So what's the verdict on R9 290X ?

[BallaTheFeared]

en·thu·si·ast noun \-ˌast, -əst\
: a person who feels enthusiasm for something : a person who enjoys something very much

I could be rocking a P4 with a Geforce 6200TC and still be a PC hardware enthusiast :$

This can't be right, I just flipped the switch on my 7950 (from "Uber Mode" to "Silent Mode") and booted in at 800/1250 @ 950mv and now I'm using 134w at the same fps, how is that enthusiastic?

 

[omeds]

Yes, lets hear some positive words from real beta users (all 5 of them)
To hell with established reviewers, and with science, framerates, FCAT, identical testbeds and whatnot.

Lets see some random users pulling some "real-world" overclock results in some random games.
Anyone has Power Color thread? I mean R9 290X Benchmarks...

I think real world user benchmarks are valid and provide great info, but only if they are repeatable like canned game benches, valley, heaven, and 3dmark.

What I'm seeing so far is 780 oc'd to ~1250mhz beats 290x oc'd to ~1250mhz in Valley and Heaven. In 3dmark 290x takes the lead. I have not seen any canned game benches at these clocks yet, but I get the sense its pretty close under 1600p, with the 290x clearly winning in 4k/eyefinity.

 

[f1sherman]

Why so angry?? Rvenger is not biased towards one brand.. I am curious on his impressions thus far. Here, I will help you out - check the thread title.

Me angry? No sir.

I was only commenting on the prospects of this card after NV's response,
for which TDP is a crucial aspect, and it's that part that angered some people here. Isn't that so?

I mean I pull TDP aggregate over several review sites, and then I'm called for cherry-picking.
Then I'm asked to budge if I don't own R9 290X or Titan LMAO!

 

[Face2Face]

This can't be right, I just flipped the switch on my 7950 (from "Uber Mode" to "Silent Mode") and booted in at 800/1250 @ 950mv and now I'm using 134w at the same fps, how is that enthusiastic?

:biggrin: Nice to see that bios modding paying off for ya, that's pretty awesome consumption if ask me - enough to be enthused.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I'd like to see some undervolted results, I know I gain a lot of perf/w by doing so with my 1.25v card. Even 1100/1500 on my 6+8 is undervolted from 1188mv to 1156mv.

Also I know from experience that a hot card like the R290X is requiring more voltage and using more power than it would be if it was kept cooler. The real question there is if aftermarket cards can keep up with its amazing power consumption scaling with voltage.

Kepler just seems more efficient, and it seems to scale better in MHz than AMD. R290X seems to scale worse than Tahiti in this respect. I think the combination of higher power, higher voltage, higher operating temps, more heat output, and lower MHz headroom leads to the 780 looking like the better overall card for 1600p or less, while the R290X still looks like the choice for people going 4k.

 

[amenx]

Well since heat is a direct result of power consumption, I think his point is a good one.

LOL.. sidestep as you wish my friend but ultimately its not about physics or the relationship of power to heat, but about characteristics of a high end card that you may find compelling or annoying enough to influence your consideration of it. If power is part of that, fine. But to me this is very close to the pros and cons thrown at fermi some 3 1/2 years ago. Difference is fermi didnt throttle at 94c, it just kept on churning FPS unfazed. Yep, it was loud and noisy, a point the red side milked to death for the next 2 years with endless jokes about its usefulness as a cooking utensil, but which now the same crowd are uneasily silent about with the 290x.

 

[SimianR]

Me angry? No sir.

I was only commenting on the prospects of this card after NV's response,
for which TDP is a crucial aspect, and it's that part that angered some people here. Isn't that so?

I mean I pull TDP aggregate over several review sites, and then I'm called for cherry-picking.
Then I'm asked to budge if I don't own R9 290X or Titan LMAO!

I think the point is that at stock clocks the 290x is faster than the 780. Yes it uses more power and it runs hotter, but at the end of the day price/performance is king to many people and I find it kind of silly that everyone is on here yelling "AMD MUST DROP THE PRICE NOW!". AMD doesn't have to do anything - their card is still faster then the 780 and in some situations the Titan for $549. With Mantle right around the corner that gap might grow further in frostbite powered games (and any others announced in the future - here's hoping if Mantle is to make an impact).

 

[blastingcap]

I think it's too early to say without 780 Ti reviews.

Gsync is more important for smooth viewing experience than Mantle, and Gsync works for all games if you have appropriate hardware, whereas Mantle doesn't look like it will get much support beyond BF4 and maaaaybe other Frostbite games.

I'll probably just sit this gen out and wait for 20nm GPUs, by which time we'll know more info.

 

[Rvenger]

Me angry? No sir.

I was only commenting on the prospects of this card after NV's response,
for which TDP is a crucial aspect, and it's that part that angered some people here. Isn't that so?

I mean I pull TDP aggregate over several review sites, and then I'm called for cherry-picking.
Then I'm asked to budge if I don't own R9 290X or Titan LMAO!

