AMD Radeon R9 290X Video Card Review @ [H]

IdiotInCharge said:
So you can see why we're annoyed that AMD couldn't be assed to try and put a decent stock cooler on it :).
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Really, though, I wonder why. The 7990 reference cooler is damn good. And that dissipates more heat than the 290x produces. Money I suppose? But honestly, if they had put that cooler on and tacked another 20 bucks onto the sale price it would be a fantastic buy IMO.
 
Gumbi10 said:
Really, though, I wonder why. The 7990 reference cooler is damn good. And that dissipates more heat than the 290x produces. Money I suppose? But honestly, if they had put that cooler on and tacked another 20 bucks onto the sale price it would be a fantastic buy IMO.
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We're all wondering that. I've seen the idea presented that they refrained from improving the cooler due to cost concerns, but I don't really find that likely- I think something went wrong in development, or the part was rushed. Either way, it's running as hot as they can run it with the cooler they used, and it could desperately use something like the HD7990 reference cooler, as you mentioned.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I still wonder why it's hard for people to apply 11th grade physics (in Texas) to their systems. The heat has to go somewhere, and it's going to go wherever the HSF puts it. Blowers push it out, open-air coolers circulate it inside the case.

Either way, you should be making provisions in your system for the type of cooler(s) that you use. Blowers are easy, as you just need more intake (and they're much quieter than on a bench), but open air coolers need space, lots of intake, AND lots of exhaust, which is more expensive, more difficult to balance, and harder to keep clean. With a blower-oriented setup that leans heavily on intakes, you just have to filter the intakes to keep it clean.
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Not to mention the lack of understanding of the "law of conservation of energy", stating that "energy can never be created or destroyed by itself, it can only be transformed". If a computer draws 440 watt as shown with "uber mode" in this review, the computer needs to get rid of 440 watts of heat. Its not like it seems some believe, that if the GPU renders a game, the energy is spent and the heat we see is a biproduct of energy wasted not rendering the game. Nor is it like "vendor a is more effeciant, so some energy is converted, so the computer is farting pixie-dust instead of heat".

Guru3D created a chart regarding how much watt that needs to be removed for different GPU setups in their 290x review:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_r9_290x_review_benchmarks,10.html

According to the chart, the Geforce Titan needs to get rid of 251 watts, while the 290x needs to get rid of 286 watts. In comparison, a GTX 760 SLI needs to get rid of 343 watts of heat.

Power consumption of the 290X doesn't worry me and probably not people who uses highend systems.

Wattage is less then systems I've had before and less then many systems used on [H] today. I find it a bit funny seeing some people complain and worry about the wattage, seeing that they have more power consumption (and therefore more heat output) from their own systems already.

The temps are fine too, since the GPU is ment to operate at high temps. What I am more interested in, is if the temps are hardlocked to 95 C when you set that as target. That would be a bonus, since it will be a "set and forget" type of temp. If 95 C is a comfortable temp for the GPU, and it cannot overheat from that, this would be excelent and no need to worry about GPU temps ever again. I asked Brent to check this in his overclocking review.

What I don't like, is how much noise it needs to make to get rid of heat. In Idle, its great, but on load its horrible. An aftermarket cooler would be great, but dumping the heat inside the cabinet as you say, would just mean I have to increase system fans in order to compensate. The Geforce Titan have the same issues with its 251 watt, but fortunately it has a great cooler that outputs outside of the cabinet. The 290X needs something similar.

With its higher comfortable operating temps at 95 C, the 290X might be better then the Titan in terms of cooling, performance and quietness, despite the 35 watt extra power usage.

Here's why you should invest in a PC instead of a space heater. Nice to have an oven that also can render games... :p

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Gaming-PC-vs-Space-Heater-Efficiency-511/
 
IdiotInCharge said:
We're all wondering that. I've seen the idea presented that they refrained from improving the cooler due to cost concerns, but I don't really find that likely- I think something went wrong in development, or the part was rushed. Either way, it's running as hot as they can run it with the cooler they used, and it could desperately use something like the HD7990 reference cooler, as you mentioned.
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I think money may definitely have been a factor. They may have wanted to hit the 550 mark and making cuts like this is part of that.

