Radeon R9 290X Features a Boost Switch, Benchmarked
 

Earlier today, we reported on the basis of tests run by Grant Kim, that AMD Radeon R9 290X features out of the box clock speeds of 800 MHz core, and 1125 MHz (4.50 GHz effective) memory, and posted various benchmark results with the card running at those speeds. It turns out that there's more to the card than that. A tiny switch located on top of the card toggles its second BIOS, which features higher core clock speeds of 1050 MHz, while leaving the memory untouched. Kim ran the card through the same set of benchmarks as he did earlier, and posted his findings.

At its boost speeds of 1050 MHz core, and 4.50 GHz memory (288 GB/s), the card was run at 5760 x 1080 pixels resolution, and its performance was measured in Aliens vs. Predators, Battlefield 3, Crysis 3, GRID 2, RAGE, TESV: Skyrim, and Tomb Raider (2013); with multiple anti-aliasing modes. The card was pitted against an NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN. While the frame-latency scene doesn't change much between the original set of results (sourced at 800 MHz core), and the new high-performance mode; frame-rates are significantly up. We find the card dealing harder knocks onto the GTX TITAN. If the rumored $599 SEP pricing sticks, both GTX TITAN and GTX 780 are in for a world of pain.

http://www.techpowerup.com/191801/ra...nchmarked.html