This is ultimately the main AMD video card everyone has been waiting for since we first heard about the new models coming, so let's not delay any longer, and see just what is new with the latest generation AMD high-end single GPU offering. Outside of that, overclocking is also something we can't wait to test. Via the Hardware FMA engine inside the CrossFire compositing block, we no longer have the need for an external connector. Power is provided via an 8-pin and 6-pin PCI-e power connector. How much use Quiet Mode will get when we move to non-reference coolers will also be interesting. At the lowest resolution, there's really nothing, moving to 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1600, though, you can really see quite a large increase in performance. More than 10-year of corporate IT experience as well as consumer IT journalism. Stay away from any reference R9 290 and R9 290X.... Go for a non-reference model. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. Finally we finish our look at the card with the I/O side of things. We see a bit of a jump at the lowest resolutions, but looking at the numbers, we would've preferred that at the highest resolution, then we probably would've also been able to outperform the NVIDIA offerings with an extra 10%. The performance and price that hits at will be interesting. While Heaven sees a nice boost in performance when switching between Uber and Quiet mode, you can see that the top NVIDIA offerings come out ahead. The increases we see are easily enough to take it from trialing behind the top two NVIDIA offerings to coming out ahead of it easily. In Uber Mode, we see a decent jump again in performance and it is now able to outperform both NVIDIA offerings at all resolutions. And with the switch moved to the other side it's in "Uber Mode". This isn't anything too abnormal for a high-end card, and we're sure we'll see some companies offer dual 8-pin PCIe connectors for serious overclocking later down the track. As for comparing Quiet and Uber Mode against each other, you can see that there's really quite a difference as more and more pressure is placed on the card. Turning to Uber Mode, though, that does bring a noticeable increase in load levels. With what seems to be an eternity, AMD and NVIDIA have finally rolled out their newest graphics cards late last year with AMD getting much hype because of their latest offering compared to NVIDIA’s kneejerk reaction upon releasing its own combatant in the high-end GPU space. Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com, Product Homepage: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/. the 290 will be around $200 (give or take depending on the shipping) and the 290x will be $250 shipped. Guaranteed to provide players with the most realistic simulation of military sharpshooting yet available. As the first entry in a new Tomb Raider continuity, the game is a reboot that emphasizes the reconstructed origins of the culturally influential lead character Lara Croft. Play Phantasy Star Online 2 and experience revolutionary combat in an action-driven, free-to-play multiplayer online RPG from SEGA. Sniper Elite V2 trails the NVIDIA offerings at all resolutions, but continues to offer strong playable numbers across the board. Mantle is a fantastic sounding technology and we've got some huge players behind it. These are changes that really make a difference to your gaming experience and the testing can really change how you look at the card. It's here where we really see the similarities stop, though. Using our PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. 30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. The R9 290 is based on AMD's Hawaii Pro chip and R9 290X on Hawaii XT. Something we couldn't stress enough, though, is people need to make sure what mode reviewers are testing the card at. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. PRICING: You can find products similar to this one for sale below. Khan believes the Dark One is the key to humanity's future, and wants to make peace with it, while Ranger leader Colonel Miller wants to kill the creature due to its potential threat. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. As for Quiet and Uber mode, you can see again very little difference is seen in both presets. While this will mean that initially you may only see a single video card in those particular graphs, as the weeks go on and we test more and more video cards, the results will grow quickly. When we move to the higher Extreme preset, though, you can see that the higher-end NVIDIA offerings have a good 10%+ gain on it. I understand Quiet Mode, but I don't really accept it. Moving across to the front of the card, you would normally expect to be greeted with a pair of CrossFire connectors here, and while you can see the points where they would go, they're clearly not present. Of course being a Lightning card, we overclocked it, and