Boomstick777 said:

At least you tried it for yourself, bit of a pain to return it, but you will be happier with better cooler in the long run. This is why TTL's reviews and Linus were good because they told it how it is, and got a load of flack from AMD fans in doing so, but if it saves someone buying something their not happy with, I say good on em. Great GPU but just to hot on reference cooler. Those reviews were spot on tbh. Those that are watercooling it doesn't effect.



Epic scores, I'm pretty much set on picking a non ref 290X to play with. These scores are awesome.

Click to expand...

Well put Boomstick. Linus is a bit of a tail end but for me he was bang on the money..he give it a top mark for performance and if thats all you are interested in its the card to buy for sure but cooling and noise have to factor into the equation for me,sadly ruling the ref version out for now. Looking forward to the 3rd party coolers coming though as I'm getting that itch

thanks for claryfing Gibbo
I started to be stared there is something baaaad going off with my card. Would be shame to return it cause i waited for it like kid for candy
I can bench at 1070 with artefacts at 55% fan speed
Lack of sleep i tell ya. Benchning since 5am

So just need to wait for good bios Good drivers Good Water block
Looking forward to many things now

For all the rough edges to TTL's 'performances', I do find him a worthwhile source of information.

+1 Boom.

Is anyone unable to redeem the BF4 coupon code? I'm just getting UID is invalid

Me too

Kaap that score is madness I've taken mine out for now but might have to force feed it some juice..

Have you done much gaming on it Stanners?

MjFrosty said:

Kaap that score is madness I've taken mine out for now but might have to force feed it some juice..

Click to expand...

Yes they seem to do very well in 3dmark11 and Firestrike.

Gregster said:

Have you done much gaming on it Stanners?

Click to expand...

Yeah a fair bit of world of tanks, nothing yet benchmark wise or to push it.
Will have a play on other games tomorrow.

Got my Asus 290X BF4 Edition today,

Mini review,


Card is huge!, at least compared to the 280X i returned and the 6950 i was using before install it.

Packaging |ASUS 290X BF4 Edition|
----------------------------------
Comes in a decent looking box sporting BF4 pictures, inside contains the card, door hanger, 6-8pin adaptor, drivers and utility CD along with the voucher for BF4.






Aesthetics
------------
When we first started seeing pics of the 290X i wasn't too fussed tbh, thought it looked a little cheap, but after holding it and getting a closer look, it's actually looks really damn good imo and solid.

Performance
------------
After having a quick play with the MSI 280X i returned, i didn't expect to be blow away but the performance of the 290X.

I'm happy to say i was totally wrong, THIS CARD IS FAST!! i'm blown away by the performance of it tbh.
Not issues with it so far even though it appears some members haven't been so lucky.

Overclocking
-------------
|Voltage adjustment available through Asus gpu tweak but not afterburner as of yet|

Great experience so far, put the clocks to 1100/1375 no volts added, fan speed set @55% and the max temps i saw while benchmarking were 82c.

Benchmarks
------------

All tested carried out using Windows 8 and using latest beta drivers 13.11 v6?


3dmark firestrike @4.6 1100/1375
10662 with AMD Radeon R9 290X(1x) and Intel Core i7-4770K
Graphics Score 12237
Physics Score 13088
Combined Score 4754
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/1486297?
__________________________________________________________



3dmark firestrike extreme @4.6 1100/1375
5437 with AMD Radeon R9 290X(1x) and Intel Core i7-4770K
Graphics Score 5695
Physics Score 13108
Combined Score 2452
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/1486341?
__________________________________________________________
Heaven Valley

Extreme Preset @4.6 1100/1375

Score 2764
Avg fps 66.1
__________________________________________________________

Heaven 4.0

Extreme Preset @4.6 1100/1375

Score 1458
Avg fps 57.9
__________________________________________________________
Tomb Radier Benchmark @4.6 1100/1375

Max settings 1080P Tressfx + SSAA x4

Min 36.8
Max 68.0
Avg 50.6
__________________________________________________________


More coming!

Just a few comparisons. Nothing thats gospel but running latest drivers on both cards.

First impressions are as expected. It's a booming card for sub £500. However as far as the reference cards go the cooler is just simply too loud to get any respectable clocks out of besides the occasional benchmark. Gaming it's just too much....ventilation is really important if you're going to keep this card standard.

That said it's arguably quick enough straight out of the tin and I would recommend it to anyone looking to upgrade in that price range.

If you're not going to watercool it however, I would honestly just get the 780GTX. It's well rounded and the cooler is simply much better on the GK110s, and it shows drastically if you're bothered by aesthetics of these types of things.

Obviously this is with minimal tinkering, just a light overclock and straight out of the box. Not enough hours in the day! Need more holiday .

Oh and another thing is the coolwhine. It's really bad on my card. The worst I've heard in awhile.

Kaapstad said:

Score P16581

AMD Radeon R9 290X(1x)

Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition Processor

Graphics Score 17135

Physics Score 16382

Combined Score 13544

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7377071

Check the graphics score.

LtMatt put the hanky away.

Click to expand...

Proud of you Kaapi boi. I knew you wouldn't let me down. After all the crap written about the card, tell me how it is. What do you think? Good card, bad card? Put aside the heat/cooler crap. People buying a reference AMD card should know what to expect.

Good card for £400 vs a £800 titan, or not??

I assume AIB cards will make things much better.

So you think everyone that buys a high end GPU should expect it to run intolerably loud and warm? Lol.

LtMatt said:

Proud of you Kaapi boi. I knew you wouldn't let me down. After all the crap written about the card, tell me how it is. What do you think? Good card, bad card? Put aside the heat/cooler crap. People buying a reference AMD card should know what to expect.

Good card for £400 vs a £800 titan, or not??

I assume AIB cards will make things much better.

Click to expand...

Money no object the Titan's are a bit better but not £400 better. As to performance it is a case of horses for courses, one is better at some things the other is better at other things.

As to the cooler noise, in normal use they are not that loud. If you turn the fans up to 100% it sounds like your mum doing the hovering while you are trying to watch TV.

As far as temps go, the cards don't get that hot when benching with the fans turned up. In normal use they will run hotter to keep the noise to a minimum.

All in all they are nice cards with a solid feel to them.

Kaapstad said:

Money no object the Titan's are a bit better but not £400 better. As to performance it is a case of horses for courses, one is better at some things the other is better at other things.

As to the cooler noise, in normal use they are not that loud. If you turn the fans up to 100% it sounds like your mum doing the hovering while you are trying to watch TV.

As far as temps go, the cards don't get that hot when benching with the fans turned up. In normal use they will run hotter to keep the noise to a minimum.

All in all they are nice cards with a solid feel to them.

Click to expand...

Fair enough, as i expected pretty much. Keen to see what AIB coolers add and what you can get from the with water cooling.

What sort of temps were you running at 1.3v in firestrike? In other words is it worth me plugging it back in lol

You getting rid of yours already Frosty?

I don't know yet. I'm probably going to put it under water when I have time. Depends on what Nvidia come up with.

Get a LN2 license

No, I'm not on crack cocaine. (No offence 8-pack)