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290/290x availability thread

Looks like that coupon is no longer working for the Dell site. Graphics cards seems to be part of the excluded items D:
 
mi7chy said:
Just bought XFX R9 290X DD from ShopBLT for $646.68 no tax and free shipping. Works out to $599 with tax so not too excessive for non-reference. They had one or two left in stock.

http://www.shopblt.com/item/xfx-pine-technology-r9-290x-edfd-radeon-pcie/pinete_r9290xedfd.html

I like that the performance is consistent with no throttling and VRM temperature is addressed.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/65235-xfx-radeon-r9-290x-double-dissipation-review-9.html
Click to expand...

Seems like a great card. Good to see XFX back in on the good side with their custom cooled cards.
 
Which of these would be better then;

XFX Double D R9 290 947MHz 4GB DDR5 DP HDMI 2XDVI Graphics Cards R9290AEDFD due in sometime between March 7-March 14. OR Gigabyte Windforce R9 290 GDDR5-4GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP OC Graphics Card GV-R929OC-4GD March 10-March 19. Both cost the same $499.99. I want to pair it with a REV 1 reference Gigabyte R9 290.
 
Check out the Hardware Canucks reviews on the XFX and Gigabyte R9 290X and extrapolate. Also, depends on what's important to you. Gigabyte 3-fan cooling design runs slightly cooler and quieter but the XFX is physically smaller and has lower VRM temp while both benchmark nearly identical. Since I plan to stuff it eventually in a Silverstone SG08 mITX case, value stability/factory clock and lower VRM temp I went with the XFX. You really can't go wrong with either Sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte or XFX. If it was in stock I would've gone with the lower price Asus:

http://www.shopblt.com/item/asus-r9290-dc2oc-4gd5-radeon-r9-290-pcie/asus_r9290dc2oc4gd5.html
 
My god are we actively recommending XFX cards now? DD, no less. The atrocities ASUS/Gigabyte must have committed...
What alternate universe have I wandered into...
 
mi7chy said:
Check out the Hardware Canucks reviews on the XFX and Gigabyte R9 290X and extrapolate. Also, depends on what's important to you. Gigabyte 3-fan cooling design runs slightly cooler and quieter but the XFX is physically smaller and has lower VRM temp while both benchmark nearly identical. Since I plan to stuff it eventually in a Silverstone SG08 mITX case, value stability/factory clock and lower VRM temp I went with the XFX. You really can't go wrong with either Sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte or XFX. If it was in stock I would've gone with the lower price Asus:

http://www.shopblt.com/item/asus-r9290-dc2oc-4gd5-radeon-r9-290-pcie/asus_r9290dc2oc4gd5.html
Click to expand...

I have a HAF XB case I am putting them into with a Corsair 850TX PSU. Depending on the review I read I may or may not have a problem with the PSU size.


TaintedSquirrel
My god are we actively recommending XFX cards now? DD, no less. The atrocities ASUS/Gigabyte must have committed...
What alternate universe have I wandered into...
Click to expand...

The alternate universe where the same video card is going for $899.99 in one part of the world while they are going for $550 in another. I live in the former part of that worlds, LOL!!!
The truth is that I also have 2 ASUS DC2 OC cards on order also from Amazon. The kicker is that the difference in price between the 290 & the 290X is $80 not $150, $500 VS $580 for the Asus DC2 OC. The difference in performance: NEXT TO NOTHING, again according to the reviews you read. Price/performance the 290's win hands down over the 290X cards. I even saw one review where they had crossfired a 290 and a 290X.

However, after reading the review listed above from "Hardware Canucks" they touched on a very important matter, the quality of the components going into making the Gigabyte Windforce. I have kept my ASUS 5870's in service to this day from when they first came out so that is an important factor.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...303-gigabyte-r9-290x-windforce-oc-review.html
First page:
The card above is XFX’s R9 290X Double Dissipation and its more than obvious that the WindForce OC features heavily upgraded components. There are secondary digital VR modules at strategic locations, guaranteeing cleaner power delivery while the area directly behind the core is designed to deliver increased capacitance.

While it may not boast XFX’s awesome matte PCB, Gigabyte’s card is impressive from a hardware standpoint and this may have a positive effect upon its longevity.
Click to expand...

Last Page:
While there are no visible framerate benefits from going the Gigabyte route, their card has substantial advantages in other areas. Their component selection quite obviously targets a more demanding crowd with upgraded hardware being evident throughout the PCB’s exposed surface. Its heatsink is also much better than XFX’s offering.
Click to expand...

