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AMD fans may have had to wait several months for custom cooled R9 290/x cards to hit the channel, but today we follow up on our December review of the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC with a look at the latest Gigabyte R9 290X OC solution, featuring their excellent triple fan WindForce cooler.
Today we supplement our tests by analysing performance at 3840×2160 (4k HD) on the Asus PQ321QE. We recently acquired one of these screens for high end graphics card reviews. Sure, the £2999.99 asking price will mean very few can afford the upgrade right now, but in the next year we expect the cost to drop.
Setting up this monitor is simple with both AMD and Nvidia hardware (via DisplayPort cable) and we didn’t experience any issues. To achieve a refresh rate of 60hz after the Forceware or Catalyst drivers were installed we enable the Multi Stream Transport mode within a submenu of the Asus PQ321QE.
On paper there is no doubt that the R9 290X is a monster, clocked at 1GHZ. The Gigabyte R9 290X OC is clocked higher, to 1,040mhz out of the box, although the memory speeds are set at reference – 1,250mhz (5.2Gbps effective).
The Hawaii GPU is built on the 28nm process and the card comprises 6.2 billion transistors. The R9 290X has 64 ROP’s, 176 TMU’s and 2,816 unifed shaders. The 4GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1,250mhz (5Gbps effective) and is connected via an ultra wide 512 bit memory interface. We have tested the reference card when it launched and while we were impressed – the cooling solution was woefully inadequate.
The R9 290X, along with the R7 260X features a programmable audio pipeline. The R9 270X and R9 280X don’t. This new TrueAudio technology is designed for game audio artists and engineers, so they can ‘bring their artistic vision beyond sound production into the realm of sound processing’. This technology is intended to transform game audio as programmable shaders transformed graphics in the following ways:
- Programmable audio pipeline grants artistic freedom to game audio engineers for sound processing.
- Easy to access through popular audio libraries used by top game developers.
- Fundamentally redefines the nature of a modern PC graphics card.
- Spatialization, reverb, mastering limiters and simultaneous voices are only the beginning.
Gigabyte box artwork is certainly distinctive, featuring a neon style outline of an eye. Our review sample didn't include any accessories, with only the card itself inside the box.
The WindForce cooler is a three fan design, set inside a black metal shroud. The PCB is also black. This is a dual slot card and due to the metal construction it feels heavy in the hand.
The card has a DVI-I, DVI-D, full sized HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.
R9 Series graphics cards can now support up to three HDMI/DVI displays for use with AMD Eyefinity technology. A set of displays which support identical timings is required to enable this feature. The display clocks and timing for this feature are configured at boot time.
As such, display hot‐plugging is not supported for the third HDMI/DVI connection. A reboot is required to enable three HDMI/DVI displays.
The Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce takes power from an 8 pin and a 6 pin power connector. This is identical to the reference design.
There is no Crossfire connector on the R9 290X. The 290X and 290 offer Bridgeless Crossfire capabilities.
Above, the card disassembled. It is a substantial cooler – there are six direct touch copper heatpipes, five of which run the full length of the cooler.
An overview of the Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce. The Hawaii CPU is built on the 28nm process and has 24 ROPS, 176 Texture units, and 2816 Stream processors. The 4GB of GDDR5 memory is connected via a wide 512 bit memory interface. Gigabyte have not overclocked the memory, although the core receives a modest boost from 1,000mhz to 1,040mhz.
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.
Today we slot the Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce into a series of tests we have ran on other cards over the last 3 weeks. We are using the latest AMD Catalyst 13.11 beta driver and the Nvidia ForceWare 331.82 driver.
We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by PCSPECIALIST and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page.
We are featuring results today with an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD Display at 2560×1600 resolution and an Asus PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K screen running at 4K 3840 x 2160 resolution.
Room ambient was held at 23c throughout testing.
Comparison cards:
Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC (1,040mhz core / 1,300mhz memory)
AMD R9 290X (1000mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
AMD R9 290 (947mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
Palit JetStream GTX780 Ti OC (980mhz core / 1,750mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX780 Ti (876mhz core / 1,750mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan (837mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX780 (863mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
MSI GTX780 Lightning (980mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC Edition (1000mhz / 1300 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition (1,150mhz core / 1,600mhz memory)
Palit GTX770 OC (1046mhz core / 1753mhz memory)
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Games:
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Rome 2
Dirt Showdown
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
GRID 2
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Batman Arkham Origins
Battlefield 4
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset.
