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This review has been interesting for us especially as we get the opportunity to test a lot of the high end solutions available today with some of the biggest games released in the last couple of years.
The Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X 8GB graphics cards perform very well at high resolutions – Ultra HD 4k has been a particular strong point for the flagship AMD hardware in recent months.
Two Nvidia Titan Z cards in Quad SLI was merely included in this review out of interest, we don't consider this a practical solution. We have never had a wonderful experience with Quad SLI … unless all you do is benchmark with specific programs, such as 3DMark. Titles such as Watchdogs performed terribly for us with two Titan Z's, and we noticed a ton of texture glitching in games such as Far Cry 3. Single Titan Z? not a problem.
Dual or Tri SLI definitely delivers more consistent results overall. While the Titan Z has dropped in price to around £1,100 online, forking out £2,200 on two Titan Z's for Quad SLi is really rather silly, especially when we analyse performance of the MSI GTX980 Gaming 4G cards – priced at £442.99 each. This dual card configuration costs around £250 less than a single Titan Z, and will outperform it easily, while consuming less power. There has been much negative talk of Nvidia launching the GTX980 with a 256 bit memory interface, but in the real world, the new compression engine designed for the Maxwell architecture does help reduce the demand on DRAM bandwidth. Make no mistake these are fantastic cards to pair up with a new 4K screen.
The R9 295X2 is slightly slower than two of the Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X 8GB cards combined, but it has the advantage of being water cooled. The R9 295X2 is actually one of the quietest cards on test today and while it does require an extra radiator to be fitted inside a chassis, it only takes up one slot on the motherboard. In many ways it is more convenient.
A R9 295X2 did cost £1,100, but has recently dropped in price – with the Sapphire model we included in the review today available from Overclockers UK for only £599.99 inc vat. If I was in the market myself for a 4K gaming card, the R9 295X2 would get my money – at £599.99 it is an absolute steal. Well, in relative terms, and within the context of this review anyway.
The Palit GTX780 JetStream 6GB cards were included in SLI today because they ship with the highest amount of VRAM available on an Nvidia GPU, equal to the Titan series of cards. They performed at the bottom, or close to the bottom of the pile today, and as they seem to be still selling for around £400 inc vat, each – in reality they add up to a poor buying decision.
When we reviewed the 6GB GTX780's back in May they rated highly, but the market has changed so dramatically in the last six months. These £400 6GB GTX780 cards are the closest match in price to the Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X 8GB, which retail for £379.99 inc vat. It doesn't take a lot of effort to see that the AMD cards deliver much better performance at 4K, and at a lower price too.
Sapphire are AMD's biggest partner for a reason, they deliver some of the best custom cooling designs you can buy, and their build quality is really second to none. While the Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X 8GB do deliver great results the architecture is starting to look rather dated next to Nvidia's Maxwell. Even with such a sophisticated cooling system, these 290X cards consume much more power, and subsequently run hotter too. The fans spin faster, so more noise is generated under load.
Until AMD release new updated architecture there is nothing Sapphire, or any other partner can do to eliminate this.
You can buy the Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X 8GB cards from Overclockers UK for £379.99 inc vat. At the price they are good value, and with the 8GB of VRAM they offer plenty of futureproofing. If you have your mind set on a high end AMD configuration, this is pretty much as good as it gets.
It is worth pointing out that the 4GB Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC is £100 less (£259.99) at OCUK, making it an exceptional deal. Unless you specifically want 8GB of GDDR5 memory, that is a significant saving.
Overclockers UK have created a deal for KITGURU readers. If you want one (or two) of the Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X 8GB cards, then you can enter a special code to get a further £20 reduction – bringing the total price down to £359.99 inc vat.
This is a staggering £240 less than the original asking price of £599.99. Just head to this page and enter CODE KITGURU8GB. You also get five free games with the purchase.
As an overall package, and considering the OCUK/KitGuru price deal of £359.99 inc vat we award the Sapphire R9 290X VaporX 8GB our ‘WORTH BUYING AWARD'. Two of these cards are able to outperform an NVIDIA GTX TITAN Z and a pair of 6GB GTX780 Ti – all of which are more expensive. They have a tougher battle at 4K against a pair of custom GTX980's, but the price difference in their favour certainly means they are difficult to ignore. As already mentioned, the biggest problem is the £100 premium when compared directly against the 4GB Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X solution.
Pros:
- built to the highest standards.
- 8GB of GDDR5 memory for futureproofing.
- high clock speeds.
- backplate.
- great performance at Ultra HD 4k.
Cons:
- well priced, but Maxwell based GTX980s are available at only £40 extra.
- Sapphire's watercooled R9 295X2 is available now for only £599.99 inc vat.
- Sapphire Tri-X 4GB R9 290x's are £100 less.
