Radeon 200 series megathread

[Toffie]

Update 14.1 MANTLE Beta driver download
http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/dow...le_driver.html

Update Mantle is live!
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4...tle-live/last/

Update AMD answers back G-Sync with their own alternative version, Free-Sync"
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7641/a...ve-at-ces-2014


1.0 R9-280x Reviews.
1.1 R9-290x Reviews.
1.2 R9-290 Reviews.
1.3 Mantle
1.4 Q&A on Mantle



Aftermarket R9-290(x) have been released but are in very small quantity and prices are gouged since the miners are ripping them off the shelves.

1.0

R9-280X Reviews
Release date: 9 October.

- MSI "TWIN FROZR" R9-280X

"When it comes to MSI's card specifically, it's in decent standings. The overclock is admittedly marginal, but there's a decent amount of extra headroom for more, especially on the memory chips, indeed it's something of a shame MSI hasn't overclocked the memory by default. Although a little larger than some, the cooler is well built and runs cool and quiet, even when the card is overclocked and under load.

- Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X

"I am not particularly feeling Sapphire’s modifications to the AMD R9 280X. In effect our testing shows that the cooling solution is very loud at any form of medium to high intensity load (read: gaming). The Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X reminds me of the HD 6990 reference cooler which reached similarly high noise levels of 65-70 dBA and had a reputation for being too noisy. "

- XFX R9 280X

"Since this is an board partner focused card without a reference version, we’re sure to see some interesting designs with additional performance on tap through enhanced clock speeds and better cooling solutions. Take the XFX card we looked at in this review as an example: it may not be pre-overclocked but the heatsink provided excellent temperature results and whisper quiet acoustics. Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to overly impressive overclocking results but that’s due to our lack of a proper voltage-tuning utility and less time with the card than we would have liked. "

- Asus R9 280X DC2 TOP

"ASUS is only commanding a $10 price premium on the ASUS R9 280X DC2T. For that extra $10 you get a slight core clock frequency boost, a more impressive memory clock boost, and custom high-end components. ASUS has outfitted this video card with its DIGI+ VRMs for cleaner voltage, more voltage, and more power delivery. The 8x2 phase setup is superior to the reference 6x2 phase configuration on R9 280X. The lifespan and efficiency of the R9 280X is improved on the ASUS version. The fan is customized and does deliver on its promises. We have the option to raise voltage to 1.4v on this card, well over the default of 1.2v, giving us immense freedom to overclock, hopefully."

- Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition

"The Sapphire Toxic Edition is the fastest R9 280X we have tested since launch, with the core clocked at 1,150mhz and the GDDR5 memory at 1,600mhz (6.4 Gbps effective). Thanks to the enhanced power delivery, we managed to squeeze almost 1,300mhz from the core and 1,762mhz from the GDDR5 memory (7.05 Gbps effective). Again, this is the highest manually tuned clock speed from any R9 280X this week. Some credit has to go to the capabilities of the Tri-X cooler which features three high grade aerofoil fans and gargantuan 10mm heat pipes.
We would go as far to say that the new Tri-X cooler is the best AMD cooling solution on the market. Not only did it outperform the triple slot cooler on the Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum, but it did so by a staggering 10c under load. "

- Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum

"While we aren’t questioning the performance of the Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum, we are surprised to see a triple slot cooler fitted to a R9 280X, even if it is overclocked. Many users who want to run high end Crossfire find it difficult to make room for 6 slots … just for a simple 2 way Crossfire configuration."

1.1

R9-290X Reviews
Release date: 24 October.

- ASUS Radeon R9-290X DirectCU II

"Sufficient cooling, extreme performance, silent and tweakable are the key-words here. And hey it comes factory clocked faster then reference and it is a good chunk cheaper than a GTX 780 Ti as well as you get more graphics memory (4GB). NICE ! Having that much raw unadulterated horsepower under the hood will bring options to the table. You play your games at 2560x1440 and flick on every quality setting that you can think of. "

- Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC

"AMD may still claim it is fine to run at 95c all the time but on launch day KitGuru argued the point with our own indepth analysis. We know PR spin when we hear it, and we make sure you guys always know our honest feelings. Luckily for us all, Sapphire agreed with Kitguru and they have dropped load temperatures from 95c to 68c – a staggering 27c."