A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.
Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:
- Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
- Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
- Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
- Multicore CPU support
- Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
- Powerful C++ API
- Comprehensive performance profiling system
- Flexible XML-based data structures
We use the settings shown above at 2560×1600.
Performance is as we would expect, averaging 53 frames per second at 1600p.
Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.
We test with the settings above both at 2560×1600.
Strong performance, almost matching the GTX Titan on average frame rates.
Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
The score in this benchmark was a little lower than we expected, however we retested multiple times and the end result was always around 47,000 points.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
Excellent performance, scoring 15,766 points – just behind the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.
Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.
To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”
A GPU score of 11,335 points is very strong, just slightly outperforming the reference clocked Nvidia GTX780 Ti.Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today. To test the cards we used a 2560×1600 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occlusion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.
The Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce equals the Sapphire Tri-X version in average frames per second, but drops a few behind in regards to minimum frame rate.
Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.
To test the cards we used a ULTRA HD 4K resolution (3840×2160) with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.
The Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce manages to maintain a 25> frame rate at all times which is excellent.
Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series.As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.
This game is still a system killer at these maximised settings. We test at 2560×1600.
A demanding engine at these settings, but the high end AMD cards all score well. The Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce manages to maintain a 26> frame rate at all times.
Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series.As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.
We used the ‘HIGH’ graphics level setting at 4K- 3840×2160. This uses a mixture of high and extreme graphics settings, detailed above.
Dropping the image quality settings a little for Ultra HD 4K ensures that the AMD hardware performs well, averaging over 40 frames per second and maintaining playable frame rates at all times.Total War ROME 2 is the eighth stand alone game in the Total War series, it is the successor to the successful Rome: Total War title. The Warscape Engine powers the visuals of the game and the new unit cameras will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time. Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This will be realised using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles.
We test with the ULTRA profile at 2560×1600. Details shown in the screenshots above.
Excellent performance at 1600p, maintaining an average frame rate of 61.
Total War ROME 2 is the eighth stand alone game in the Total War series, it is the successor to the successful Rome: Total War title. The Warscape Engine powers the visuals of the game and the new unit cameras will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time. Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This will be realised using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles.
We test at 4K – 3840×2160 with the Very High Preset selected, as shown in the screenshots above.
The AMD hardware delivers good performance at Ultra HD 4K, although the Palit GTX780 Ti JetStream takes top position in the chart.
Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.
Today we test the hardware at 2560×1600 with the Ultra profile and 8 x MSAA.
Very closely matched against the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC, averaging 82 frames per second.
Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.
Today we test with the ULTRA profile, at 4K 3840×2160 resolution and with 8 times Anti Aliasing.
The AMD cards scale well to Ultra HD 4K resolution, topping the charts with this particular engine.
After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
We use the ULTIMATE profile shown above and test at 2560×1600.
This engine runs well on both AMD and the latest Nvidia hardware. The GTX780Ti dominates this engine as shown in our results, however the Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce scores well, averaging 53 frames per second.After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
We test at 4K 3840×2160 resolution with the ULTRA profile setting enabled – details in the images above.
Excellent performance, maintaining a 30> frame rate at all times.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We test this game with the built in benchmark with very high quality settings at 1920×1080 – details shown in the image above.
Good performance with this intensive benchmark.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We test this game with the built in benchmark, with the settings detailed above. Direct X 11 mode, Quality is set at medium, 16 AF, normal Motion blur, Tessellation Normal, Advanced PhysX disabled and SSAA disabled.
Performance is identical between Sapphire and Gigabyte overclocked R9 290x's at these settings.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.
We test at 2560×1600 with the Ultra image quality preset, as shown above. 8x MSAA was enabled to improve image quality.
The overclocked GTX780 Ti's take top positions at these settings with this engine, however the Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce averages 84 frames per second.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.
We select 4K 3840×2160 resolution and enabled the ULTRA profile with 8 times anti aliasing, as shown in the screenshots above.
Very closely matched at the top of this particular graph. The Gigabyte R9 290 X OC Windforce averages 53 frames per second, holding a frame rate above 40 at all times.
