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Gigabyte box artwork is certainly distinctive, featuring a neon style outline of an eye. Our review sample didn't include any accessories, with only the card itself inside the box.
The WindForce cooler is a three fan design, set inside a black metal shroud. The PCB is also black. This is a dual slot card and due to the metal construction it feels heavy in the hand.
The card has a DVI-I, DVI-D, full sized HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.
R9 Series graphics cards can now support up to three HDMI/DVI displays for use with AMD Eyefinity technology. A set of displays which support identical timings is required to enable this feature. The display clocks and timing for this feature are configured at boot time.
As such, display hot‐plugging is not supported for the third HDMI/DVI connection. A reboot is required to enable three HDMI/DVI displays.
The Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce takes power from an 8 pin and a 6 pin power connector. This is identical to the reference design.
There is no Crossfire connector on the R9 290X. The 290X and 290 offer Bridgeless Crossfire capabilities.
Above, the card disassembled. It is a substantial cooler – there are six direct touch copper heatpipes, five of which run the full length of the cooler.
An overview of the Gigabyte R9 290X OC WindForce. The Hawaii CPU is built on the 28nm process and has 24 ROPS, 176 Texture units, and 2816 Stream processors. The 4GB of GDDR5 memory is connected via a wide 512 bit memory interface. Gigabyte have not overclocked the memory, although the core receives a modest boost from 1,000mhz to 1,040mhz.
Well about time there were a few more cards out. this one looks good, bit expensive, but all these cards are. Have you reviewed their 290? can you mod it to 290x? :p
Gigabyte cards get overlooked quite often, but its good to see the partners have taken their time to get them out at a high level, its the reason why a lot of people didn’t buy the reference 290. shoddy cooler.
Thats a great card, id love a review of the 290 myself, 290x is too much for me. Are you going to review it?
Good review, although I don’t agree, I think the GTX780ti is GREAT value, they start now at £550, and id pay £70 more for one over a 290x.
I hate this site, you do it all the time. review a product WE CAN”T FU*(ING BUY anywhere. its only on preorder on OCUK. whats the point of that? still not out yet, good job AMD. bunch of losers.
wish I could afford a 30 inch 4k screen, but its a bit off before they are affordable. 280X is the best bet if you want AMD, but I might move to Nvidia next gen later this year.
To the author of this review: Guru3D also did a review of this card, and the temperatures on Quiet mode was 84C, roughly equal to your results, and Uber’s max temps was at 77C. The noise levels are also a few dB higher on Uber mode. Could you verify that you actually recorded the temps in Uber mode?
Hi Hmmm,
Sorry – not seen that review
What were the benchmarks when the card was in ‘Uber’?
I had one of these….OCUK had 10 cards in just before Christmas and I managed to snatch one.
I hope other peoples experiences are better than mine…I ran a couple of game benchmarks at out of the box settings but it crashed a couple pf times running metro last light benchmark and would not boot up there after when the amd driver (13.12) was installed….RMA’ed but now waiting for more stock due 17/01.
I’m seriously considering switching my order to a 780ti….its just the promise of what “mantle” and “freesync” may bring is holding me there atm.
Really excited about this card. Was lucky enough to get the 290X BF4 version for ‘only’ 417 euro! (which converts to 346 pound).