The best AMD R9 290 Pro? (Non Reference)

[r7slayer]

I've been looking around and I can't really tell which card is the best in terms of performance. Looking at good overclocking potential so needs a good aftermarket cooler that can cool the card really well. Not too botherd about noise but don't want something that sounds like a Dyson vacuum cleaner or leaf blower when running at moderate fan speeds.

I don't want to watercool the card but if needs be to get best overclocking potential I will only be looking at AIO coolers such as the kraken kit + h100 for example as I already own the h100 or something similar. Or possible the Hybrid however these kits worry me as i'm not sure how well they cool the VRMs and ram chips

I was hoping MSI was going to do a 290 Pro Lightning card as this was what I was going to go for but they aint

So thus far I can only see
MSI Gaming edition
Gigabyte OC WindForce
Sapphire Tri-X

I heard a rumor that the MSI gaming edition may be using Samsung Vram so better overclocks may be achieved but not sure if this is true.
Anyhow those are the potential cards I am looking at so far, so I was wondering which is the best out of them or is there another card out these which will overclock/perform better?

Cheers guys
Ohh yea budget is about 400 pounds just for the card not including aftermarket cooling, but can go over slightly if needs be.

 

[thefogo]

Gaming Edition or Powercolor PCS+ look the best to me
The Sapphire looks excellent too, though a couple of reviews say it's a bit loud. Others say it's silent, so I'm not sure.

 

[nitram100]

Well I ordered the MSI gaming edition as it has a 3 year warranty and MSI usually always use better components on their gpu's. My 7950 Twin Frozr was great so expecting great things from this as well. Would have been nice to get a free game with it though, pretty budget when you compare it to Nvidia offering 3 high quality games.

 

[r7slayer]

Gaming Edition or Powercolor PCS+ look the best to me
The Sapphire looks excellent too, though a couple of reviews say it's a bit loud. Others say it's silent, so I'm not sure.

Yea the MSI gaming edition is looking the most appealing to me atm, from what I can tell it has upgraded components over reference, possibility of Samsung Vram although taking this with a pinch of salt. And good cooling although prob not the best out of the bunch.

Sapphire has mixed reviews but most of them say it's got good cooling but its just a reference card.

Havn't got a clue about the Powercolor PCS but it does looks good

Anyway thanks for the input mate! Going to look at the powercolor bit more but still sat on the fence

 

[Steampunk]

While some of the new R290 non-stock cards are good, I think the better ones are yet to arrive. I'd keep an eye out on the HIS IceQ X2 (which will be quite long card), and the Powercolor PCS+. Both should be arriving in the 3rd & 4th week of January.

Full specs have yet to be announced and they've not been reviewed, but I'd expect them to be faster, quieter and cooler than standard. They also both get special treatment via OCUK for support.

The Sapphire is a stock card with a different cooler, so there's no improved components for higher speeds there, it's also very long.

There also seem to be some Windforce issues in reviews, with the cards seemingly having trouble shedding heat inside cases, so you need to have a good airflow in the case.

 

[SieB]

I have the Tri-X, it is very quiet and i've not heard it making any noise. Well apart from when I ran Furmark the fans start to get noisy when the temps reach ~80*c at ~40% fan speed, but under normal gaming the hottest mine has got is 74*C.
I also made a custom fan profile with Afterburner which i'm still testing out but so far temps are staying low and the card is quiet. It was quiet before I made the fan profile but i'm just trying to get it as quiet as possible.

It is just a reference card, but for normal use reference is good enough, custom PCBs don't really matter for just gaming. When you are overclocking and pushing the volts then custom PCBs and slightly better components are better.
Just saying that just because it's a ref card doessn't mean it's a bad thing. Mine is a pretty good clocker though, i've had 1225mhz out of it with overvolting and 1100mhz on stock volts.

 

[haszek]

The Sapphire is a stock card with a different cooler, so there's no improved components for higher speeds there, it's also very long.

How custom PCB/components are better if cooling solution is weak? You want custom PCB because you want to OC but you can't do it with weak cooler. Asus, Gigabyte and probably little 2fan MSI the same are just too weak for 290 (just my opinion ;] we'll see)... Good enough for 780 but here...
Tri-X can handle 1.3v easily which gives you room for OC. So what that it's a reference design? AMD gives good quality components on their reference cards. With 1.4 it's got lower vcore temps than the rest of them on default (over 80C). Sure vram too high to run but there is no comparison with vcore temp. From forums/reviews this card runs below 50% fan speed while gaming and all the others... just no comparison.

Card too long ah well...this is one of the reasons this cooler is the best so far. Not always bigger=better but in this case it all works really well.

 

[r7slayer]

I have the Tri-X, it is very quiet and i've not heard it making any noise. Well apart from when I ran Furmark the fans start to get noisy when the temps reach ~80*c at ~40% fan speed, but under normal gaming the hottest mine has got is 74*C.
I also made a custom fan profile with Afterburner which i'm still testing out but so far temps are staying low and the card is quiet. It was quiet before I made the fan profile but i'm just trying to get it as quiet as possible.

It is just a reference card, but for normal use reference is good enough, custom PCBs don't really matter for just gaming. When you are overclocking and pushing the volts then custom PCBs and slightly better components are better.
Just saying that just because it's a ref card doessn't mean it's a bad thing. Mine is a pretty good clocker though, i've had 1225mhz out of it with overvolting and 1100mhz on stock volts.

Thanks for this! That sounds pretty good tbh as I was wanting to try and push the card I got to clocks of around 1250ish then the Vram to well about max I could get out of it.
From the reviews it looks like this card is the most silent of the bunch however not seen Powercolor's variant yet. Although chances of getting a card as good as yours may not mean I can clock it to something as good as yours though which is why I want to aim for cards with custom PCB and upgraded components tbh!

Those temps you said when gaming and running Furmark was those with the overclock or without just out of interest?

 

[SieB]

Thanks for this! That sounds pretty good tbh as I was wanting to try and push the card I got to clocks of around 1250ish then the Vram to well about max I could get out of it.
From the reviews it looks like this card is the most silent of the bunch however not seen Powercolor's variant yet. Although chances of getting a card as good as yours may not mean I can clock it to something as good as yours though which is why I want to aim for cards with custom PCB and upgraded components tbh!

Those temps you said when gaming and running Furmark was those with the overclock or without just out of interest?

Those temps were at stock, it was also 21*c in my flat at the time of those temps so that probably added a couple of *c to them.
I've not tested temps while OC'd tbh, i'm not much of an overclocker and only wanted to see how good my card was when I overclocked it. When I ran benchmarks I just turned the fan manually to 60% all the time they were running just to be on the safe side.