ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX Platinum Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,602
ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX Platinum Video Card Review - Today we have the highest-end R9 290X from ASUS, the ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX Platinum video card. This video card is dual-purposed for fan or LN2 cooling, and has vast power capabilities. We're putting it up against the ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC to see which delivers the best bang for your buck.
 
Good piece, thank you. I appreciate the additional overclocked part that I've been asking for a while between GK110 and Hawaii.
 
Nice review, holy god that card looks awesome.

I'm more interested in this memory defroster. I'm not sure I'd be thrilled about having to run an additional 4pin if I was super cooling my card. Does memory usually go wonky when the temp gets that low?
 
Trimlock said:
Nice review, holy god that card looks awesome.

I'm more interested in this memory defroster. I'm not sure I'd be thrilled about having to run an additional 4pin if I was super cooling my card. Does memory usually go wonky when the temp gets that low?
Click to expand...

Weird things happen when ICs get too cold, it seems. Also, condensation is a bad thing too. I would think LN2 cooling, with all the shit involved, like insulating your board, buying dry ice or LN2, would be much more of a hassle and more involved than plugging in that extra molex...

http://www.overclock.net/t/1087013/start-subzero-cooling-for-under-200/0_60
 
Too bad you guys got a bad clocker. My GB Windforce 290X hits 1.2/6GHz and a VaporX hit 1280 for hardware canucks, id imagine this setup could do similar with a better sample, I guess luck of the draw though. Good review and liked the overclocked perspective
 
Last edited:
Pretty awesome review. Hope you get an ARES III to review somewhere down the line!
 
As usual, good article.. but with new Geforce GTXs supposedly being announced on September 19, dampens any positive thoughts I might have about getting this card.
 
psyclist said:
Too bad you guys got a bad clocker. My GB Windforce 290X hits 1.2/6GHz and a VaporX hit 1280 for hardware canucks, id imagine this setup could do similar with a better sample, I guess luck of the draw though. Good review and liked the overclocked perspective
Click to expand...

That's a great O/C on that 290X you have! What voltage are you using and are you using air or water? My Sapphire 290 is a (nearly golden?) card, reaching 1285 Core but I only run the memory @ 1375Mhz since I didn't see any additional benefit in running in faster and over 1400Mhz required me to reduce my core clock..
 
What's interesting is that this card DOES have memory voltage adjustment, which people said was not possible on the reference 290x, and it also allows you to adjust the IDLE gpu voltage (.950) separately from the load gpu voltage, which should help people avoid those black screens when overclocking the memory with the idle voltage too low for the IMC (there are other causes of black screens, like vrm's too hot when pushing the memory during load, etc). On the reference cards, the .950v voltage was linked directly to the load gpu voltage (1.2x) by an offset, which changed both at once.
 
Pricing must be different here in Canada, because the R9 290X cards are going for $580 + usually a $30 mail in rebate, whereas the cheapest 780 ti I can find it are $650 + $30 rebates; I see Nvidia is certainly trying to drive their prices down, but they still aren't cheaper than the 290X's at least here in Canada
 
Extremely disappointing and surprising that ASUS chose Elpida instead of Hynix memory, no wonder it cannot reach 6ghz even with added voltage. Hynix would have reached 6.2ghz with ease and it baffles me as to why ASUS would choose Elpida in their flagship card. Most Gigabyte Windforce 290X cards seem to use Hynix and overclock the same on the core ao I just cannot see why anyone would choose the Matrix other than for the looks.
 
I like the matrix cards and had one in the past, but this one is a bit too late getting released and too expensive unless you have very specific requirements.

Good review overall.
 
Elpida is not that bad, it's just harder to OC and it needs a a lot more core voltage and precise Core / Mem ratio.

I've seen Elpida's go up to +7Ghz on these cards with enough core voltage, which infact does increase memory OC potential with ref. cards. Even my elpidas can go over +6.5Ghz with "just" +200mv on vCore. They actually OC better than my Hynix chips on the second card without increasing the core voltage to insane levels :eek:

These little babies really need water to shine. It seems no matter what kind of custom air cooled solution you happen to have, you hit the 95c temp limit and I guess the VRM's are close to a point of having major meltdown, because of the heat they are generating.

Wanna clock these beasts up to 1300Mhz (anywhere between 1200-1300 game stable)?
Get those VRM temps down, preferably less than 70c, but under 90c is still just fine, and then these will fly.

My CF setup can go up to 1260Mhz on core which is BF4 stable under water @ 1.41v (1.32v real) . But the increased power consumption, over 200w per card and heat generation also increases exponentially so I like to run them at 1175Mhz @ 1.25v (1.19v real) instead.

I have done some suicide runs with core @ 1320-1330 on water, but that's just for benchmarking.
 
sonsonate said:
Weird things happen when ICs get too cold, it seems. Also, condensation is a bad thing too. I would think LN2 cooling, with all the shit involved, like insulating your board, buying dry ice or LN2, would be much more of a hassle and more involved than plugging in that extra molex...

http://www.overclock.net/t/1087013/start-subzero-cooling-for-under-200/0_60
Click to expand...

I understand IC's start doing weight things at super low temps but I've never heard of LN2 affecting memory.

Also, they have to worry about insulating, tubing and volting and now they have to worry about a 4pin. Its still optional but I'm just trying to figure out why they even wanted this in there. Condensation will happen more with a heater present.
 