The stock cooler would have to have been designed, whereas they could have just retrofitted the 7990 cooler, so your explanation doesn't make much sense to me.
 
have you guys seen the metro benchmark graphs from the 290x cards, incredibly smooth compared to any other card

also lol @ Celeron 300a, I had the fcpga 533a running at 900mhz, friend of mine had two 300a's, his quake 2 & quake 3 smp performance was awesome
 
Gumbi10 said:
I think money may definitely have been a factor. They may have wanted to hit the 550 mark and making cuts like this is part of that.

The stock cooler would have to have been designed, whereas they could have just retrofitted the 7990 cooler, so your explanation doesn't make much sense to me.
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The HD7990 cooler was designed for dual GPUs, so it wouldn't be much of a direct fit- but at least some thought went into it. It was louder than the GTX690 cooler, but it was also fully exhausting, so it presented the possibility of using a tweaked positive-pressure setup to quiet it down a bit, while the GTX690 recirculated a good portion of it's heat.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
So you can see why we're annoyed that AMD couldn't be assed to try and put a decent stock cooler on it :).
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I think the blower type is the most kosher and even the Titan comes with one. AMD could have down clocked it some more to make it quieter. Can't please everyone but I think many people are getting over board negatively criticizing the reference blower styler cooler. Bottom line is the card is a true ultra performance gaming card and has alot of potential when over clocking. I bought one and a water block for it when I ordered it. I think water cooling is the best way to go.
 
SonDa5 said:
I think the blower type is the most kosher and even the Titan comes with one. AMD could have down clocked it some more to make it quieter. Can't please everyone but I think many people are getting over board negatively criticizing the reference blower styler cooler. Bottom line is the card is a true ultra performance gaming card and has alot of potential when over clocking. I bought one and a water block for it when I ordered it. I think water cooling is the best way to go.
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I'd love to see a hybrid solution, or one that uses a sealed integrated water-cooler that can bolt up to a fan mount, but outside of that I'm not that keen on water-cooling. As Nvidia has repeatedly demonstrated, blowers can be done very well. Inside a positive-pressure setup, they're quiet, no water, no pump, no seals to fail, and a small enclosure works well, and they're preferred for SFF setups.
 
Phuncz said:
I'd like to see how far it would take to make it not too loud for me and how fan ratio it needs to be for that.
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If you truly want a quiet experience with high performance this would probably be the HSF to get for the card which would be the best cooling possible short of high end water cooling.

Once you add fans it turns into a 4 slot cooler though. ;(
IdiotInCharge said:
Well, by the time you've put on an aftermarket cooler you're now paying the same price as a GTX780
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Nah even the VGA cooler I linked, which is pretty much as good as it gets for air, can be found for $60-70. That thing is gigantic too.


nV's price drop is making things pretty interesting, I wouldn't have expected them to be that aggressive. I wonder if AMD will respond with a price drop after the 780Ti shows up or if they'll just put a better cooler on the reference cards.
 
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Someone mentioned that cooler on TR (wasn't you, was it?), but as you said, 'once you add fans', well, fans aren't free either- maybe $10/pop for functional ones, but say you want Noctuas, you're spending well over $100 on an aftermarket cooler, that takes up four slots, for a card whose warranty you just voided :).

So, let's say you want two of them- as you would for 4k- how's that going to work out? What if you want a sound card, or need a robust WiFi card (3x3), or something else?

That's the challenge that AMD presented, that I could meet easily with a pair of 6GB GTX780s, if such things existed. That's what we were hoping AMD would rise to the challenge to, and that's where they let us down worse than they have in years- they deserve all the ire they're getting for this thing :).
 
The thing is most enthusiasts already have some 120mm fans lying around, and Noctuas? Hahaha man those things are stupid expensive for what you get, kind've a worst case you're shooting for. Some $6 120's will work fine and still be way quieter than the stock cooler.

The people doing CF/SLI are used to crazy fan noise as is. My 2 4890's were actually worse than the R9 290X's that I've heard so far due to the high pitch whine they'd get at 100% fan.
 
mesyn191 said:
The thing is most enthusiasts already have some 120mm fans lying around, and Noctuas? Hahaha man those things are stupid expensive for what you get, kind've a worst case you're shooting for. Some $6 120's will work fine and still be way quieter than the stock cooler.

