Success! XFX R9 290 flashed to Asus R9 290X!

ontariotl said:
Thanks, however I am risking a $400 paperweight. I wanted to try it, but not sure I will keep it. I see the improvement and its nice, but since this may not have passed quality for use as a R9 290X I could potentially kill it. I've never done this before (well except 9500pro to 9700) and I've had a few mention to me that earlier cards have died in the past from flashing.

Even one mentioned they tried it on a review card and it died in a weeks time.

So as I said before, try at your own risk!
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If it died I'm sure it was for other reasons. It's just a method to increase profits with manufacturing. If you're that afraid then lower the clock speed a bit.
 
Reading more on this it looks like 'unlocking' the card is really just applying the higher clocks, which matches nicely with 4% gains from 5% clockspeed.
 
45454asasa said:
Reading more on this it looks like 'unlocking' the card is really just applying the higher clocks, which matches nicely with 4% gains from 5% clockspeed.
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It's not, some of the people who have unlocked have tested with the R 290 bios at the exact same clocks as what they get with the R 290x.

there's still an increase in performance at the same clock speeds, so it's unlocking.

Others stripped the coolers off their cards and compared part numbers on the chips, the one's that unlock apparently have the same part numbers on them as "real" R 290X chips, while R 290 chips that can't unlock differ.
 
really wish i would of bought a second powercolor in stead of a sapphire for the second one now lol
 
45454asasa said:
~5% clockspeed and 10% more shaders should result in more than 4% gains....
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You'd think so, but the difference in gaming benchmarks between the 290 and 290x cards arent much different for the most part.

I'm going to flash my card when it arrives, ordered a Powercolor 290 OC today :)
 
Nenu said:
You'd think so, but the difference in gaming benchmarks between the 290 and 290x cards arent much different for the most part.

I'm going to flash my card when it arrives, ordered a Powercolor 290 OC today :)
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Well you might be one of the lucky ones to unlock.

Since there has been more talk about the difference in GPU sku's on the laser etching installed on the 290, I have gone back to running at 290X again. I've been benchmarking and have not seen any issues just yet. The only thing is needing to up the core voltage to 1.3 if I want the same overclock as I had on the normal 290 bios.

Just to update the story a little. I looked back at my build log I put on another forum and I saw on one of my pictures of the etched number. It was indeed a R9 290X marked gpu on my card.



Close up with circled etched number. last for digits for 290 are XXX2020 and for 290X are XXX2000. Sorry I dont have PS installed to improve the zoom.

 
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That might not be a good thing to use such a high voltage, the stock load voltage of the 290x is 1.1V.
Thats an 18% voltage increase, almost a 40% increase in power use, 'without' increasing the clocks!
Is the performance trade up worth it?

Higher voltage = faster wear.
Higher temp = faster wear.
The unlocked cores are those needing the extra voltage, but in order to make them function, all cores are having their wear accelerated.
Enough wear will mean you need a higher voltage when running the stock bios again.
fyi
 
Nenu said:
That might not be a good thing to use such a high voltage, the stock load voltage of the 290x is 1.1V.
Thats an 18% voltage increase, almost a 40% increase in power use, 'without' increasing the clocks!
Is the performance trade up worth it?

Higher voltage = faster wear.
Higher temp = faster wear.
The unlocked cores are those needing the extra voltage, but in order to make them function, all cores are having their wear accelerated.
Enough wear will mean you need a higher voltage when running the stock bios again.
fyi
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Actually Asus GPU tweak puts the default core voltage at 1.25V as you can see in the screenshot. I only add .50 volts on top of that. However, I'm just leaving it at default for testing.

 
Nenu said:
Ah ok, a bit to learn about this yet :)
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No worries, I have a feeling that 1.1V is for the 290 gpu. I could be wrong as I never checked since Asus GPU wont show GPU voltage when I run 290 bios. Maybe AB did, but again I never really bothered to check.
 
Shapeshifter said:
It's not, some of the people who have unlocked have tested with the R 290 bios at the exact same clocks as what they get with the R 290x.

there's still an increase in performance at the same clock speeds, so it's unlocking.

Others stripped the coolers off their cards and compared part numbers on the chips, the one's that unlock apparently have the same part numbers on them as "real" R 290X chips, while R 290 chips that can't unlock differ.
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ah, ok; very cool.

So is someone screwing up and mixing 290x and 290 @ powercolor/xfx? Or are there just not enough "failures" to meet R290 demand? Considering buying a Powercolor just for the unlock, since AFAICT its 100% success with them.
 
45454asasa said:
ah, ok; very cool.

So is someone screwing up and mixing 290x and 290 @ powercolor/xfx? Or are there just not enough "failures" to meet R290 demand? Considering buying a Powercolor just for the unlock, since AFAICT its 100% success with them.
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I wouldn't call it a "screw up"..I think it much more of a supply and demand issue..IT's very likely the first batch of GPU dies shipped to the AIBs had all of the shaders/TMU's enabled... The AIBs decided not to wait for "proper" 290 dies in order to ensure the channel was full of product since they knew ahead of time that AMD was going to drop the $399 bombshell..

