First AMD Card in Years

E

Eradan

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 7, 2006
Messages
1,188
Picked up a PowerColor TurbuDuo R9 280X on Craiglist for $125 today. I'm told it's 9 months old and it looks new. Specs say it's clocked at 880Mhz but can be boosted to 1030Mhz. I guess I need to figure out how to do that. Is there a particular app I should use for overclocking? Anything else I should know about this card...couldn't find much about it before I bought it but for the price, I went for it.

Thanks!
 
Afterburner, its the go to gpu utility. Should be able to give it a nice 1100mhz+ overclock.
 
On nvidia boost kicks in when you need more core clock. On ati however I've found that it just stays at the advertised boost clock regardless. Either way, afterburner is one of the standard softwares for oc. I prefer it to sapphires tri-x software.
 
I would recommend putting the card through its paces immediately, if you're buying it Used.
Tahiti has incredibly high failure rates -- the 280X in particular -- and with its propensity for mining rigs, the risk is increased substantially.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm trying to scare you, that's not my intention. :)
 
Agree with TaintedSquirrel. Test that puppy ASAP! OC it with afterburner and while you're on MSI's site download Kombustor which is a very lite but decent graphics card stresser.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
I would recommend putting the card through its paces immediately, if you're buying it Used.
Tahiti has incredibly high failure rates -- the 280X in particular -- and with its propensity for mining rigs, the risk is increased substantially.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm trying to scare you, that's not my intention. :)
Click to expand...

High failure rate? I mined the frack out of AMD cards, including Tahiti, and didn't manage to kill a one.

In milk crates. Outside. In the garage. In the desert. Sand and dust everywhere
 
It seems AMD stole Tainted's wife, as he has it out for the company. I have had numerous Tahiti cards without a single issue.
 
MrC4 said:
It seems AMD stole Tainted's wife, as he has it out for the company. I have had numerous Tahiti cards without a single issue.
Click to expand...
ASUS 280X artifacting, 635 replies.
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?43057-R9-280x-DirectCU-II-Top-Artifacts!!

280X Toxic artifacting, 192 replies.
https://www.sapphireforum.com/showt...-Sapphire-Toxic-Problem!-Artifacts!-New-VBios

Gigabyte had to release 3 revisions of the same card. First review Feb 2015 (280X launched October 2013).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125726

My summary of AMD failure rates:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1861702&highlight=

I would be very cautious buying 280X's but hey, I haven't read anything bad about the TurboDuos.
 
I mined with my turboduo for months and now its in my main pc because I'm too cheap to buy a new card. Its been great, overclocked the whole time, never given me any issues whatsoever. In fact, its probably the best card I've ever owned
 
Tahitis have been through a lot from the mining craze. I just had to send my Hd 7970 back I got from ebay. Once I ran it through 3dmark, there was static shown throughout. My replacement works fine.
For the miners, they are reliable as all hell. As soon as they are resold, however, it is luck of the draw. So don't rip a guy for stating something that is a real concern.
I would think the 280x would be better since they would not have been mining as long as the 7970 cards. Overall, I am still happy with my 7970 ebay purchases. I was 2 for 3 on success and the reference one clocks past 1200 mhz easily with a 76% asic.
 
Only thing I noticed when I got it home and installed is coil whine. I didn't notice it when I demo'd the card before I brought home because of the guy's case and his A/C was running near the PC. It's pretty obnoxious and had I heard it then, I would have walked away. He won't give me money back so I'm stuck. From what I've read, including a statement from PowerColor, the coil whine will not impair the card whatsoever. Its seems to run okay except from some stuttering in the Metro 2033 benchmark but looking into that indicates this to be normal as well. Either way, I'm stuck with it.
 
Nihilus1 said:
Tahitis have been through a lot from the mining craze. I just had to send my Hd 7970 back I got from ebay. Once I ran it through 3dmark, there was static shown throughout. My replacement works fine.
For the miners, they are reliable as all hell. As soon as they are resold, however, it is luck of the draw. So don't rip a guy for stating something that is a real concern.
I would think the 280x would be better since they would not have been mining as long as the 7970 cards. Overall, I am still happy with my 7970 ebay purchases. I was 2 for 3 on success and the reference one clocks past 1200 mhz easily with a 76% asic.
Click to expand...

VRAM pads were most likely gone or barely left. Bought one of my old 7970s off newegg open box and when I was putting the water block on it I noticed that there weren't any vrm pads on it lol
 
Reality said:
VRAM pads were most likely gone or barely left. Bought one of my old 7970s off newegg open box and when I was putting the water block on it I noticed that there weren't any vrm pads on it lol
Click to expand...
FWIW you can shine a flashlight or something underneath the heatsink and check the pads. Quick solution if you don't want to tear the card apart.
 
Eradan said:
Only thing I noticed when I got it home and installed is coil whine. I didn't notice it when I demo'd the card before I brought home because of the guy's case and his A/C was running near the PC. It's pretty obnoxious and had I heard it then, I would have walked away. He won't give me money back so I'm stuck. From what I've read, including a statement from PowerColor, the coil whine will not impair the card whatsoever. Its seems to run okay except from some stuttering in the Metro 2033 benchmark but looking into that indicates this to be normal as well. Either way, I'm stuck with it.
Click to expand...

There might not have been any coil whine on his system.
The PSU can trigger it as well.
Different PSUs, sometimes different result.

Try another PSU.
 
I've fixed shitloads of artifacting Tahiti's with the oven technique. It's really hard to kill the chip even with constant load and 24/7 use (mining), it's usually the heat which breaks solder joints if they weren't properly reflow soldered in the first place.

I actually own a small reflow oven and I've fixed all kinds of components with it, ranging from video cards to game consoles and mobo's.
 
Nenu said:
There might not have been any coil whine on his system.
The PSU can trigger it as well.
Different PSUs, sometimes different result.

Try another PSU.
Click to expand...

I probably will do just that. He was running a Corsair 750HX and I'm using an Antec Earthwatts EA-650. This Antec isn't modular and cable management is a pain in the ass.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top