Overclocking
For our overclocking test, we kept to stock voltages and were able to increase the core frequency to 1,115MHz, representing a 6.2 per cent jump. We struggled to maintain stability at 1,120MHz, but found room to manoeuvre on memory, where the 4GB GDDR5 frame buffer on our review sample maxed out at an effective 5,800MHz.
The overclock is enough to smash the 10,000-mark barrier in 3DMark, and these are the kind of speeds the R9 290X needs to hit if it's to seriously challenge the readily-available, overclocked GTX 780 Ti in the speed stakes.