Is the AMD Radeon R9 290X too hot?

[Orangey]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/10/28/is-the-amd-radeon-r9-290x-too-hot/

So what can we conclude from all this? Well, the situation may not look great for the AMD R9 290X but bear in mind just how extreme a situation it was facing. You'd be mad to run a card of its calibre in such an airflow restricted environment. That said, it's probably conceivable that a case such as this with a solid side panel (a window for instance) and with a couple of hard drives would start to restrict things enough that you may see a performance hit of 1-2fps when used for prolonged periods. Either that or you put up with the extra noise.

It's possible you'd also encounter a degree of performance throttling when running the cards in Crossfire (sadly we don't yet have two cards to test this), even in a larger, better ventilated case, due to the proximity of the cards restricting airflow. Though based on our evidence this would be true of the GTX 780 too, to a certain degree.

I think all this noise and heat talk is overblown, every time I see numbers the 780 isn't actually far off the 290X.

 

[Gerard]

Considering a load of ati's past cards routinely ramped up into the 90c+ region I'm still not sure as to why its such a "shock horror" issue as if its never occurred before. 6990, 6970 all hit in the 90'c range and that was only a couple of years ago. Are peoples memories that bad?

 

[Suarez7]

The card itself operates at that temperature fine, the problem is it heats up the rest of your rig with it. We haven't seen summer temps yet or temps when dust settles in cards and people forget to clean them out.

 

[Rroff]

Its only a problem because certain elements of the AMD fan base endlessly ripped the **** when the boot was on the other foot but can't take it when its the other way around.

For the most part no one really cares.

 

[straxusii]

I think all this noise and heat talk is overblown, every time I see numbers the 780 isn't actually far off the 290X.

A number of owners of 290x in the thread on here see it throttle unless it's in uber mode, they've also commented how loud it is, check the thread out.

Not sure how relevant showing how loud it is a certain fans levels, I'm only interested in how loud a card is in games regardless of what % of the fan that is

Anand shows fan noise as follows in a game: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7457/59326.png

So 780 at 47.5db and 290x quiet mode at 53.3db, given that every 10 decibels is a perceived doubling of volume that is a significant difference. To be fair the 290x is also faster in that game, 35.4 compared to 33.7

 

[VincentHanna]

Mine does throttle at 40%, though to be fair I was using GPU-Z at the time which puts it under full load anyway.

40% fan speed is fine. 55% is a bit loud for my ears.

I can live with 50% speed and it doesn't seem to throttle there so that's a sweet spot for me.

Is it too hot? No
Could AMD's cooling be better? Yes.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Like the article clearly says, a well ventilated enviroment is essential if you're keeping the reference cooler. With the right tweaks the card doesn't get loud, and heat wise - it is meant to operate at those temperatures, so as long as you can maintain ambient temps I don't see it as a problem.

If you're looking to push these cards, (which frankly is what they're all about!) then the reference cooler is insufficient. BUT at normal operation with a slightly reduced voltage 1.225v - 90c target, fan speed 50% max and power target set to 100% the card didn't appear to throttle down from stock clocks and I could barely hear the fan through 3DMark or any other benchmark. Basically what this means is it's not as bad out of the box as people seem to think. It's when you push things it gets interesting.

Ventilation is key!

Just to touch on Crossfire where they mention the 780 GTX. It's 100% true, 3 Titans in SLi on air essentially makes a heat sandwich and the middle card will always throttle eventually. There just isn't enough air flow, so it's pretty safe to say the same thing happens with the 290X, it will just get to it's throttle junction a hell of a lot faster.

 

[L0rdMike]

Dont see how its any louder than my 5870 ref cooler at 100% fan speed.

 

[mmj_uk]

The GTX 780 runs much cooler thus if the top card is running hotter due to restricted airflow it's not going to overheat/throttle. Plus the Titan stock cooler (blower design) is far superior to what AMD offer so you won't have to be stuck with non-reference coolers which dump all of the hot air into the case.

The trouble with 290X is even single card configurations are running at close to the temperature limits, in winter!

Considering a load of ati's past cards routinely ramped up into the 90c+ region I'm still not sure as to why its such a "shock horror" issue as if its never occurred before. 6990, 6970 all hit in the 90'c range and that was only a couple of years ago. Are peoples memories that bad?

