The majority of AMD’s most recent graphics cards are not much more than renamed versions of existing cards. Frankly, there are not many benefits to buying the new R7 or R9 cards over the past generation. This changed with the announcement of the Radeon R9 290X late last week. This card differs from the others in that it really does offer a new experience for those looking at fast frame rates at high resolutions and aren’t looking to spend up to a $1000 for an NVIDIA GeForce TITAN card. In fact, retail prices are expected to be just $550 making it less expensive than even the GeForce GTX 780.

Bigger is Better

In this case, I’m not talking about a larger card but the graphics chip. The Radeon R9 290X is a much larger graphics chip than we have seen in the past from AMD. This is because it has a huge jump in the number of transistors (about 50% more) to provide even more stream processors, texture units and a larger memory bus than the past products. In fact, the clock speeds for the graphics core and memory clock have actually dropped a bit from the R9 280X (aka 7970 GHz Edition). The extra units and improved memory bus are the reasons that the card gets a performance boost. The downside here is that the increased circuitry also have some other factors to consider.

How Fast Is It?

There are three situations that I would see people needing a higher performance card such as the R9 290X, GeForce GTX 780 or TITAN:

QHD Display (2560×1440 or 2560×1600) – Frankly, this resolution doesn’t pose any issues for the NVIDIA or AMD cards. All of them should be able to use high settings and have near 60 frames per second. The difference really comes down to have much filtering do you want to have on the games. Since the Radeon R9 290X is less expensive, it ends up being the better choice.

4K Display (3840×2160) – 4K displays are still relatively new and restricted due to the limits of the display interfaces. This is something that is going to become more prevalent in the next couple of years. The Radeon R9 290X has an advantage over the NVIDIA cards which is likely due to the huge memory bus of the card. Just don’t expect to be using much filtering or even have the detail levels at the highest. Now if you do want those, than a multicard setup via SLI or CrossFire is required and due to the CrossFire issues, NVIDIA offers a better experience but it is more expensive.

Multi-Display Setups – If you are using three 1920×1080 displays, then the situation will likely be the same as if it was the 4K display setup because the total pixel count is less than a 4K display. Here, the Radeon R9 290X offers the fastest performance. Things change though if you are looking to run three QHD displays. At this point, you are pretty much required to use either an SLI or CrossFire setup to keep the frame rates up. With the continuing issues of AMD’s CrossFire, the NVIDIA cards edge out the AMD solution.

Thermal/Noise Issues

One of the biggest hurdles that the new Radeon R9 290X cards have to deal with is the heat that they generate. The larger graphics core also produces more heat. The AMD cards were notorious for generating a lot of noise to ensure proper cooling for high performance. With most of the initial cards likely to use the same reference design and cooler, the noise will likely still be an issue but AMD has tried to address this with new power management tools from PowerTune. What this essentially does it try to manage clock speeds and fan speeds to keep the graphics card performing properly within its tolerance ranges.

So how does this work? Well, the clock speed for the graphics core maxes out right around 1000MHz. At these speeds, the heat builds up quickly which requires the fan to increase its rpms to help cool it off. Under the quite mode where the fan speeds are restricted, this may not be enough. To keep the noise at a tolerable level, the graphics core will then be reduced to help reduce the amount of heat generated so the fan can keep it in its running range.

Why does this all matter? Well the Radeon R9 290X cards run hot. They generally will be anywhere from 90 to 95 degrees celsius which is more than most cards. If you don’t have a case that offers a good level of airflow, you may see performance well below what it should be as the card will be thermally locked.

As for the noise, even in the quiet settings, the Radeon R9 290X is just as loud as the NVIDIA cards. If you are planning on using the Uber settings, then things get even louder such that you will definitely need something to mask the noise as it does impact the audio experience of many games. Gamers with nice headsets might not care but those around you may.

Who Should Get One?

Overall, the Radeon R9 290X offers better performance at a lower price such that it is the easy choice for anyone wanting the best performance possible if they only have the space for a single graphics card. This is even true if you happen to be willing to spend upwards of $3000 or more for one of the first generation 4K displays. The problem is when you have any setup that is going to use more than one card. Even though NVIDIA’s high end cards are more expensive, they just work better in SLI than AMD’s cards in CrossFire. I would also point out that anyone cares about noise should wait a while to look at the non-reference designed R9 290X cards. The default single fan solution is just too noisy in many cases or requires clock throttling that reduces the performance. Hopefully some open air coolers will correct some of the noise issues.