Amd Volcanic Islands details

[hersounds]

gtx titanic!

[boxleitnerb]

@SKYMTL and hardwarecanucks:
Excellent review! Kudos for being the first (?) site in the English speaking world to preheat the cards for more realistic numbers

My take on the 290X:

+ beats Titan slightly (uber mode)
+ value!!! very impressive, didn't expect prices that low
+ 4 GB
+ insane bandwidth helps with performance scaling when OC
+ good power savings when a frame limiter is combined with the new boost
- doesn't quite beat Titan (silent mode)
- noise and temperatures
- power consumption
- new boost (default setting) suggests performance that is not there under sustained load (same goes for Nvidia's boost 2.0)

The card is excellent value, but it shows that it was pushed quite to the limit to win. 3rd party coolers should definitely help with thermals and acoustics.

[tajoh111]

I suspected two ways AMD could catch titan early on. Build a monster cards or push efficiency out the window and clocks their cards higher than they should at the cost of efficiency and heat.

It looks like they went for a little bit of both. Looks like they increased utilization at the cost of heat and energy consumption. None the less what AMD was awesome.

This is what the FX 9590 should have been. A new chip to highlight the strengths of the architecture, high clocks that are actually worth it to get near the market leader products and a low price.

That is bring just a little under Titan performance in quiet mode for well under the cost of a gtx 780. For an underdog, that looked like it was way behind at the top end, even if it was with less finesse, its impressive.

However, I don't think anyone should be buying this card in its stock form and should only be buying it from partner cards with a better cooler. You can be excused for running this card at noisy temperatures, if it means lower temperatures and high overclocking room. Or you can be excused from running high temperatures, while being a silent card. But when you combine high temperatures, with high noise, there's a clear engineering flaw. I wouldn't feel comfortable overclocking the card with temps as high as they are. This card is Fermi 2.0 but without the clear absolute performance leadership to show for it.

I think there is a certain irony in the graphic card situation. Basically the ideal AMD are showing are what Nvidia was showing pre this generation while Nvidia is taking the ideals of AMD last generation.

Nvidia is going on and on about efficiency and AMD has put efficiency in the back seat.

I wish AMD product was just a bit more efficient, not so much for for power consumption but to punish Nvidia and put them into a position they couldn't counter AMD so easily.

The 290x is kind of at its limits and any further clocking increases power consumption too much for a commercially available card. This allows Nvidia to just increase the clocks of the gtx ti and basically get performance leadership again.

Why I want Nvidia to get punished is they made too much money this generation from ripping off customers with GK110 in general. Also they were arrogant to clock their cards so low, sell such butchered parts at high prices and kill overclocking by making the voltages of none bios modded cards so low. I kind of wanted Nvidia to be helpess until maxwell so don't screw around with consumers next generation.

[MaddMuppet]

Major price gouging going on in my Country
$1399
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/comp...p?partid=20660

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=...-DVI-D--HDMI--

[kadozer]

For watercoolers like me this card is a homerun!

Price to performance KING!

Even with fan noise and heat...its still a no-brainer to get this card if you're in the market.
With the exception of buying on release, Titan owners should be getting buyer's remorse right now.

Awaits what Mantle brings in the coming year..

[MaddMuppet]

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...cPath=193_1555

$659 AU here for BF4 Version..

figures I have show Vanilla version should be around $620

I think you need to come for a trip over the water

Sounds good mate. I'll be right over

[LightSpeed]

That performance is just brutal. 5 % faster than Titan while throttling even in uber mode with that cooler. Custom cooled designs should be quite amazing indeed and I cant wait to see what the vanilla 290 does. Would be great if it can somewhat match the 780 which seems a reasonable approximation.

[boxleitnerb]

That performance is just brutal. 5 % faster than Titan while throttling even in uber mode with that cooler. Custom cooled designs should be quite amazing indeed and I cant wait to see what the vanilla 290 does. Would be great if it can match the 780 which seems a reasonable approximation.

Not really:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/amd_rad...ew/index46.php
https://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...1080-4xaa16xaf
Clocks: https://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...0x-im-test/12/

It performs the same as Titan if Titan is also allowed a higher temp and power target

[kuroikenshi]

Woohooo, R9 290x - Attack on TITAN (if anyone here watch anime :d ). So looking forward to Gigabyte Windforce X3 or MSI lightning variant of this monster GPU

^^ I see what you did there

Attack on TITAN

[LightSpeed]

Not really:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/amd_rad...ew/index46.php
https://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...1080-4xaa16xaf
Clocks: https://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...0x-im-test/12/

It performs the same as Titan if Titan is also allowed a higher temp and power target

I was comparing at stock clocks/power target from the TPU review at 2560x1600 resolution. I can imagine Titan being able to match it if allowed higher temp/power targets. In any case, custom coolers will only increase 290x performance since TPU showed the cards wasdefinitely throttling.

[boxleitnerb]

In any case, it is not the Titan killer that was expected by some. Nvidia has more headroom for a counter than AMD does if we take power, temps and noise into account and the fact that the 780 Ti will also come with custom coolers

[kromosto]

In any case, it is not the Titan killer that was expected by some. Nvidia has more headroom for a counter than AMD does if we take power, temps and noise into account and the fact that the 780 Ti will also come with custom coolers

It already killed titan and 780 with it's price. But if you left price outside the equation with it's power noise and performance it is not a titan killer.

Sent from my SM-N9000Q using Tapatalk

[aussie-revhead]

Maybe these things are over hyped, huge factory overclock has them too close to the edge and the margin is where NVidia takes the crown back (based on some overclocking results already posted today). Unless water/volts helps these then they wont take the enthusiasts crown.

[Tim]

(Is this thread going to be closed now or will we have to post in both threads?)