Splinter Cell Blacklist is the sixth installment in the series. The game begins with Sam Fisher and his old friend Victor Coste who are about to depart from Andersen AFB in Guam when an unknown enemy force destroys the entire base. Assisted by hacker specialist Charlie Cole, Sam and Vic manage to escape, although Vic is injured after protecting Sam from a grenade. Soon after, a terrorist group calling itself “The Engineers” assumes responsibility for the attack and announce that it was the first of a deadly countdown of escalating attacks (called “The Blacklist”) on United States assets, declaring that they will halt the attacks only after the U.S. government accomplish the demand of calling back all American troops deployed abroad.
We test with a series of high image quality settings as shown above and with 4x MSAA and 16 x Anisotropic filtering enabled.
No problems powering this engine at 1080p.
Splinter Cell Blacklist is the sixth installment in the series. The game begins with Sam Fisher and his old friend Victor Coste who are about to depart from Andersen AFB in Guam when an unknown enemy force destroys the entire base. Assisted by hacker specialist Charlie Cole, Sam and Vic manage to escape, although Vic is injured after protecting Sam from a grenade. Soon after, a terrorist group calling itself “The Engineers” assumes responsibility for the attack and announce that it was the first of a deadly countdown of escalating attacks (called “The Blacklist”) on United States assets, declaring that they will halt the attacks only after the U.S. government accomplish the demand of calling back all American troops deployed abroad.
We selected 4K – 3840×2160 resolution and the ‘High’ Graphics quality preset. Screenshots shown above.
Perfectly smooth frame rates at Ultra HD 4K, with the Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce averaging 49 frames per second and holding above 40 at all times throughout our test.
Batman Arkham Origins moved development away from series creators Rocksteady Studios, and is written by Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh. The game’s main storyline is set five years before that of 2009′s Batman: Arkham Asylum and follows a younger and less refined Batman who has a bounty placed on his head by crime lord Black Mask, drawing eight of the world’s greatest assassins to Gotham City on Christmas Eve. The game is presented from the third-person perspective with a primary focus on Batman’s combat and stealth abilities, detective skills, and gadgets that can be used in both combat and exploration. Arkham Origins is the first game in the series to feature multiplayer gameplay.
We test at Ultra HD 4K with a mixture of high image quality settings and 2 MSAA, shown above.
The Nvidia cards perform better with this engine, although the AMD R9 290 hardware delivers smooth frame rates. The Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce holds a frame rate at 30> at all times.
Battlefield 4 (also known as BF4) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by Electronic Arts. The game is a sequel to 2011′s Battlefield 3. Battlefield 4 is built on the new Frostbite 3 engine. The new Frostbite engine enables more realistic environments with higher resolution textures and particle effects. A new “networked water” system is also being introduced, allowing all players in the game to see the same wave at the same time.Tessellation has also been overhauled.
We test at Ultra HD 4K with the high image quality profile, shown above. This was tested on the pre-16th December patch.
Smooth performance at Ultra HD 4K, averaging 41 frames per second.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.
The Gigabyte BIOS is set up to hold a maximum temperature 10c below the AMD reference card, at 85c (AMD reference board is 95c). The maximum fan speed on the Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce is set to 56%. We didn't notice any thermal throttling during our testing, which is good to see.
By comparison, Sapphire have opted for a more aggressive default fan profile on their R9 290X Tri-X OC, holding a maximum temperature of 68c when gaming.
We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce is very quiet, due to the non aggressive fan profile that Gigabyte have set up. All three fans only spin around 2,200 rpm when under gaming load. The Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC Edition may hold a lower temperature, around 68c under load, but the noise levels are higher.
To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and the synthetic stress test Furmark and record both results.
Power consumption falls in line with the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC edition, around 235 watts when gaming.
To overclock today, we used the dedicated overclocking tools within the latest version of AMD’s Catalyst Control Center.
We managed to overclock the Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce from 1,040mhz to 1,134mhz by increasing the power limit settings to 26%. Our screenshot shows a fan speed increase to a maximum of 70%, but the Windforce cooler is good enough to ensure it won't throttle, even at the default 56% setting.
The modest manual overclock reaps good reward, increasing the graphics score in 3DMark 11 from 15,766 points to 16,946 points.
