AMD's Radeon R9 290 Delivers 290X Performance For $150 Less 183
crookedvulture writes "The back and forth battle for PC graphics supremacy is quite a thing to behold. Last week, Nvidia cut GeForce prices in response to the arrival of AMD's latest Radeons. That move caused AMD to rejigger its plans for the new Radeon R9 290, which debuted today with a higher default fan speed and faster performance than originally planned. This $400 card offers almost identical performance to AMD's flagship R9 290X for $150 less. Indeed, it's often faster than Nvidia's $1000 GeForce Titan. But the 290 also consumes a lot more power, and its fan spins up to 49 decibels under load. Fortunately, the acoustic profile isn't too grating. Radeon R9 290 isn't the only new graphics card due this week, either. Nvidia is scheduled to unveil its GeForce GTX 780 Ti on November 7, and that card could further upset the balance at the high end of the GPU market. As AMD and Nvidia trade blows, PC gamers seem to be the ones who benefit."
Additional reviews available from AnandTech, PC Perspective, Hot Hardware, and Tom's Hardware.
Better headline: AMD's Radeon R9 290 Slashvertised (Score:5, Insightful)
seriously, it could only have been worse if there was "ON SALE NOW!" in the summary. then again, there is "Nvidia cut GeForce prices" so meh.
Re:Anandtech Fucked Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:um (Score:5, Insightful)
That's kinda how all consumer (and even most non-consumer) stuff works.
You have the enthusiasts who for whatever reason have a stronger interest in the technology and are willing to spend significantly more for slightly better. They fund the R&D until it makes it down to the cheaper mass consumer pricing.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with this. I for one was an early adopter of SSDs. I bought one (then another) when 30G was still a big deal. I knew in a few years you'd get way more capacity for way cheaper.. but I didn't care, it was something I wanted to play around with.
If someone has the money to spend and is going to get enjoyment out of paying $1000 for a card where a $200 or so card would probably do, so what... their money, their hobby.
Re:Are PC gamers benefiting ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Better question: what game actually requires this?
Seriously now. Unless you're trying to just throw money away on some 6-screen rig or something, a single-screen at 1920x1080 will run almost all games of today fine from 3-year-old cards. "Bleeding edge" is a function of throwing your money away on diminishing returns problems.
Re:Anandtech Fucked Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Noise measurements (all noise measurements, not just those related to PC hardware) are always suspect:
What is the ambient noise level?
What is the test environment? (Is it a well-isolated anechoic chamber, a common desk with a computer near the corner of the room, or is it on the deck of a boat, or on the back of a llama? It makes a huge difference.)
What is the distance between the rig under test and the measurement rig with the microphone?
Is this test rig calibrated? (To what standard?)
What are the properties of the noise? (if it is 57dBa at only 1.5kHz, it is very annoying to me. If it's 57dBa only at 25kHz, it is annoying only to my dog.)
Is the noise different in differing directions?
How do you know?
Did you measure it?
It's all important, lest the resultant number be absolutely unimportant.
Also: Meh. "This blue car sounds better than that other blue car!" is roughly as accurate as a non-descrip "noise measurement" of computer hardware.
Who needs a Bugatti Veyron? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, there are no roads where you can safely and legally drive it at its top speed, so you may as well get a Mazda MX-5. Similarly; every single time there is a new graphics card out, the Slashdot response is the same. "Who needs this? There is minimal difference between this and this! Are there any games taking advantage of this?"
If you have the money and your an avid gamer, why not? If you can afford to spend $500 on a graphics card every year, I'm sure you also have a top notch monitor with a massive resolution. Also, I'm sure there is always another setting you can switch on in Crysis N. Most of the people who buy these cards aren't suckers. They know a card won't provide them with 3x as much enjoyment even though it costs 3x as much. They simply can afford to stay above the affordability sweetspot.
They also pave the way for the rest of us and ensure that there will be a card next year which does the same for half the price.
I can't help but think this reaction is mostly about penis^H^H^H^H^Hgraphics card envy.