Results: BioShock Infinite
The BioShock numbers line up pretty well at FHD and QHD resolutions, too. Radeon R9 290 shows up just behind our 290X press board, which is to say that both are faster than GeForce GTX 780.
Notice that GeForce GTX Titan shows up in front of the Radeon R9 290X. On this page, it actually trailed by quite a bit. The difference, of course, is in the five-minute pre-test heat-up that each card is subjected to in today’s review. Once we shed the overly-ambitious frequency that you’d never enjoy while playing BioShock, the finishing order shifts. Our press card is still a great performer—its result is merely tempered.
This procedure isn’t at all friendly to the retail card, though. At 1920x1080, it shows up behind GeForce GTX 770. At 2560x1440, it manages a slight win over the GK104-based board. But it still trails GeForce GTX 780. Only at 3840x2160 does our retail 290X leapfrog the 780.
It’s safe to say that the AMD-supplied 290X and 290 cards, along with the retail 290X, are all playable at Ultra HD resolutions. We’re still wary of the big gap between both of our Radeon R9 290X cards, though.
Frame time variance in BioShock is exceedingly low. Even in a worst-case scenario, the latency between successive frames should appear minimal.