In the last couple of months we have tested some of the finest graphics cards ever in our labs, such as the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC and the Palit GTX780 Ti JetStream. The Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce ranks with them due to a combination of frame rate performance and whisper quiet cooling.
When we compare directly to the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC it gets very interesting. Sapphire have opted for a more aggressive fan profile, holding gaming load temperatures at 68c. Thanks to their triple fan solution the noise levels are never that intrusive, although it is noticeable.
Gigabyte have clearly configured their R9 290X OC Windforce solution to emit as little noise as possible while maintaining a decent thermal curve under load. The default settings maintain a temperature of 85c while holding a maximum 56 percent fan speed.
Noise levels are extremely impressive indeed, however load temperatures might seem a little high for some readers. Rest assured it is easy enough to reduce the thermal peak by increasing fan speeds to 70 percent – without encountering any thermal throttling. Noise levels rise to around the same as the Sapphire R9 290X Trix-X OC, but the temperature will hold at 75c, 10c lower than the default BIOS setting. The option to tweak this from the default ‘quiet' profile is handy, and we would assume that many enthusiast users will deal with a little more noise for reduced temperatures.
Both Sapphire and Gigabyte have addressed the concerns we had with the reference AMD R9 290X back in October. Noise levels are reduced, cooling performance is improved and most importantly, the core is no longer throttling due to an inadequate cooler design.
As we mentioned in the Sapphire review a short while ago, without thermal throttling, the R9 290X performs at a very high level. Not quite at the same level at the new GTX780 Ti, but you will save around £120. Again, we need to stress that if you are gaming with a single 1080p panel this card is simply overkill … we recommend you look at the R9 280X instead.
Overclockers UK have the Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce listed at £479.99 inc vat, on pre-order with stocks due to arrive on the 17th of January. This card offers incredible performance and has a little extra headroom if you need to squeeze every frame rate of performance at ultra resolutions.
The default fan profile is not aggressive, but by simply tweaking the fan speed from 56% to 70% you can easily drop load temperatures from 85c to 75c without throttling. Noise levels may rise a little but the Windforce cooler flexibility should prove tempting for the discerning high end enthusiast audience.
Pros:
- very low noise.
- no core throttling.
- £120 less than the GTX780Ti.
- additional overclocking headroom available.
Cons:
- GTX 780Ti still holds the performance throne.
- stiff competition from the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC Edition.
- no memory overclock.
Kitguru says: A mighty challenger for Sapphire. The Gigabyte card is quieter out of the box, but runs a little hotter.
Well about time there were a few more cards out. this one looks good, bit expensive, but all these cards are. Have you reviewed their 290? can you mod it to 290x? :p
Gigabyte cards get overlooked quite often, but its good to see the partners have taken their time to get them out at a high level, its the reason why a lot of people didn’t buy the reference 290. shoddy cooler.
Thats a great card, id love a review of the 290 myself, 290x is too much for me. Are you going to review it?
Good review, although I don’t agree, I think the GTX780ti is GREAT value, they start now at £550, and id pay £70 more for one over a 290x.
I hate this site, you do it all the time. review a product WE CAN”T FU*(ING BUY anywhere. its only on preorder on OCUK. whats the point of that? still not out yet, good job AMD. bunch of losers.
wish I could afford a 30 inch 4k screen, but its a bit off before they are affordable. 280X is the best bet if you want AMD, but I might move to Nvidia next gen later this year.
To the author of this review: Guru3D also did a review of this card, and the temperatures on Quiet mode was 84C, roughly equal to your results, and Uber’s max temps was at 77C. The noise levels are also a few dB higher on Uber mode. Could you verify that you actually recorded the temps in Uber mode?
Hi Hmmm,
Sorry – not seen that review
What were the benchmarks when the card was in ‘Uber’?
I had one of these….OCUK had 10 cards in just before Christmas and I managed to snatch one.
I hope other peoples experiences are better than mine…I ran a couple of game benchmarks at out of the box settings but it crashed a couple pf times running metro last light benchmark and would not boot up there after when the amd driver (13.12) was installed….RMA’ed but now waiting for more stock due 17/01.
I’m seriously considering switching my order to a 780ti….its just the promise of what “mantle” and “freesync” may bring is holding me there atm.
Really excited about this card. Was lucky enough to get the 290X BF4 version for ‘only’ 417 euro! (which converts to 346 pound).