MSI R9 290X Lightning Review: The Right Way To Cool Hawaii

Features
By Igor Wallossek
published

Judging from the R9 290X Lightning's hefty build, it takes a lot of metal to cool the Hawaii GPU properly. But what does this massive card give you aside from sharp looks? How about impressive acoustics? Is its $750 price tag worth the premium experience?

Gaming Performance

Test System and Benchmarks

We went with the latest Catalyst beta package and four carefully-selected benchmarks, run at the highest quality settings. The results are normalized, giving us a performance index in percentage points. AMD's reference Radeon R9 290 gives us our baseline at 100%.

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SystemIntel Core i7-4930K (Ivy Bridge-E), Overclocked to 4 GHzAsus Rampage IV Black Edition, X79 Express32 GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3-2133Enermax TLC 240 Closed-Loop Liquid Cooler1 x SSD 512 GB Samsung 840 Pro
Power SupplyCorsair AX860i
Operating SystemWindows 8.1
DriversAMD Catalyst 14.2 BetaGeForce 334.89
BenchmarksMetro: Last LightBioShock InfiniteBattlefield 4 (Single-Player)Crysis 3 (DX11)

Performance Rating

In order to achieve realistic and comparable results, we heat up the cards prior to benchmarking, subjecting them to a 3D load that takes their GPU temperatures up to a steady state. This creates a level playing field for factory-overclocked cards.

In a nutshell, an overclocked MSI R9 290X Lightning cannot best Gigabyte's overclocked GeForce GTX 780 Ti Windforce OC, though the performance difference between both front-runners is quite small. Amazingly, two cards based on different manufacturers’ flagship GPUs treat us to a photo finish in this race.

Igor Wallossek
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • blackmagnum
    If it costs 750 bucks, it should come with water-cooling. Why the need to slap on a pound of metal to cool it if there was a more customer friendly way?
    Reply
  • solix
    Unless I am mistaken you burn 3 slots with this guy. For how close this is to the Tri-x in thermals and acoustics, but with the loss of a slot and the added price, meh. Tri-x still seems like the best value proposition.
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    I just want to point out how silly the 780 Ti is priced. People, this card trades blows with the 780 Ti while giving you an extra GB of VRAM. It should cost at least as much as the 780 Ti. Or better yet, the other way around! ;)
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    Unfortunately, in order to increase this card's GPU voltage, you have to register with MSI for a special license. This isn't given out freely; only professional overclockers can get their hands on it.
    Whoa, wait, what???
    Reply
  • dscudella
    As of my post, the pricing on Newegg for the mentioned cards:

    MSI 290x Lightning $699.99 + $4.99 shipping
    Sapphire 290x Tri-X OC $649.99Sapphire 290x Tri-X $639.99Gigabyte 290x Windforce $579.99 ($549.99 after rebate)
    This makes the Lightning $125 ($155 after rebate) more expensive than the Windforce. MSI is really stretching the price here.
    Reply
  • zzzaac
    $899 or 841 USD where i'm from for this card. Got to admit though, 3 slot cards are really unappealing for me.

    Got to agree that the Tri-X seems a better value proposition
    Reply
  • cats_Paw
    A bit useless review:
    The main aspect of a GPU and its most important job is to make games run smooth.
    In this review there is only a Performance ratio chart. This does not give the important data at all.

    I dont care if that GPU has 80 or 85 FPS in farcry3, but I Do care if it has 25 or 30 on more demanding games/settings.
    Finally, this card seems like itsmissing its purpouse a bit.
    It has a huge heatsink, but dosent actually run cool or quiet.
    It has an OC that is decent but dosent increase performance that much.
    You could water cool that GPU for a similar price and get better performance in every aspect as long as you are willing to have a loop in your PC.



    Reply
  • redgarl
    Where is your review of the Powercolor PCS+ R290x...? From all the review I have seen, not only they are cheaper, but perform better I from what I am seeing, smaller.
    Reply
  • ubercake
    That "Certificate of Quality and Stability" is humorous...

    "I hereby declare this video card to be of the utmost quality and thereby further and henceforth declare this same electronic device to be 101% stable to the fullest of my capabilities to determine it as such. Sincerely, Your Mom".

    Definitely something to frame and hang on your wall above the monitor.
    Reply
  • ewok93
    I feel like it would be much more cost effective to go with water cooling, it would definitely be much lighter. I may be wrong, though, as that heatsink is pretty freaking massive. It just seems like past a certain point, air cooling can only do so much, and can only take up so much space.

    If you're just going for overkill, I want to see one of these with phase change cooling. It can't cost that much more, can it?
    Reply