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

[3DVagabond]

Is this the first GPU launch you've followed? It certainly isn't theirs and every launch people seem to claim the reverse (depending on their preferred brands placement). It wasn't long ago people were claiming the reverse.

Additionally people were just claiming AT is AMD biased, now they aren't since they criticized AMD so they just got all "credibility" back? Let's switch the goalposts, it's funny to watch the scramble.

There's a lot of people pretty desperate to spread FUD. $400 with noise vs. $500 ($650 without the release of the cards) is a clear win to unbiased customers. Aftermarket cards are still the main thing I'm concerned with.

The funny thing is I certainly didn't see much uproar from seeing golden sampled 680's hitting 1300 MHz which in practice is almost unheard of.

I've brought it up numerous times.

Seriously, I believe it's QC problems with the particular cards Tom's got. Strange that they haven't tried to source what the issue is. I know if they had come here and told us about it, we would have told them to try and reseat the heatsink, at least. Also checked the voltage the cards are running at.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Before last month we were called NVIDIA biased. I guess we are doing our job right.

When performance is up there, they try to take the focus away from this most important metric and focus on everything else they can.

 

[3DVagabond]

Before last month we were called NVIDIA biased. I guess we are doing our job right.

Fun PO'ing everyone, isn't it.

 

[PCboy]

Real enthusiasts overclock to the maximum, and that would mean 100% fan speed and +50% power levels on these cards.

If you don't do that, you're not a Real enthusiast.

Play your 30 second time demos more.

Spending 350+ USD on water cooling means you didn't care about price performance to start with, so that's a non-starter.

Enthuasiast != Gamer

You sure are a real enthusiast with that 4.5ghz oc on air. I bet that's because it's quiet right?

Whatever, I'm out of this thread. Too many whiners that have 1:1 K/D ratios with their oh-so-efficient, eco-mode, save-the-whales GTXs.


Thread crapping is not permitted.

-Rvenger

 

[AtenRa]

Before last month we were called NVIDIA biased. I guess we are doing our job right.

Dont worry, you will regain that title soon

 

[24601]

Enthuasiast != Gamer

You sure are a real enthusiast with that 4.5ghz oc on air. I bet that's because it's quiet right?

Whatever, I'm out of this thread. Too many whiners that have 1:1 K/D ratios with their oh-so-efficient, eco-mode, save-the-whales GTXs.

Yup, it is quiet . Thanks for pointing that out.

But yeah, if you can't take the heat, don't dish it out.

You're not a real gamer until you get banned from servers for killing the admin too many times. I'm banned from my favorite CS:S servers Q.Q

 

[ShintaiDK]

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

Tomshardware bought 2 retail 290X's and both of them perform considerably worse than the golden samples that they were clearly sent by AMD. This raises some serious concerns. All of the reviews I saw of the original card put it ahead of the 780, yet if the retail cards are actually performing just a smidge over a 770 we are getting ripped off. It does appear AMD has been dishonest on purpose and I hope other reviewers take note of this and get retail cards to test. This could be a gigantic scandal.

With so much riding on the amount of throttling the card does its a big concern. The after market cooler they use however seems to be awesome, should solve the problem and make an excellent performing card to boot. But you need to factor that into the price of the card or watercool the darn thing.

Frame variance is still a bit of a concern looking at the pcper.com results for crossfire. Its not a sea of orange in the background but its still at levels where people can tell its there.

These cards are turning out to be a trade off, noise to performance and at crossfire variance to outright frame rate. Its not a clear cut win really, the rough comes with the awesome.

Ouch. Its a shame reviews dont reflect real world anymore. I bet AMD is not the only one cheating here. But on the other hand, I doubt review sites got the money to buy all the hardware themselves.

Maybe the solution is for AMD/Intel/nVidia to send money with a contract of a review when retail product is bought.

 

[Silverforce11]

Ouch. Its a shame reviews dont reflect real world anymore. I bet AMD is not the only one cheating here. But on the other hand, I doubt review sites got the money to buy all the hardware themselves.

