Thanks to your requests in our feedback section, we’re including the benchmark performance results in our efficiency calculations. Specifically, we’re using the benchmarks recorded during our power consumption measurements. This is especially interesting due to the fact that Metro: Last Light isn't a Gaming Evolved title, so nobody can accuse it of favoring AMD.
We're testing at 1920x1080, given that resolution's popularity. The two faster and two slower graphics cards end up with fairly similar performance, which dispels any lingering doubt about this being an apples-to-oranges comparison. The graphs show the results for the Radeon R9 290 with its new driver and higher fan speed, since displaying three different results would have been confusing.
Gaming Loop Performance
Let’s first take a look at the plain frames per second and the frames per second percentages. This provides a nice overview.
With the new drivers that are supposed to keep the boisterous radial fan under control, AMD's Radeon R9 290 only gives up about one percent of its performance compared to eight percent with the old drivers. The performance difference is six percent for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780. This doesn’t really make either of the two reference graphics cards look great. One gives up some of its performance, and the other one gets loud.


Efficiency
This is where power consumption enters the scene. We’re now judging the graphics cards based on how much power they need to achieve each of their frame rates. The GeForce GTX 780 does benefit from its better cooling, and manages to stay in the same place that we’ve become accustomed to. Then again, through some smart maneuvering, AMD manages to push its card to, or at least close to, the same level as Nvidia’s offering.


The Radeon R9 290 is only three to four percent less efficient than Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780. This is a pretty massive improvement over the 26 percent separating the AMD Radeon R9 280X and GeForce GTX 770. The fact that Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780 has already been the happy recipient of several optimized drivers, whereas the Radeon R9 290 is only supported by a beta driver should provide some food for thought, too. The gap between the two graphics cards could shrink, or even disappear altogether, at some point in the future.
- Digging Deeper Into Hawaii’s Behavior
- Sidebar: Variability Turns Into A Graphics Card Crapshoot
- Meet The Radeon R9 290
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Results: Arma III
- Results: Battlefield 4
- Results: BioShock Infinite
- Results: Crysis 3
- Results: Metro: Last Light
- Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider
- Results (DirectX): AutoCAD 2013 And Inventor
- Results (OpenGL): LightWave And Maya 2013
- Results (OpenCL): GPGPU Benchmarks
- Gaming Power Consumption Details
- Detailed Gaming Efficiency Results
- Power Consumption Overview
- Noise And Video Comparison
- Do-It-Yourself Upgrade With Arctic's Accelero Xtreme III
- Radeon R9 290: Priced Right Where We’d Peg It
http://techreport.com/review/25602/amd-radeon-r9-290-graphics-card-reviewed/9
Chris, these results differ drastically from real world results from 290X owners at OCN... I understand that your observations are anecdotal and based on a very small sample size but do you mind looking into this matter further because putting such a statement in bold in the conclusion even though it contradicts real world experiences of owners just provides a false assumption to the uninformed reader...
The above claim has already escalated further than it should... A Swiss site actually has already rebutted by testing their own press sample with a retail model and concluded the following:
In the quiet mode, where the dynamic frequencies to work overtime, the situation becomes slightly turbid. A minor performance difference can be seen in some titles, and even if it is not about considerable variations, the trend is clear. In the end, it does an average variance tion of only a few percent, ie no extreme levels. The reason may include slightly less contact with the cooler, or simply easy changing ambient temperature.
http://techreport.com/review/25602/amd-radeon-r9-290-graphics-card-reviewed/9
Chris, these results differ drastically from real world results from 290X owners at OCN... I understand that your observations are anecdotal and based on a very small sample size but do you mind looking into this matter further because putting such a statement in bold in the conclusion even though it contradicts real world experiences of owners just provides a false assumption to the uninformed reader...
The above claim has already escalated further than it should... A Swiss site actually has already rebutted by testing their own press sample with a retail model and concluded the following:
In the quiet mode, where the dynamic frequencies to work overtime, the situation becomes slightly turbid. A minor performance difference can be seen in some titles, and even if it is not about considerable variations, the trend is clear. In the end, it does an average variance tion of only a few percent, ie no extreme levels. The reason may include slightly less contact with the cooler, or simply easy changing ambient temperature.
Now to wait for the non-reference cards at the end of the month!
It looks like a good card for the price as it even keeps up with the $100 more GTX780. This is good as NVidia may drop prices even more which means we could also see a price drop on the 290X and I wouldn't mind a new 290X Toxic for sub $500.
Best to wait a month or two before buying to see how this all goes down
Some people who need CUDA for work and GPU for gaming will still get 780s, but no one will get 290x for $150 premium just to get a couple more FPS over 290. AMD just shot themselves in the foot before hurting nvidia.
Nvidia made a very good job with the reference cooler(but you really pay for it)... do you think AMD could not have pulled of a "monster" cooler?? is it really hard to make a good cooler? no, it is expensive.
You could do this, you have youre sources
Strange thing and I know some of us were going through this. I was thinking getting a 280x on Black Friday/Cyber Monday but the price tag is leaving me with something to think about. I think I'm just going to save up the few pennies to get something I thought was out of my price range ($300-450) a month ago ($650+).