Club3D 290X's with EK waterblocks

Hi there, I was thinking of the same set up, and although I've put together custom loops for CPU cooling, I've never cooled a GPU. Which varient of the EK waterblock are you using? Nickle, etc
 
My single 290 is running at 1022 on EK block and tops out at 45C. Still slowly tweaking it up to see how high it'll go before I need more voltage.
1022 clock 5100 memory atm.
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Wow, 49C is a huge drop from 95C. Looking forward to the of results when you start bumping voltage.
 
So I seem to have hit the wall. 1100 gpu and 5400 memory seem to be the limit on stock voltage for this card. Temps never go over 49 so it's not throttling.
 
In theory it does, but right now there are no actual programs that seem to allow full voltage control. If there is one out that I have missed I could use it.
 
I will have benches posted by the end of tomorrow. Getting ready to install them right now while im @ PDXLAN. I have 2 V2 7990's right now so it will be interesting to see how the 2 290X's compare. I have 2 more 290X's coming for a total of 4... I'll have those benches up in about 3 weeks or so... Gotta get new mobo , CPU and PSU.
 
I've been out of the watercooling game for a long long time... I'm running a corsiar all in one CPU watercooler but that's a childs toy.

I have a single 290 on the way Tuesday, will be getting another in the coming weeks, very interested in going full tilt with watercooling this time around as it will be a fun project.

I remember the OLD school water coolingl days (1999-2000) using tupperware, solid copper blocks drilled out on a press, lots of silicon sealant, pumps from fish tanks, and old school heater cores from cars.
 
290X's get 8600 in Firestrike extreme with temps around 45C with a 480 XSPC rad on its own GPU loop with a 4770K @ 4.5Ghz. V2 7990's get around 10,000 with same settings. I had to take the 290X's back out and put the 7990's back in because the 290X's can't support 5 monitors at 144Hz. I will have to wait for either a Eyefinity 6 card or a Lightning edition.
 
290X's get 8600 in Firestrike extreme with temps around 45C with a 480 XSPC rad on its own GPU loop with a 4770K @ 4.5Ghz. V2 7990's get around 10,000 with same settings. I had to take the 290X's back out and put the 7990's back in because the 290X's can't support 5 monitors at 144Hz. I will have to wait for either a Eyefinity 6 card or a Lightning edition.

ouch, 5 screens.:)

does 3 screens support eyefinity 120/144hz without adapters?
 
They must be cooled by the water block.
If not, those temps cant be right.
 
They are, it's a full cover EK block. They seem to top out around 52. My 2nd block shipped today, so hopefully I'll have both cards running on water Wednesday.

Just for kicks. apparently Mechwarrior Online is using just a hair under 3gb of memory running at 7880x1440.

Check that out, the extra gb of ram is already paying for itself.

 
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Nice!
I'm already watercooling my CPU so could easily jump on the bandwagon.
A major thing holding me back is making sure the VRMs can be cooled well.
And 4GB is the amount of ram I want too.
Hmmm.
 
VRM temps always seem to be overlooked in review site OCing results. They have always been the bane of my OC attempts. The VRMs on my 6970 hit 122C regularly on the reference cooler at stock speeds.

If I didn't upgrade so much, I'd still be running water. Got tired of unhooking/hooking it up even with quick connects and housing it all in another ATX case. Good info here, thanks for posting it.
 
more i see the more i wonder why AMD let that awful heatsink out the door
the chip is capable
only thing i can think of is that they where going to undercut NV on price heat and noise be damned

any one have power use numbers under water?
wondering if there is any thing to AMDs "it needs to run at 95c to be most efficient"
 
Allow me:

Q. What is a single tech that AMD is currently working on that you don't feel there is enough buzz about? Something possibly overlooked or overshadowed but to which we should really be paying attention?

A. My favorite is the new implementation of PowerTune on the 290X and 290. There's a lot of doom and gloom around the 95C temperature, because people are used to a world where the product is designed to run as cold as possible... but that's not the world we're living in with these units. The doom and gloom is based on an old viewpoint.

95C is the optimal temperature that allows the board to convert its power consumption into meaningful performance for the user. Every single component on the board is designed to run at that temperature throughout the lifetime of the product. If you throttle the temperature down below that threshold, then the board must in turn consume less power to respect the new temperature limit. Consuming less power means lowering vcore and engine clock, which means less performance.

You want to take full advantage of product TDP to maximize performance, and that is accomplished with a 95C ideal operating temperature for the 290 and 290X. Even with a third-party cooling solution, like the Accelero 3 some users have started deploying, the logic of PowerTune will still try to maximize TDP by allowing temperatures to float higher until some other limit is met (voltage, clock, fan RPM, whatever). It's so bloody smart and it kills me that more people don't fully understand it.