Maybe the solution is for AMD/Intel/nVidia to send money with a contract of a review when retail product is bought.

Bit too premature to jump to conclusions isn't it, 2 cards out of how many shipped.. forums aren't raging with this complaint.

Recall the 7990 issue at TPU, Powercolor Devil, they got a card with a heatsink not seated properly.. shiat happens. That's what RMAs are for.

 

[24601]

Ouch. Its a shame reviews dont reflect real world anymore. I bet AMD is not the only one cheating here. But on the other hand, I doubt review sites got the money to buy all the hardware themselves.

Maybe the solution is for AMD/Intel/nVidia to send money with a contract of a review when retail product is bought.

Doubt that would happen because then there wouldn't be in-depth launch reviews.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Bit too premature to jump to conclusions isn't it, 2 cards out of how many shipped.. forums aren't raging with this complaint.

Recall the 7990 issue at TPU, Powercolor Devil, they got a card with a heatsink not seated properly.. shiat happens. That's what RMAs are for.

Its not the only red flag there is, is it? 1.1V boost vs 1.3V for retail?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Pretty obvious the 780 price cuts made AMD sacrifice their 290X on the alter of fail to bring up their 290 to seem more consumer friendly. The bump from 40% to 47% fan speed while moderately increasing performance to make it seem more competitive out of the box, also had the adverse effect of making the 290 louder than the reference 480 by a few db.

My only concern is where do we stop not caring about inflating reference performance via fan speed?

With how much flack Nvidia got over the 480, which this card easily exceeds in noise and power consumption you have to wonder...

If the 780 Ti comes out at 95 temp target and 100% fan speed on a bios switch do we just talk about the performance on that setting while ignoring the obvious downsides like power and noise? I imagine if they did something like that we'd see a card 40% faster than the 290 at 1440... Would we just bow down at that point or would someone have the fortitude to say enough is enough?

 

[krumme]

Well you know AMD just released another decent card when you get the usual trolls doing their tryhard schticks.

I'm wondering if the GTX 780 will end up dropping further in price. It looks ridiculous all over again with this second AMD 290 series release. Another $100 cut off the price seems in order and I could go for a third once the price falls to $400 or less for GTX 780.

Once bf4 with mantle hits 780 should be a 320usd card. There will be lots of new aaa mantle titles next year and if they add 10% to gcn after markets 290 will walk all over the 780 for performance. 780 needs some price ajustment now. 150usd down and it will remain competitive once bf4 mantle hits. The nv cards is still way to expensive.

 

[Imouto]

What I see is double standards everywhere. Forum folks, reviewers.

Lets see what Ryan Smith said at the GTX 580 launch (44.4db Idle - 57.1db Load).

Load

the GTX 580 is not whisper quiet, but at no point in our testing did it ever get “loud”.

Now lets see what he just said about the R9 290 (39.5db Idle - 57.2db Load).

Load

With the 290 AMD has thrown out any kind of reasonable noise parameters

Consistency, that is.

 

[wand3r3r]

Half of the posters here have missed the boat.

$400 for essentially titan performance 8 months after the overpriced titanic hit the scene at an absurd $1k.

That's $75/mo burned every month since titanics release ($600 less).

Yeah it's loud, yeah you have to turn off an extra light in your house, however it's value is epic after NV's extreme gouging. The price is about the same as the overpriced 770 4GB which it handily stomps on.

You can't beat the value on this card, it might be one of the legendary cards as it has incredible value, once the aftermarket cards hit. The high resolution stomping suggests that the card will also age better.

If you want to complain, complain to NV for price gouging. Until then keep buying the overpriced cards and whining about the incredible value AMD has just unleashed.

 

[krumme]

Pretty obvious the 780 price cuts made AMD sacrifice their 290X on the alter of fail to bring up their 290 to seem more consumer friendly. The bump from 40% to 47% fan speed while moderately increasing performance to make it seem more competitive out of the box, also had the adverse effect of making the 290 louder than the reference 480 by a few db.

