AMD hits homerun. Meet the $400 R9 290

For $400 you get a gpu that on average is only 5% slower than 290x and is 27% cheaper. Compared to nvidia it absolutely demolishes gtx780 in price/performance . Its kinda amazing the level of performance for $400. Just in comparison a similar performed Gtx titan was more than twice the price when it launched not long ago.

On the downside thermal results are not particularly good but hopefully 3rd party cooler solutions will fix that

http://www.techspot.com/review/736-amd-radeon-r9-290/

Yeah, these cards seem to have amazing price/performance but the heat production is a big problem and could need loud coolers.

Hopefully 3rd party coolers will solve this problem.

@horgen123: if 3rd party coolers managed to keep gtx 480 temps at bay then they will probably do the same for 290 and 290x

@horgen123:

Yeah, I hope so. I'm keeping my eye on third party solutions because this might be the card I upgrade to next year.

May sell my HD 7950 for $200 when I have $200 to spend so I can get one of these.

Awesome news

Nvidia needs to come down in price

I wonder why they are so expensive

Much louder than a GTX 480. Lel.

Good price though.

@ZombieKiller7 said: Nvidia needs to come down in price

I wonder why they are so expensive

To be fair there prices are usually a bit more steep. The GTX 780 is still a great offer at $500 especially if you dont have the games that come with it. Nvidia still is the most popular of the two and people will pay a little extra. IMO there prices are fine and there GPUs will sell well, if they dont I will be shocked. I know people that have bought a GTX 550ti over HD 6850s for the same price when the HD 6850 is much better than the GTX 550ti, and the same has happened with HD 7850 and GTX 650ti, and GTX 660 and HD 7870 GHz/Tahiti

I feel like Ionus left the forum too early. This would have been the story.

This really should be the story for every one.. Because it means more competitive market with lower prices for all.. I am baffled at the ridiculous fanboyism of hardware manufacturers..

I think it's because of the widespread rumor that AMD has "bad drivers". Nvidia can afford to charge more because of the brand loyalty that this rumor results in.

You can see if it's OC'd, the normal 290 is actually faster the 290X

check this out: LINK

So if you're into Overclocking, yes definitely go and buy it

Great card. If the third party cooler editions are $425-450 then it would kill the 290x (it would be $150 less for basically the same thing performance wise).

A 290 (non X) with a nice cooler should easily get 1050-1100mhz which would make it a sick value for $425-450

290 seems tempting, but the heat/noise factor is scaring me away. Been there with the first fermis. Titan-like card for dirt cheap though :drool:

280x or 770 or get the 290 and not have to upgrade for a while.

definitely brand loyalty, ive had just as much shitty issues with nvidia as ATI/AMD, if not more. My 8800 GTX had driver crashes and BSOD's up the wazoo back in the day and my 4870's ATI control panel eventually stopped working entirely

I couldn't agree more.

Here's hoping Nvidia adjusts their prices to compete.

I have an AMD card right now but would prefer to go Nvidia this time around. Downsampling is just too much of a chore on AMD cards.

AMd had this planned before. My dad said.

...There is no words.

"my dad is stronger than your dad."

Quoted from the review:

"Update: Based on your feedback, I took the IceQ X2 cooler off the HIS Radeon R9 280X and stuck it on our R9 290 sample. Cooling was dramatically improved. The FurMark stress test maxed out at 76 degrees while the card never exceeded 63 degrees in Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4. So it seems as expected the board partners will be able to solve the heat issues of the reference card."

so temps dropped to 63 degrees celsius with a jerry rigged cooler, it will get even better when 3rd parties design proper coolers for these cards. Power consumption is a bit of an issue though depending on where you live. The difference of 30 watts b/w the titan and the 290x/290 (most people don't game for very long periods anyway) might add up extra costs over a few years. But for me electricity is around $0.08/kwh, its not a huge issue.

My dad has more hair in his armpit than your dad.

If i instal two of these, will my computer have a liftoff?

"my dad is taller than your dad."

The third party cooler editions (should be around $425-450) will be worth the wait for those thinking about jumping ship now (better temps and you should hit 1050-1100mhz overclock).

The $400 price has me excited because I don't need to upgrade till 20nm comes out (summer/fall of next year). By then the 290 (or the 20nm equivalent) should easily be $300

http://techreport.com/news/25609/updated-retail-radeon-r9-290x-cards-may-be-slower-than-press-samples

Seems like the cards for retail isn't up to par with the press release samples. Amd is already aware of this, but it looks they are turning out to be some sort of a heat monster.

Looks like 3rd party coolers are a must.

Was thinking about getting an Nvidia card this time however that changed and really can't decide whether I should get an R9 290x or the R9 290..

Both offer great performance but right now am a bit on a tight budget !!

If the heat scares you, you could always increase the fan speed. I have a stock Asus HD 4850 with stock coolers on one of my other PC's. The HD 4850's with stock coolers used to run hot when they came out but I use MSI Afterburner and with that GPU barely reaches 75 - 80 Celsius if at all.

You could wait for the next couple of weeks when XFX, Sapphire, Asus and other 3rd party manufacturers comes with thier custom coolers. When that comes out this GPU will ROCK!

If I was on the market for a GPU this would be it. Getting ~5% the performance of the R9 290X/Titan and even beating the Titan in some cases. Are you kidding me? At $400 this GPU is a steal!

@Malta_1980:

I would definitely get the R9 290 at $400 it's getting within ~5% performance range of the R9 290X and the Titan and even beating the Titan in some games and the Titan costs $1000.0! This GPU is a steal at $400!

I'm not a fan of hot cards with a tiny fan squealing its life to keep the card running to its optimal speed. Like I said before I had the gtx 470 which acted what the 290 is made out to be so far, that was a total nightmare as it ran itself to 105c and then shutdown(I had two different 470s). Not sure if you had noticed, but a lot of sites are reporting slower retail cards due to the crappy reference cooler and that the heat is playing a much bigger role on maintaining the clocks meaning that some cards aren't getting that ~5% from Titan-level performance. I'll love to overclock, but that is just not possible it seems, until the aftermarket coolers arrive like you mentioned.

Don't get me wrong it still seems like a steal, but I'll let the dust settle first.

Just wanted to point this out. Someone in SW pointed out that the AMD R9 290's especially the ones from XFX are being BIOS flashed to R9 290X's. So in other words, you could get a $550 GPU for $399.99 Plus a copy of BF4. And they fixed the GPU throttling issue with the newer driver udpate. The full low down of people BIOS flashing their AMD R9 290's to a full fledged AMD R9 290X:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1791547

Now may be a good time to pick up one of these bad boys if indeed it can be BIOS flashed to a R9 290X. Me personally is SERIOUSLY considering picking up one of them.

This is how much high end cards should cost.