The Radeon R9 290 has been introduced quite a while back and thanks to Sapphire we're finally having a look at the reference model. As you might already know, the card comes with a blower type cooler and clocked at 947 MHz on the GPU and 5'000 MHz for the memory. Overall we're curious to see what kind of damage this card can do.
Today we're having a look at Sapphire's Radeon R9 290, which has been built
according to AMDs reference design. Therefore you get the standard cooler as
well as the usual PCB in combination with reference clocks. This review will
also show you what the R9 290 is able to score when it comes completely
reference.
As we already mentioned this is an AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card, that's
been build according to reference specifications. The GPU is therefore set to work at up to 947 MHz.
A closer look at the memory reveals clocks are at 1'250 MHz (effective 5'000
MHz).
During our testing the Sapphie Radeon R9 290 constantly kept core clocks at 947 MHz.
Usually, when we run Furmark, we see GPU clocks go down by quite a few MHz, but
with this card that is not the case.
With this card you get a typical blower type cooler, which means a radial
fan is being used. Usually this type of cooler doesn't manage to keep cards as
cool as any other custom heatsink. The main advantage of this type of cooler is
that air is being blown out of the case, making for lower internal temperatures.
The fan in this case has to move air through quite a dense heatsink. A closer
look at the finstack reveals, it has been soldered to a copper base plate. That
piece of copper is then in direct contact with the GPU. Other than that you can
clearly see the different thermal pads, which are located in between the cooler
and the memory chips as well as VRM area. This apparently means, that also the
VRM area as well as the memory chips receive active cooling. As you will see in
our noise level testing, the AMD reference cooler is really not silent.
This card allowed for a maximum stable
overclock to 1150 MHz on the GPU side and 1650 MHz on the memory side. We
used Furemark V1.11.0 Geeks3D benchmark with 15 minutes duration in order to
test the stability. With these
clocks we had to feed the GPU with 1.21 Volt and the memory ran at stock
voltages.
The reference design forsees, that Radeon R9 290 graphics cards
should be equipped with at least a six phase power design regarding the GPU, one
phase for the memory and another one for the PLL. Good for stability and
durability is the fact, that the power design receives active cooling. Checking the
voltage regulation chips we find an IR 3567B.
The memory chips used are made by Elpida and carry the model number
W2032BBBG-6A-F. They are specified to run at 1'260 MHz (5'040 MHz effective).
The card ships well bolstered in a foam made mold. Bundled with the graphics
card are the user guide, the driver CD, two power converters as well as a an
HDMI cable. We would have loved to find a few
additional goodies in the box but the bundle is not that bad either, especially
because of the HDMI cable.
For the noise level results, we measured the noise
level using a decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) located at 1 meter away from the
graphics card.
Idle Temperature
Temperature
Auto
50%
70%
100%
ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti STRIX OC Edition
38
33
30
28
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
34
34
33
29
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC
30
29
28
28
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum
32
31
30
29
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
53
40
38
32
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum
37
37
36
34
ASUS
Radeon HD 7970 Platinum
28
28
28
27
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top
30
30
29
29
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X Platinum
30
30
29
29
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II
36
35
34
34
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X Platinum
37
36
35
34
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 750 Ti Black Edition
25
25
24
24
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition
29
27
26
26
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 OC V2
30
29
28
28
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780
30
29
29
27
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition
32
31
30
29
PowerColor Radeon R9 280X TurboDuo OC
32
32
31
30
PowerColor Radeon R9 290X LCS
29
Sapphire Radeon R9 290
44
40
38
35
NVIDIA Reference
32
30
29
29
More is better
Idle, temperature is
taken after 15 minutes @ lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature under Furmark
Temperature
Auto
50%
70%
100%
ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti STRIX OC Edition
58
49
48
47
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
73
73
73
72
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC
83
71
63
56
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum
77
77
72
68
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum
90
81
72
62
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
70
66
59
54
ASUS
Radeon HD 7970 Platinum
76
70
69
69
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top
90
71
64
63
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X Platinum
77
73
71
70
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II
89
90
85
81
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X Platinum
88
85
82
78
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 750 Ti Black Edition
52
49
47
44
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition
90
80
73
58
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 OC V2
90
83
75
63
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780
73
71
63
56
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition
80
77
72
69
PowerColor R9 290X LCS
46
PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC
n/A
n/A
74
68
Sapphire Radeon R9 290
94
85
74
67
NVIDIA Reference
90
83
76
68
More is better
For FurMark, temperature is taken
after 15 minutes of GPU Burn test at lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
We stopped the test when the GPU temperature hit 90°C.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature and
fan speed under BattleField 3
Auto
Temperature
PowerColor R9 290X LCS (watercooled)
39
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 750Ti Black Edition
40
ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti STRIX OC Edition
55
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition
60
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
62
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
62
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum
66
ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Platinum
66
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780
66
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition
67
ASUS Radeon R9 280X Platinum
68
ASUS
GeForceGTX 780 DirectCU II OC
69
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top
69
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 OC V2
70
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum
71
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X Platinum
72
PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC
73
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II
79
NVIDIA Reference
79
Sapphire Radeon R9 290
80
More is better
For BattleField 3, temperature and fan speed
values taken are the highest achieved after 1 hour gaming @ auto fan
speed.