- MSI Radeon R9-290X Gaming

Tweaking results aside, the MSI Radeon R9-290X Gaming OC is a serious product that has all variables right. Proper cooling temperatures, normal noise levels, great looks, a factory overclock and obviously the raw sheer unadulterated gaming performance you need to play the very latest games at high resolutions with stringent image quality settings. next to that, we like the total of 4 GB graphics memory as well. MSI Radeon R9-290X Gaming OC is the kind of productI'd use in my gaming PC with a smile, knowing it's all good, silent and high performing.

1.2

R9-290 Reviews

- Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC

"While Sapphire’s mild factory overclock doesn’t significantly change the performance equation it does reinforce the 290’s strong points. For $450 the card will consistently outperform the GTX 780 or outright tie the 290X in quiet mode, offering equal-to-better performance than those $500+ cards without the noise drawback that came with the reference 290, making it an even more practical replacement for those cards."

1.3

Mantle

Release ETA - "January"

"Mantle is a low-level API specification developed by AMD as an alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL, primarily for use on the PC platform. Currently the only implementation is for graphics processing units with AMD's Graphics Core Next architecture, although there is speculation other GPU vendors such as NVidia and Intel might be able to implement it in future. Mantle was created to allow games and applications to utilize the GPU more efficiently, and have much faster draw calls, and makes game development much easier by nearly eliminating hardware abstraction."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(API)




Developers who adopted mantle & what they have to say.

Cloud Imperium Games (Star Citizen).

"Mantle is vitally important for a game like Star Citizen, which is being designed with the need for massive GPU horsepower"
"AMD's Mantle will allow us to extract more performance from an AMD Radeon GPU than any other graphics API"

- Christ Roberts.

Eidos-Montréal (Thief)

"Mantle lets you use AMD Radeon GPUs the way they are meant to be used, unlocking many new opportunities and increased CPU and GPU performance. Because of this, Mantle is one of the most important changes to PC graphics in many years."

- David Anfossi

Oxide Games(Nitrous engine)

"AMD's Mantle technology lets us get more out of the hardware than any other solution available. Adding Mantle support to our multi-platform, 64-bit Nitrous engine realizes significant gains in performance on Mantle-enabled hardware without adding enormous development overhead."

- Dan Baker

Dice & EA (Frostbite 3)



Mantle vs DirectX 11 Star Swarm DEMO




Supported mantle engines & games.
(R) for rumor.

Games

Mass Effect 4
Dragon Age 3
Mirrors Edge 2
Battlefield 4
Star Wars - Battlefront
Need For Speed
Criterion unannonced game for 2014
Command & Conquer
Plants VS Zombies : Garden Warfare
Thief
Star Citizen
Sniper Elite 3
Crysis 4 (R)
Far Cry 4 (R)

Unreal Engine 3 & 4
Frostbite 3
Luminous Engine
CryEngine
Nitrous Engine

1.4

- Can I use mantle?

Only If your system is supported and the game in question is listed in the mantle games section above.
Scenario, you have a GTX 780 & 8350 then you will not be able to use mantle as the API is only for GCN cards.
Supported systems are listed here: http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...r9-series.aspx

- How much impact on performance does mantle really make?

Scenario : BF4 Multiplayer

Low budget supported systems (APU's) 40-45 %
Medium supported system (FX-6300 / 7870) 30-45 %
High End supported system (4770K / 290x) 20-30 %

This is assuming you are CPU bottlenecked, these performance increases does not happen in every scenario.

[Deleted]

If these are true. Than I guess AMD will put a price on it just below the 780. Or that would be the best thing to do anyway.

[Deleted]

nVidia counters with Titan Ultra and keeps the $1000 price point. Normal Titan will be discontinued or lowered in price.

However it's nice to see that AMD can compete in the GPU market (they aren't that competitive in the CPU market).

[Deleted]

really curious to pricing and overclocking headroom

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

nVidia counters with Titan Ultra and keeps the $1000 price point. Normal Titan will be discontinued or lowered in price.

However it's nice to see that AMD can compete in the GPU market (they aren't that competitive in the CPU market).

*aren't that competitive in the GAMING cpu market. Which is, actually, not that big of a market segment no matter how big we like to think it is.

Why would they counter a 550-600 dollar graphics card with one that costs twice as much? nVidia is going to have to reduce the price on the 780 if the benchmarks are to be believed.

[vesseblah]

Why would they counter a 550-600 dollar graphics card with one that costs twice as much? nVidia is going to have to reduce the price on the 780 if the benchmarks are to be believed.

Definitely.