Have no fear. It seems that XFX has made great strides but has not reached the lofty heights just yet. The thing I do like about the ASUS is the additional stabilizer for the PCB and the backplate which also functions as an additional heatsink.

Thanks for the Hardware Canucks site. Round 1 elimination is over.
 
It is funny to see the pricing of the "out of stock" cards on Newegg. I happened to buy a Gigabyte 290 reference card from them @ $399.99 which was defective. It was a "return for exchange only purchase". I was a bit upset with that at the time of sale but as I look back it was a blessing. Had they been able to just refund my money I would have been stuck with rebuying at a higher price. A lot of Newegg bashing going on lately but they returned a new card to me the next day. Customer service was fantastic.

I will still defend them from the accusation of gouging. They are here to sell product to the people in the market for them regardless of their ultimate use. If those cards, or any item in the market becomes scarce relative to demand, the price goes up. MSRP means (manufacturers SUGGESTED retail price).
 
What is wrong with the XFX DD? I figured the lifetime warranty would beat out the 2-3 from other companies.
 
Not only did the older DD coolers suck, they blew.... Srs VRM cooling was horrible, I had a 7950DD it died in 3 days lol.
 
DracoNB said:
What is wrong with the XFX DD? I figured the lifetime warranty would beat out the 2-3 from other companies.
Click to expand...

Their 7970 DD's had major reliability issues. Some of their 6xxx cards had trouble too. They sound as if they've improved but they've burned a lot of bridges the last few years.
 
mesyn191 said:
Their 7970 DD's had major reliability issues. Some of their 6xxx cards had trouble too. They sound as if they've improved but they've burned a lot of bridges the last few years.
Click to expand...

I use my cards 24/7 literally. If not doing financial trading, I am gaming or the machine is on and idle. I do not have the place for down time. Reliability is a big factor for me. I also run through a UPS for extra protection.

On to Round 2
Gigabyte Windforce R9 290 GV-R929OC-4GD card coupled with a Gigabyte reference GV-R929D5-4GD-B for crossfire
OR
a couple of ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC in crossfire

I am finding it very difficult to justify the extra $80/each price tag for the DC2 cards on fps performance alone.
- Extra heat & power requirements are a minus.
+ The backplate is a plus
 
Last edited:
DracoNB said:
Strange... the [H] review made them look really nice, and I've only seen good thing from reviews. Sounds like they had a bad batch or something?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...tion_edition_crossfire_review/10#.UwT7lfldWWk
Click to expand...
They look good by comparison considering ASUS pulled a fast-one with the 290/290x and Gigabyte had some production issues on their review samples.

The only other card that's been largely reviewed is the Sapphire Tri-X which smokes all of them, and I haven't seen any good reviews of the Twin Frozr yet.
Those DD's were tested in XFire so drawing any conclusions to other single-GPU reviews is fuzzy, anyway.

[H] also called the 290 and 290x refs quiet where other sites have actively recommended AGAINST them solely due to their noise.
 
DracoNB said:
What is wrong with the XFX DD? I figured the lifetime warranty would beat out the 2-3 from other companies.
Click to expand...

XFX is a shitty company with shitty technical support and shitty customer service. I, and many others, know from experience.

XFX is also the type of company that will quietly and silently sell non-reference cards without changing model number to indicate this fact, and when you realize the GPU block you bought doesn't fit because you didn't know the PCB was modified, they will blame your ignorance instead.

They could offer me a blowjob and a foot massage on top of their lifetime warranty and I still wouldn't give XFX my money.

If you do have to go through a RMA experience with them, I suggest you document everything and be firm if needed.
 
DracoNB said:
Strange... the [H] review made them look really nice, and I've only seen good thing from reviews. Sounds like they had a bad batch or something?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...tion_edition_crossfire_review/10#.UwT7lfldWWk
Click to expand...

That's because the last generation was so fucking terrible lol.

TaintedSquirrel said:
They look good by comparison considering ASUS pulled a fast-one with the 290/290x and Gigabyte had some production issues on their review samples.

The only other card that's been largely reviewed is the Sapphire Tri-X which smokes all of them, and I haven't seen any good reviews of the Twin Frozr yet.
Those DD's were tested in XFire so drawing any conclusions to other single-GPU reviews is fuzzy, anyway.

[H] also called the 290 and 290x refs quiet where other sites have actively recommended AGAINST them solely due to their noise.
Click to expand...

There's a few, and those of the single card look fine.
290DD review
http://benchmarkreviews.com/11725/xfx-radeon-r9-290-double-dissipation-review/

290X DD
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...radeon-r9-290x-double-dissipation-review.html

You can actually see in the HC review, their VRM's didn't go past 76 degrees, which is all I care about on this cooler.
 
hcforde said:
I use my cards 24/7 literally.
Click to expand...