Wait till the drivers mature and I believe a new Bios may be released in the near future to resolve some throttling/crashing issues the card suffers under load to idle conditions. Give it a few months and reevaluate. Sometimes power consumption goes down when drivers are optimized for the games. AMD's driver team is not like Nvidia's and we know that.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Yup... very little (if any) TDP room, and certainly not enough for "GE edition"
Im not making it up. Here, from 246 to 307W through 5 different reviews.

279W on average.

I see what you're saying, but I think you might be surprised. I remember the 2900XT's being hot, power hungry monsters. Yet I don't think there was one that I ever saw that couldn't hit 10% more clock speed without touching the voltage, and that was a ~420mm2 GPU, similar in size to Hawaii.

Given that the Hawaii GPU is already competitive with the GTX780 when only running at ~775-800MHz and at the boost clocks of 1000MHz it passes Titan, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine a GHz edition that simply targets not dropping the boost clock or at least not as much, to counter a 780Ti.

Binning, a silicon respin, or it could be another 7970GHz edition where the reference models will go away very, very soon to let AIB's handle the clock speeds. I'm not saying AMD will launch anything more than what is announced, but I don't believe it to be impossible or even really that difficult to get a clock speed bumped 290X if AMD wanted to.

 

[tolis626]

I'd like to see some undervolted results, I know I gain a lot of perf/w by doing so with my 1.25v card. Even 1100/1500 on my 6+8 is undervolted from 1188mv to 1156mv.

Also I know from experience that a hot card like the R290X is requiring more voltage and using more power than it would be if it was kept cooler. The real question there is if aftermarket cards can keep up with its amazing power consumption scaling with voltage.

Kepler just seems more efficient, and it seems to scale better in MHz than AMD. R290X seems to scale worse than Tahiti in this respect. I think the combination of higher power, higher voltage, higher operating temps, more heat output, and lower MHz headroom leads to the 780 looking like the better overall card for 1600p or less, while the R290X still looks like the choice for people going 4k.

Well,I wouldn't call the 780 more efficient or anything before aftermarket 290x's are released (Nor will I call the 290x more efficient of course,I just can't come to a conclusion just yet).So far,we've been able to compare the best the 780 can do (HOF,Classified etc) to probably the worst the 290x will be able to provide (Reference).I say that until we compare a Toxic or a DirectCU or a Vapor-x or a Lightning or whatever to the aftermarket 780s,we can't really draw a conclusion.

Don't forget that,at an operating temperature this high (95C?Jeez!),physics takes over and the properties of the semiconductors change,at least ever so slightly.I am quite sure that with a proper cooler,the 290x will run at least below 75-80C and at quite lower voltage.The power consumption is bound to go down,while performance will go up.All that remains is to see how much things will change.That is unless I'm totally wrong,which I doubt.

Having said all that,are there any news/rumors about when AIB 290x models will be out for sale?I've been holding my PC purchase back for at least a month while waiting for the 290x to come to the market.However,I'd rather go with a 280x than buy a reference 290x.Both would be a humongous upgrade over my current 4650.And no,I'm not an archaeologist.

 

[georgec84]

It's a great card, albeit with a couple drawbacks, but for that price it's hard to imagine being disappointed.

 

[Face2Face]

Having said all that,are there any news/rumors about when AIB 290x models will be out for sale?

http://videocardz.com/47269/custom-radeon-r9-290x-available-late-november

 

[wand3r3r]

Got nothing to do with power. I dont think power is much of an issue for enthusiasts who consider cards in this tier/class anyway. The vitriol poured on fermi was not really about power either.. it was about HEAT and NOISE.. the main things you completely left out of your reply.

From the very TPU review you were looking at:

How about a little OC'ing, maybe a little voltage tweaking?

Nobody's arguing that it's a great cooler. However, the resemblance to fermi is overblown. Ironically a good portion of people who utter fermi are those that defended it at any cost. (Not stating you specifically, just overall in the forums)

That is what bothers me, are the attempts to smear it simply due to brand. As Rvenger pointed out, wait till the drivers mature, aftermarket cards hit, etc. Even the reference Ghz was more thirsty than the aftermarket ones (probably applies to 780 too, need to compare them on even footing).

I care about power /\

I guess I'm not an enthusiast though, only running one 7950 @ 1100/1500 and a i5 at 4.8GHz.

With my HD4600 removing the tearing at 45 FPS I use 160-170w while gaming.

Why do people put enthusiasts in a box? Few months ago you weren't an enthusiast unless you had a $1k Intel x6 and a Titan, now you're not an enthusiast if you care about power?

What am I if not an PC hardware enthusiast?

So you've lost interest in going all out in GPUs however you OC your processor to 4.8GHz and to it's limits heatwise etc. Some of us haven't gone soft and are still interested in performance and have different priorities.

Once the dust has settled an unbiased comparison is needed, but until then we can just wait.

Yes, lets hear some positive words from real beta users (all 5 of them)
To hell with established reviewers, and with science, framerates, FCAT, identical testbeds and whatnot.

Lets see some random users pulling some "real-world" overclock results in some random games.
Anyone has Power Color thread? I mean R9 290X Benchmarks...

If you want to discuss facts, keep to the facts not just speculate on the imaginary TDP walls that are conveniently just above the current green usage in your opinion.

