R9 290 - Absolute Beast

pidpix

Is this the best bang for buck card currently available? My friend has one and seems to max out far cry 3 at 50 - 60 FPS with everything maxed out at 1440P overclocked. Metro last light last 40 - 50 FPS maxed out. It is the Asus model as he wanted the live streaming but seems like an absolute beast of a card beating the titan and 780 in nearly all benchmarks or 2 frames off it. It is only 370

Will be ordering on Monday along with a Qnix but if someone can recommend a better card let me knoe. Also have a 4670K at 4.4GHZ at 1.24V at 62 degrees max with prime. Could probably get more out of it but no point applying more voltage for now. What you think.#

Seems like this card kicks ass at 1440P. It is much better than titan, 780 for much much cheaper

SpannerMonkey

yup its pretty much an animal of a card for the money . the 780Ti is better but you have to pay quite a premium for it . i think the R9 290 is an absolute Bargain TBH

im more of an Nvidia head but if i was going for one it would be for the Sapphire version


REVIEW HERE
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/sapphire-r9-290-tri-x-oc-review-1600p-ultra-hd-4k/




KITGURU CONCLUSION


Pros:
Fantastic cooler (27c better than AMD reference cooler).
relatively quiet under load.
10+% headroom on core.
exceptional pricing compared to Nvidia’s GTX780 Ti.
no thermal throttling.
4GB of GDDR5.


Cons:
At the price, it is hard to find fault.

Blitz17

I wouldnt be getting a reference 290 anyway as they run terribly hot @ 95 degrees, sound like jumbo jets and lot of people getting black screens every few minutes with them. Non reference are overdue in alot of places at the moment.

dreamers75

Also waiting for non reference version of it.

VenomIreland

dreamers75 wrote: »

Also waiting for non reference version of it.

Same, hopefully they come out soon, been waiting for it for a while now.

deceit

Just get one and water oil it
I picked up a ref 290x and this would be the best option for these as with block its same price as a dcu II

Gumbi

Blitz17 wrote: »

I wouldnt be getting a reference 290 anyway as they run terribly hot @ 95 degrees, sound like jumbo jets and lot of people getting black screens every few minutes with them. Non reference are overdue in alot of places at the moment.

The black screen issue is a simple driver fix (people dl the latest betas and the like).

Also, the 95 degree thing - heat of the core =! hear output. Just cos you watercool a card does not mean it produces less heat. Sure, you produce a tiny amount of less hear due to components working more efficiently, but that's it. It's negligible. GeForce 200 series ran at 90 degrees for years. 6990s run at 90 degrees and didn't have adverse failure rates AFAIK.

They are fairly loud though for some people. With good airflow try aren't as bad as some might suggest.

Personally, I think 290s are the absolute best bang for buck high end card right now (as long as you don't pay too much for them).

Dcully

VenomIreland wrote: »

Same, hopefully they come out soon, been waiting for it for a while now.

Sure isnt the one linked above anon reference card.

from the review

At today’s pricing, a reference cooled Sapphire R9 290 can be bought for £335.99 inc vat. We would expect this overclocked Tri-X version to ship with a modest premium, between £360-£380 inc vat. At this price and with the out of the box overclock and superior thermal curve, it really seems like a no-brainer to us. This is the R9 290 we have all been waiting for.

Luck100

Don't those reviews compare it to reference gtx 780? I think it would be pretty even versus any reasonable non-reference 780. And you can get those from about 380 pounds at scan right now, so I'm not really seeing a massive value difference with the 290.

VenomIreland

Dcully wrote: »

Sure isnt the one linked above anon reference card.

from the review

Yep, it is, it's not available for sale yet though as far as I am aware.

marco_polo

Luck100 wrote: »

Don't those reviews compare it to reference gtx 780? I think it would be pretty even versus any reasonable non-reference 780. And you can get those from about 380 pounds at scan right now, so I'm not really seeing a massive value difference with the 290.

I guess it really depends on whether it is closer to £360 or £380 at launch, there was an MSI GTX780 Lightning in the kitguru one above as well as a refernce GTX780, and there is little enough between that and the Tri-X. However most cards with similar core/boost clocks (including the Lightning itself) are well over £400 (With the exception of the Gainward GTX780 Phantom @£;392)

SterlingArcher

Look we all know it is just a popularity contest.

Pffft r9 290, the clear winner is the gtx770. because this is the one I own. See? Glad I could clear all this nonsense up.

Now stop making me want to upgrade so soon you A holes.

SpannerMonkey

VenomIreland wrote: »

Yep, it is, it's not available for sale yet though as far as I am aware.

was due in 4 days ago so should be available any day now

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-341-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

and apparently you can flash the bios form a R9-290x to an R9-290 . so that should make things interesting

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

Slksht

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

and apparently you can flash the bios form a R9-290x to an R9-290 . so that should make things interesting

Was hoping might tell me what does this actually mean? I never really get what people are referring to

deceit

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Look we all know it is just a popularity contest.

