XFX Radeon R9 290X Double Dissipation

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The Hardware Canucks crew just posted a review of the XFX Radeon R9 290X Double Dissipation this morning for those of you interested. For comparison purposes, you can see our evaluation here.

The star of this particular show is the R9 290X Double Dissipation or “DD” for short which happens to be the mid-tier card in XFX’s current R9 290X lineup. While they have a completely reference design and the higher end, overclocked and custom cooled Black Edition, the DD is equipped with stock clock speeds and the same GHOST 2 heatsink as the Black Edition.
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I know this is wrong but when I first glanced at the title I thought it said "double penetration" :eek:

Because, you know, dual video cards really "penetrate" those benchmarks?
 
It's great that Burticus' comment was the first. That gem shouldn't get buried where people may not see it.
 
I really want to know how XFX made this happen, considering a can of soda would have made a better cooler than the old DD POS.

"We should also mention that the VRM temperatures a longtime issue for XFX heatsinks- remained at 76°C throughout the test....."
 
Sodapopjones said:
I really want to know how XFX made this happen, considering a can of soda would have made a better cooler than the old DD POS.

"We should also mention that the VRM temperatures a longtime issue for XFX heatsinks- remained at 76°C throughout the test....."
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Probably because everyone complained about it.
 
Well... I had a moment of clouded judgement, and have one on the way from Amazon. It was $649.99, I had a $200 gift card from the Holidays... so I more or less paid MSRP-ish with taxes and shipping... I guess?

Anyway, I'll let you know how it fares once it gets here on Friday/Monday.
 
Sodapopjones said:
I really want to know how XFX made this happen, considering a can of soda would have made a better cooler than the old DD POS.

"We should also mention that the VRM temperatures a longtime issue for XFX heatsinks- remained at 76°C throughout the test....."
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Are you some kind of engineer? They obviously tested the card WELL above those temperatures. They wouldnt offer a product with a warranty that would fail because of VRM temps.
 
Acoustics review is the complete opposite from the XFX DD CF overview here on H... o_O
 
tobi54 said:
Acoustics review is the complete opposite from the XFX DD CF overview here on H... o_O
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Nice to know how loud the card would be if I had it on an open bench 1 foot from my ear. :rolleyes:

I swear we need some kind of standardized test. I realize they are trying to eliminate room acoustics by putting the mic so close, but that's not anything resembling reality.
 
Igroock said:
Are you some kind of engineer? They obviously tested the card WELL above those temperatures. They wouldnt offer a product with a warranty that would fail because of VRM temps.
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Tell that to their last generation of cards. Your statement does make some sense as to why they could have possibly dropped the lifetime warranty the last gen.
 
Hey there;

My XFX R9 290X DD got here today. I will install it and do a little benchmarking with what little I got - won't be as hardcore benching as the [H] but it's an idea of what this card is capable of.

Here are some pics of it; I'll upload a few more later on once its installed and benched. (Sorry for cel quality pics... but... I was to lazy to get my camera out :p) Let me tell you... it is one sexy lady.

sCDp1rC.jpg


JTkBCuz.jpg


KPwfiQO.jpg
 
Relayer said:
Nice to know how loud the card would be if I had it on an open bench 1 foot from my ear. :rolleyes:

I swear we need some kind of standardized test. I realize they are trying to eliminate room acoustics by putting the mic so close, but that's not anything resembling reality.
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It is standardized for them. The XFX get the same volume as a Titan on their graph. Thats plenty quiet.
 
I was pretty much settled on the DCII until reviews for this card started coming out...
 
Sexy as F*CK! :) Nice buy man. I'd love a Trix 290, but am waiting for 1500 euro in tax returns for months now based on the last job I worked :(
 
I'm still in shock. After what happened with the last generation of cards, to me it seemed like XFX was trying to squeeze as much profit with disregard for their customers, now they even brought back the lifetime warranties.

Tri-X or DD looks like the way to go atm.
 
Hrm, I wonder how this compares to the other non-reference counterparts...
 
Hey there!

Just a small weekend update.

I don't have a complete set of benching tools, so I go by what FPS I get from games I'm playing and 3DMark.

I must mention all this was done with the 13.12 drivers.

At default clocks, the 290X gets me 9,454 on Fire Strike. When I overclocked it to 1.1GHz core and 1.4GHz mem, I squeezed a 10,132 score on Fire Strike.

Temperature wise, I've never seen the card reach 80C; the most I've seen it reach was 78C. I'd never put attention to VRM temps, but I've seen it mentioned in other forums and it seems it's a thing now. While gaming VRM temps have reached 86C.

On Shadow Warrior (2013), with all setting at their highest except Mirrors (disabled) and (FXAAx2), it has never dropped under 100 fps.

The fans are quiet-ish... I think... see, the thing is while testing the card I realized that my HX750 was the culprit for all my fan noise. I always thought the fans on my 680s where very noisy, but when I put the 290X and hear the exact same noise. Here's what I describe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Oh46bc4zY).

So... the fan SEEMS to be quiet. I played setting it to static speeds on MSI Afterburner while on the desktop, so that the PSU didn't kick in. I have to say it only gets noticeable at around 70%, but it didn't get annoying to me up to 85%... but take in mind I'm used to that PSU noise and I do have the PC about a foot from me on the desk... so...

While all this was happening, AMD released the 14.1 drivers. I don't have BF4, so I can't comment on the whole Mantle thing. But I installed them anyway. I have to say, I wasn't able to overclock the card successfully with the 14.1s or at least, I can't get the 1.1GHz on the core; the driver keeps crashing while running 3DMark or a game.

I think I will go back to the 13.12s. Like I said, I don't play BF4, so... I'd rather have my overclock than an API I still don't use.

I'm at the office right now. I'll post some pictures when I get back home.

===== EDIT ======

Oh, yeah... mining... I'm no expert on mining, so with my little knowledge I was able to get around 700Kh/s. Not much, I know, but again, I didn't fiddle much with the optimization settings. Remember I said that while gaming the VRM never got over 86C? Well, while mining I did see it reach 104C, so... yeah.
 
Beautiful card you got there Killerfly, probably the best looking cooler out now. Where those temps with the oc or at stock speeds?

As a side note i wonder what kind of OC would be possible if the cards shipped with two 8pins, it seems they are limited by power available.
 
rumartinez89 said:
Beautiful card you got there Killerfly, probably the best looking cooler out now. Where those temps with the oc or at stock speeds?

As a side note i wonder what kind of OC would be possible if the cards shipped with two 8pins, it seems they are limited by power available.
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wouldn't be surprised if you see dual 8 pin cards once the major companies have enough cherry picked gpu's. but i also think a lot of the overclock limitations are down to the actual components on the board which we'll probably see even more customized ones later.
 
I've seen someone on OCN that was having stupidly high VRM temps, I'm hoping it was just the one card, since BLT FINALLY got the cards in today and I placed my order....
 
With my last thread asking about brands earlier, and seeing that ShopBLT may have more in stock by end of February, I may end up buying this over the Gigabyte Windforce version.

The ones that own it, how are the fans so far and cooling?
 
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