The "Performance Index" value is calculated as the sum of all
benchmarks results divided by the amount of games (3DMark and Unigine are not
included into the calculation).
Performance/Price
Graphics Cards
Performance Index
Price (€)*
Performance/€*10
ASUS Radeon R9
290X Platinum
n/A
n/A
n/A
ASUS GeForce GTX
780 Ti Matrix Platinum
n/A
n/A
n/A
AMD Radeon HD 7790
33.44
91
3.67
AMD Radeon HD 7870
50.53
143
3.53
AMD Radeon R9 270
50.00
144
3.47
AMD Radeon HD 7850
42.39
124
3.42
AMD Radeon R9 270X
53.85
159
3.39
nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
40.87
121
3.38
nVidia GeForce GTX 660
47.37
144
3.29
nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti
30.80
100
3.08
AMD Radeon R9 280X
68.85
241
2.86
nVidia GeForce GTX 760
56.63
199
2.85
nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti
53.55
193
2.77
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750
Ti Black Edition
38.37
140
2.74
AMD Radeon HD 7970
64.27
232
2.77
nVidia GeForce GTX 670
62.00
228
2.72
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
70.75
260
2.72
nVidia GeForce GTX 770
70.92
266
2.67
nVidia GeForce GTX 580
50.49
190
2.66
ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti STRIX OC Edition
37.48
148
2.53
AMD Radeon HD 6870
31.88
126
2.53
Sapphire Radeon R9 290
77.58
309
2.51
nVidia GeForce GTX 680
68.36
291
2.35
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
59.92
288
2.08
nVidia GeForce GTX 780
81.66
415
1.97
AMD Radeon HD 6950
36.83
205
1.80
PowerColor Radeon
R9 290X LCS
91.19
577
1.58
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
84.22
532
1.58
nVidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti
90.53
582
1.56
AMD Radeon HD 6970
41.19
310
1.33
AMD Radeon HD 5850
30.05
260
1.16
AMD Radeon HD 5870
35.98
335
1.07
AMD Radeon HD 6990
73.44
708
1.04
nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN
85.05
832
1.02
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti GHz
104.63
613
N/A
* 06/01/2014
More is better
Less is better
More is better
For the price we took the lowest price available on geizhals.eu.
Since the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 is based on AMDs
reference design, there is not too much to praise on this card.
Apparently Sapphire is more then just capable of building reference
cards appropriately, which is what's been done in this case. What you
get here is a well manufactured reference Radeon R9 290. What's really
something AMD has to improve on with the next generation of reference
cards is the cooler. The model on this R9 290 is simply way to noisy.
When it comes to raw performance the R9 290 is a very capable card that
also features a sweet price.
- Performance
-
Bundle
- Noise levels
Cooling / Noise
Level
+
-
Having a closer look at noise levels we see that,
no matter which preset we were using the card is either noisy or even
loud, while gaming. In idle we noticed 33.6 dBA, which is definitely
silent, but not inaudible. Under load and the fan set to auto we
measured 49.1 dBA, which is subjectively speaking loud. At 50 percent
fan speed the card produces 48.7 dBA, at 70 percent it was 58.2 dBA and
at 100 percent and 5'275 rpm we measured 64.9 dBA. This reference design
is simply: loud. Check temperatures we see the card hitting 94°C which
is an inch from throttling.
- Cooling performance
- Noise levels
Performance
+
-
The Radeon R9 290 is actually a quick card and
therefore performance is definitely good. If we start looking for the
direct competitor from NVIDIA we find the GeForce GTX 780, which is a
little bit quicker overall but quite a bit more expensive.
At this point we also had a closer look at power consumption and we see
what's actually usual with AMD R9 290/290X cards. In idle as well as
under load power consumption is quite high.
- Performance
- Power consumption
Recommendation / Price
+
-
The reference R9 290 offers good performance but
unfortunately it comes bundled with a noisy cooler. These days the card
sells for 349 Euro, which is a good price compared to the similarly
performing GeForce GTX 780.
- Gaming
-
Silent System
We give the
Sapphire
Radeon R9 290 3.5 out of 5 stars.