There's also the scary possibility that the new AMD card is simply factory overclocked at insane levels (like their latest CPU offering FX-9590) and not a real big evolutionary step. It has notably higher power consumption than 7970 while Nvidia has been steadily going down in power draw.

[Toffie]

Definitely.

There's also the scary possibility that the new AMD card is simply factory overclocked at insane levels (like their latest CPU offering FX-9590) and not a real big evolutionary step. It has notably higher power consumption than 7970 while Nvidia has been steadily going down in power draw.

That wont be the case, the new cards are different architecture meanwhile the power consumption should be very close to the 780 at quite a higher performance. If the benchmarks holds up I will be very surprised though, looks very good.

More in depth specification on the card : http://videocardz.com/45753/amd-rade...ster-gtx-titan

[Confined]

Found this on anandtech.
30W higher than 780 and 15W less than a Titan, Definitely will use alot of power with overclocking, Low clocks on Memory with the wider membus are the reason of this acceptable TDP.

[Deleted]

Perhaps more importantly, it looks like they've improved on the other R9 cards (such as the R9 270X, which is the 7870 successor) which means that those cards will drop in price considerably. The rumours are that the R9-290X is going to come in at around $600 for the reference card, with prices going up for the non-reference cards.

The 512-bit interface means a lot of performance speed as well.

[DeltrusDisc]

Prepping wallet in 3... 2...

This card, if these benches are true, is going to be a real game-changer, both in games and in the NVidia vs AMD war. :P

But hey, competition is only great for us!

[Confined]

Prepping wallet in 3... 2...

This card, if these benches are true, is going to be a real game-changer, both in games and in the NVidia vs AMD war. :P

But hey, competition is only great for us!

time to upgrade that 560ti eh?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

More to the point, with the chance that there'll be a free voucher for new games such as BF4, that's just another reason for me to switch sides. It might only save me £30-40, but that's money that I don't have to spend on buying the game. It's no big deal if it isn't included, but I figure that they'll still be running the promo with the new cards and with new games.

AMD's Never Settle bundle is a very good value addition; they're continually adding games to the programme and if you can get a game you were going to buy anyway, you might as well get it "for free".

[yurano]

AMD's Never Settle bundle is a very good value addition; they're continually adding games to the programme and if you can get a game you were going to buy anyway, you might as well get it "for free".

Except the most recent version of the bundle only offers old games.

[Iamanerd]

Well if these rumors hold true, I'm definitely picking up two cards myself.

[Asmekiel]

Except the most recent version of the bundle only offers old games.

Half of the games aren't exactly old.
http://sites.amd.com/uk/promo/never-...edforever.aspx

[Korgoth]

I hope they dont pull the bullshit they did with the 7970 and price it above the current cards then dropping it 2 months later when Nvidia releases their next gen.

AMD should stick to a $450 top of the line single GPU card price.

[yurano]

Half of the games aren't exactly old.
http://sites.amd.com/uk/promo/never-...edforever.aspx

Rephrase: old and/or not AAA

The newest game is Saints Row 4, which isn't exactly an AAA game. Its only been a month and its $40 now.

The next most recent game is Tomb Raider which is over 6 months old and also isn't an AAA game.

Next is Hitman Absolution, then the rest which are all worth less than $20 a pop, retail.

This is compared to Nvidia's Batman Arkham Origins which hasn't even been released. Most unreleased games have AAA class value due to hype.

A true AAA game would be something like BF4 and/or CoD that everyone seems to want to buy and maintains its value over a prolonged period of time (eg. Crysis 3).

Couple of caveats when reading pre-launch benchmarks from Chinese sites:

1) Their benchmarks tend to be overclocked (eg. 760).

2) Their pricing information usually isn't accurate. The 780 was supposed to be a $500 card, the 760 was going to be a $300 class card that beat the 670.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Given the amount of AMD branding on BF4 stuff, I would be surprised if it wasn't in the new Never Settle.

[Korgoth]

The next most recent game is Tomb Raider which is over 6 months old and also isn't an AAA game.

It is a AAA game, and if you have a high end AMD card it is the most graphical impressive game of all time. It totally blew me away how great the graphics are. Tress FX hair makes all other games characters look shitty.

The argument against it is they have it on sale on Steam for $12.50 every other weekend. Which is what most of these deal games are now. BF4 would be the only game to hold its price.

[Toffie]

Well just got my 780 sold off just in time, can't wait to pick this beast up with BF4 / Watch Dogs / Grid2