Choosing the right 290

[TaintedSquirrel]

I'm patiently waiting for the aftermarket 290's to appear so I can hopefully snatch one up, but I'm having a LOT of trouble deciding which one to go with.

Originally I was leaning for the ASUS DirectCU but I've heard a lot of horror stories about their RMA and I've personally had some problems with ASUS graphics cards in the past.

Then I looked into the Windforce, but I'm not sure about the quality of the cooling on the rest of the components besides the GPU.

Here's an album of the current listing of 280x's for visual comparison:

http://imgur.com/a/UK2rv

 

[dragonstongue]

ASUS might treat us differently here in Canada, but I have had the least amount of issues with RMA for Asus then other companies however that being said, they do not currently make the best coolers, they do tend to be louder and hotter then others with custom coolers, notably Sapphire and their dual fan-VaporX-Atomic- and definitely MSI with their Twin Frozr line. this is who I go for is MSI here in Canada as they make great coolers, their own very nicely done overclock/tweaking side(afterburner) and did do one RMA to them for a card was having voltage issues, turn around was just under 1 week from when it left my hands, they sent me a new card that still had slight voltage issues though not nearly as severe.

I would review the crap out of whatever you plan on getting, blower style is the best IMHO but there is no one that makes a good custom blower, or you could get a compatible cooler and NZXT G10

 

[Kc0r8y]

I would hold off until AMD gets the drivers figured out. I already returned one 290 because of black screen problems. Also their drivers are still in beta.