XFX RADEON DOUBLE D R9 290X 4GB (For $300)

[Larva]

XFX RADEON DOUBLE D R9 290X 4GB DDR5
Current Price: $479.99 - $30 Coupon = $449.99 + FREE SHIPPING!
Coupon: NVC128779
Expires on Monday 06/02
(3 FREE Games up to $100 value after purchase, limited offer)

Specs:
Maximum Resolution: 4096 x 2160
Video Card Profile: Dual-Slot
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Interface: 512-bit
Video Memory: 4 GB
Stream Processors: 2816
Core Clock: 1000 MHz
Memory Clock: 5000 MHz

[Larva]

Guys, this is a pretty sick deal. It gives you performance close to the GTX 780Ti in many games for about $250 less. If the +25% to +28% performance claims of the latest 14.6 Catalyst BETA drivers are true, this could push the performance past the 780Ti in many games. The card has custom cooling, avoiding the cooling problems inherent in the reference card design.

I may bite. The GTX 880's are tentatively scheduled to come out next month, but it may not necessarily be a replacement for the 780 Ti (NVidia's best single GPU card) and make take longer to become widely available and affordable. This pending release might be what's pushing down the prices of existing cards which is good for us.

If you're already an AMD fanboy, this might be a no-brainer. It's something to consider because this performance/cost ratio is incredible.

[Paladin]

Does seem a good deal. I am an NVidia fanboy these days so it won't be good for me but that looks nice from what little I now of them.
Wait a month when the 880 comes out, this will drop even more.

You can't win with these things though. I spent $500+ on my card and look how outdated it is already. You truly lose more on video cards than any other purchase. Worse than a new car. You buy any card and 6 months to a year the next card is out and way better for the same price and you feel so cheated. i i

Then not only do you have to decide on which car you have to figure out which company's version to get etc....

This stuff gives you a headache. i i

I think I will stay with NVidia though, there are features they have that I just like better.

[Larva]

Wait a month when the 880 comes out, this will drop even more.

That's what I'm trying to say - I think this price drop already happened because of the 880 coming out. This is $50 cheaper than anywhere else you can buy the same card. That's a hell of a price drop. And the performance is close to that of $700 cards that NVidia is currently offering at $250 less the cost. If you know how to overclock, then the dual fan cooling offers even more potential value.

Yeah, you can always wait, but the key is how long do you want to keeping gaming with an older card? Waiting for new cards is a gamble because sometimes the price drops don't happen right away. It usually takes several months before the new card is actually in stock at MSRP and the drivers stabilize. Look at how long it took for the 290X's to reach MSRP (six months). You're right in that video cards are the most expensive part of a PC to keep up-to-date. It alone costs more than the price of a gaming console.

We have until Monday to decide.

[Larva]

I ordered it. Too good of a deal to pass up for the price.

[Larva]

I believe today is the last day to get the XFX dual-fan 290X card for $450. Here are some reviews on it:
HardOCP
Hardware Canucks

I really struggled with my internal debate over whether to order the 290X or wait for the GTX 880 to come out (tentatively next month). I'll lay out the pros and cons I used to arrive at my decision in case any of you are tempted but hesitant.

Con's Of Ordering 290X Now
The GTX 880 might come out next month and is rumored to be 10% faster than the GTX 780Ti at $600 - it could be an awesome card.
No Physx

Pro's Of Ordering 290X Now
I get my upgrade now - there's been no official announcement of when the GTX 880 is actually arriving and it could be even longer before it becomes available at the recommended list price.
I get my upgrade for hundreds of dollars less than cards that cost $200 to $400 more for only about 10 to 15 more FPS.
Because I'm spending less now I'll get to upgrade again sooner, perhaps even next year if a really awesome card comes out that I want (GTX 880Ti / Radeon 390X etc.,)
If I'm unhappy with my performance I could always get a 2nd one and go Crossfire - at this price it's something I could do a few months from now. Then I could get a 120Mhz monitor down the road.
This card is great for over-clocking because of the dual fan exhaust cooling solution - I should be able to squeeze another 10% out of it for free without even touching the voltage.
Mantle - I will get another FPS boost from this card in the game that I play most often (BF4).

