Gigabyte R9 290 WindForce OC Review (1600p, Ultra HD 4K)

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte R9 290 WindForce OC3. Gigabyte R9 290 WindForce OC (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Unigine Valley Benchmark7. 3DMark Vantage8. 3DMark 119. 3DMark10. Alien V Predator (1600p)11. Alien V Predator (Ultra HD 4K)12. Sleeping Dogs (1600p)13. Sleeping Dogs (Ultra HD 4k)14. Total War: ROME 2 (1600p)15. Total War: ROME 2 (Ultra HD 4k)16. Dirt ShowDown (1600p)17. Dirt ShowDown (Ultra HD 4k)18. Tomb Raider (1600p)19. Tomb Raider (Ultra HD 4k)20. Metro: Last Light (1080p High)21. Metro: Last Light (Ultra HD 4K)22. GRID 2 (1600p)23. GRID 2 (Ultra HD 4k)24. Splinter Cell Blacklist (1080p)25. Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ultra HD 4K)26. Batman: Arkham Origins (Ultra HD 4K)27. Battlefield 4 (Ultra HD 4K)28. Thermal Dynamics29. Acoustics Performance30. Power Consumption31. Overclocking32. Closing Thoughts33. View All Pages

Today we slot the Gigabyte R9 290 WindForce OC into a series of tests we have ran on other cards. We are using the latest AMD Catalyst 13.11 beta driver and the Nvidia ForceWare 334.67 beta driver.

We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by PCSPECIALIST and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page.

We are featuring results today with an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD Display at 2560×1600 resolution and an Asus PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K screen running at 4K 3840 x 2160 resolution.

Room ambient was held at 23c throughout testing.

Comparison cards:
Asus R9 290X Direct CU II OC (1,050mhz / 1,350mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC (1,040mhz core / 1,300mhz memory)
Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce (1,040mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
AMD R9 290X (1000mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
AMD R9 290 (947mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
Palit JetStream GTX780 Ti OC (980mhz core / 1,750mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX780 Ti (876mhz core / 1,750mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan (837mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX780 (863mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
MSI GTX780 Lightning (980mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC Edition (1000mhz / 1300 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition (1,150mhz core / 1,600mhz memory)
Palit GTX770 OC (1046mhz core / 1753mhz memory)

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Rome 2
Dirt Showdown
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
GRID 2
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Batman Arkham Origins
Battlefield 4

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Become a Patron!