Kitguru says: Sapphire are pushing current AMD architecture to the limit and for AMD fans these are WORTH BUYING cards. In the overall market place however for only a little extra you can pick up custom, overclocked GTX980's. The quiet, water cooled Sapphire R9 295X2 is also available now for only £599.99 as well – that would get my own money if I wanted to build a 4K system.
Would have been interesting to to see if a Titan-Z plus a PhysX Titan-Z was able to beat Titan-Z SLI in Metro.
“Sapphire’s single slot R9 295X2 is available now for only £599.99 inc vat.”, you mean dual slot? 😛
AMD really is beaten by Nvidia this time around. Don’t get me wrong, i own R9 270x in crossfire and i always buy AMD products, but when you look at 900 series grapvics card from Nvidia you realize that beside price war there’s no competition. 980 has more or less the same TDP as R9 270x yet it is far more powerful in performance. More than 100% at 1080p. Really hope that AMD can crush them for their sake with new R9 that will be launched next year.
@KitGuru
Metro Last Light chart needs a little fixing.
These cards might show much better numbers in future titles that recommend or ask as minimum 4GB RAM. It’s still early for an 8GB card in PC games.
The is the opposite of what I have seen everywhere else, the 290x CF and the 295×2 beat the GTX 980 at high res???
The is the opposite of what I have seen everywhere else, the 290x CF and the 295×2 beat the GTX 980 at high res???
You already see a little of that in Watch_Dogs so I hope we see some Shadow of Mordor numbers @ 4K
You already see a little of that in Watch_Dogs so I hope we see some Shadow of Mordor numbers @ 4K
what a biased untruthful review, guys better off to read Hexus and other trusted sources reviews, this review is a joke, all benchmarks showed no difference between 4G and 8G since no game yet actually using that amount so there is no benefit, in this review 290X ALMIGHTY card is 20% behind TitanZ SLI and beat 980 SLI, what a joke review from a joker!!
what a biased untruthful review, guys better off to read Hexus and other trusted sources reviews, this review is a joke, all benchmarks showed no difference between 4G and 8G since no game yet actually using that amount so there is no benefit, in this review 290X ALMIGHTY card is 20% behind TitanZ SLI and beat 980 SLI, what a joke review from a joker!!
wtf
wtf
its 290x CF not single!
its 290x CF not single!
I do as well and I only use Nvidia cards, Competition keeps everyone in check and brings next gen tech out faster.
That’s right. And prices as well. So it does not matter whos gpu you preffer, you buy what you want but there mudt be healthy competition
Yes, and the 970s for example (can only speak for them) have massive coil whine problems. I received the second one, that was louder than my GTX460 on full load with 100% fan speed. That can’t be the game, sorry. I’m not trading a smooth running card, that is actually relatively quiet for performance and energy consumption plus pseudo silentness cause it’s only silent when you grab a properly working one.
I’m at the moment fed up with NVIDIAs politics to save money by using lower quality material that causes problems. Waiting until that problem has been solved or a new series of AMD/NVIDIA comes up. Maybe I’ll also have to go with a 280x in the meantime, cause my GTX460 has met performance limits.
I thought to go with one of those but these coil whine issues are stopping me from getting one.
That’s hilarious. You know the R9 290X is a year old right? Having the 980 barely beat it is disgusting. Maxwell offers so little in raw power over even Nvidias older cards. Way to innovate Nvidia. Everyone give them props. After all that hype “wait for Maxwell”.. and it barely succeeded in the area that actually matters. Wattage differences make for $20 more a year, and thermals were brought down with non reference cards in the 290X, but it had 5% less performance than Nvidias NEW technology. Bravo. Bravo Nvidia. Lets give them the standing ovation they deserve. They truly are the greatest innovators of all time. I mean, look at their sales. Look at all the people buying them up. They truly are kings in the industry. No need for competition, they are gods. Let them charge $1000. Let them put wattage and thermals before raw power. Obviously thermals and wattage can’t be fixed like Sapphire and other companies have done for AMD. They still need the now archaic sli bridges but its working out for them. I’m not even joking either. They are literally winning cause of insignificant things like that. We should all get Macs next, they advertise in other areas than raw power too. It’s brilliant. We are moving the industry forward! Put down every company just because of minimal gains and worthless filler. We need more companies like Apple. Nvidia, you go green. You’re next.
On a side note: I’m not a fan of either company in particular. Just those that innovate in the area of raw power and tangible gains. If one is winning because of something silly, I’ll put them down. Like AMD and their cpu chips, they are nothing in comparison to Intel, and Intel runs the market like mad because of it. Gpu’s though.. Nvidia hasn’t been holding their own.. but they don’t need to.. cause everyone just buys their products without thinking twice.. At least AMD is much better and consistent than any other silicon company in their pricing though..