I do to. I have a XFX 7970 DD. It works fine now but I had to RMA it 3 times to get a working one.

Plenty of people complained about their 7xxx and 6xxx AMD cards for good reason.

TigerLord said:
XFX is a shitty company with shitty technical support and shitty customer service.
Click to expand...
Their tech support and service were pretty good to me. I was getting fed up by the 3rd RMA though with the hardware quality. If the last one didn't work I was going to ebay it and get a different brand.
 
All this talk about the XFX card is scaring me back to consider the Gigabyte one, but I see complaints too about its cooling fans.

Ugh... make up your minds people.

I'm going to bite my tongue and swallow hard, and just put down an order at ShopBLT some time in the next month and get an R9 290. I've been stuck on mid-range video cards for most of my computers with the exception of the Radeon 3870 and Radeon 9700 Pro-- high end back in those days. It'd be nice to have a powerful card for once that'll keep me happy for the next three-plus years.

With all this talk about fan issues, coil whine, and build quality, it looks like from the sounds of it i should avoid Powercolor, XFX and Gigabyte. Avoid ASUS for RMA issues, also.

I may end up getting the Visiontek from ShopBLT or the MSI R9 290 Gaming from another site, and just wait for it to get delivered.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Just get the Tri-X assuming you can find it for a comparable price.
Click to expand...
That's the problem-- can't find it in stock or at a reasonable price. Neither of those two things exist in the same sentence when it comes to that card, so I'm going to avoid it for now. Haha.
 
octoberasian said:
All this talk about the XFX card is scaring me back to consider the Gigabyte one, but I see complaints too about its cooling fans.

Ugh... make up your minds people.

I'm going to bite my tongue and swallow hard, and just put down an order at ShopBLT some time in the next month and get an R9 290. I've been stuck on mid-range video cards for most of my computers with the exception of the Radeon 3870 and Radeon 9700 Pro-- high end back in those days. It'd be nice to have a powerful card for once that'll keep me happy for the next three-plus years.

With all this talk about fan issues, coil whine, and build quality, it looks like from the sounds of it i should avoid Powercolor, XFX and Gigabyte. Avoid ASUS for RMA issues, also.

I may end up getting the Visiontek from ShopBLT or the MSI R9 290 Gaming from another site, and just wait for it to get delivered.
Click to expand...

I have been fortunate then as I have never had to RMA an ASUS product. That is all I use basically. I have 3 ASUS motherboards and the youngest one is 3 years old. The oldest almost 6. I buy high end boards though. ASUS 5870 Eyefinity6 cards are still working well. I do not overclock or mine though did enough of that (with no issues). Now I just want stability. That is why the fuss from me looking for the best card combo. and dropping XFX from the list of possibilities because of the quality of the components.

The issues have mostly been with the reference cards it seems so that is a manufacturing problem as I see it. Gigabyte almost had a problem with the fit of the Windforce cooler at manufacturing. I wonder what would happen if we had to assemble our own coolers to the video card pcb like we have to attach the cooler to the CPU on our motherboards. Any manufacturing process is going to have issues, but I think we are pass all the bsod's now.

If things were normal(thanks to the mining community) I would go ASUS hands down. When I wanted to buy there were no ASUS cards available. Still no R9 290's which is what I wanted. That is the reason why I have 2 ASUS R9 290X's on order but not happy about it because of the power requirement and heat. For me the performance envelope is where I like it with the 290's. And I guess it's the same with everybody else because they come at a greater premium than the 290X's.
 
octoberasian said:
All this talk about the XFX card is scaring me back to consider the Gigabyte one, but I see complaints too about its cooling fans.

Ugh... make up your minds people.

I'm going to bite my tongue and swallow hard, and just put down an order at ShopBLT some time in the next month and get an R9 290. I've been stuck on mid-range video cards for most of my computers with the exception of the Radeon 3870 and Radeon 9700 Pro-- high end back in those days. It'd be nice to have a powerful card for once that'll keep me happy for the next three-plus years.

With all this talk about fan issues, coil whine, and build quality, it looks like from the sounds of it i should avoid Powercolor, XFX and Gigabyte. Avoid ASUS for RMA issues, also.

I may end up getting the Visiontek from ShopBLT or the MSI R9 290 Gaming from another site, and just wait for it to get delivered.
Click to expand...