Something that is of interest is that of all of the successfully unlocked cards that have been shown on the forums, I'd say 9/10 of them have Hynix memory..If I knew that AMD was going to pull this bullshit with the BF4 bundling, I would have gone with my first choice of XFX since they are offering the game to anyone that registered their card after the 13th..They are also the most successful "unlocking" cards..So I could have gotten a 290X WITH BF4 for $399 :rolleyes::rolleyes:....

I ended up going with Sapphire since MSI was sold out and everyone swears that Sapphire is AMD's preferred partner..NE refused to give me a BF4 code, Sapphire has refused to answer any of my emails about it, and the card I got has the -2020 laser inscription with Elpedia memory, which means it isn't going to unlock..
 
my sapphire one with the non hynix sucks at mem overclocking too, as soon as i go over 1350 or so i get screen artifacting where my powercolor one goes 1500 no problem. really mad i didnt get a second one as a powercolor.

ccity how far can your take your memory before you see horizontal lines across the screen? my sapphire one sucks at mem overclocking.
 
ontariotl said:
No worries, I have a feeling that 1.1V is for the 290 gpu. I could be wrong as I never checked since Asus GPU wont show GPU voltage when I run 290 bios. Maybe AB did, but again I never really bothered to check.
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The Vdroop is really bad on these cards, so 1.25V in GPU Tweak may be resulting in ~1.1V load voltages. Even with +100mv on my card (which should be 1.35V) it only actually runs at ~1.25V with the Vdroop.

Wildace said:
my sapphire one with the non hynix sucks at mem overclocking too, as soon as i go over 1350 or so i get screen artifacting where my powercolor one goes 1500 no problem. really mad i didnt get a second one as a powercolor.

ccity how far can your take your memory before you see horizontal lines across the screen? my sapphire one sucks at mem overclocking.
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Increasing the core voltage seems to help memory overclocking as well, especially those desktop lines. Probably a weak memory controller versus memory chip limitations.
 
Forceman said:
The Vdroop is really bad on these cards, so 1.25V in GPU Tweak may be resulting in ~1.1V load voltages. Even with +100mv on my card (which should be 1.35V) it only actually runs at ~1.25V with the Vdroop.



Increasing the core voltage seems to help memory overclocking as well, especially those desktop lines. Probably a weak memory controller versus memory chip limitations.
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i havnt messed with the voltage too much on the sapphire one since my water cooler isnt here yet for it. orderd a second accelero so i can put it on the sapphire card also like my powercolor one.

its nice seeing the powercolor one litecoin mine at 64c and i cant hear it.

i have to keep the sapphire one at 62% fan speed to keep it around 90c while mining
 
Wildace said:
my sapphire one with the non hynix sucks at mem overclocking too, as soon as i go over 1350 or so i get screen artifacting where my powercolor one goes 1500 no problem. really mad i didnt get a second one as a powercolor.

ccity how far can your take your memory before you see horizontal lines across the screen? my sapphire one sucks at mem overclocking.
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I haven't done any "Offical O/C'ing" since I was on the fence about returning this card for one with the BF4 bundle..I talked to NE and after 20 minutes of me arguing on the phone they gave me a $25 GC for "my concern"...

I stuck it in my sig rig (which is all WC'd and quiet as in like a whisper while having 6 fans)....I set the fan speed to 100%, and had the bios switch on the 2nd...I Did a 20 minutes Furmark run with the core @ the default of 947Mhz, and pushed the memory to ~1350Mhz..I didn't try any higher, nor did I see any lines..

Now, about that reference cooler's noise...DEAR FUCKING GOD!!...I could hear the jet engine spool up and once she got going I could hear it over Pandora being streamed through my Note3 with my 'puter phones..I also have a 20" house fan running since I am really hot (was hot before I installed the card FYI)...

I think I hit the silicon lottery (not the 290X lottery) but ASIC wise..I haven't seen anyone post a card with an ASIC as high as mine yet..Pardon the shitty picture:

1452247_10152003023643118_1645429486_n.jpg


I have decided to keep the card, and my EK block (which has been sitting here since Friday morning crying due to lack of attention) will be going on shortly..I am actually moving over a Corsair 650D, along with a MB swap to an MSI Z77 MPower and different rads..I am hoping to have that swap done before the weekend..I am leaving Sunday morning for a 3 day "work trip" to Atlantic City (I play poker for a living)..

its nice seeing the powercolor one litecoin mine at 64c and i cant hear it.