Can you tell us how this card behave at 4k ? Can it compete with a 7990/7970CF ?
Or do we really have to wait for the gxt 980 ?
 
Duredhel said:
Can you tell us how this card behave at 4k ? Can it compete with a 7990/7970CF ?
Or do we really have to wait for the gxt 980 ?
Click to expand...

The 980's not out yet, but so far nVidia hasn't done a good job @4K. Unless there's some new secret sauce I don't think a 256bit card is going to shine @ 4K.

One of the problems with this card is that it uses the same cooler they designed for the GTX-780 ti and Hawaii is a smaller chip. There isn't good contact with the GPU and the heatpipes which diminishes the coolers effectiveness. From what I've read the Sapphire Tri-X/Vapor-X cooler and the Powercolor PCS+ both offer better cooling. The 94° temp when O/C'd has to be effecting the final clocks.
 
Relayer said:
The 980's not out yet, but so far nVidia hasn't done a good job @4K. Unless there's some new secret sauce I don't think a 256bit card is going to shine @ 4K.

One of the problems with this card is that it uses the same cooler they designed for the GTX-780 ti and Hawaii is a smaller chip. There isn't good contact with the GPU and the heatpipes which diminishes the coolers effectiveness. From what I've read the Sapphire Tri-X/Vapor-X cooler and the Powercolor PCS+ both offer better cooling. The 94° temp when O/C'd has to be effecting the final clocks.
Click to expand...

hmm that doesn't look good...

I'm at 4k with a 7970CF
Problem is my motherboard layout (a gigabyte X58) is not that good, I mean the card are so close to one another that the first one has barely enough space to draw air in.
Despite having a HAF 932, the temps go up way too fast
So far the only solution that worked was to lower the voltage and keep the cards at 925/1375 so no OC at all.
Well at least it works but I don't see myself going like that on the long run.

Since I'd like to avoid building a new rig (with a motherboard having appropriate space between x16 slots), I thought I should go for a single card.
And as I'm not willing to lose my kidneys over a 295X I was wondering if an overcloked 290X could get close to a 7970CF in 4k. So far I couldn't find any answer, the only benches I could google date back to the time before custom 290X cards.

And if a OCed 290X doesn't make it well I'm hoping on the next Nvidia card even though after reading your post I'm not sure I should.
 
I don't get this review. Every criteria the card was graded on was a fail compared to the 780ti but yet it still got a glowing recommendation from the author. Just one question. Were there sexual favors involved here?! I don't get it..
 
Last edited:
"It's hard to argue that the ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX Platinum is the better purchase when compared to the ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DC II OC. Let's break it down in terms of most desired gaming experience. The ASUS GTX 780 Ti DC II OC performed identical or faster than the ASUS ROG R9 290X MATRIX-P in four of the five games we used. It's overclock provided similar or larger performance gains. It drew significantly less power, had a significantly lower constant temperature, and was noticeably quieter with lower fan speeds."

not sure how you get glowing review out of that
 
HardOcp gave it an Editors Choice Silver Award. It's Bronze at best. Also there was that black screen issue plaguing 290X cards in general. I mean giving it a Silver Award lends thought that this card has some sort of value. I mean I wouldn't recommend it to my brother even. Silver is too much.
 
Duredhel said:
hmm that doesn't look good...

I'm at 4k with a 7970CF
Problem is my motherboard layout (a gigabyte X58) is not that good, I mean the card are so close to one another that the first one has barely enough space to draw air in.
Despite having a HAF 932, the temps go up way too fast
So far the only solution that worked was to lower the voltage and keep the cards at 925/1375 so no OC at all.
Well at least it works but I don't see myself going like that on the long run.

Since I'd like to avoid building a new rig (with a motherboard having appropriate space between x16 slots), I thought I should go for a single card.
And as I'm not willing to lose my kidneys over a 295X I was wondering if an overcloked 290X could get close to a 7970CF in 4k. So far I couldn't find any answer, the only benches I could google date back to the time before custom 290X cards.

And if a OCed 290X doesn't make it well I'm hoping on the next Nvidia card even though after reading your post I'm not sure I should.
Click to expand...

As far as the 980 @ 4K, you won't really know until it comes out. It's all speculation. nVidia might finally have their 4K issues solved. As of right now though Tahiti Crossfire is still faster than any single GPU. Just preliminary leaks doesn't make it look like the 980 is going to be faster either. Nothing's for sure though.
 
Seems that the mediocre cooler really limits this card. It's strange that ASUS would go for a two slot cooler on a flagship card designed to overvolt the notoriously hot Hawaii GPU, when they went with a nice three slot cooler for the Matrix 7970. It seems that only MSI took cooling seriously on their flagship 290x.
 
Dragon_Fire said:
Seems that the mediocre cooler really limits this card. It's strange that ASUS would go for a two slot cooler on a flagship card designed to overvolt the notoriously hot Hawaii GPU, when they went with a nice three slot cooler for the Matrix 7970. It seems that only MSI took cooling seriously on their flagship 290x.
Click to expand...

The cooler doesn't fit the chip properly.
asus-matrix-290x-16-950x633.jpg


The cooler was designed for GK110 and they simply stuck it on to Hawaii. Only the center heatpipe and 1/2 of the 2 next to it even contact the GPU. ~1/2 the heatpipe area isn't even touching the GPU. This cooler is engineered for the heatpipes to be in direct contact with the GPU. Is it any wonder it doesn't keep it cool?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top