I believe he's just saying that 95C isn't a big deal, not that the card HAS to run at 95C to get the best performance. Aftermarket cooling will just lower the temps and give it more headroom, they won't artifically throttle anything.
 
Basically it's just "spin" to get people off of the subject of "these run hot as shit with our cheap cooler". There is absolutely no science to it needing to run hot.

Mine runs great at 49C load on water. My vrms do sometimes touch 60C though.
 
There is hard science, hotter electrons move faster! <- sarcasm alert
 
Basically it's just "spin" to get people off of the subject of "these run hot as shit with our cheap cooler". There is absolutely no science to it needing to run hot.

Mine runs great at 49C load on water. My vrms do sometimes touch 60C though.
They aren't saying it needs to run hot, they are just saying that the 95C threshold is what the card was designed for, and setting the temperature target below 95C will result in less performance due to throttling.

If you improve the cooling and the cards run cooler it won't negatively impact performance.
 
yes... they did

God, you are the worst troll I have seen since the launch of the 290/X, other then DPI perhaps:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:...Please learn to read, or just stay the hell outta the AMD GPU section if you are going to do NOTHING but troll...These are KICKASS cards PERIOD. I have the money to order either a 780, 780TI, 290 or 290X..I chose the best of all 4, the 290. It the best card performance per dollar PERIOD..

You can buy a 290 and an Arctic Cooling/GELID HSF and even pay $40 for a local computer shop to install it for you and it STILL be cheaper, FASTER, and QUIETER then a reference 780..It will also allow you to O/C, which on stock voltage will allow you to outrun a 780TI, all while saving $175-250 (depending on if you pay some else to install the cooler)...

I will patiently wait for you to reply about much better a Team Green card is:rolleyes:..

They aren't saying it needs to run hot, they are just saying that the 95C threshold is what the card was designed for, and setting the temperature target below 95C will result in less performance due to throttling.

If you improve the cooling and the cards run cooler it won't negatively impact performance.

I am certainly glad you can read better then Elios can..I thought anyone with a brain could understand what they were saying..
 
Are you waiting for another card to tri-fire, or going straight to a quad setup with the 290x?
 
What boards have enough pci-e bandwidth to support 4 290s?

I believe most if not all of the Intel X79 boards, and possibly any board with a PLX bridge chip to increase the number of PCI-E lanes like those custom X79 EVGA boards.

If I recall, I think it was Brent that said something similar. You may need one of the following:
  1. Board with four x16 PCI-E 3.0 slots at x16 speeds each with Socket 2011 and X79 chipset and/or with a PLX bridge chip on board.
  2. Board with four x16 PCI-E 3.0 slots but two at x16 speeds, and the other two at x8 speeds with a possible PLX bridge chip.
  3. Board with four x16 PCI-E 3.0 slots but one at x16 speeds, the other three at x8 speeds; or all 4 at x8 speeds without a PLX bridge chip.
  4. Board with four x16 PCI-E 2.0 slots at x16, x16, x8, x8 speeds.
I believe #1 is mostly on Socket 2011 X79 boards only with a PLX bridge chip and #2 most common on Socket 2011 X79 boards without a PLX chip.

#2 and #3 should cover most of the higher end Socket 1150 Z87 boards if those exist.

#4 should cover a very small number of Socket AM3+ 990FX boards but would be very bandwidth limited.

I think these would be the only 990FX boards to do it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131877
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131876

For Socket 1150, Newegg only lists this board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131998

Brent will probably clarify it further, but I think that's correct.
 
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Ugh, when you think about it and seeing a single AMD 290/290X can possibly max a single PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot (x16 speed), it's oddly funny that you can only do Quad CrossfireX on an Intel X79 board without being severely bandwidth limited

But, it's also funny that very little Z87 boards from Intel's side can barely do it and practically none on AMD's side unless you want to be bandwidth limited.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131971

This is the board I think I'm going to get with a 4930K.

I have 3 290X's right now but can only run 2 of them until I get the new board and cpu which might be a few weeks away.

I had the 2 of the 290X's in my rig last weekend. I had trouble trying to get the 5 monitors to run @ 144Hz. The new MST hub only allows 2 144Hz monitors to be connected to it. So I tried using 2 of the DVI-D's for 2 monitors , the MST hub for 2 monitors and an HDMI cable for the 5th and the Eyefinity group would never create. I am going to try again this weekend and try it with a HDMI 1.4 cable ( I only had access to a cheap generic HDMI cable last weekend). I put my 2 V2 7990's back in for the time being. Just got back from AMD Fan Day in San Jose last night. ( I live near Seattle ). 5 of us drove down there for the BF4 tourney. We did really well in the tourney but came up a little short winning it.

If I can't get these 5 monitors to work off of the 290X's I will be sending the cards back to my sponsor and waiting for a non-reference version to come out that will support 5 monitors @ 144Hz @ 5400x1920. I heard non-reference will be out in Dec for some of the board partners.
 
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