AMD's Radeon R9 290 Delivers 290X Performance For $150 Less

crookedvulture writes "The back and forth battle for PC graphics supremacy is quite a thing to behold. Last week, Nvidia cut GeForce prices in response to the arrival of AMD's latest Radeons. That move caused AMD to rejigger its plans for the new Radeon R9 290, which debuted today with a higher default fan speed and faster performance than originally planned. This $400 card offers almost identical performance to AMD's flagship R9 290X for $150 less. Indeed, it's often faster than Nvidia's $1000 GeForce Titan. But the 290 also consumes a lot more power, and its fan spins up to 49 decibels under load. Fortunately, the acoustic profile isn't too grating. Radeon R9 290 isn't the only new graphics card due this week, either. Nvidia is scheduled to unveil its GeForce GTX 780 Ti on November 7, and that card could further upset the balance at the high end of the GPU market. As AMD and Nvidia trade blows, PC gamers seem to be the ones who benefit." Additional reviews available from AnandTech, PC Perspective, Hot Hardware, and Tom's Hardware.

Comments

Are PC gamers benefiting ?

[Taco Cowboy]

As AMD and Nvidia trade blows, PC gamers seem to be the ones who benefit

TFA claimed that PC gamers would be benefiting from the "trade blows" between AMD and Nvidia.

But are they ?

Back in the days when the marketplace was served by a lot more vendors, PC Gamers back then were truly benefiting from the fierce competition.

Sadly, it is not happening anymore.

From a marketplace that used to be served by 6 competing vendors into a duopoly marketplace that is currently served by only 2 vendors --- the pace of innovation has slowed to a crawl.

The performance increment for every new edition of hardware is getting smaller and smaller.