AMD: R9 290X Will Be "Much Faster Than Titan in Battlefield 4"

The red team says that with Mantle, its new flagship GPU will “ridicule” the GeForce Titan

With AMD unveiling its new series of GPUs, many gamers want to know how well it performs, namely against Nvidia’s flagship GeForce GTX Titan graphics card. 

We had a chance to sit down with AMD Product Manager Devon Nekechuck to see how AMD’s new top dog R9 290X stacks up against the green team’s best single-GPU offering. According to Nekechuck, even though the R9 290X uses a 438 square mm die, which is significantly smaller than the Titan’s 550 sq. mm GK110 offering, it “will definitely compete with the GTX 780 and Titan.” When we asked what this means in real-world terms, he stated, “with Battlefield 4 running with Mantle (AMD’s new graphics API), the card will be able to ‘ridicule’ the Titan in terms of performance.” 

Is the R9 290X the Titan killer? AMD seems to think so.

When we asked him what he meant by “ridicule,” he simply stated that it will run Battlefield 4 “much faster than the Titan.” Again, this is provided that you run the game using AMD's Mantle API, which is set to launch in December. 

While no pricing has been announced for AMD's high-end GPU just yet, It is worth mentioning that Nekechuck did confirm to us that the company does not plan to release single-GPU cards in the $1,000 price range because AMD thinks that is such a small, niche market. When you consider that the GeForce Titan runs for one grand, it’s safe to assume that it will be a fair bit cheaper than $1K. Rumors abound the event are that the R9 290X will retail at around the 780 price point, which currently hovers around $650. May we see Titan+ performance for less than 780 price from AMD? Only time will tell.