AMD Radeon R9 290 reviews

[Heinz68]

Remember our post of the transparent test cooler last week? Here is the final result for our upcoming R9 290X GAMING which uses our most potent Twin Frozr IV cooler to date, who?s waiting for one of these cool R9 290?s?

see the picture on FB by MSI Europe

[Heinz68]

December 11th 2013 read more and pictures at TPU, retail boxes included. I'm just worried how much is that going to cost with all the price gouging going on.

Gigabyte Lists Its WindForce-Equipped Radeon R9 290X and R9 290 Cards

While no announcement was made Gigabyte went on and published on its website details on two custom-cooled and factory-overlocked graphics cards powered by AMD's Hawaii GPU, the GV-R929XOC-4GD (Radeon R9 290X) and GV-R929OC-4GD (Radeon R9 290).

[Heinz68]

Radeon R9 290/290X vs. GTX 780/780 Ti 1080p Benchmarks
Many more split screen comparison videos if you subscribe to this chanel, some are also on the end of this video.

[Final8ty]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...90-290x-review

[STEvil]

might be interesting to see 290x+290x crossfire vs 290x+290 crossfire vs 290+290 crossfire

[MaddMuppet]

Radeon R9 290/290X vs. GTX 780/780 Ti 1080p Benchmarks
Many more split screen comparison videos if you subscribe to this chanel, some are also on the end of this video.

Interesting to see how little difference there is between any of those cards. The 290 being the clear winner on price alone.

[MaddMuppet]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...90-290x-review

I found that a fair and honest review.

[jam2k]

Kitguru: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC Review (1600p, Ultra HD 4K)

[Heinz68]

Kitguru: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC Review (1600p, Ultra HD 4K)

Thanks, guess no more button for that. Added to OP

I checked the 'Acustics Performance' on page 28, the noise levels for the R9 290 are same as the GTX 780 Ti and GTX 780.
There is also going to be R9 290X edition. The MSRP for the 290X is $570 and for the 290 is $430
Here are few quotes from last page 'Closing Thoughts', from the KitGuru, 32 page review

The adoption of massive 10mm heatpipes has really worked wonders for cooling performance. When gaming, the reference R9 290 holds at 95c, and this overclocked Sapphire Tri-X version at only 68c. Yes, that is an improvement of a staggering 27c under load. The Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC doesn?t thermally throttle either which can help under certain situations.

The Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC excels at both 1600p and Ultra HD 4K resolutions with the latest Direct X 11 games. Our testing has highlighted that it is battling head to head with the MSI GTX780 Lightning, one of the best video cards we have tested to date.

While overclocking potential will vary between cards, our particular sample for review was stable at 1,110mhz, or an additional 11% on the core. This enhanced performance of the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC to within 500 points of the ?600 Palit Jetstream GTX780 Ti at reference clocks. A phenomenal result.

[Budwise]

Sure would be nice if they'd sell the cooler alone as well. I dont regret getting my 290 when it was $380 shipped but I do really wish it had better cooling and the Accellero and the Gelid seem like hack jobs.

[Heinz68]

First custom cooler R9 290 listed at newegg - GIGABYTE GV-R929OC $579.99
never did see any preview or review

EDIT
GIGABYTE GV-R929XOC is also listed at Newegg at crazy $699.99
both are Windforce models, the price way to high for me, will wait for January

[Heinz68]

HOT DEAL r9 290 visiontek 419$ dell.ca That's 394 USD official exchange. I tried the Dell link and it proceeded to check out

[kromosto]

i think 3 or 4 months needed for prices to find their optimum.

[Heinz68]

Review by AnandTech December 24, 2013
Added to OP

For $450 the card will consistently outperform the GTX 780 or outright tie the 290X in quiet mode, offering equal-to-better performance than those $500+ cards without the noise drawback that came with the reference 290, making it an even more practical replacement for those cards. Given that, Sapphire is essentially charging $50 for a better cooler, but as we?ve seen from our results they can easily justify it right now given the fact that there isn?t anything else on the market right now that can match both their performance and acoustics at the same time.

[zalbard]

i think 3 or 4 months needed for prices to find their optimum.

Will likely drop a lot after the holidays...

[AliG]

Will likely drop a lot after the holidays...

