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Radeon R9 290 - Custom / Aftermarket coolers - some knowledge I've pooled together; could use some m

TerminatorUK

TerminatorUK

TerminatorUK

Associate
Joined
19 Feb 2007
Posts
284
Hi folks,

So when I saw the release of the Radeon R9 290 (and X) series last year, I really excited for AMD and wanted to make the switch from my current GeForce GTX 680 before it lost all its value.

However, the 95oC under load combined with a noisy cooler put me off initially so I have been patiently waiting for the versions with aftermarket coolers to come along.

I have been scanning the web regularly and the news of these particular has been pretty scarce.

I saw some news that said end of November, then that the 290 cards would come before the 290X's....then December they'd come...virtually nothing.

There have been, however, a few bits of information popping up. As I've spent several hours digging over Xmas and the new year, I thought I'd share with you some of my observations and ramblings as follows:


MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming Edition

This is what I've currently got a pre-order at with OCuK...ETA is this Friday but still no review anywhere (getting me a bit worried tbh). The Gaming Edition has a backplate (which I'm a bit fan of) for both 290 and 290X editions apparently and features the 'Twin Frozr 4' cooler. Judging by the MSI R9 280X Twin Frozr I bought for another system, this should be a great card but I'm hoping the same quality translates over to the R9 290.

Best product information seems to be MSI's site:

http://www.msi.com/product/vga/R9-290-GAMING-4G.html#overview

Best photos of card / backplate here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/195809/msi-radeon-r9-290x-gaming-oc-pictured.html

If anyone has any more details / spotted a review - please let me know!


MSI Radeon R9 290 Lighting Edition

This got shown yesterday as CES (e.g. - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7625/msi-gpus-at-ces-2014-massive-r9-290x-lightning-and-more) - features a triple slot / 'Tri Frozr' cooler - looks great but I'm guessing it'll be pretty pricy and not available for some time.

There were hints of this last year when the PCB was photographed:

http://videocardz.com/48270/msi-radeon-r9-290x-lightning-pcb-pictured


Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 'Windforce'

I thought this might have been the killer R9 290 but I'm glad I didn't go with this in the end - this doesn't seem to be the same calibre as the elegant solution which features on the GeForce GTX 780Ti.

The best information I found was from the German version of Tomshardware here: http://www.tomshardware.de/t/grafikkarten/

The initial press samples had a bad contact with the 6 heat pipes on the card as they did not have the proper mounting solution in place that features on the retail cards. Interestingly, the site also re-visited this with a retail sample and found some improvement but not as much as I would have expected:

http://www.tomshardware.de/gigabyte-windforce-r9-290x-cooler,testberichte-241469.html

I'm somewhat disappointed that the retail cards continue to have temperatures in the 80oC region.

Apparently this issue paused the mass-production of the card whilst the mounting solution was investigated so I'm not sure if this'll have a knock-on effect on the availability of the cards.


ASUS Radeon R9-290 DirectCU II OC

On initial look this would seem to be the daddy on paper - highest clock speed, great components, backplate (yup - you've guessed it, I have a thing for backplates!), custom PCB etc..

Several reviews available (including foreign sites) but there is also a decent review here:

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

The temperatures stay just below 80oC from most reviews and noise levels seem fairly reasonable.

Just not sure if it really warrants the price premium - overclocking was a little disappointing compared with other cards; it seems circa 1150mhz is about the average and the Asus card doesn't appear to improve this by any great margin.


Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X

This card does have several reviews including some English ones (yay :)) - e.g.:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/63953-sapphire-radeon-r9-290-tri-x/

From what I have read, this is generally the best reviewed R9 290 custom card from all the sites I've seen to date in terms of temperatures, fan noise and consistency of performance (not beating the Asus card above but generally able to sustain performance better).

Definitely a good bet for anyone in the market for one of these custom cards but be warned that the cooler extends over the end of the rear of the card adding an additional 1.5" to the length (12" total).


XFX Radeon R9 290 Double Dispersion (DD) 1000M

Not loads of information on this one except for a Fudzilla preview here:

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33553-xfx-radeon-dd-r9-290x-1000m-previewed

Fairly decent temperature and noise and its killer feature is a glow-in-the-dark XFX logo...woohoo! :)

I've read a few people's comments in blogs saying that XFX's RMA policy is pretty shocking though...not accepting legit requests etc...


