HALP - Which R9 290 Aftermarket do I get!? :S

RyanF · 3 Jan 2014 at 18:58

So a few days ago the only choice to make was between Gigabyte and Sapphire. Now there are MSI and Asus variations on there as well and they are all at practically the same price. I get that the stock speeds differ from card to card but if you're going to be overclocking it, does that even matter?

As for the cooling itself, which would you choose based onthe performance of the fans? I'm holding off getting a reference 290 because everywhere I've read the cooling is absolute garbage. I'm new in this market and have no idea how the different cooling fans perform. If it matters I'm going for a £1.5k build and have around £350-400 to spend on a GPU.

Smudge · 3 Jan 2014 at 19:11

I'd go for one of the aftermarkets now even if the price is a little inflated and they are a bit tough to get your hands on. OCUK are your best bet to get one it seems. I have a ref sapphire, but I needed a new gpu a few months ago and its served me well, so I don't mind "upgrading it" in some fashion now to get it cool & quiet. It really isn't that bad at stock, but it has massive headroom with a decent cooler.

If you read the different reviews, some of the new ones have also upgraded the components on the boards for better overclocking etc. might be worth going for one of them.

All of the custom cooler versions seem to be on par with what you can do with aftermarket cooling options. Obviously without voiding your warranty!

An x3, gpu bracket+aio will cost you about the same/more than a custom cooled 290 now, a gelid might save you a few quid but void warrenty and a WC block needs the rest of the WC setup to get it going.

Sorry I cant be more specific.

kefan77 · 3 Jan 2014 at 19:14

because of the past experience, I'd say Asus.

but the best thing you can do is wait for some reviews.

nitram100 · 3 Jan 2014 at 19:16

Whichever one comes in stock first! These things are taking an age to arrive

hakank68 · 4 Jan 2014 at 23:42

Will we see a price drop when they come out, they seem to be heavily price compared to reference.

nitram100 · 4 Jan 2014 at 23:52

Serioualy doubt it, these are gonna sell like hotcakes. I have had bad luck with everything Gigabyte over the past year so avoiding them and I want a 3 year warranty so MSI is the one i'm going for.

hakank68 · 5 Jan 2014 at 02:07

Will ocuk be stocking the Msi twin frozr ones? And do you reckon it willbe cheaper than the toxics

murah · 5 Jan 2014 at 02:41

Gigabyte/EVGA/Asus would be my only ones I would consider

The Asus DCUII cooler is frankly fantastic but asus come at a slight premium (Normally they include a backplate on the gpu)

Gigabytes WFx3 cooler is very quiet and performs around the same as the DCUII plus they Finally dropped their silly blue PCB in favour of black.

EVGA coolers I'm not too up in the know about however a friend just bought an EVGA 780 and says its very quiet / cool.

As long as its not ref and you choose a manufacturer with decent warranty you are A-OK

Liamz51 · 5 Jan 2014 at 09:56

With all things being equal I probably wouldn't go with the Twin Frozr, I had it on a GTX570 and it was a fantastic cooler. However in it's current iteration on my new R9 280x it seems to be much nosier by comparison.

hakank68 · 5 Jan 2014 at 11:18

Only of EVGA did coolers for AMD

thefogo · 5 Jan 2014 at 12:07

Liamz51 said:
With all things being equal I probably wouldn't go with the Twin Frozr, I had it on a GTX570 and it was a fantastic cooler. However in it's current iteration on my new R9 280x it seems to be much nosier by comparison.

The 280x twin frozr is pretty much the quietest you can get.
From guru 3D: 'the card is drop dead silent '.

SPARTdAN · 5 Jan 2014 at 12:48

I've gone with the Asus 290 DirectCU II OC - before that was listed here I had the Sapphire Tri-X on order. The Asus has a custom PCB and backplate which the Sapphire Tri-X does not.

David Bisset · 5 Jan 2014 at 12:58

The Asus would be my pick, apparently it also vents quite a lot of the heat out the back of the case which may help if going crossfire

Liamz51 · 5 Jan 2014 at 19:35

thefogo said:
The 280x twin frozr is pretty much the quietest you can get.
From guru 3D: 'the card is drop dead silent '.

Yeah - looking into it a bit more it could be that I'm experiencing some coil whine rather then noise from the cooler

sportbilly · 5 Jan 2014 at 21:25

David Bisset said:
The Asus would be my pick, apparently it also vents quite a lot of the heat out the back of the case which may help if going crossfire

That's interesting - can you remember where you read that or have a link.

I'm seriously looking at 2 custom cooled 290 cards and was thinking of the Sapphire Tri-X but not sure how that would fare in such close proximity in crossfire and dumping hot air into case.

The reference 290 have advantage of venting air out of the back if only the cooler was up to keeping the card clock stable.

If the Asus does exhaust a decent amount of heat out of the rear of the case then it will go to the top of my list.

Cheers

OvEr_KiLL · 5 Jan 2014 at 22:18

going for 1 of these myself

both have a back plate on them dont they?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Red £389.99
1 x MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £379.99
Total : £779.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

sportbilly · 6 Jan 2014 at 13:24

This comparison review may help Asus v Sapphire custom cooled 290x - interested in 2 x 290 myself custom cooled whichever works best in crossfire and exhausts as much heat out of the case as possible.

http://www.legitreviews.com/asus-r9...phire-r9-290x-tri-x-video-card-reviews_132158

David Bisset · 6 Jan 2014 at 13:48

sportbilly said:
That's interesting - can you remember where you read that or have a link.

I'm seriously looking at 2 custom cooled 290 cards and was thinking of the Sapphire Tri-X but not sure how that would fare in such close proximity in crossfire and dumping hot air into case.

The reference 290 have advantage of venting air out of the back if only the cooler was up to keeping the card clock stable.

If the Asus does exhaust a decent amount of heat out of the rear of the case then it will go to the top of my list.

Cheers

No idea if it's all lies or not, but...
review

On the Graphics card thermal imaging temperature measurements page it says:

When we position the thermal camera outwards we can see that despite what we all say and thing about the cooler, it is NOT exhausting significant enough hot air inside the PC. The hottest point is the actual exhaust and at the top of the card there is some residual PCB heat detected. So yeah, that's pretty nice cooling.

Edit: It's the 290X in the review but as it's the same cooler I'd assume the same would apply, could be wrong of course! :S

Marine-RX179 · 6 Jan 2014 at 13:55

Yea...I rubbished the stock cooler prior to getting the card...but after actually used one, I have to say cooling capability of the cooler itself is quite good (using a custom fanspeeed profile) with the fan at a high enough speed and dump hell loads of heat from the rear. The only issue is really the noise level of the fans once it passed 2500rpms. At 100% (5000rpm+), it sound roughly the same as a hair-dryer...

LtMatt · 6 Jan 2014 at 14:05

Marine-RX179 said:
Yea...I rubbished the stock cooler prior to getting the card...but after actually used one, I have to say cooling capability of the cooler itself is quite good (using a custom fanspeeed profile) with the fan at a high enough speed and dump hell loads of heat from the rear. The only issue is really the noise level of the fans once it passed 2500rpms. At 100% (5000rpm+), it sound roughly the same as a hair-dryer...

Spot on.