amazing performance and an amazing price considering a week ago NV gouged for $650 for the performance.

I'll borrow [H]'s quote.
The value favors the AMD Radeon R9 290 in an epic way.
Click to expand...


(Thread rant -Rvenger/Stalhart please take note)
Can we get a thread on this where we have all the info in the OP? This thread is a disaster with a ton of card launches and info spread across a million pages. Wth is this thread the sticky when there's nobody even bothering to consolidate the sources.
 
Gikaseixas said:
if you do get it, just slap an accelero for an additional $100. That will be the same as a GTX 780 but with higher performance and lower temps.

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2013/amd-radeon-r9-290-im-test/10/
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How would you know if it his higher performance without knowing my resolution?

It is sad that people recommend cards without even asking what resolution they play at.

We can all pretend that we game on 4k, but in reality 1080p is still the standard, and 780 trounces.

AMD delayed the card due to the 780 price drop so that they could change the default fan speed.....I haven't seen this much fuzzy math in quite a long time.
 
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what about 2560x1600? Best res ever 😀

Also, does afterburner have voltage control yet?
 
OCGuy said:
780s can actually be purchased...we will see if 290x and 290 can actually show some volume.
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The release of the R9 290 will not cause people that we're not in the market for a 780 to purchase one, in fact, it could cause someone in the market for a 780 to not buy a 780. If this factor affects sales enough then we may see a drop in price.
 
290s are available on newegg btw. $399 plus tax and shipping if applicable.
 
Subyman said:
The release of the R9 290 will not cause people that we're not in the market for a 780 to purchase one, in fact, it could cause someone in the market for a 780 to not buy a 780. If this factor affects sales enough then we may see a drop in price.
Click to expand...

We are still talking about 1% cards here. 290 would have been a OEM mid-range dream if it wasn't for the terrible efficiency.
 
AT gives it a solid thumbs down:


"To get right to the point then, this is one of a handful of cards we’ve ever had to recommend against. The performance for the price is stunning, but we cannot in good faith recommend a card this loud when any other card is going to be significantly quieter. There comes a point where a video card is simply too loud for what it does, and with the 290 AMD has reached it. . . .

Had the 290 shipped in its original 40% fan configuration, it wouldn’t be knocking on the GTX 780’s door any longer, but it would have been in a spot where its balance of price, performance, and noise would have made for an attractive product. Instead AMD has shipped the 290 with the equivalent of uber mode as the default, and in the process has failed to meet the needs of the majority of their customers."
 
OCGuy said:
How would you know if it his higher performance without knowing my resolution?

It is sad that people recommend cards without even asking what resolution they play at.

We can all pretend that we game on 4k, but in reality 1080p is still the standard, and 780 trounces.

AMD delayed the card due to the 780 price drop so that they could change the default fan speed.....I haven't seen this much fuzzy math in quite a long time.
Click to expand...

Instead of being so rude you could post your resolution along with your question or simply reply "do you think that it would help with a resolution >>>> x >>>>"

I was just trying to help, CHILL
 
BallaTheFeared said:
Only thing I can think of is AMD cherry picked low leakage chips for reviewers if this is true.
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They bought two and they both exhibited similar performance (in the conclusion I think is where they mention it). That is basically where the card performs if its throttled to its minimum frequency presumably. It also probably exhibits more noise because the fan might be ramping up above 40%. I am kind of stunned, they must have known the review sites would find out and that their reputation would be in the toilet afterwards.
 
AMD is already playing them for fools with the auto overclock fan speed, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD was binning them for low leakage. I expected Nvidia to do similar, though their samples have tighter variance and a more reasonable bottom.

What does surprise me though is the variation, it is massive. Obviously we need more samples but 2 out of 2 isn't terribly ambiguous.
 
OCGuy said:
How would you know if it his higher performance without knowing my resolution?

It is sad that people recommend cards without even asking what resolution they play at.

We can all pretend that we game on 4k, but in reality 1080p is still the standard, and 780 trounces.

AMD delayed the card due to the 780 price drop so that they could change the default fan speed.....I haven't seen this much fuzzy math in quite a long time.
Click to expand...

Trounce is a bit strong. I'd say its trading blow depending on the game. Bf3 and Crysis3 are good showings at 1080 for nvidia, but I doubt the 1% of enthusiasts that buy these are on 1080p. Although 144hz is mainly a 1080p proposition so there may be some.

I'm hoping for a bit of a drop on the 780. I'd rather stay with nvidia due to my previous experience.
 
pretty impressive card :thumbsup:
$100 less than the 780 for the same performance...
$70 more than the 770 for much higher performance, 2x the memory

the cooler is bad but, at this price you could justify buying another cooler, or accepting the high level of noise

custom cooler 290s are going to make the 780 and 290x look bad.
 
AT points out the games with the fan speed, Tom's points out the sampling...

I am impressed with AMD's aggressiveness, but it smells like major desperation at this point.
 
AMD deserve every bit of critisism for their utterly atrocious and completely crap cooler.

Such a great card at a great price, but you have to purchase an expensive 3rd party cooler and invalidate your warranty fitting it. Who the [redacted] at AMD thought these reference coolers were in any way shape or form up to the task?

I can live with the power consumption and the heat, but that cooler is abysmal and a complete joke. So much potential wasted, pretty much sums up AMDs GPU releases for the past few generations.

Sorry AMD but reference R9 290 and R9 290X = fail. I wonder how long it will take for a class action law suit to be taken against AMD by deaf PC gamers? 😵

Profanity isn't allowed in the technical forums.
-- stahlhart
 
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Actually, on stock volts, it seems the cooler is plenty adequate for OCing, just loud.

To say it is in adequate is something I would nitpick and say is incorrect; it is loud and adequate at 60%, with OC. That is not even 100%, but 60% with cool thermals.
 
OCGuy said:
AT points out the games with the fan speed, Tom's points out the sampling...

I am impressed with AMD's aggressiveness, but it smells like major desperation at this point.
Click to expand...

Eh, I don't think its desperate. Desperate measures typically don't elicit a $150 price drop from competition. Obviously nvidia sees merit in AMDs threat. It will be interesting to see how nvidia responds to the 290.
 
O btw, I found the answer to Voltage control: no software control at present save modded BIOS afaik.
 
Anyone have an exact date of the >>real<< 290x and 290 launch?

AKA, when the things ship with an actual cooler instead of one powered on imagination?

This is the longest I've ever been strung along in a GPU launch, and that's not a good thing.

My 7970s and 7950s aren't going to replace themselves.

I also pray to the gods of video card manufacturing to have a bountiful harvest of AIB blower coolers. (Hah, as if that's going to happen)
 
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I'll just wait for a cheap 290 and put an Accelero cooler on it. I don't understand all the fuss people are making about the reference coolers. Who cares about reference coolers......they've aways been lousy(for high end cards). Also Nvidia reference coolers are a bit noisy. I want dead quiet coolers. And mostly that goes best with 120mm fans.
 
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