i have to keep the sapphire one at 62% fan speed to keep it around 90c while mining
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I am curious, how is your hash rate with the 290? What kinda of performance is getting vs a 7950 @ 1Ghz or higher?...Is it worth it to still mine on 7950s? I have a truly golden sample that does 1.3Ghz core that I was going to sell, but I am wondering if I should keep it and mine on it..I do notice that CCC didn't like having 2 different AMD cards installed..I couldn't access the 290 at all until I switched my HDMI cable over to it from the 7950..This then had the same result as before, only with the 7950 being inaccessible..
 
my powercolor one gets 870ish khash at 1000core 1500mem, the sapphire one is around 835 at 975core 1250 mem
 
So I unlocked both of my XFX cards last night. The one thing I remember noticing when I put my waterblocks on was that 1337 was etched on the gpu. I'm not going to pull the blocks off to recheck what the actual number is on the chip, but I guess I got lucky.

MIhjdU4.png

hnerk9c.png
 
veedubfreak said:
So I unlocked both of my XFX cards last night. The one thing I remember noticing when I put my waterblocks on was that 1337 was etched on the gpu. I'm not going to pull the blocks off to recheck what the actual number is on the chip, but I guess I got lucky.

MIhjdU4.png

hnerk9c.png
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Congrats, now you just need to verify benchmarks to see if there is any change. I have read that sometimes GPU-Z reads the shaders wrong in some cases. However since you have Xfx, you more than likely have been able to enable the extra shaders.
 
If it doesnt crash, I imagine that is the only sign you need that the shaders are working ok.
And yeah, congrats!
 
The one wierd thing I noticed is that the 2nd card shows a bus width of 32bit, but in ASUS Tweak it shows properly.
 
veedubfreak said:
The one wierd thing I noticed is that the 2nd card shows a bus width of 32bit, but in ASUS Tweak it shows properly.
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That's not a function of your flashing; my factory 290Xs show the same thing. In my case, I thought it was probably related to my running a PCIe 2.0 MB/CPU.
 
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I just recently read on here that Amd was using lower binned chips for the 290 and the criteria was the 290x had to run at a lower voltage with the default core/memory clock plus the extra shaders. If a chip couldn't handle those stock 290x clocks with the lower voltage the it was passed off as a 290. I will search for the thread and get a link. But if your dropping waterblocks on them then it sounds like your gonna be riding chill with some 290x's. Without gpu blocks id be very concerned about the lower binned chip in the 290 with core/memory clocks of the 290x plus all those unlocked shaders. There's no way that the reference cooler could keep those lower binned chip running optimal for very long.
 
Nenu said:
That might not be a good thing to use such a high voltage, the stock load voltage of the 290x is 1.1V.
Thats an 18% voltage increase, almost a 40% increase in power use, 'without' increasing the clocks!
Is the performance trade up worth it?

Higher voltage = faster wear.
Higher temp = faster wear.
The unlocked cores are those needing the extra voltage, but in order to make them function, all cores are having their wear accelerated.
Enough wear will mean you need a higher voltage when running the stock bios again.
fyi
Click to expand...

Adding to your post:

Higher voltage ~ higher heat = more throttled 290x, which is why you are probably not seeing higher gains.
 
I dont think he is getting any throttling, his temps are way lower than the stock cooler, he is using a water block.
 
ccityinstaller said:
I think I hit the silicon lottery (not the 290X lottery) but ASIC wise..I haven't seen anyone post a card with an ASIC as high as mine yet..Pardon the shitty picture:
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ASIC quality in GPUz is meaningless. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the silicon.


veedubfreak said:
So I unlocked both of my XFX cards last night. The one thing I remember noticing when I put my waterblocks on was that 1337 was etched on the gpu. I'm not going to pull the blocks off to recheck what the actual number is on the chip, but I guess I got lucky.
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1337 is the manufacture date of the chip, 37th week of 2013.
 
It goes to show this is pretty widespread, there are definitely some better binned 290's in circulation to get a 2 yr warranty.
 
yeah i agree Nenu. man anyone that bought a 290 that's able to unlock got a hell of a deal.
 
lol, "default setting is R290X Unlocked voltage BIOS. Other setting is regular 290 Uber BIOS. "
You can have it loud or louder :)
I wouldnt trust a warranty from OCuK anyway, I've had some trauma at their hands, I wouldnt ever use or recommend them again.
 
I just flashed over my XFX 290 successfully. Thank you very much for the heads up on this. Now for the stability testing.
 
LordEC911 said:
ASIC quality in GPUz is meaningless. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the silicon.



1337 is the manufacture date of the chip, 37th week of 2013.
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Really? It seemed to hold quite true for the 79XX series cards..Every beast O/C'ing 7950 out there had an insanely high ASIC score (mine was 91.6% and my core was O/C'd 50.5% on water)...Soooo it means nothing? I guess I will find out when I get my 290's max O/C dialed in:p...
 
overclocks for 7970's were all over the place when it came to ASIC scores.
 
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