Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay. 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. Adding new game benchmarks is a long, tedious and time consuming task as every video card has to be re-tested in those new benchmarks. The launch of the HD 7000 series last year saw AMD miss the mark when it came to pricing some of its models. He's been with you since dial-up and the ISA slot. A HIS-branded AMD reference design Radeon R9 290X graphics card was taken apart by Expreview, revealing its cooling solution, the PCB, the VRM, and the star attraction, the company's new 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon. Uber Mode, on the other hand, sees it perform much better. The main difference is that it is a bit more useful here. It can be time-consuming if you haven’t got the correct information. Here we see video cards go from playable FPS to an unplayable FPS and the real power houses continue to help break that 60 FPS mark we always aim for to provide a smooth gaming experience. AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB Reference Video Card Review Another piece of the R series puzzle comes together. This is set under the Catalyst Control Center, though. 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. We openly invite the companies who provide us with review samples / who are mentioned or discussed to express their opinion. 60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist, aiming to overthrow the evil dictator Pandak "Baby" Panay and confront his former mentor, Tom Sheldon. 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. You can see moving to Uber Mode brings the R9 290X numbers in line with the heavily overclocked MSI GTX 780 3GB Lightning. 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. Moving on, we have memory clocks coming in at 5Ghz on 512-bit bus. PSO2 makes excellent use of overclocking, though, and I think when we throw overclocking into the mix on the R9 280X, we should see another large increase in performance. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. Before release, the developers stated that Absolution would be easier to play and more accessible, while still retaining hardcore aspects of the franchise. The other main piece we're missing is the R9 290, which is due to be released roughly a week after the R9 290X, and as the name might suggest, falls just below this model. While we test all our games with maximum in-game settings, turning on Anti-Aliasing (AA) and Antistrophic Filtering (AF) helps take the intensity of our testing to another level. Join fellow adventurers and fight against the legions of darkness to banish them from the galaxy. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. the 290 will be around $200 (give or take depending on the shipping) and the 290x will be $250 shipped. First, some nuts and bolts: Our Radeon R9 290X reference design carries a 1000MHz GPU clock, a 1250MHz memory clock, and 4GB of DDR5 memory. and so much more. Transistors are also up from 4.3B to 6.2B. Quiet Mode and Uber Mode are an interesting concept, and to be honest at times, we really see quite a difference in performance between the two modes. However, being above 60 FPS is something that every setup here has a problem with at this resolution, including the CrossFire 280X setup. Saying that, though, this isn't a terrible number at all and we see it's up there with many other high-end single and dual GPU video card offerings. Switching to Uber Mode, you can see that the card gets a nice boost in performance at both resolutions that puts it ahead of our heavily overclocked MSI GTX 780 3GB Lightning at both resolutions. The R9 290X … The Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X were announced on September 25, 2013. Because it's also our first R9 290X, we'll be covering some of the main features that the new model brings to the table. 120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. Developer Homepage: http://eu.square-enix.com/en, Product Homepage: http://www.sleepingdogs.net/. http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark, http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//, http://www.codemasters.com/uk/dirtshowdown/360/, http://www.tombraider.com/us/base/agegate?refer=184&, XFX Radeon RX 6800 XT Speedster MERC 319 Review, AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review: Big Navi Battles RTX 3090 For $500 Less, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT + RX 6800 Overclocking: Big Navi, Big OC Fun, AMD Radeon RX 6800 Review: Big Navi Throws Big Punches for $579, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review: RDNA 2 Totally Makes AMD Great Again, AMD Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT Unboxed: Big Navi is Big Fun, Fortnite update adds 120FPS support for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, CDPR reduces dildos from turning up as 'random loot' in Cyberpunk 2077, NVIDIA's new GeForce Game Ready 460.89 WHQL drivers are here, Corsair unleashes its new Hydro X water blocks for RTX 3090, RTX 3080, NVIDIA's new RTX A6000: workstation card with 48GB and costs $4650, Dell XPS 13" 9310 (Intel Tiger Lake) Laptop Review, Sabrent DS-WSPD USB-C Dual 4K Docking Station Review, ASRock B550 Steel Legend Motherboard Review, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT in mGPU: 2 x Big Navi GPUs = Insane Performance. Also no one has been able to change the RevID for r9 290 so fat. From what I understand there is around a 10% difference between the cards. It wasn’t stable at 1150 MHz, so instead he kept overclocking the memory, which we have to say has some potential, but not as much as we expected. The R9 290X comes in larger, as you'd expect. Checking out BioShock Infinite, you can again see in this case the NVIDIA offerings come out ahead. Comparing Quiet and Uber mode against each other, you can see at 1680 x 1050 little changes. AMD has gone with a new naming scheme for this generation of graphics card but as we’ve mentioned before in our R9 280X /270X article, the only new cards in this series are the top-end R9 290X and 290 (non-X) and midrange R7 260X. R9 290 and R9 290X will support AMD TrueAudio, Mantle, Direct3D 11.2, and bridge-free Crossfire technology using XDMA. Out of the box you can see the overall look of the card is very similar to the reference R9 270X we looked at the other week. Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. Here is a list of all of the R9 290X reference design cards I could find: Sapphire (21226-00-40G) Diamond (R9290XD54G) ASUS (R9290X-4GD5) XFX Core Edition (R9-290X-ENFC) PowerColor (AXR9 290X 4GBD5-MDH/OC) Gigabyte (GV-R929XD5-4GD-B) Apart from 2560 x 1600, we can see that the R9 290X comes out ahead of our heavily overclocked MSI GTX 780 Lightning. Tomb Raider is an action-adventure platform video game. 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. Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com, Product Homepage: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/. What monitor should I consider to pair with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080? Let’s talk about specs for a moment. Starting off with clock speeds, the R9 290X will be clocked in at up to 1000Mhz. Saying that, we will of course be getting around to it soon. The core gameplay of Sleeping Dogs consists of giving the player an open world environment in which to move around freely. Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. We end up hearing as high as 75.9dB, and if you're in a quiet room, play with your speakers low, or have a poorly insulated PC case, this is a high number. At $549, the R9 290X 4GB feels like the easier choice when compared against the GTX 780. The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. Not that it's needed, you can see that Uber Mode brings with it a bit of an increase in both the minimum and average department when compared to Quiet mode. Via the Hardware FMA engine inside the CrossFire compositing block, we no longer have the need for an external connector. AMD's new Radeon R9 290X includes a hardware switch that changes the card between two fan profiles called "Quiet" and "Uber". It's here where we really see the similarities stop, though. The story takes place back on E.D.N. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. 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. Developer Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com/uk/, Product Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com. Maybe in the future we just grab the noise levels and compare the numbers under a benchmark or two. Let's move onto some games that are more intensive. As we move further and further up the resolution table, and more and more pressure is placed on the GPU, Uber mode starts to make a difference. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. Hello, In General, can the r9 290x be compared to the gtx 980 or to the gtx 970? Along with these higher-end models, there's also a few lower-end ones we've got to look at including the lower-end R7 250 which we've also got on hand and carries with it a price tag of under $100. Designed with Eyefinity and UltraHD resolutions in mind, direct access between the GPU display pipelines is now achieved over PCI Express. Compared to the R9 280X, we have a few areas that are similar. We will be testing the R9 290X 4GB in both modes to see if there's any kind of difference. Of course the GTX 780 Lightning is heavily overclocked and that GTX TITAN 6GB SuperClocked is much more expensive. Stay away from any reference R9 290 and R9 290X.... Go for a non-reference model. In Uber Mode, we see a decent jump again in performance and it is now able to outperform both NVIDIA offerings at all resolutions. As for Quiet and Uber mode, you can see again very little difference is seen in both presets. 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. This $429 MSI R9 390X Gaming has a silent mode which runs the clocks at the reference 1050/1500MHz, but out of the box it is clocked at 1080MHz/1500MHz, and MSI guarantees an overclock of 1100MHz/1525MHz that is supported by its 3-year warranty. 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. You can see it's easily enough to get a good jump on the GTX TITAN SuperClocked. At the moment, though, we can't really take advantage of the technology in a big way. We want to see just how much we can get out of this new card from AMD. 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. 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. For more information on Mantle and TrueAudio, we recommend you head over to page two of our Radeon R7 260X review if you haven't already read up on the technology yet. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket). Everything You Need To Know About Asus R9 290x Reference. As for the difference between Quiet and Uber mode, you can see very little difference. If you're not happy with this number, you can head in and lower it, of course it's going to come at the cost of noise levels. Companies might choose to just offer two BIOS versions with different clock speeds, or a UEFI and non-UEFI one, like we've seen out of the switch on other cards. 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. Across the board, though, we do trail behind the NVIDIA offerings at all resolutions, even when running 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. AMD’s R9 290X is the company’s top-tier GPU offering in the R9 series and is its fastest single GPU to date. A quick video showing the fan noise of AMD's R9 290 with the reference cooler. Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. Leading up to the Radeon R9 290X launch, I had two cards in the lab, both supplied by AMD. The performance and price that hits at will be interesting. 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. Today, though, is all about the newest high-end GPU from AMD. Moving to 2560 x 1600, though, we do see a nice jump in both the minimum and average. You can see we've got two Dual-Link DVI connectors, along with the standard HDMI port and our DisplayPort, which supports Multi-Stream Transport with an adapter. As for the NVIDIA side of things, we've got the reference GTX 770 2GB, along with the MSI GTX 780 3GB Lightning we just finished looking at. Tweak Town Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. PSO2 really sees a massive jump between the two modes here. Moving away from the CrossFire connectors, or lack thereof, and onto what is here. The new CrossFire technology is also really cool and we're fortunate enough to have a second R9 290X 4GB on hand. The last words imply possible DLC additions to the game, "There's nothing to be gained by wiping out snow pirates... unless you had some kind of grudge.". With cards like the R9 280X 3GB TOXIC from Sapphire and the upcoming R9 290 coming, it feels like it's just a feature for the sake of saying they have the feature. Due to the wall, though, we see little difference between Quiet and Uber mode at 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200. We're still missing a couple of pieces when it comes to having a look at the new R series from top to bottom. 