Great performance, very impressive, especially at 4K! But it comes at high cost, 95c is insane, power consumption through the roof, noisy, they desperately need a new cooler design. Poor-ish overclocks. Can't say I'm impressed at all with the PowerTune algorithms either. I guess AMD is no longer about power efficiency. Great pricing, otherwise reviews would have been more critical, but it really will force nVidia to take their prices down.

[kromosto]

(Is this thread going to be closed now or will we have to post in both threads?)

Great performance, very impressive, especially at 4K! But it comes at high cost, 95c is insane, power consumption through the roof, noisy, they desperately need a new cooler design. Poor-ish overclocks. Can't say I'm impressed at all with the PowerTune algorithms either. I guess AMD is no longer about power efficiency. Great pricing, otherwise reviews would have been more critical, but it really will force nVidia to take their prices down.

amd left power efficiency for catching titan's performance, amd left better cooler for making a huge price impact. for enthusiasts this card has some downs but for the market amd did exactly what they need to do.

i never expected amd to catch titan's performance on this generation but catching titan performance with price of 550 if you said me this last week i would say it is impossible.

[boxleitnerb]

It already killed titan and 780 with it's price. But if you left price outside the equation with it's power noise and performance it is not a titan killer.

Sent from my SM-N9000Q using Tapatalk

I meant from a purely technical point of view.

[kromosto]

I meant from a purely technical point of view.

yes i got that. what i was trying to say was yes you are right but tpov is good or bad amd killed them with price... but when i look what i wrote there i see i didn't express myself clearly

[tajoh111]

In any case, it is not the Titan killer that was expected by some. Nvidia has more headroom for a counter than AMD does if we take power, temps and noise into account and the fact that the 780 Ti will also come with custom coolers

I looked at wizards over-volting review at techpowerup and i don't think you even want to mess with the volts of 290x even with water. When they overclocked it to 1.26 volts, they gained another 65mhz in speed over stock volts for the overclock, but power consumption went up to 250Watts on top of what it was consuming. That's 550watts from a single card GPU. Thats the worst voltage scaling I have ever seen from a card. The system went from 400 watts to 650watts, which is insane.

I think aftermarket cards are going to be more about stabilizing a higher boost( so 5 % jump I am guessing). Than adding an actual overclock to the card with high voltage.

But seriously



Someone going to start a fire with this type of heat and wattage while overclocking and overvolting.

How will the VRM's be able to cope with overclocking I wonder.

[kromosto]

I looked at wizards over-volting review at techpowerup and i don't think you even want to mess with the volts of 290x even with water. When they overclocked it to 1.26 volts, they gained another 75mhz in speed over stock volts for the overclock, but power consumption went up to 250Watts on top of what it was consuming. That's 550watts from a single card GPU. Thats the worst voltage scaling I have ever seen from a card. The system went from 400 watts to 650watts, which is insane.

I think aftermarket cards are going to be more about stabilizing a higher boost( so 5 % jump I am guessing).

But seriously

it is clear that amd pushed card to its limit for catching titan so even a moderate overclocking is just a dream but if this pushing to limits won't cause more hardware problems then expected i will call this a success for amd. bad for overclockers but success for amd.

[jeanjean15]

I looked at wizards over-volting review at techpowerup and i don't think you even want to mess with the volts of 290x even with water. When they overclocked it to 1.26 volts, they gained another 65mhz in speed over stock volts for the overclock, but power consumption went up to 250Watts on top of what it was consuming. That's 550watts from a single card GPU. Thats the worst voltage scaling I have ever seen from a card. The system went from 400 watts to 650watts, which is insane.

I think aftermarket cards are going to be more about stabilizing a higher boost( so 5 % jump I am guessing). Than adding an actual overclock to the card with high voltage.

But seriously

Someone going to start a fire with this type of heat and wattage while overclocking and overvolting.

How will the VRM's be able to cope with overclocking I wonder.

With a good watercooling , the power consumption could perhaps decrease a little bit .

Indeed gtx 480 had a consumption which was decreasing with temperature of the gpu .

I am curious to read a test under water .

[tajoh111]

With a good watercooling , the power consumption could perhaps decrease a little bit .

Indeed gtx 480 had a consumption which was decreasing with temperature of the gpu .

I am curious to read a test under water .

It might decrease a bit, but 250 watts extra for a 65 mhz overclock wouldn't be worth it. Even if power consumption did decrease a bit, the overclock isn't worth the increase in power consumption and general danger of destroying the card.

I think even under water, you risk breaking the card with that much power running through the card.

[jvc]

I think under water you could reach 1100Mhz @ 50c or so. All with lower power consumption than with this ty air cooler.

They should have come up with 2 versions:
- 599 with good cooler
- 529 naked card.

[kuroikenshi]

^^ the thing is that the card should not draw as much if its watercooled properly

[BababooeyHTJ]

Maybe these things are over hyped, huge factory overclock has them too close to the edge and the margin is where NVidia takes the crown back (based on some overclocking results already posted today). Unless water/volts helps these then they wont take the enthusiasts crown.

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Tahiti scaled very well with good cooling and some core voltage.

[flopper]

Major price gouging going on in my Country
$1399
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/comp...p?partid=20660

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=...-DVI-D--HDMI--

That performance is just brutal. 5 % faster than Titan while throttling even in uber mode with that cooler. Custom cooled designs should be quite amazing indeed and I cant wait to see what the vanilla 290 does. Would be great if it can somewhat match the 780 which seems a reasonable approximation.

540euro here for 290x

It already killed titan and 780 with it's price. But if you left price outside the equation with it's power noise and performance it is not a titan killer.

4k resolution 20% better than Titan according to hardocp.