AMD Radeon R9 290X against Nvidia Geforce GTX 780 Ti – five years later

Soon it’s time for new graphics cards on the market after the top segment has stood still for over two years. It also provides an excellent opportunity to look back and see how old models stand today. Earlier we looked at the R9 Fury X against the GTX 980 Ti and now the clock is turned counterclockwise for another generation.

Hawaii vs. Kepler – The Battle for the Throne in 2013

In 2013, both graphics card giants launched new models in the performance segment and it was a real battle at the top. This was just over five years ago, and much has happened during that time. While waiting for new cards, SweClockers is investigating how the AMD Radeon R9 290X and Nvidia Geforce GTX 780 Ti are performing today, with new drivers and fresh games.

Components of the test systems

Basically, SweClocker’s new graphics card test system is presented in a separate article. It is an overclocked Core i7-8700K with DDR4 memory set to 3,200 MHz at low latencies. For this, you can also find fast storage in the form of Samsung 970 Evo M.2 of a full 1 TB to make room for modern game titles.

This is how we perform the tests

For the actual testing, SweClocker’s fresh gaming suite is used. These are a total of 11 different titles that run in three different resolutions. A total of ten of these are tested with DirectX 11, and six with DirectX 12. In addition, the usual power measurements and other goodies.

The drivers used are the latest from AMD and Nvidia at the time of writing. These are Geforce 398.82 WHQL and Radeon Adrenaline Edition 18.8.1. The frame rate is captured with the OCAT software for all titles.

Tests with DirectX 11

First out are the game tests for the DirectX 11 interface. Despite much talk about modern DirectX 12, it is still aging that dominates, even in new titles. For that reason, the performance here is of course highly interesting.

The FPS values ​​in the table represent the mean value and the lowest value, respectively, where the latter is picked out by the 99th percentile. Best results for each row are highlighted in yellow.

When AMD Radeon R9 290X and Nvidia Geforce GTX 780 Ti were pitted against each other in 2013, the latter emerged as the winner where the card won 11 game titles out of 16 in SweClocker’s test suite. Five years later, the result looks really different and instead the Radeon R9 290X takes home 23 of a total of 30 tests from the editorial staff’s current set of games.

For many titles, there really is no major difference between the two cards, and it’s about individual frames in some direction that separate them. In other titles, it will instead be pure elimination, such as Total War: Warhammer II for Nvidia or Warhammer: Vermintide 2 for AMD.

A quick look at SweClocker’s performance index shows that the cards are very smooth at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, with only one point in favor of AMD. After a step up in resolution, the red team begins to take a comfortable lead, which increases to about 22 percent performance advantage at 4K UHD.

Tests with DirectX 12

Despite a slow start, DirectX 12 is looking into more and more games. Putting more responsibility on the developers, however, has its downsides – the result is sometimes excellent with nice performance gains, but at least as often half-broken and most annoying.

The FPS values ​​in the table represent the mean value and the lowest value, respectively, where the latter is picked out by the 99th percentile. Best results for each row are highlighted in yellow.

When the games are switched to the DirectX 12 interface, the classification will be totally in favor of the AMD Radeon R9 290X. The red team takes home as many as 17 of 18 tests and in many cases drives circles around the Geforce GTX 780 Ti. The latter was obviously not done to come into its own at DirectX 12, which is clearly seen in the table.

Looking at the performance index for DirectX 12, AMD has a clear lead over the Geforce GTX 780 Ti in all resolutions. The Geforce card loses performance against the Radeon model for each step, where especially the highest position on 4K UHD in most cases is completely unplayable with Nvidia’s combatant under the hood.

AMD still had some way to go to reach the Geforce GTX 780 Ti when the latter was launched in November 2013. Much has happened since then, including the constant improvement of software and the addition of DirectX 12. There, AMD’s hardware was more adapted with better support for the new interface, something that Nvidia did not fully get until the Geforce GTX 1080 was launched with logic for Asynchronous Compute.

There has been a lot of talk about AMD aging significantly better over time, fine wine, and SweClocker’s tests show that in some contexts it’s actually true – the R9 290X has withstood the test of time significantly better than the GTX 780 Ti. However, there was not as big a difference in the previous article, Radeon R9 Fury X against Geforce GTX 980 Ti, even though AMD managed to take some ground against the rival there as well.

With that said, there are other problems with the reference model of the Radeon R9 290X, especially an extremely loud cooler, something that the editors always manage to suppress between test sessions. Both Emil and Kenneth suffered and wondered how AMD could think that the solution was acceptable when the card went through the test suite – even Frida definitely closed the door to the next room to avoid the noise.

Models from partner manufacturers tell a completely different story and these are a better choice for the generation. Users who remain on the Radeon R9 290X have made good use of their card, and still have enough power to play most things – at least at lower resolution or lowered detail levels. Those who want pork on should, however, start looking at new purchases, or why not keep an eye on the second-hand market, which will soon be filled with current generation goodies.