Pffft r9 290, the clear winner is the gtx770. because this is the one I own. See? Glad I could clear all this nonsense up.

Now stop making me want to upgrade so soon you A holes.

At the moment its the gtx 780 that is the best buy until 290's come out with better pcbs like the 290x dcu ii. After this happens I think the 290 will be better deals once their temps are under control, especially if mantle does have big improvements.
I only bought a 290x as it was cheap, I can get rid of the temp issues with water and I am hoping on mantle being a big improvement in bf4.
Anyone complaining about people convincing them to upgrade should get perma bans from PC Building & Upgrading .
You should be upgrading when ever your credit card allows :P

SterlingArcher

deceit wrote: »

At the moment its the gtx 780 that is the best buy until 290's come out with better pcbs like the 290x dcu ii. After this happens I think the 290 will be better deals once their temps are under control, especially if mantle does have big improvements.
I only bought a 290x as it was cheap, I can get rid of the temp issues with water and I am hoping on mantle being a big improvement in bf4.
Anyone complaining about people convincing them to upgrade should get perma bans from PC Building & Upgrading .
You should be upgrading when ever your credit card allows :P

Haha would love to upgrade every time I have money but unfortunately I'm already perma banned from the virgin club. ;p

Gtx 800 series. Until then my credit card is strictly for hookers and blackjack. My pc building/ upgrading is all but guilty pleasure.

Wossack

Slksht wrote: »

Was hoping might tell me what does this actually mean? I never really get what people are referring to

In the interests of saving money via mass producing the same card, from a physical point of view, the cards may be identical.

They then tailor the cards for different price points via the embedded software on the card itself (the firmware). By changing this firmware, you could in theory increase the performance of the card.

Now while I say the cards are physically identical, they are a collection of discrete components, and soldered to a board. So there can be alot of variance between the final cards. I reckon they are all tested, and assigned a firmware in accordance to how they rate. There may be very little variance in a batch of cards, or a very large one - so the performance boost from flashing is not entirely guaranteed.

marco_polo

Slksht wrote: »

Was hoping might tell me what does this actually mean? I never really get what people are referring to

As there is a high variance in manufacturing silicone chips, CPU/GPU manufactures usually sell slightly defective parts as lower priced inventory rather than discarding them to reduce waste and improve yields (See product binning).

For example an FX-8350 that don't quite cut the mustard may become a FX-8350 or FX-6300, or a R9-290x GPU that is not quite good enough will become a R9-290.

However sometimes where there is a much greater demand for the lower end product than the more expensive ones, manufactures will sometimes disable parts of a perfectly good chip and sell it as the lower end version.

More often than not they will render the additional parts unusable (via lasering etc), but sometimes they just lock them out using the bios software, leaving the underlying hardware in perfect condition. So you will occasionally see graphics cards that can be unlocked, or even occasionally (with AMD) CPUs that can have additional cores unlocked.

It appear in the case of the R9 290 that at least XFX and TUL (VTX/Powercolor) have taken perfectly good R9 290X and bios locked them. As the additional SPU (Stream processing units) have not been physically destrover by lasering etc, they can then be used by simply replacing the bios with the ones from the R9 290x.

deceit

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Haha would love to upgrade every time I have money but unfortunately I'm already perma banned from the virgin club. ;p

Gtx 800 series. Until then my credit card is strictly for hookers and blackjack. My pc building/ upgrading is all but guilty pleasure.

You just need a gf that understand you need high end pc gear for work (I work in IT and to relax with Gaming - She's a gamer sometimes so understands )
Thats why I get away with buying so many high end computers

marco_polo

Windforce just appeared on HWVS for €400, thats €60 less than the GTX 780 version.

yawhat!

marco_polo wrote: »

Windforce just appeared on HWVS for €400, thats €60 less than the GTX 780 version.

Wish I got that instead of my model

Gumbi

The trix has been appearing for 400 quid consistently on othe German sites (and has even bee as low as 386). From reviews it seem to be slightly superior to the Windforce. The Windforce is damn good too though.

The Giga BIOS favours a much less aggressive fan curve, making it a lot quieter than the Trix (which is not that loud) but 10 degrees hotter under load.

Both great buys IMOfor the 400 quid price mark.

Gumbi

Wow wa wi wa, that's value!!!

http://geizhals.de/gigabyte-radeon-r9-290-windforce-3x-oc-gv-r929oc-4gd-a1049151.html

VenomIreland

Gumbi wrote: »

Wow wa wi wa, that's value!!!

http://geizhals.de/gigabyte-radeon-r9-290-windforce-3x-oc-gv-r929oc-4gd-a1049151.html

What do HWVS charge for paypal?