as you'll see in our graphs today, the core was pushed to 1020MHz, while the 3GB of GDDR5 was pushed to 6540MHz QDR. All of these technologies currently have games adopting them but that will surely change in the coming months as more and more developers adopt them in their games. Under Uber Mode, we get quite a good performance boost when compared to Quiet mode. The memory side also changes. For the money, it really feels like AMD is bringing more than just another video card that concentrates on pushing out a large amount of frames per seconds. Fire Strike is one of our more recent benchmarks, and for that reason, you can see not all our cards have been benchmarked. What they uncovered comes as no surprise - the underlying PCB is identical in design to AMD reference PCB for the Radeon R9 290X, down the location of every tiny SMT component. Details about AMD R9 290x 4GB Reference style cooler See original listing. Owner and lead reviewer for Back2Gaming. The Reference cooled Radeon R9 290X raised its temperature to 95 degrees celcius and that forced the card to throttle and drop in performance by quite a bit sometimes. The R9 290X then has a core clock of up to 1GHz and how quickly it runs depends on how close to the 95ºC temperature target the GPU is running at. Turning AA and AF on under Far Cry 2 sees little difference between Quiet and Uber modes. The R9 290X … Out of the box our card was running in Quiet Mode. That means overclocking the memory can really give some improvements thanks to that 512bit wide bus. CrossfireX has also been changed with the R9 290X not needing bridge cables to be able to run multi-GPU. More importantly, though, we've got playable numbers at both resolutions, which is exactly what we like to see. Dirt Showdown has always favored NVIDIA offerings, but you can see in Quiet Mode, we're sitting around the same level as the overclocked GTX 780 Lightning and GTX TITAN. The overall fan and shroud design is pretty much identical. The pictures match with an earlier, blurrier leak from September. The same 27.5cm (10.8in) long PCB is used with an identical cooler that vents hot air out of the back of a case. Also no one has been able to change the RevID for r9 290 so fat. The game is set on the other side of the world from the original Just Cause, on the fictional island of Panau in Southeast Asia. At 2560 x 1600, you can see we move from a 78 FPS average to a more comfortable 88 FPS. For this reason, the new R series video cards stand out. This includes crossfire.". While we manage to get a playable 63 FPS at 1920 x 1200 in Uber mode, you can see moving to 2560 x 1600 gives us just an average of 39 FPS. When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. This isn't anything too new and we've seen this already on a number or R series video cards we've looked at so far. Please Note: We still include Far Cry 2 in our benchmarks (we know it's old) as a way for our readers to get a general representation of how older games perform on new hardware. Switching between Quiet and Uber Mode brought no real difference in power draw. Maybe in the future we just grab the noise levels and compare the numbers under a benchmark or two. Across the board, though, we do trail behind the NVIDIA offerings at all resolutions, even when running in Uber mode. No more fixed clocks and boosts for you guys. Due to the wall, though, we see little difference between Quiet and Uber mode at 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200. There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. The R9 290X has 64 ROP’s, 176 TMU’s and 2,816 unifed shaders. True Audio is an amazing technology and we're so looking forward to having games take advantage of it. Developer Homepage: http://www.nixxes.com/, Product Homepage: http://www.tombraider.com/us/base/agegate?refer=184&. Coming out the gate with 3DMark 11, you can see that when it comes to the Performance Preset, the R9 290X has no problems outperforming our other single GPU offerings here. In F1 2012 players will feel the unparalleled thrill of becoming a FORMULA ONE driver with a host of new features, wide-ranging technical and gameplay advancements and extensive competitive and co-operative multiplayer components. Shipping: Calculate Varies based on location and shipping method. Nexuiz is an Arena First Person shooter coming soon to consoles. However, being above 60 FPS is something that every setup here has a problem with at this resolution, including the CrossFire 280X setup. It is the fifth entry in the Hitman game series, and runs on I/O Interactive's proprietary Glacier 2 game engine. As for playable numbers go, you can see that at the highest resolution the 41 FPS minimum and 53 FPS average just isn't enough for us to consider the game playable. This is set under the Catalyst Control Center, though. Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark. Hello, In General, can the r9 290x be compared to the gtx 980 or to the gtx 970? AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB Overclocked Reference Video Card We fire up MSI Afterburner and see what the brand new AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB can do when overclocking is thrown into the mix. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially. If you want to power the MSI R9 290X Lightning you'll need a pair of 8-pin and a 6-pin power connections available. The player controls Wei Shen, a Chinese-American police officer, as he goes undercover to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad organization. Every custom cooler will be news thanks to AMD's reference coolers, Hawaii's performance and the price it sells. Leading up to the Radeon R9 290X launch, I had two cards in the lab, both supplied by AMD. Comparing Quiet and Uber mode against each other, you can see at 1680 x 1050 little changes. Nexuiz is fast paced with extremely competitive game play. The Radeon R9 290X's full specifications, thanks to GPUz. BioShock Infinite is not part of the storyline of previous BioShock games but features similar gameplay concepts and themes. The 4GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1,250mhz (5Gbps effective) and is connected via an ultra wide 512 bit memory interface. You can see looking through the numbers here today that Uber Mode has a real impact on performance under a number of games, especially as more and more pressure is placed on the card. We want to see just how much we can get out of this new card from AMD. At $100 cheaper, they need to if they want to stay competitive. IllFonic brings Alientrap Software's Nexuiz to next-gen gaming consoles around the world while staying true to the game play refined over the years through development. You can see moving to Uber Mode brings the R9 290X numbers in line with the heavily overclocked MSI GTX 780 3GB Lightning. The new CrossFire technology is also really cool and we're fortunate enough to have a second R9 290X 4GB on hand. While the clock rates don't change, "Quiet Mode" focuses on keeping noise down, while "Uber Mode" focuses on keeping performance up. Price: US $89.00. Nexuiz for consoles is powered by CryENGINE 3. Starting off with clock speeds, the R9 290X will be clocked in at up to 1000Mhz. This review compares the MSI R9 390X Gaming 8GB OC with the 290X 4GB (non-throttling) reference version, and with the GTX 980. © Copyright 2020, All Rights Reserved | Back2Gaming, ASUS ROG Announces Gaming Week Promotion for the 2020 Holidays, Converge Rolls Out Free Speed Boosts For All Plans, Converge Upgrades 75Mbps Plan to 100Mbps, 150Mbs to 200Mbps, Converge Upgrades Fiber Xtreme Plans, up to 800Mbps, Converge Teases Another Fiber Plan Upgrade, Ryzen Zen3 Mobile CPUs Detail Surface Along RTX 3060 Max-Q, AMD Makes its ROG Zephyrus Debut, COLORFUL Introduces GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Series Graphics Cards, Kingston x CSD APAC Mask Design Competition Opens, ZOTAC GAMING RTX 3060 Ti Twin Edge OC 8GB Graphics Card Review, ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 3060 Ti OC 8GB Graphics Card Review, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition 8GB Graphics Card Review, Sapphire NITRO+ RX 5700 XT 8G Graphics Card Review, ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 3070 OC Graphics Card Review, ZOTAC GAMING RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC Graphics Card Review, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review, GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC Graphics Card Review, GALAX RTX 2060 EX White 1-Click OC Graphics Card Review, GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER 1-Click OC Graphics Card Review, GALAX RTX 2070 SUPER Work the Frames Graphics Card Review, PlayStation 5 in Japan has Been a Huge Success, Streets of Rage 4 is now available on Linux, NVIDIA Reflex and Reflex Analyzer Analysis and Closer Look. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. F1 2012 will feature all of the official teams, drivers and circuits from the 2012 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, including the debut of the 2012 FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX at Austin, Texas and the return of Germany's famous Hockenheim circuit to the calendar. Product Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com/uk/dirtshowdown/360/. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. Today, though, is all about the newest high-end GPU from AMD. We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair. Just Cause 2 in Uber Mode sees some excellent performance jumps when compared to the card running in Quiet Mode. In Quiet mode, the card feels overpriced as it falls short. It's a pity we're still a few FPS shy of that 60 FPS number we're always on the hunt for. It is worth noting that, despite AMD's 4GB HBM solution in Fiji and the Fury X, the R9 390X sticks with 8GB of GDDR5 memory.