My only concern is where do we stop not caring about inflating reference performance via fan speed?

With how much flack Nvidia got over the 480, which this card easily exceeds in noise and power consumption you have to wonder...

If the 780 Ti comes out at 95 temp target and 100% fan speed on a bios switch do we just talk about the performance on that setting while ignoring the obvious downsides like power and noise? I imagine if they did something like that we'd see a card 40% faster than the 290 at 1440... Would we just bow down at that point or would someone have the fortitude to say enough is enough?

Some cars are build for speed some for cruising. You just cant ride a camry at 250kmt and you just cant go to 95c with a 780 because its not build for it.
It obvious the 290 is a damn fast gpu. Aftermarket versions will walk all over the 780/titan.
There is not much to it. Its just plain faster arch.
I understand people investment in 650usd 780 is now only worth 350usd and it hurt feelings. Buts thats how it have always been for gpu investments. Its for pleasure not investment.
Instead of all this crying lets celebrate. Nearly 2 years of high prices have ended. Nothing but great.

 

[krumme]

What I see is double standards everywhere. Forum folks, reviewers.

Lets see what Ryan Smith said at the GTX 580 launch (44.4db Idle - 57.1db Load).

Load
Now lets see what he just said about the R9 290 (39.5db Idle - 57.2db Load).

Load
Consistency, that is.

Excactly. There is some desparation here. What is happening? Lol.

 

[mak360]

@brightcandle

ROFL - These are Retail as they get.. Stay calm and breath

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18554848

 

[horza]

..

 

[Imouto]

Not to rain on your expose but if you look at the 5870 for example between those review the numbers are way off. They are not comparable, they may have change the testing methods between those reviews.

No testing method involved here. He tested a 57.1db card that wasn't loud and another one at 57.2db that was loud. It doesn't matter if it was Furmark or whatever you care, GTX 580's 57.1db is not loud and R9 290's 57.2db is out of any reasonable noise parameters.

 

[Erenhardt]

[snip] You see the problem yet or not?

Nope. Just because someone had a faulty sample, doesn't mean anything other that they "lucked" out and should RMA.

Most review sites OCed 290X to 1100, while many users went up to 1250MHz.

On the other hand, you have reviewers saying they get golden cherry-picked samples that are not representative of retail product from nvidia everytime.

So, what is the problem again?

 

[selni]

What I see is double standards everywhere. Forum folks, reviewers.

Lets see what Ryan Smith said at the GTX 580 launch (44.4db Idle - 57.1db Load).

Load
Now lets see what he just said about the R9 290 (39.5db Idle - 57.2db Load).

Load
Consistency, that is.

dB is a relative, not absolute measure. You can't compare like that.

 

[flopper]

No testing method involved here. He tested a 57.1db card that wasn't loud and another one at 57.2db that was loud. It doesn't matter if it was Furmark or whatever you care, GTX 580's 57.1db is not loud and R9 290's 57.2db is out of any reasonable noise parameters.

yea did you point that out to him?

 

[horza]

..

 

[krumme]

Not to rain on your expose but if you look at the 5870 for example between those review the numbers are way off. They are not comparable, they may have changed testing methods between those reviews.

But anyway who gives?
Actually the review performance numbers reflect a little more what people will actually get when they buy the aftermarket cards. Would it be right to go 40% hell no. But somehow this noise made ryan go berserk in until now unseen calculation of performance no one. NO ONE. Will ever experience. Pathetic. How representive is that.

For once amd did the right thing and let reviewers show the performance of the card. Like nv always do with their oc methology.

And we know that some aftermarket cards will ad 10% oc to that.

Wellcome to the new world. At high res this 400usd card will be competitive with 780ti and in cf probably be faster and especially smoother. Then add amd drivers is working for 4k while nv drivers is still a mess here. This card is a champ. 780ti is rendered useless before it hits. This is just great.

 

[krumme]

dB is a relative, not absolute measure. You can't compare like that.

Because there is gentle nv db and evil amd db? Thought so...