Gumbi

VenomIreland wrote: »

What do HWVS charge for paypal?

3% they charged me. Although I would go to the trouble of a bank transfer if you were willing to wait a day or two or more and were penny pinching (they're free).

BTW, the 290 Windforce BF4 edition is only a few quid more expensive than the cheapest one I can find without it - at 372 euro! Fantastic value.

Kur4mA

FYI, the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X is in stock over at overclockers.co.uk now. I just purchased one for myself along with a new modular PSU and some nice cables to tidy my case up.

Gumbi

kyub wrote: »

FYI, the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X is in stock over at overclockers.co.uk now. I just purchased one for myself along with a new modular PSU and some nice cables to tidy my case up.

Ouch at the price, it could do with being 360£ or something. Can be had for 380 euro on some German sites. Still a great card though. Best non-ref 290 out so far.

Do you intend to overclock a bit? You need a good 650 watt unit if you're doing that, overvolted Hawaii chips draw lots of juice.

Kur4mA

Gumbi wrote: »

Ouch at the price, it could do with being 360£ or something. Can be had for 380 euro on some German sites. Still a great card though. Best non-ref 290 out so far.

Do you intend to overclock a bit? You need a good 650 watt unit if you're doing that, overvolted Hawaii chips draw lots of juice.

I know, definitely pricey and normally I would be more patient waiting for the price to drop but I recently had to send my Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM back to Amazon due to pretty horrible backlight bleed so I had the money to burn.

I've decided to go modular so I have a Coolermaster Vanguard V700 on the way too. I don't plan to overclock it immediately but may do so if it can easily be bumped up to a 690x bios.

Gumbi

kyub wrote: »

I know, definitely pricey and normally I would be more patient waiting for the price to drop but I recently had to send my Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM back to Amazon due to pretty horrible backlight bleed so I had the money to burn.

I've decided to go modular so I have a Coolermaster Vanguard V700 on the way too. I don't plan to overclock it immediately but may do so if it can easily be bumped up to a 690x bios.

That's a great PSU, you're sorted

Virtual

I have a rig on the way, but I'm still missing the card. I really want to go for the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X or the Gigabyte R9 290 Windforce 3, but there seem to be none available anywhere. Overclockers UK has both of them, but I don't really fancy the price. If nothing else shows up till Monday, I'll probably order it from them.

I am shocked there is no real computer part store in Dublin where you might find something like this on stock even for a slightly higher price.

Blitz17

Was looking at the Tri-X 290 on a few german sites and it was about 380-390 euro for the card. When checking out delivery was ranging from 20-30 euro. Cheapest I found was around 418 euro delivered. Dabs are doing it for 421 delivered. Its still 40 euros cheaper than Overclockers.

Virtual

Blitz17 wrote: »

Was looking at the Tri-X 290 on a few german sites and it was about 380-390 euro for the card. When checking out delivery was ranging from 20-30 euro. Cheapest I found was around 418 euro delivered. Dabs are doing it for 421 delivered. Its still 40 euros cheaper than Overclockers.

I am happy with 400 or around that to be honest, but dabs.ie and other sites I checked are all out of stock for the Tri-X. I don't really want to go with a very obscure website. Did you find any website that stocks it now besides Overclockers?

Blitz17

Virtual87 wrote: »

I am happy with 400 or around that to be honest, but dabs.ie and other sites I checked are all out of stock for the Tri-X. I don't really want to go with a very obscure website. Did you find any website that stocks it now besides Overclockers?

It said in stock for me earlier

So far havent found it anywhere else. Id prefer to go with a company that will be easy to communicate back and forth with if I need to RMA it. Overclockers customer service is excellent but Im not spending loads more just for it that.

Virtual

Yeah, those are my feelings as well regarding Overclockers. I will wait until Monday and see what happens. Speaking of customer service, HardwareVersand was a bit hard to speak to in english, but what really bugs me is that 3 business days passed since the date the computer was supposed to be shipped and if I wouldn't have called who knows how much longer it would take. If the cards were delayed, they should've notified the customers.

Am I Evil?

290 oc Windforce Looks to be back to searching for a new date on Hardwarversand, Unless it updates tomorrow.

Another 70-80euro to get the same card from Overclockers :mad:
Absolutely ridiculous pricing but I honestly can't wait too much longer for this now

TheTacticsGuy

So whats the conclusion on best place to buy the tri-x r9 290?

Gumbi

Check out geizdhls.de. There are some sites but I'm not sure if it's preorder or what. The Windforce 290 is a decent option, not as good but a few quid cheaper to compensate.

Am I Evil?

Mostly pre order and the sites that claim to have it don't have very many reviews.