[Lexx]

I'm pretty sure this is the route I should of taken last week, top of the line video. However that said my 6 core AMD was always overheating and I had several network problems the last month, so I wanted to at LEAST return to Intel and see if those minor problems go away, the lag was keeping me at one rank for an entire month and I was getting tired of bom killing me every 4 seconds.

I'm still debating the 760 card myself. I've always bought the x60 versions, cost makes more sense to me and they are not much slower than the x80's have been. Also every single time I've upgraded video it hasn't improved my bottom line as far as K;D goes, so I'm usually disappointed when I spend too much on video. I'm also thinking of SLI'ing a couple of cards and am wondering how a set of 560's will preform? That is one reason it took me so long to select a board, one that does both Crossfire and SLI. I have at least three Amd boards here that would do crossfire only and I only have nvidia's ;p

Go for it, you only live once.

[Docjon]

When I was getting like 15-20 fps in Bad Company 2, I wanted to upgrade my whole machine, but I couldn't do it all at once. I decided to go with the RAM/Motherboard/CPU part first, as the GPU market was more dynamic, and I figured I could get more for the same money if I waited a few months on it. I was right

After I bought the new CPU/RAM/Motherboard, Bad Company 2 was very playable, and there was considerable improvement. If you've gone the same route Lexx, I would expect you to find the same. Good luck, and let us know how it works out!

[Larva]

Upgrading the MB/CPU/RAM first is usually a good decision if it's more than 2 years old, a no brainer if it's 3 or 4 years old. Those components can bottleneck a new video card if they are too old. After that you can always upgrade the video card later on. That's exactly what I did. My rig was 3 years old and my video card was 2 1/2 years old. It was definitely time to upgrade, especially now that I'm a consultant again and work on it 40 hours a week.

I just checked UPS to track my order...
Date Local Time - Activity
06/04/2014 5:38 A.M. Out For Delivery

[Larva]

My 290X is here!

I'll toss it in tonight and try out a few rounds of BF4. The CTE Netcode patch seemed to help, but I think I've been having FPS drops in close quarters on top of the bad netcode. I'm hoping this one-two punch of the CTE patch and my 290X upgrade will smooth the game out for me and make it more fun.

[Larva]

Now that I've played several different games with this card I can give my evaluation on it.

All my old and semi-recent games get demolished by this card: Skyrim and Borderlands 2 run at better than ultra settings and never drop below 60 FPS.

It smoothed out BF4 which runs at 60 FPS consistently now, but only by me leaving most of the settings at medium. The new card did let me crank up AA from 2X to 4X and that alone had the biggest visual impact. I was able to play it on high and even ultra settings, but I wasn't happy with the FPS drops that happened during critical points of the battle. I require smooth gameplay so I turned the quality settings back down in favor of no FPS drops. Mantle hasn't helped the game as much as I had hoped it would. I honestly blame the game engine more than anything for the FPS drops at higher quality settings. BF4 is a greedy resource hog and very poorly optimized, even after being out in the wild after 8 months. I'm extremely disappointed in the graphics and netcode performance issues with BF4 in general.

This card was an absolute steal at $450. I'm glad I got it when I did because now it's $610 at TigerDirect and $520 at NewEgg. I wish I would have bought two of them - when the it goes on sale I'm definitely getting another one and going Crossfire. Then around Black Friday time I plan on purchasing a 4K monitor which is why I'll need two of these.

[Larva]

I bought a 2nd XFX RADEON DOUBLE D R9 290X at NewEgg to run in Crossfire with my existing one. It was $350 after $30 rebate. All the prices for existing cards have come down since Nvidia released the 900 series. Thanks Nvidia!

I really love the card. The 2 fans keep it cool, even when overclocked by 9% without any voltage changes. I can't wait to see how all my Skyrim mods look with a 2nd card to help it along!

For XmasI I'd like to get a high-resolution monitor. This was a pre-requisite to doing that - I'll need more horsepower for for higher resolutions and refresh rates.

[Paladin]

Good for you.

[Larva]

It is good. It's good for my career. This will allow me to go super hi-def and go dual monitor... for work... and stuff. Remember the primary objective of this purchase is work productivity!

[Paladin]

Of course it is... Wink wink nudge nudge.. Say no more... i i

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