Wow, amazing price/performance!

From the Anandtech review:

Getting down to business then, AMD has clearly positioned the 290X as a price/performance monster, and while that’s not the be all and end all of evaluating video cards it’s certainly going to be the biggest factor to most buyers. To that end at 2560x1440 – what I expect will be the most common resolution used with such a card for the time being – AMD is essentially tied with GTX Titan, delivering an average of 99% of the performance of NVIDIA’s prosumer-level flagship. Against NVIDIA’s cheaper and more gaming oriented GTX 780 that becomes an outright lead, with the 290X leading by an average of 9% and never falling behind the GTX 780.

Consequently against NVIDIA’s pricing structure the 290X is by every definition a steal at $549. Even if it were merely equal to the GTX 780 it would still be $100 cheaper, but instead it’s both faster and cheaper, something that has proven time and again to be a winning combination in this industry.

Seems like a great card, maybe in the future I'll consider upgrading. New ipad is first on my buy list though. (7970 GE is good enough for now ;-p )

From HardOCP

"The Bottom Line

You may have read this evaluation and feel like the AMD Radeon R9 290X isn't quite as fast as you expected at 1600p or 1080p. We think there was a lot of hype surrounding this video card, everyone was hoping it will be a "TITAN killer" at those resolutions. It isn't, in terms of performance, but it is in terms of price and value.

It is amazing how powerful the R9 290X is at Ultra HD 4K gaming resolutions when compared to the GeForce GTX TITAN. This is where the R9 290X truly shines. In the case of 4K gaming, the Radeon R9 290X is definitely a "TITAN killer."

If it weren't for the $549 price point that AMD has set, many would call this card disappointing. But AMD did the right thing and priced this card incredibly competitive. The GeForce GTX TITAN still has an MSRP of $999, and the GeForce GTX 780 is at $649 MSRP. The Radeon R9 290X at $549 is delivering TITAN performance at a savings of $450 compared to the TITAN price. The Radeon R9 290X is delivering performance better than the GeForce GTX 780 at a price savings of $100. The bang for the buck value is what makes the R9 290X a big winner.

The Radeon R9 290X is an exceptional value, and allows us to highly recommend the Radeon R9 290X to gamers. It offers phenomenal single-GPU video card performance at a great price.

The R9 290X is absolutely the best performer at Ultra HD 4K for a single GPU video card. And consider this, for just $100 above the price of one GTX TITAN, you can own two Radeon R9 290X video cards and use those in a CrossFire configuration. Yes, we will surely be looking into that.

Well done AMD. Big GPU Kudos."

Once again, AMD win the price/performance war in the GPU sector.

I was expecting $750. I actually said 'holy shit' out loud when I saw the $550 price tag.

Titan performance at a very un-Titan-like price.


Your move nVidia.

It's a relief that AMD has been sane on the pricing.

It's good for everyone.
nVidia has literally no Option but to drop prices across the board.

And by a good amount.

I mean, that's the 290X, but there will also be the 290 without X. If the performance is, say 10-15% slower than its X counterpart, that will make it a bit slower than the 780, and with the higher model being already cheaper then this other one will make the situation even worse.

It could be priced like Nvidia's 770 while delivering far more performance. Nvidia need to respond quickly, for our interest .

Still, this card is too hot and power hungry for me.

Haven't been this pumped about an AMD card in a long time. Since the 5870 really.

Agreed, I said this same thing when AMD first revealed the R Series and the prices. Way to go AMD!