 

[blackened23]

It's a great card, albeit with a couple drawbacks, but for that price it's hard to imagine being disappointed.

Yeah. I agree with this. Some of the stuff in this thread is nonsense hyperbole from brand aligned guys who aren't really objective. That's whatever, though, everyone has their preferences. I'm not a fan of the hyperbole nonsense (such as hearing loss and stupid crap like that) Basically, outstanding performance with the main drawback of the cooler. I cannot figure out why AMD didn't go all out on the cooler, I really don't care about power consumption but I do care about noise. And NV competing cards just outclass it there. Like I said, though, despite some of the nonsense hyperbole in the thread - it's still a good card. Just not perfect. AMD could have nearly made it perfect, but came up short with the cooler - hopefully AIB makers can remedy that later this month.

The other thing is that the NV price cuts really changed the value dynamic - the 500$ GTX reference 780 is about the same in terms of price / performance as the 290X (despite being 11% slower at stock) and has a way, way better cooler. And the 780 *already* has factory OC'ed aftermarket models whereas the 290X doesn't. That changed everything and will tilt some buying decisions toward the 780 for sure, including my own. Then again, I already had one GTX 780 so saying no to a second for another 5 Benjamins was tough.

 

[amenx]

wand3r3r, the 290x's heat and noise, although looking bad, would not sway me in the least from not considering at as a worthy buy. Only thing is, I would stay away from any reference based card. Once AIB partners come out with their own enhanced cooling/noise solutions, it becomes a far more interesting card. I expect these cards load temps to be in high 70s, low 80s and with much lower noise levels. As happened with the gtx480 when good AIB cards came out for it.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

So you've lost interest in going all out in GPUs however you OC your processor to 4.8GHz and to it's limits heatwise etc. Some of us haven't gone soft and are still interested in performance and have different priorities.

Once the dust has settled an unbiased comparison is needed, but until then we can just wait.

You must be thinking of another system, mine is silent.

Push/Pull Corsair AP 120s avg 800 RPM in gaming at 4.8GHz. That's on a Dark Knight II, btw

 

[Phynaz]

OK lets see who's cherry picking.

We are talking about what might come next, and when your opponent's BRAND NEW 1/8 DP castrated chip has 37% higher power consumption vs your ancient one,
you dont have to be a sorcerer(!) to come up with a right medicine.

You didn't seem to think DP was a big deal when AMD had the lead. In fact you said Nvidia was better because they cut their DP performance.

There is only so much GPGPU you need on desktop. Nvidia realized this and made gaming GPU, AMD made general-purpose GPU.

So which is it, is more DP performance better or not?

 

[runzwithsizorz]

Me, I'm gonna wait until all the stats are out. My 7870 is doing just fine with the games I'm playing, so am in no rush. However, I DO intend to upgrade Dec./Jan? Depends on pricing and performance. Whether AMD or Nvidia, I really do not care.

The Wife

 

[itsmydamnation]

You didn't seem to think DP was a big deal when AMD had the lead. In fact you said Nvidia was better because they cut their DP performance.



So which is it, is more DP performance better or not?

its also only software limited, hardware is 1:2. ie AMD want people to buy the firepro if they need high amounts of DP.

 

[f1sherman]

Not slamming Hawaii because of 1/8 in 290X (it's the right thing to do), just mentioning it's trimmed down. Versus GK110 fatty.
And the fatty, general-purpose(not just gaming) GPU like Titan, still does better power wise.

 

[Phynaz]

Using terms such as "castrated chip" is meant to be derogatory - or at least inflammatory - and you know it.

Also, you didn't answer the question.

Backpedal away, we're all watching.

 

[f1sherman]

Not going anywhere. Dig up through my posting history some more.

So $&*#@ sensitive

 

[blastingcap]

"Finally, along with the announcement of tomorrow’s price cuts NVIDIA has also announced the launch date for the previously announced GeForce GTX 780 Ti: November 7th (next Thursday). Furthermore NVIDIA has also announced that it will be priced at $699, placing it $200 above the GTX 780 and $150 above the 290X. We still don’t have the specs for the GTX 780 Ti, but the fact that NVIDIA is pricing it so far above the 290X indicates that they have a lot of confidence that they will be able to beat 290X’s performance, and will do so by enough of a margin to justify the price. This isn’t wholly unexpected – after all, GTX 780 wasn’t a fully enabled GK110 consumer part – so it should be interesting to see just what NVIDIA has prepared to carry on as their new gamer flagship card." - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7465/...-gtx-780770-price-cuts-gtx-780-ti-launch-date

Either that or NV is charging a lot for CUDA/PHSYX/their holiday game bundle + single-GPU halo card status. We'll see in a week or two.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

:biggrin: Nice to see that bios modding paying off for ya, that's pretty awesome consumption if ask me - enough to be enthused.

Yeah I really like it, flipping the bios switch after a fast Win 8 reboot and keeping it in i mode are all great (oc software doesn't work in this mode).

If it had UEFI bios support, I'd think I had died and gone to heaven.

Hopefully soon