AMD Radeon R9 290 Review: Hawaii Just Got Cheaper

Name: AMD Radeon R9 290 Review: Hawaii Just Got Cheaper
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, November 05, 2013, 12:01 AM EDT

Hitman: Absolution

DirectX 11 Gaming Performance

Hitman: Absolution

Hitman: Absolution follows Agent 47, a cold-blooded assassin, who takes on his most dangerous contract to date. Betrayed by those he once trusted - and now hunted by the police - he suddenly finds himself at the center of a dark conspiracy and must embark on a personal journey through a corrupt and twisted world. We tested the game at multiple resolutions, with all in-game options set to their maximum values and global illumination and 4X anti-aliasing enabled.

The Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X led the pack in the Hitman Absolution benchmark, besting the best NVIDIA has to offer at both resolutions. Though the game did decide to choke on the Titan at the lower resolution. That's an anomaly we haven't gotten to the bottom of yet--there's no reason the Titan would trail a 780 here.

Click To Enlarge

There were no frame pacing issues to speak of in this game for the Radeons either. Frame pacing was consistent and fast throughout the benchmark run.

Tags: AMD, Radeon, Gaming, DirectX, graphics, GPU, Hawaii, R9, 290

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com