Gumbi

Am I Evil? wrote: »

Mostly pre order and the sites that claim to have it don't have very many reviews.

What have reviews got to do with it?

Am I Evil?

Seller reviews.
I wouldn't buy from another country when the reviews are average for that dealer

In saying that though, Hardwarversand have pretty terrible reviews online and I'm about to place an order for a full rig :pac:
I'm a hypocrite really :pac:

..Brian..

I just ordered a pair of Asus R9 290s DCII from ComputerUniverse.

They're not in stock but the website says they're dispatched in 1 - 2 weeks which is the shortest I've found and shipping is only €11.

If you do order from the above, leave the country set to UK and you'll save 4% in VAT. Get it delivered to Parcel Motel in Northern Ireland for €3.50. Saved me about €30!

dark_jedi_ire

Anyone know where/seen the Sapphire Radeon 290 Tri-X OC-Edition 4.0 GB OC for under 400? (including Delivery?)

that take Paypal and have in stock, Have the Cash on Paypal ready to pull the trigger...

You guys know so Much More Sites than I have the time to find :-)

cheers

Gumbi

..Brian.. wrote: »

I just ordered a pair of Asus R9 290s DCII from ComputerUniverse.

They're not in stock but the website says they're dispatched in 1 - 2 weeks which is the shortest I've found and shipping is only €11.

If you do order from the above, leave the country set to UK and you'll save 4% in VAT. Get it delivered to Parcel Motel in Northern Ireland for €3.50. Saved me about €30!

Nice, how much did you pay for them?

..Brian..

Gumbi wrote: »

Nice, how much did you pay for them?

€807.99 delivered!

Now the really hard part, waiting 3 odd weeks for delivery! :eek:

Gumbi

..Brian.. wrote: »

€807.99 delivered!

Now the really hard part, waiting 3 odd weeks for delivery! :eek:

Did I ask you what PSU you have? I hope it's 850 watts minimum and good quality

Kur4mA

dark_jedi_ire wrote: »

Anyone know where/seen the Sapphire Radeon 290 Tri-X OC-Edition 4.0 GB OC for under 400? (including Delivery?)

that take Paypal and have in stock, Have the Cash on Paypal ready to pull the trigger...

You guys know so Much More Sites than I have the time to find :-)

cheers

You'll be waiting a while for that I reckon. Here are your current 'in stock' options from European stores.

http://skinflint.co.uk/eu/sapphire-radeon-r9-290-tri-x-oc-battlefield-4-edition-11227-00-50g-a1048419.html?t=alle&plz=&va=b&vl=uk&v=l

..Brian..

Gumbi wrote: »

Did I ask you what PSU you have? I hope it's 850 watts minimum and good quality

XFX Pro 750 80+ Bronze. Gonna chance my arm with it, reading a few reports of people running 290's crossfire on 750w. It'll be cutting it fine no doubt but if not, I'll run one of them until I get a new PSU delivered.

Gumbi

..Brian.. wrote: »

XFX Pro 750 80+ Bronze. Gonna chance my arm with it, reading a few reports of people running 290's crossfire on 750w. It'll be cutting it fine no doubt but if not, I'll run one of them until I get a new PSU delivered.

You're definitely cutting it fine. No overvolting and you should be OK. I hope you're running an Intel CPU? overclock or stock? I always assume moderate overclock on an Intel CPU in gaming builds.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story10&reid=216

Seems like a solid PSU either way, just don't push it too far by overvolting (Asus BIOS allows 1.4v, which sucks so much juice from the wall).

Am I Evil?

Lads Im considering going for the over priced :rolleyes: Sapphire Tri-x r9 290 from overclockers.

Sapphire recommend a 750w powersupply. Id be fine with a 650w yeah or will it be worth spending the extra bit and getting the 750w too?

Sadly doesnt look like hardwarversand or dabs will be getting in any alternatives for a few weeks

Gumbi

Am I Evil? wrote: »

Lads Im considering going for the over priced :rolleyes: Sapphire Tri-x r9 290 from overclockers.

Sapphire recommend a 750w powersupply. Id be fine with a 650w yeah or will it be worth spending the extra bit and getting the 750w too?

Sadly doesnt look like hardwarversand or dabs will be getting in any alternatives for a few weeks

You can't grab one from any of the German sites? Several of them are reputable you know.

What model PSU you have? 650 is perfectly fine as long as it's decent quality. Sapphire only say 750 to cover their asses.

Am I Evil?

I'm only planning my buld at the moment. I was going for an XFX pro series 650 or a Corsair RM650
I'll have another look at the list of german shops that have it.

but It's either save €100 with a cheap PSU and get the Windforce or go all out and get the Tri-X. Everywhere people seem to be recommending the Tri-X as the best non reference card

I'm very much warming to the idea of crossfire down the line too