Powercolor Radeon R9 290 PCS+

Not huge amounts of information on this other than it uses a triple-fan cooler design akin to the Sapphire card above.

Teaser screenshots here: http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33522-powercolor-teases-new-r9-290x-pcs -graphics-card

Looks quite hawt.


Pricing / availability / value for money

Virtually zero availability! I cannot find any UK-based stores (other than OCuK) that have these even available for pre-order; very strange indeed!

It's very difficult to make an accurate assessment of if the £379.99 is worth it for the money (especially as they have an MSI GeForce GTX 780 Gaming Edition for £359.99 on this week only - very tempted!) - a fair premium over the reference cards (I was hoping for circa £350 price-wise), however, I whacked a pre-order in for the MSI one immediately in December, hedging my bets they'll be very popular and the prices will sky-rocket.

However, having said this, it isn't that bad when you consider the 'other three' effective options as I see them:

1) An Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme III - excellent cooler, probably better than the above solutions (except for VRM temperature) judging by the round-up here:

http://www.tomshardware.de/amd-radeon-r9-290-290x-test,testberichte-241458.html (Chrome language translation FTW).

Good luck trying to find it at a decent price in the UK here though - I've searched all over the place!

Costs 100 euros when bought directly from Arctic Cooling themselves from their website - rip off!

2) Full block watercooling / custom loop - £80-90 for the just the waterblock itself...ouch; and I thought £50 for a full block back in the 8800 GTX days was expensive! Definitely an option with this card given the amount of heat it generates

3) A closed loop cooling solution with GPU adaptor (e.g. NZXT Kraken) - good example here:

http://www.legitreviews.com/nzxt-kraken-g10-gpu-water-cooler-review-on-an-amd-radeon-r9-290x_130344

OCuK have some pre-built kit options available too...

Probably less expensive than the custom loop but much more expensive than a custom air-cooled R9 290.

Let me know your thoughts, information that you may have seen (especially the MSI cards ;))
 
Problem with compairing noises between different review sites is the fact that some of them measure the noise 20cm away, while some do it more realistically, like 80cm away.

Power consumptin is also hard to compare, as some review sites only say the full system power, while others say just the card. always have to check the review itself.
 
 
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Beasty said:
I have a 290 windforce, lovely and quiet but seems to max at 84c, which is pretty disappointing.
Click to expand...

Same here, not very impressed/happy with the cooling performance of my card.

I had to set a manual fan profile (with 50% fan speed max otherwise it gets too noisy) and raise the GPU temperature limit in the Overdrive panel to 95 °C (Gigabyte bios sets it by default at 84°C) to avoid throttling. Still reaching ~90°C on load.
 
Chewie said:
Same here, not very impressed/happy with the cooling performance of my card.

I had to set a manual fan profile (with 50% fan speed max otherwise it gets too noisy) and raise the GPU temperature limit in the Overdrive panel to 95 °C (Gigabyte bios sets it by default at 84°C) to avoid throttling. Still reaching ~90°C on load.
Click to expand...

Trouble is they put the warm air back into the case. If the case airflow isnt good it will gradually climb back up.

I think the Asus moves some of the hot air out the back. The trouble with the reviews is that they are normally conducted on a test bench.
 
My windforce 290x at default sits at 70c idle in my FT02.

Literally the hottest card at idle i have ever owned by a full 30c!

I actually got a 290 first but sent it back assuming it must be faulty. Got the 290x in a fit of insanity and whilst i dont exactly regret it (very good card with very good fps) im not exactly thrilled by it.

Had to bump the idle fan speed up to 30% and this keeps the temps a slightly more reasonable 51c...that said its still the hottest card at idle i have ever had.
 
RavenXXX2 said:
Does mantle work on Nvidia cards?
Click to expand...

Not initially no. Nvidia would have to code their drivers to support it, assuming AMD stick to their word and make it open to all further down the line. Nvidia will not support it or code drivers for it, regardless of how much benefit it offers for their users in terms of extra performance. Hope im wrong on that though.
 
LtMatt said:
RavenXXX2 said:
Does mantle work on Nvidia cards?
Click to expand...

Not initially no.
Click to expand...

To be perfectly blunt on this in case the hope effects anybody's purchasing decisions, the chance of Nvidia implementing Mantle is the same as the chance of Cocacola producing Pepsi Max under license, I.E it exists but it's as likely as Lord Lucan winning the grand national on Shergar.

If you wan't Mantle you will have to buy AMD.
 
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