All results were obtained at 4625MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so
only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.
Graphics Card
3DMark Fires
Strike
3DMark
Fire Strike
Extreme
3DMark11
3DMark
Vantage
Catzilla: 1080p
HWBOT Heaven
Extreme
3502,696
AMD Radeon R9 290X OC
11051
5578
16188
51576
12595
1125/1500
Graphics:
12435
Graphics:
5788
Graphics:
16587
GPU Score:
52189
Hardware:
12147
AMD Radeon R9 290X
EVGA GTX 780 Classified
9867
4935
14837
48990
10700
Graphics:
10959
Graphics:
5079
Graphics:
14803
GPU Score:
48432
Hardware:
10723
3105,931
9703
4887
14451
49382
12558
Graphics:
10528
Graphics:
4965
Graphics:
14322
GPU Score:
49053
Hardware:
12628
very efficient and capable
graphics card. The R9 290X
is particularly adept at high
resolution gaming and it
just may be the GPU to go
with when you’re looking for
1440p gaming and higher at
present. This isn’t because
the competition doesn’t offer
competitive products but
do consider that the only
competitive graphics card
from the competition is $100
more. Ideally the Radeon R9
290X should be $549.99 but
we’ve not found it in stock
anywhere for this price and
the real price at the time of
writing was $600, which does
decrease the value aspect of
this card especially against the
780Ti. You will however have
to decide for yourself if a $100
price premium is warranted
by the 4 to 6% performance
gain. Regardless of what you
decide, what you should know
by now regarding AMD GPUs
is that, due to the ability to
turn off Tessellation it’s very
easy to get inflated benchmark
scores. It’s a commonly
used tweak for competitive
benchmarking, but sadly it
isn’t one that is used at all in a
gaming context. So be mindful
of the scores you may see
when world records are being
broken using the R9 290X.
With the impending release
of custom cards with what can
only be significantly better
coolers, it may be hard to
recommend this card outright,
but we aren’t sure when these
vendor tuned models will be
available in retail channels
and as such, all we can go on
is how this GPU performs in its
current guise. For Radeon fans
this is an obvious purchase
especially if you happen to buy
one of the cards that ship with
Battlefield 4. For everybody
else though, this may be one
of those GPUs you just have to
wait for to mature. Or at least
in this particular case, wait for
3rd party implementations.
Besides the inevitable noise
reduction, overclocking
under LN2 should improve
significantly. It’s a matter of
waiting for the Direct CUII,
Lightning and perhaps TOXIC
cards. These will not only
offer some serious overclocks
out the box, but they should
be able to take this GPU well
beyond the 1500MHz we have
seen thus far.
Should you need a Hawaii
based GPU right now, our
money would be on the R9 290.
It really is very close to the
290X in performance and who
knows. You may even be lucky
enough to find yourself one of
3025,615
the few cards that are capable
of unlocking to a full 290X core.
If you can’t wait however and
are looking for those 3DMark11
and Unigine Heaven Extreme
pre-set records, you’ll be hard
pressed to find another GPU
that handles those benchmarks
as well as the 290X.
[The Overclocker]
Summary
AMD produced a cracker
of a GPU with the Radeon
R9 290X. At the given price
it makes a good case for
itself. The only kink it’s
amour surprisingly is its
lesser brother the R9 290
which is within spitting
distance performance
wise but an entire $200
cheaper at the current
going price. Still, this is a
decent graphics card for a
fair price.
Would you buy it?
We would wait for the
custom 290X cards
instead; as these will
make a good product
brilliant.
Issue 27 | 2013 The OverClocker 31