AMD Radeon R9 290X & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review

For about as long as GPU-accelerated games have existed, an ideal performance target has been 60 frames-per-second. Owing thanks to this is the standard 60Hz monitor, which delivers its best result when the framerate matches its refresh rate. To make sure the monitor’s refresh rate and game’s framerate keep aligned, to avoid visible tearing, VSync should be enabled.

While I believe our Best Playable results will appeal to any gamer, they could especially prove useful to those intrigued by livingroom gaming or console replacements. The goal here is simple: With each game, the graphics settings are tweaked to deliver the best possible detail while keeping us as close to 60 FPS on average as possible.

Because our Metro Last Light and Total War: SHOGUN 2 tests are timedemos, and because this kind of testing is time-consuming, I am sticking to six out of the eight games I test with for inclusion here.

Our regular benchmark tests showed that the R9 290X and 780 Ti perform on an equal level, with NVIDIA getting the slight edge in most tests. That being the case, most of the Best Playable settings are going to be identical between both cards; this is especially true on this page, since we’re dealing with only a single display. Because we’re dealing with just two cards; one from AMD, and the other from NVIDIA, the results here are in alphabetical order like in the rest of our results.

	Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
2560×1440	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R9 290X	51		61
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	52		61
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Environment:	Very High	Shadow:	High
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	High
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On

With AC IV’s foolish design of a 60 FPS cap, it should come as no surprise that we’re able to retain the same settings used in our normal benchmarking and keep achieve playable framerates. Given the results here, neither card gets an edge, though it must be said that NVIDIA’s screenshot has a cat in it. So there’s that.

	Battlefield 4
2560×1440	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R9 290X	43		60
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	Ultra
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	2x MSAA	Anti-aliasing Post:	Medium
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	43		62
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Quality:	Ultra	Texture Filtering:	Ultra
	Lighting:	Ultra	Effects:	Ultra
	Post Processing:	Ultra	Mesh:	Ultra
	Terrain:	Ultra	Terrain Decoration:	Ultra
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	2x MSAA	Anti-aliasing Post:	Medium
	Ambient Occlusion:	SSAO

Both the R9 290X and 780 Ti might be extremely powerful, but 2560×1440 might still prevent you from topping out ingame settings – such is the case here, with Battlefield 4. Fortunately, the tweaks needed to hit 60 FPS are minimal: Reduce anti-aliasing slightly, and move from HBAO to SSAO.

	Crysis 3
2560×1440	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R9 290X	41		61
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	High	Post Processing:	High
	Shading:	High	Shadows:	High
	Water:	High	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	42		66
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	Texture:	High
	Effects:	High	Object:	High
	Particles:	High	Post Processing:	High
	Shading:	High	Shadows:	High
	Water:	High	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

As with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the “Best Playable” results for Crysis 3 match those from the regular benchmarking. These are not the maximum settings the game can utilize, but for the Ultra profile to be playable at this resolution, multi-GPU is required.

	GRID 2
2560×1440	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R9 290X	67		76
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	73		83
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Ultra
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	On	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	On	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

Once again, the settings used in the normal benchmarking gets carried over here, and overall, the results are impressive for both cards.

	Sleeping Dogs
2560×1440	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R9 290X	59		70
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	High	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	54		71
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	High	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

I hate to sound like a broken record, but with Sleeping Dogs, the same settings as used in the normal benchmarking can be retained. It could be noted that AMD’s card proved 5 FPS better at the minimum side of things, but overall both cards offer nearly identical performance.

	Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
2560×1440	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R9 290X	54		65
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO & HBAO+
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	58		71
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Detail:	Ultra	Shadow:	Ultra
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	On
	Texture Filtering:	16x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO & HBAO+
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA

I can’t wait to get into the next page, because it’s a little boring to say the same thing over and over. So with that, let’s move onto what’s considered “best” for 5760×1080.