First let’s clear the performance questions up. It is faster than a GTX780. This is the competitor card AMD were gunning for so it is mission complete as far as that remit goes. Compared against the GTX TITAN, the R9-290X can occasionally hold its head high by putting the NVIDIA Super card in the shade but for the most part it is a few frames behind. Pitch the R9-290X against an overclocked GTX 780, and NVIDIA will come out of the brawl with little more than a thick lip while the 290X will require dental surgery. Both exchange blows but the R9-290X more often comes off worse. Of course most of these statements are game dependent but overall, they stand true. That however is only half the story because there is so much more to summarise.

The biggest negative with the R9-290X is the temperature. While the card is noisy, this will have little impact upon those gamers (and lets face it, this means most of us) who wear a headset for full game immersion. So noise, while a negative, can be avoided if you don't mind playing around with the settings or for ease, flipping the BIOS switch to a balanced mode. What disturbs us is the temperatures.

95c is toasty whichever way you interpret it. Were someone to ask on an enthusiast forum if something were wrong with their card running at this temperature, most would agree there was. Yet AMD are insistent this temperature is completely fine and there is nothing to be concerned about. To some extent we agree with this sentiment if temperature had no effect on overclocking but as we know, with most components, the cooler they run, the higher the potential for overclocking there usually is. It will certainly be interesting to see how far the GPU can be overclocked with a better cooling design. The card can of course be run 'cooler' than 95c with the fan turned up. The same amount of heat is still however being created, it is just being expelled at a different rate which in turn increases the noise level. AMD therefore claim that either low temperatures or acoustics need to be sacrificed, you can't have both. While this may well be the case with the R9-290X, we would argue there are cards already on the market that outperform the R9-290X yet run faster, quieter and cooler. These are however, more expensive and here is the ace in the hole for AMD, the price.

At £450, the AMD R9-290 represents good value for money when compared to the competition. It is rare that a flagship GPU will fall under £500 so this is most welcome from AMD. A GTX780 will cost £50 more however, for that £50 you could potentially get an overclocked and custom cooled edition which is faster, quieter and cooler. To further rain on AMD's parade, NVIDIA will shortly be showing off their GTX780Ti so it will certainly be an interesting few weeks before the run up to Christmas.



Deciding what award to give the AMD card was a difficult one. On the one hand it consistantly outperformed the reference clocked NVIDIA GTX780. Yet more impressive is that it occasionally bettered the GTX TITAN and importantly for much less money so it is certainly due credit. Performance will only increase with more mature drivers too so the future is bright for this card. The R9-290X is also packed with features, most of which we can certainly see laying the foundations for some truly awesome cards in the future. However the temperatures and the noise, despite reassurances, still leave us feeling a little uneasy. Yes we could lower the target temp but that would mean more noise which few will suffer gladly. We just feel that we are having to make some form of sacrifice on some level be it temperatures, noise, aesthetics or most importantly against the factory overclocked GTX780's - performance. For a flagship card there should be no sacrifice and no compromise. For this reason the R9-290X will have to settle for Silver. We look forward to custom cooled varieties in the future which we are confident will fair much better and on an equal playing field. For now AMD will have to revel in the success of beating a like for like card and beating it consistently which is an achievement they should be very proud of.

To summarise:
The AMD Radeon R9-290X is a blisteringly fast GPU capable of holding its own against the best GPUs out there. This speed however comes at a price, not the one you pay at the checkout which is actually quite reasonable but the one you will pay later in life when your hearing fades! Be safe in the knowledge though that the AMD R9-290X will keep you warm. Whether that is a good or bad thing only time will tell.