MSI is excellent card. Mine does at least 1120MHz for core without touching the voltages and max temp has been 79c (oc'd) while max rpm has been bit over 2000. Vram is hynix. My card does not even have coil whine.
 
octoberasian said:
All this talk about the XFX card is scaring me back to consider the Gigabyte one, but I see complaints too about its cooling fans.

Ugh... make up your minds people.

I'm going to bite my tongue and swallow hard, and just put down an order at ShopBLT some time in the next month and get an R9 290. I've been stuck on mid-range video cards for most of my computers with the exception of the Radeon 3870 and Radeon 9700 Pro-- high end back in those days. It'd be nice to have a powerful card for once that'll keep me happy for the next three-plus years.

With all this talk about fan issues, coil whine, and build quality, it looks like from the sounds of it i should avoid Powercolor, XFX and Gigabyte. Avoid ASUS for RMA issues, also.

I may end up getting the Visiontek from ShopBLT or the MSI R9 290 Gaming from another site, and just wait for it to get delivered.
Click to expand...

You should probably just lock the door and hide in the closet because every company is going to have someone whine about it. I have bought nothing but XFX for AMD cards going back as far as 5870 and only had to RMA once. It was a truly painless experience.

If you get bored, google "<insert company name> terrible service".
It's funny how someone has a problem and makes sure to badmouth a company for the entirety of their existence after that.
 
For whatever its worth, out of ALL the AMD GPU vendors, i find XFX the easiest to deal with. for the actual cards i like sapphire / MSI the best. XFX support was far better when it came to an RMA then sapphire for me.
 
FRZ said:
Very tempting but i must resist :)
Click to expand...

I think thats a safe bet. Coin mining is getting pretty low returns now. Just $3/day for a "Good" 7970 (800WU/~900KHASH) and low power costs (300w, 0.08KW/hr), with the most profitable "standard" coins at about $4.50 a day after power costs.

This is about around a 60% reduction from less than 2 weeks ago.

The coin im mining is still $10 after power costs, with an unlocked 290, @ .142KW/hr and 400watts.

Of course if MtGox just dies peacefully (AHHAHAHAH) then expect the prices to go back up.
 
it is amazing how you guys get electricity so cheap. I pay for kwh and for delivery cost here in nyc. "delivery" charge is actually more money than the actual power cost. I think its 30-something cents per kwh total. it is a big rip off. my monthly gas/electric bill is on a minimum of $600; last month I paid $1,000. No, I am not doing any mining at all. I think mining is done mostly by people who do not pay bills.
 
bigbeard86 said:
it is amazing how you guys get electricity so cheap. I pay for kwh and for delivery cost here in nyc. "delivery" charge is actually more money than the actual power cost. I think its 30-something cents per kwh total. it is a big rip off. my monthly gas/electric bill is on a minimum of $600; last month I paid $1,000. No, I am not doing any mining at all. I think mining is done mostly by people who do not pay bills.
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ, no wonder every one that works in New York is doing their damndest to steal from every person they can. Now I understand why all the Wallstreet aholes are constantly doing everything they can to rip off the country. They need to pay their power bill.
 
My delivery charge in boston is like 15 cents, ontop generation charge, and transportation charges, the elctricity itself, it ends up being around 25 cents/kwhr
 
bigbeard86 said:
it is amazing how you guys get electricity so cheap. I pay for kwh and for delivery cost here in nyc. "delivery" charge is actually more money than the actual power cost. I think its 30-something cents per kwh total. it is a big rip off. my monthly gas/electric bill is on a minimum of $600; last month I paid $1,000. No, I am not doing any mining at all. I think mining is done mostly by people who do not pay bills.
Click to expand...

Lol your electric bill is larger then my entire housing expenses, including elec, mortgage, water & gas in an 1800sqft house
 
Actually, I live in the city as well and I also pay high costs for electricity. It's around 800-1k here as well. I believe my last month's bill was like 1200. Btw, I am the Wall Street type and I do pay bills.

Anyway, to further the post about the 290x, I have 2 Asus 290x cards and I'm putting a XSPC waterblock on it. I'm impressed with the fact that it has active VRM cooling. I need two so I can play BF4 at maximum setting on Eyefinity.
 
XViper said:
Actually, I live in the city as well and I also pay high costs for electricity. It's around 800-1k here as well. I believe my last month's bill was like 1200. Btw, I am the Wall Street type and I do pay bills.

Anyway, to further the post about the 290x, I have 2 Asus 290x cards and I'm putting a XSPC waterblock on it. I'm impressed with the fact that it has active VRM cooling. I need two so I can play BF4 at maximum setting on Eyefinity.
Click to expand...

You need 3 :p BF4 really is pretty on 3 290x at 7990x1440.
 
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