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. 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. Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark, Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark, Developer Homepage: http://www.sega.com/?t=EnglishUSA, Product Homepage: http://www.pso2.com/us/html/index.html. With the switch pushed to the left hand side (or the side towards the displays), the card is in "Quiet Mode". © 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. Outside of the main specifications and the two big main features mentioned just before in the form of the Dual BIOS switch, which allows "Quiet Mode" and "Uber Mode" along with the new Bridgeless CrossFire technology, we've got support for both Mantle and AMD True Audio. 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. It is close, though, thanks to the high minimum, another 4 or 5 FPS would be all we really need to see. The R9 290X will come with 4GB of VRAM which provide more bandwidth at slower clocks. Details about AMD R9 290x 4GB Reference style cooler See original listing. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. We also can't forget that the R9 290 is due soon as well which will help fill the top-end bracket from AMD. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. To further complicate the situation, the R9 280X and 270X are both rebrands of existing products making it seems like both AMD and NVIDIA (GTX770/760 are also rebrands) are really lazing off on development efforts in the mid-range desktop component sector. On foot, the player character has the ability to walk, run, jump, climb over obstacles and swim, as well as use weapons and martial arts in combat. 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. Play Phantasy Star Online 2 and experience revolutionary combat in an action-driven, free-to-play multiplayer online RPG from SEGA. This is compatible with the AMD frame pacing technology inside the Catalyst driver suite and brings with it no reduction in performance when compared to having an external bridge. If you do not play with headphones, you do not have a high-end gaming chassis, or your room's ambient noise level is extremely low this may be the mode for you.". 30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. Uber Mode saw the load jump roughly 20 watts and the idle drop by around 20 watts. For today’s review we will be looking at the Radeon R9 290X reference design from Sapphire  and we’ll see just how well the R9 290X shapes up in how AMD envisioned it to be. Also, we are proud to announce the inclusion of 4K UltraHD benchmarks in our tests. Nexuiz for consoles is powered by CryENGINE 3. 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%. You can see we're also ahead of the GTX TITAN SuperClocked at both resolutions. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming. This includes crossfire.". Of course being a reference card, we don't have a package on our hands today, so we'll be moving from here into the card itself. At stock the AMD R9 290X would outperform the GTX 780. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. The 290X is based on a 28nm process and the core clock comes in at 1000MHz. For today’s review we will be looking at the Radeon R9 290X reference design from Sapphire and we’ll see just how well the R9 290X shapes up in how AMD envisioned it to be. Turning to Uber Mode, though, that does bring a noticeable increase in load levels. 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. 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. To start viewing messages, select the … We will be testing both modes today, and while the clock speed of the card doesn't change, it will be interesting to see what the difference between the two modes are. With the clocks not changing, though, it could be a little difficult to spot the difference. New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. Along with comparing the card against itself, though, we've got a number of AMD offerings including the PowerColor PCS HD 7950 2GB overclocked to over 1100MHz, while the reference HD 7970 GHz Edition rounds off our collection of previous generation AMD cards. These cards are little beasts. We can't wait to throw overclocking into the mix on the new R9 290X soon. The R290 and R290X both bring with it bridgeless CrossFire technology. Compared to the quite heavily overclocked MSI GTX 780 Lightning, you can see that both cards are fairly close to each other. We finish off the AMD side of things with the Sapphire R9 280X 3GB TOXIC, which did an awesome job of impressing us, while we've also included the MSI R9 280X 2GB Twin Frozr Gaming OC cards in CrossFire. More importantly, though, we've got playable numbers at both resolutions, which is exactly what we like to see. BioShock Infinite is not part of the storyline of previous BioShock games but features similar gameplay concepts and themes. Panau has varied terrain, from desert to alpine to rainforest. AMD's R9 290 reference design is virtually indistinguishable from the R9 290X. More on that later. Product Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com/uk/dirtshowdown/360/. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate. The Quiet profile makes the card run quieter at the cost of performance, but we have found that online reviews show much less of a performance drop than we tested ourselves. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. The memory side also changes. We are still waiting for the availability of non-reference Radeons R9 290, because at … 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. Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in Just Cause. 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.