The people doing CF/SLI are used to crazy fan noise as is. My 2 4890's were actually worse than the R9 290X's that I've heard so far due to the high pitch whine they'd get at 100% fan.
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I'm doing SLI, and while I've been subject to crazy fan noise in my 20 years of building computers (and eight years at UPS...), my system is rather quiet. Took a bit of careful planning, but it's largely as you see in my signature.
 
Ugh I'm in a SFF box (sort of) so the stock reference cooler would suck major balls. So want to upgrade my aging 4850. Got Tomb Raider and Hitman as a gift, can't play it on my 30" CURSES.
 
soulesschild said:
Ugh I'm in a SFF box (sort of) so the stock reference cooler would suck major balls. So want to upgrade my aging 4850. Got Tomb Raider and Hitman as a gift, can't play it on my 30" CURSES.
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Nvidia has your number. Know that's not what you want to hear (probably), but unless you've got some real good ventilation, you want a blower, and Nvidia's it.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Nvidia has your number. Know that's not what you want to hear (probably), but unless you've got some real good ventilation, you want a blower, and Nvidia's it.
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I'm not in a rush. I've considered the GTX 770 before but wanted to see what aftermarket R290X's come out. :D
 
Thank you Kyle...that really becoming annoying...
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Yes......Unbearable even.

soulesschild said:
I'm not in a rush. I've considered the GTX 770 before but wanted to see what aftermarket R290X's come out. :D
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Might as well wait. LOL. Personally, I 'm still waiting to see what the 290 and 280 do; whenever they're released.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Nvidia has your number. Know that's not what you want to hear (probably), but unless you've got some real good ventilation, you want a blower, and Nvidia's it.
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The 290x has a blower fan? It pushes the hot air out the back of the case.
 
Hmmm just got my cards and got them installed. I ordered the HIS cards because Newegg screwed up my order for the B4 pre-release ones (charged me then had to void out my charges because they were out of stock). On the side of the HIS card, it says, "Radeon R9 290". But then there's a little white sticker that says "HIS R9 290 X". In the Catalyst hardware information page, it says, "AMD Radeon R9 200 Series". How do I know I am getting what I paid for?
 
Aquineas said:
Hmmm just got my cards and got them installed. I ordered the HIS cards because Newegg screwed up my order for the B4 pre-release ones (charged me then had to void out my charges because they were out of stock). On the side of the HIS card, it says, "Radeon R9 290". But then there's a little white sticker that says "HIS R9 290 X". In the Catalyst hardware information page, it says, "AMD Radeon R9 200 Series". How do I know I am getting what I paid for?
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Did you not get the box the cards came in?
 
naticus said:
Did you not get the box the cards came in?
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Yes I did, but the information on the boxes is conflicting. In big red letters, it says R9 290, and then on a smaller sticker, it says R9 290x. I used GPU-Z and it doesn't provide much clarification, indicating that it's an R9 200 (well of course it is). In any case, the other info on GPU-Z is matching other R9 290X users.
 
FYI these are running at around 43-45° on water under load with uber settings (no flash). Reference PCB is very nice, the cooler is holding this card back.
 
Aquineas said:
Yes I did, but the information on the boxes is conflicting. In big red letters, it says R9 290, and then on a smaller sticker, it says R9 290x. I used GPU-Z and it doesn't provide much clarification, indicating that it's an R9 200 (well of course it is). In any case, the other info on GPU-Z is matching other R9 290X users.
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don't know if they still do it but if you look directly on the card right above the PCI-E pins there should be writing on it that says the exact model of the card. heatsink might cover it but i doubt it.
 
DarkStryke said:
FYI these are running at around 43-45° on water under load with uber settings (no flash).
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Thanks for info but do you happen to have the details on the water cooling loop used and the ambient temp when that was measured? Must be a pretty well done water cooling loop to get those temps though!:D
 
Still no major manufacturer offering non-reference coolers on the R9 290's, I am disappointed. Fortunately, not in a hurry to spend money. :)
 
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