ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II OC Detailed – Clocked at 1050 MHz and Available In Red and Gold Flav

Gregster · 17 Dec 2013 at 09:27

Make said:
I thought they usually help to dissipate the residual heat, as it gets spread over a larger area from the hotspots?

I do know aftermarket-backplates usually are for visuals only, but I genuinely thought the manufacturer fitted ones are helpful as well.

A guy on OCN.net tested overclocks with and without and he could clock the memory higher without. Makes sense to me, as the heat can't directly escape. A fan over the back of the PCB would do a better job of cooling than a back plate.

Make · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:16

Gregster said:
A guy on OCN.net tested overclocks with and without and he could clock the memory higher without. Makes sense to me, as the heat can't directly escape. A fan over the back of the PCB would do a better job of cooling than a back plate.

Interesting, thanks.

Didn't know the "backside cooling" (No funny thoughts here) can actually affect an OC, I thought it might just be a +1/-1c on temps.

Silent_Scone · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:17

As above I'm unsure whether or not to use the EK backplates on my 780s. Can't see they'll do much good other than trap heat rising. Although on water I don't think it's as much of an issue.

budwozza · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:17

Gregster said:
A guy on OCN.net tested overclocks with and without and he could clock the memory higher without. Makes sense to me, as the heat can't directly escape. A fan over the back of the PCB would do a better job of cooling than a back plate.

Do the back plates make contact with the components, if so I would suggest that with decent airflow in your case that a back plate could be beneficial as it would help to sink away the heat.

Surely manufactures could make a nice looking heat sink style back plate?

Boomstick777 · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:25

pgi947 said:
I do like how the colours are just stickers as imo it looks much better without any on

Ha, agreed, I would just leave them off. Really liking this Asus card. Almost tempted to sell my vanilla and grab one. To much hassle though

Geeman1979 · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:26

MjFrosty said:
As above I'm unsure whether or not to use the EK backplates on my 780s. Can't see they'll do much good other than trap heat rising. Although on water I don't think it's as much of an issue.

Noticed no difference in temps with my Classifieds with the back plates on or off.

Gunda · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:28

i just want to know when Overclockers are getting them in stock

newhit · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:38

Very clever marketing by ASUS. Selling both red and gold.

Was it MSI that got a bit of flak about its yellow only fan on the Lightning?

Gibbo · 17 Dec 2013 at 10:47

Gunda said:
i just want to know when Overclockers are getting them in stock

BOOOM:-

Asus Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Red/Gold @ £499.99 inc VAT

The new card benefits from exclusive ASUS GPU Tweak, an easy-to-use tuning tool for instant performance boosts, 4GB of super-fast GDDR5 memory for the best gaming experience at the highest resolutions, and incorporates AMD Eyefinity and TrueAudio technologies to enable expansive multi-display setups and bring in-game audio to life with more accurate environmental sounds.

R9 290X also includes support for both DirectX® 11.2 and AMD's new Mantle application programming interface (API) for great handling of even the most-demanding PC games and includes a free full game - the brilliant Battlefield 4™ from EA Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment™ (DICE).

The new ASUS R9 290X has a unique advantage in the shape of GPU Tweak, an exclusive ASUS tool that helps users to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the Radeon R9 290X GPU. This includes the ability to control finely GPU and video-memory clock speeds and voltages, cooling-fan speeds and power-consumption thresholds - so overclocking is both made easy and can be carried out with high confidence.

R9 290X is equipped with 4GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory, allowing gamers to push their favorite titles much further by upping in-game visuals to maximum resolutions. The new card also includes AMD Eyefinity technology to broaden the gaming landscape, so gamers can expand the playing field across up to six independent displays, via DisplayPort or DVI.

Specification:-
- GPU: Hawaii XT
- Stream Processors: 2816
- ROPS: 64
- Core Speed: 1050MHz
- Memory Speed: 5400Mhz
- Memory interface: 512-Bit
- Memory capacity: 4096MB GDDR5
- PCI-Express X16 lane required
- 600W or greater PSU required
- Power Connectors: 8-pin + 6-pin required
- Display Outputs: 2x Dual Link DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
- Comes with BF4 Voucher included in the box
- Warranty: 3yr

Only £499.99 inc VAT.

