MSI R9 290 Gaming Review

Introduction

In our initial review of the R9 290 we felt that it had the potential to provide far better value for money than the 290X, with only the thermal limitations of the dodgy AMD cooler reducing its performance.

With the release of the MSI R9 290 Gaming we should see those limits removed. As well as being part of the outstanding MSI Gaming range, the R9 290 Gaming is also supplied with the MSI Twin Frozr cooler which should give us greater overclocking headroom to really bring the Radeon card up with the best of them.

So without further ado let us see if out early gut-feeling about the Hawaii GPUs potential is borne out now that we have a cooler worthy of the name.

Technical Specifications

There are three settings on the MSI Gaming. Usually the AMD cards have a Silent and Uber modes. The Gaming introduces an OC mode too, which boosts the Hawaii core past the 1GHz marker. Otherwise things are, specification wise at least, fairly standard for a R9 290.