AMD Radeon R9 290X
RRP: $599.99 | Website: www.amd.com
Test Machine
•
•
•
INTEL Core i7 4960X
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
Black Edition (0208)
CORSAIR Dominator
Platinum 4x4GB DDR
2666MHZ CL10
• Corsair Force LS 240GB SSD
• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2
1500W
• Windows 7 64-bit SP1
(Catalyst 13.9)
N
ot too long after
we started on our
PowerColor R9 290
OC review, we received
AMD’s Radeon R9 290X and
thus, ours was a reverse
experience when it came to
AMD’s new line up. Prior to
these two graphics cards,
we had received 280 and 270
cards, but given that these
are identical to the previous
generation offerings we didn’t
feature them in the magazine.
Moreover, there are few if any
competitive overclockers who
were overclocking these on
30 The OverClocker Issue 27 | 2013
LN2 for anything other than
hardware points and/or cups.
Fortunately this isn’t the
case with the Radeon R9
290X. We’ve seen several
scores already from several
prominent overclockers or
overclocking teams if you
will. Thus far, the highest
core speed we’ve seen is
1500MHz as shown by Smoke
on a couple of runs and
submissions on HWBOT. An
impressive clock indeed, but
one that we suspect will get
better with the custom cards
that we had seen, just prior to
publishing of this issue.
Unlike with the Radeon HD
7970, the reference design
on the R9 290X isn’t as solid,
but that is understandable
because the silicon costs
a little bit more than it did
with the Tahiti GPU and the
cost cutting had to come
somewhere else, like the fairly
low clocking GDDR5 memory
used and 6-phase PWM.
Where we do wish AMD had
done a better job is with the
cooler. As it’s adequate at best
and at every o