ORDER NOW

Gregster · 17 Dec 2013 at 11:13

budwozza said:
Do the back plates make contact with the components, if so I would suggest that with decent airflow in your case that a back plate could be beneficial as it would help to sink away the heat.

Surely manufactures could make a nice looking heat sink style back plate?

Geeman1979 said:
Noticed no difference in temps with my Classifieds with the back plates on or off.

I am quoting one of the top benchers on OCN.net and have no first hand experience of having the backplate off or on in truth but the physics side makes sense to me. It is all about getting heat away from the GPU as quickly as possible and a backplate heating up wouldn't do that as far as I can tell.

Gunda · 17 Dec 2013 at 11:36

arghh tough choice between one of these and the gigabyte or MSI one..

Geeman1979 · 17 Dec 2013 at 11:49

Gregster said:
I am quoting one of the top benchers on OCN.net and have no first hand experience of having the backplate off or on in truth but the physics side makes sense to me. It is all about getting heat away from the GPU as quickly as possible and a backplate heating up wouldn't do that as far as I can tell.

No idea!

I suppose it depends on how thick and well vented the back plate is.

erazor51 · 17 Dec 2013 at 12:03

Why are there no heatsinks on the memory chips?

Nightglow · 17 Dec 2013 at 12:11

OcUK got them in stock, so,so tempting, very nice card, or would it be better to wait to the New Year & see what else comes along.

Will we see cards with more than 4gb of memory?

Scooby-DoobyDoo · 17 Dec 2013 at 18:28

Nightglow said:
OcUK got them in stock, so,so tempting, very nice card, or would it be better to wait to the New Year & see what else comes along.

Will we see cards with more than 4gb of memory?

Not in stock says pre-order.

chaparral · 17 Dec 2013 at 18:38

No Green....That it am not buying one then..

Jono8 · 17 Dec 2013 at 18:51

My colour scheme is blue.

Boomstick777 · 18 Dec 2013 at 11:22

ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC Review

It's a beast !

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...64694-asus-r9-290x-directcu-ii-oc-review.html

ASUS’ R9 290X DirectCU II is an amazingly quiet card in both Silent and Performance modes. The Performance Mode in particular is impressive since it achieves noise levels that are nearly impossible to hear over typical system sounds without sacrificing one iota of performance. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, it makes Silent Mode all but pointless. When compared to a stock R9 290X, the difference is like night and day.

As you can see above, even with a few minor modifications to the core voltage and Power Limit, the core easily hit nearly 1.2GHz while the memory evened out at 6016MHz. Both of these represent vast improvements over what was achievable with the reference card. The best part about this is there’s even more room there since fan speeds were at 60% (which was still surprisingly quiet). And yes, there's still more in the tank.

ASUS has improved on every one of the reference design’s shortcomings with a better heatsink, higher frequencies, upgraded components and countless other tweaks, once again proving why so many gamers tend to gravitate towards these DirectCU II cards.

That consistency leads directly to substantially better in-game performance. To put it into context, when in Performance Mode the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC easily outpaces the reference card’s Uber Mode while maintaining a noise level below NVIDIA’s reference GTX 780 Ti. That’s impressive to say the least.

If anything, the R9 290X DirectCU II has proven that AMD’s enthusiast product has what it takes to match NVIDIA’s highest end offerings without a stratospheric price tag. That’s exactly what gamers have been waiting for and ASUS has delivered. You'll just have to wait until January to buy one

Scooby-DoobyDoo · 18 Dec 2013 at 12:01

What most of you are probably wondering right about now is how much the R9 290X DirectCU II OC will actually cost. Truth be told, we have absolutely no idea simply because the high end AMD GPU market is so volatile right now. By towing the company line and saying it will come in at $570 (just $20 above AMD’s initial $550 asking price) would be facetious since everyone knows about the insane markups being leveraged onto most Radeon graphics cards these days. With the LiteCoin mining craze in full swing you can be assured of two things: the DirectCU II won’t come cheap and most won’t end up in the hands of gamers. With that being said, things may clear up once it becomes available in January. .

Cool should come in at about £419.99 when it comes over here

Alghazanth · 18 Dec 2013 at 12:06

Guru3D loved the 290X:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_290x_directcuii_oc_review,1.html

Asus didn't disappoint, those thermal and dB levels are what the card needed all along to truly shine!