They never throttled down before out of the box, with the stock cooler and under normal usage.

 

[straxusii]

Dont see how its any louder than my 5870 ref cooler at 100% fan speed.

It probably isn't because it's a) probably a similar design cooler and b) from memory of when I had a 5870 it sounded like a jet engine when set to 100% (which you would never do under normal operation)

 

[555BUK]

Yes 290X's are too hot for anything other than "Uber clocks", meaning that 1100-1200MHz on air is only good for benchmarks and not extended use because the cards will throttle like mad once they have warmed up. Running a benchmark for 2mins is not the same as playing a game for an hour.

I am sure that aftermarket coolers will provide the antidote, but that just highlights how poo the reference cooler is.

 

[almighty15]

Reference cards.... Only good for water blocks...... So who cares....

 

[uksoldierboy]

The GTX 780 runs much cooler thus if the top card is running hotter due to restricted airflow it's not going to overheat/throttle. Plus the Titan stock cooler (blower design) is far superior to what AMD offer so you won't have to be stuck with non-reference coolers which dump all of the hot air into the case.

The trouble with 290X is even single card configurations are running at close to the temperature limits, in winter!



They never throttled down before.

I just played around 1hr of Crysis 3, max details, max card temp was 76c with the fan @55 (can't be heard while gaming and isn't that loud at all)

Like i said previously, all this talk of running at 95c is wrong at least from what i'm experiencing, maybe if i looped benchmarks for hours it would, but so far after benchmarking the crap out of it and gaming, it's not even close.

 

[MichaelM]

Its only a problem because certain elements of the AMD fan base endlessly ripped the **** when the boot was on the other foot but can't take it when its the other way around.

For the most part no one really cares.

I think it's just hard for people to put these things into context when bombarded with information after a launch. Like the 670's reference coolers where dreadful which could not keep it under the thermal throttle and the PCB's where laughable for a ~£330 RRP. At least the 290X is targeted above mainstream where everyone overclocks and reference cards are just a cheaper alternative for people who are going to watercool it.

 

[Kaapstad]

I just played around 1hr of Crysis 3, max details, max card temp was 76c with the fan @55 (can't be heard while gaming and isn't that loud at all)

Like i said previously, all this talk of running at 95c is wrong at least from what i'm experiencing, maybe if i looped benchmarks for hours it would, but so far after benchmarking the crap out of it and gaming, it's not even close.

+1

 

[555BUK]

ignore, weird delayed double-post thingy. Must be my NVidia graphics card running too hot and screwing things up.

 

[Phixsator]

I understand why one may want to criticize the stock cooler on the 290x cause it is not very impressive. That said though to make up doomtales and to devaluate the entire card due to that 1 thing seems like a load of BS to me. The real battle hasnt even begun yet. This is AMD tossing out a b*tchslap toward nVidia to get them to respond and when the new year begin so will the real war between 290x on aftermarket cooling, like windforce, directCU and so on, vs nVidia 780ti. Can say that im looking forward to the benchmarks.

 

[Stanners]

+1

Another +1 here. I came from a 680 and the noise is no different. This is with a small overclock and with the fan set at 55%.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Here's a quick pic of my card and temps while idling

Don't get me wrong here,

the 780s do run cooler and probably represent a better buy if you looking for a card that has similar performance but is cooler and quieter.

But don't be put off by all the talk of the reference 290X's running boiling temps and sounding like a jet fighter because it simply isn't true.

Although they are as fast as a jet fighter

 

[sieze2]

The card itself operates at that temperature fine, the problem is it heats up the rest of your rig with it. We haven't seen summer temps yet or temps when dust settles in cards and people forget to clean them out.

If two different cards are both running the same wattage (TDP), and both are holding a constant temperature, then I can assure you they are both generating the same amount of heat, irrespective of the GPU temperature.

For example: if one card GPU runs at a constant 95 degrees @ 250 watts and another card GPU at 65 degrees @ 250 watts then they are both creating 250 watts of heat.

The misconception of a hot GPU generating more heat than a cold running GPU is nonsense. They both generate the same amount of heat.