That is true. In the last sentence. But you gotta figure that gtx 980 has more than 100% performance than my R9 270x with same or even lower consumption. And when you look at 1080p and 1440p there is no competition for nvidia, atleast nor now. As i sad on other article, AMD needs to pull a bunny from the hat and lower the consumption and increase IPC of GCN cores. I really hope that will happen because i would like to buy R9 card again. Until now i had two
If you take price difference into consideration, the difference in power consumption becomes negligible.
Ok. Let’s take it that way. How much performance would nvidia pull if they hadn’t put so much effort to make consumption so low? I know what you want to say but you have to admit that fact. Nvidia did a splendid job
I agree, they did.
Looking at your 290x only review and seeing how you show ONE 290x getting 40 fps for this game.
YET in this review you show TWO 290x 8g only getting 60. Sounds like some BS to me.
You can overclock the 970 and 980 by 40% and it sucks more power than any 290x and only gains MARGINAL fps.
True. But same is valid for any gpu. So… I’m waiting for r9 300 series, to see what AMD did with their cards this time
Same here, iv had 290’s on water for ever. 1350 core.
Wanted to buy gtx 970 instead of my 270x crossfire. But after selling one of my cards i had to keep other one because something else poped up. But looking at how my card performs i might keep it to the end of this year also.
Currently have my eye on nzxt h440
Well right now you can get 290X crossfire for the price of ONE 980 and get allmost double the fps. No idea why kids rush out to buy 970/980s when 2 year old gpus get +/- 2-5 FPS of them. Must be rich spoiled idiot kids wasting all their parents money.
Not really when gpus have an OC limit thus producing an max amount of power draw. So like he said when you OC the over priced 970/980s there power to performance starts to explode. And the fps does not increase and is not scaleable with them. All benchmarks prove this.
Well, not here were i live. I know that the prices almost everywhere are like you said but in Croatia for the price of 980 i can get one 290x and 270x, for example
nvidia is sitting on there ass just waiting on amd to compete. The whole Titan concept is proof of that. there x80 cards are actually just mid range cards these days with titans being there new x80 cards. It’s such a shame tho that company instantly abuse there position whenever they possible can.
I think that the 290x should have come with a 8gb version faster to be honest. If i would buy into a 290x version it would surely be 8gb as the v-ram is going to spike heavily in the upcoming year / years. It’s a good future proof card specially if you decide to crossfire them. while 8gb can be seen as overkill now, there are already tests done where even on 1080p games rush towards 6gb of v-ram and in 4k 8gb is close to be hit. You have enough room with the 290x to not be limited then.
I made this mistake with my 580 1,5gb. I should have gone with 3gb version and still have no issue’s to play watch dogs / unity without much issue’s. but because my card gets heavily hampered by the 1,5gb of v-ram even the lowest of the lowest setting makes teh games jam to unplayable framerates. The card is now what 4 years old? but if i would sli them today, it would stil perform equal towards a 780 / 290 with 3gb that would be far enough. The upgrade price would only be ~around 70 bucks / euro’s second handed. Which would be insane value for it’s money.
For people that buy into the cards at this day of age, i would heavily advice into getting a 8gb even while the extra 4gb do not seem to make much sense now, it can be extremely handy when you hit my spot in a few years from now. Unless you obviously upgrade every year etc.
Two video cards usually bottlenecks one of them, so you will not get 200% power. Usually just around 150-175% power.
Looks like you will be able to buy an R9 card again! Chances are it will probably actually be the same one! AMD loves rebranding hot inefficient obsoleted tech and selling it to chumps.
Nvidia to rebrand their cards. Only i 900 series there isn’t any. Price/Performance ratio with AMD cards is great and that could only get better. And that is only thing that matters to me, even if that means jump ship from AMD to Nvidia. My money, my choice
Nvidia have not rebranded any cards, I dont know what you are talking about. They promised Maxwell cards and we have the 750, 750 ti, 960, 970, 980, 980 ti and titan X. Thats 7 new cards. AMD have released one new card, the entire of the rest of the lineup is just rebrands.
Bad time to be investing in AMD, the company seems more desperate to please its shareholders than its customers. I guess it needs to be, AMD stockholders must be sweating after seeing the dreadful launch of the fury X.
I do agree with you though, I would buy the better brand but its been years since AMD were actually competing with Nvidia.
If you had read my post like you should you’d see that I write that I 900 series there isn’t any rebrands. But for example in 700 series there were
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hello can to do one review with alone one r9 290x vapor-x tri-x gddr5 plz
I know this is an old article but it’s very difficult to discern exactly what CPU and speed that was used for this test. AMD CPU? Intel CPU? Which one? You point to the test rig linked to another article but that one doesn’t even list the current CPU in use for this test either.
Why even bother wasting your time on this if we can’t tell what you used for it? *sigh*