Yeah just give it until January 10th or so, I'm guessing places will be trying to clear out all their christmas overstock

[STEvil]

Wonder if the Sapphire TRI-X cooler is identical to the Gigabyte Windforce Tri-fan cooler. I tried getting Sapphire tech support to sell/send me one to put on my card but they wouldnt

[MaddMuppet]

Wonder if the Sapphire TRI-X cooler is identical to the Gigabyte Windforce Tri-fan cooler. I tried getting Sapphire tech support to sell/send me one to put on my card but they wouldnt

I tried the very same thing with Leadtek a few years ago. Sent them several emails of which they never bothered to even reply to. Needless to say, I have never bought another card from them.

[STEvil]

Did some closer looking, doesnt seem the TRI-X and Windforce 3-fan cooler are the same, just look really close.

The Tri-x might have more surface area and in theory should be better.. who knows, though.

[Heinz68]

I took few days, but today the GIGABYTE R9 290X WindForce for $699 at Newegg is sold out . I thought this would never happen, but it looks like some people have way too much money and like AMD by far much more than I do
Anyway compared to GTX 780 Ti at the same price it's not such a terrible deal, too bad it's not AMD getting the extra money.

I just hope in January the R9 290/290X prices will settle down to the launch day prices..

[Tim]

I think it's extremely impressive that on the 27th of December I can go to a web store here in the UK and be confronted with plenty of stock of 290 and 290x, for normal prices, even lower then on launch. Good job AMD, really GOOD job.

[Budwise]

The Accellero Extreme III finally came back in stock at Newegg if anyone was waiting.

[Heinz68]

On the front of it, the CryoVenom is just another GPU with a water block attached (users will have to supply their own water loop), however VisionTek are trying to cut out a lot of the hard work for the user. The card will have the water block preinstalled (similar to the EVGA Hydro range), and will be factory tested for a suggested overclock. The GPU will come out of the box at stock settings, but VisionTek will custom test each one and provide in the box a certificate with their 95% percentile overclock, allowing users to go straight in to Catalyst and set the numbers.

VisionTek are going to sell the CryoVenom for $550 with a one year warranty, which they compare to a DIY version which breaks down into the following cost scenario:

R9 290 card $400.00, Water block $140.00, Back plate $36.00
Assembly, Pressure Testing, and Overclocking Verification: estimated three hours at a value of $75.00
Total cost: $651.00
Warranty: None
Hassle Factor: High

Read more at AnandTech

The $550 MSRP is good, but I expect Newegg to add at least $100 on top of it. To my surprise I found VisionTek is also selling Graphic Cards directly, but all the R9 290, 290X and 280X are sold out as of today. Looks like the miners did find the VisionTech store before I did

EDIT
Today from PCPerspective

Going with a liquid cooler has allowed VisionTek to ratchet up the clockspeeds to an impressive 1,175 MHz for the GPU and 1,450 MHz for the memory. That is a respectable 24% and 16% increase over stock, respectively and is estimated to offer up to 38% better overall performance at those overclocked speeds. Perhaps even more impressive than the overclocks themselves is that VisionTek claims to be able to keep the card just under 52-degrees C under load which is a significant improvement over stock!

[Hornet331]

hmm i have been waiting for liquid cooled models in retail, then again im probably still cheaper getting it separately...

Both the R290 and the R290X are widely available from multiple stores so prices are quite low for the cards.

[Heinz68]

hmm i have been waiting for liquid cooled models in retail, then again im probably still cheaper getting it separately...

Both the R290 and the R290X are widely available from multiple stores so prices are quite low for the cards.

I don't know in Austria but in North America Newegg having many R9 290 models,the lowest price for R9 290 is $500 for last few weeks

There some other site with preorders (not in stock) as low as $420, add to it EK waterblock with back plate and it comes to at least $550 without the benefits of hasle free instalation and posible void waranty on DIY. If you can do it any cheaper in Austria in means the R9 290 must be selling there lower than MSRP.

The main benefit of the VisionTek CryoVenom R9 290 is, they are binned and factory tested chips with up to 1175MHz Core and Up to 1450MHz Memory compared to the reference 947/1250MHz

Those unique, certified overclock specifications are entered onto an included build sheet that is personally signed by the VisionTek?s "Custom Shop" team member that built and tested your CryoVenom R9 290 card. Each card is then extensively pressure tested to ensure leak-free cooling reliability.

Read all the specs and much more details at VisionTech store