ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC Review

March 3, 2014 | 09:51

Tags: #best-r9-290 #coolest-r9-290 #custom-cooler #directcu-ii #factory-overclock #graphics-card #hashrate #r9-290 #r9-290x #radeon #radeon-r9-290

Companies: #amd #asus

BioShock Infinite

Publisher: 2K

From our Bioshock Infinite review :

"Your character Booker’s trip to Columbia is in the interest of retrieving a girl, Elizabeth, from captivity. It’s imperative that you find her so that you can clear a pile of debts, but it’s increasingly clear as your time in columbia continues that this isn’t a simple hero's tale. Elizabeth has the power to control “tears in reality" that are popping up all over the city."

"It’s an adult, thoughtful and compelling work that shames many (if not most) other attempts in the medium. Bioshock Infinite is an incredibly good video game. It might be one of the best.

We use the handy in-built benchmarking tool to run a timedemo from two sections near the start of the game. However, we've found the game-generated results to be unreliable, so use FRAPS to record the frame rate over a 40 second sequence of gameplay during the second test. The results taken are an average of three repeated tests.

Click to enlarge

BioShock Infinite

1,920 x 1,080, Ultra Detail with DOF

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 6GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB
  • ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 260X 2GB
    • 101
    • 122
    • 100
    • 120
    • 88
    • 105
    • 87
    • 98
    • 83
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    • 72
    • 90
    • 66
    • 76
    • 58
    • 72
    • 49
    • 55
    • 45
    • 57
    • 44
    • 50
    • 40
    • 47
    • 32
    • 36
0
25
50
75
100
125
Frames Per Second
  • Minimum
  • Average

BioShock Infinite

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra Detail with DOF

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 6GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB
  • ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R7 260X 2GB
    • 69
    • 81
    • 68
    • 79
    • 56
    • 66
    • 56
    • 62
    • 53
    • 59
    • 53
    • 58
    • 46
    • 56
    • 42
    • 47
    • 37
    • 45
    • 30
    • 33
    • 28
    • 35
    • 27
    • 30
    • 23
    • 29
    • 19
    • 21
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Frames Per Second
  • Minimum
  • Average

BioShock Infinite

5,760 x 1,080, Ultra Detail with DOF

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 6GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
  • ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB
    • 40
    • 48
    • 38
    • 47
    • 32
    • 39
    • 28
    • 36
    • 28
    • 35
    • 27
    • 34
    • 21
    • 27
    • 15
    • 31
0
10
20
30
40
50
Frames Per Second
  • Minimum
  • Average

BioShock Infinite

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra Detail with DOF, 0x AA

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 6GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB
  • ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB
  • AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB
    • 35
    • 41
    • 34
    • 40
    • 27
    • 33
    • 27
    • 30
    • 26
    • 29
    • 26
    • 29
    • 23
    • 28
    • 20
    • 23
0
10
20
30
40
Frames Per Second
  • Minimum
  • Average

Discuss this in the forums

Posted by Kodongo - Mon Mar 03 2014 10:02

Nice review. This seems like a great card for great value for anyone who lives outside of the US and Canada! (Sorry North Americans).

Posted by Hustler - Mon Mar 03 2014 12:00

Would it fit in a Corsair 250D?

I thought I saw somewhere that the heat pipes on these CU models make them too high...although the ones on this don't seem to protrude as much as some others I've seen , maybe they've had a design revision???

Posted by tozsam - Mon Mar 03 2014 13:53

which other modified cards whould have the extra power components on them. The cooler doesn't matter to me as I intend to watercool, I just want the best components for overclocking

Posted by Skiddywinks - Mon Mar 03 2014 14:22

Bought one of these for my little brother's build a few days ago. It also happened to be the cheapest 290 I could find at the time, which made it even more wonderful.
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