R2 290 reference cooler and noise in silent mode?

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 13:08

tommybhoy said:
@matt(and any other dual card gamers on air), your summer gaming apparel?:

Damn you for making me click that.

I live in a hot room so temps never change that dramatically for me. Its always hot, even when its cold. I'm sure temps will go up a few C but even with a 10% overclock on both cards they're in the mid 80's (with a 50-55% fan profile) so a bit of room to play with. If needs be ill just remove the overclock or up the fan speed.

tommybhoy · 24 Apr 2014 at 13:15

LtMatt said:
Damn you for making me click that.

Was going to put up a green mankini for camp green, but fearing a ban...

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 13:18

tommybhoy said:
Was going to put up a green mankini for camp green, but fearing a ban...

The behemoth that is the TitanZ.

Big, expensive to run and slower than the 295x2.

pgi947 · 24 Apr 2014 at 13:19

If the whole summer thing is bad for your system then you need to look at managing your system cooling in delta temps, regardless of what the weather is doing your delta will always be the same.

My air to water delta is around 11-12c at peak load, so a 20 degree room gives water temps of 31-32c, if that room is then 30c my water temps will be 41-42c as the delta remains the same.

JediFragger · 24 Apr 2014 at 13:25

LtMatt said:
The behemoth that is the TitanZ.

Big, expensive to run and slower than the 295x2.

Damn YOU for making me click that!!! :eek:

tommybhoy · 24 Apr 2014 at 13:39

LtMatt said:
The behemoth that is the TitanZ.

Big, expensive to run and slower than the 295x2.

Rofl, seen that one, the other one was the 2 nvidia users-one had bunny rabbit ears. :eek:

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:21

tommybhoy said:
Rofl, seen that one, the other one was the 2 nvidia users-one had bunny rabbit ears.

I know ill regret this but link please.

Gregster · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:38

tommybhoy said:
You must have missed the science part, not so much an issue in UK winter, but in the summer if it's hot, the heat removed is removed from your components-cooling(air/water doesn't matter) removes waste heat from the system quicker as you know, the quicker your ambient room temps increase=heat up a room, the quicker temps increase in said room, thus increasing components temps-It's a science thing.

Which echoes my other part of my op that you conveniently left out, they will all throttle to an extent.

You(and others) said last year, you have to run slower=cooler in the summer, it won't be AMD 290 series exclusive like you implied.

No, they will not all throttle to an extent. Winter gaming see's my temps no higher than 45c and summer gaming see's my temps no higher than 65c (and I am talking long sessions here). You go and tell all the water cooled boys that they will see throttling to an extent in the Summer and they will laugh at you.

I also don't have the best air flow for my system and could get the temps lower.

I will say to the reference 290/X boys though "Water cool fellas/ladies and you won't have to worry about throttling"

Anyway, give it 2-3 months and I will ask how the ref coolers are coping. Especially the CF ref coolers. Matt has already said he is undervolting to try and keep temps down and it isn't even Summer yet

I am sure the custom cooled guys will be fine btw and this is only a point about the poor reference cooler on the 290/X.

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:40

That's to keep temps and noise down and maintain a 10% overclock on both cards at the same time. I'll see how i get on in the summer. I don't envisage too much of a problem but we'll see.

Martini1991 · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:42

We're ignoring the bigger picture.

How will a card that's ran on just the AMD drivers, left alone, none undervolted handle in summer? They reach throttle temp in minutes as it is.

Because that's how the majority are going to be ran.

And the throttle is completely different, AMD's are going lower than base speed, and only the 290/290x, what other GPU throttles under its base clock on a default fan profile?

I know my Tri-X will have absolutely no troubles, even on its default fan (Which is silent) I can max the voltage and it won't reach 75c.

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:46

Martini1991 said:
We're ignoring the bigger picture.

How will a card that's ran on just the AMD drivers, left alone, none undervolted handle in summer? They reach throttle temp in minutes as it is.

Because that's how the majority are going to be ran.

And the throttle is completely different, AMD's are going lower than base speed, and only the 290/290x, what other GPU throttles under its base clock on a default fan profile?

With one click in CCC you can raise the fan limit and alter the target temp if needed though so it does not throttle and stays at the target temp you set. So if someone is bothered by that, they have the option to change it.

Martini1991 · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:50

LtMatt said:
With one click in CCC you can raise the fan limit and alter the target temp if needed though so it does not throttle and stays at the target temp you set. So if someone is bothered by that, they have the option to change it.

The chances are that they're not aware of the problem though.

Either way, this is the first card I've seen to actually require user input to work at even its default speed, that fact alone can't be defended.

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:52

Martini1991 said:
The chances are that they're not aware of the problem though.

The effect of throttling on performance is nothing more than a couple of fps according to my testing so im inclined to agree, so i say what's the problem then. If they're worried about it then something can be done fairly easily by adjusting the target temp and max fan speed for that target temp. Either that or buy a non reference cooler. However i still agree that the reference cooler needs much improvement for next time.

Martini1991 · 24 Apr 2014 at 14:58

I got my card to go down to 800MHZ, and that was only from about 15 minutes of gaming, that's more than a few FPS worth of a drop.

Flat out can't make my Tri-X throttle though, it's perfect.

LtMatt · 24 Apr 2014 at 15:01

Martini1991 said:
I got my card to go down to 800MHZ, and that was only from about 15 minutes of gaming, that's more than a few FPS worth of a drop.

You're a special exception though as your card throttles at 50%. Been a few people posting in this thread, including my two cards, including that ET review, since then that have come forward and said their cards don't throttle at 50% fan speed at stock.

My cards rarely drop below 900mhz when throttling.

ICDP · 24 Apr 2014 at 15:02

Jasonst888 said:
IDCP, you mention that you had sli gtx 780s, how did they compare to the cf 290s for temps/ noise?

I was using 2x GTX780 MSI Gaming cards in SLI and found that the top card was running excessive temperatures after prolonged gaming. As far as compared to R9 290/X reference cards there is no contest on heat/noise. Though the same can be said comparing MSI Gaming 290/X cards compared to ref 290s.

If you are going multi-GPU I would recommend that at least one card (preferably both) are the blower style. That and have a well ventilated room as the eventual heat build up means your PC is re-circulating warm air.

Gregster · 24 Apr 2014 at 15:09

ICDP said:
I was using 2x GTX780 MSI Gaming cards in SLI and found that the top card was running excessive temperatures after prolonged gaming. As far as compared to R9 290/X reference cards there is no contest on heat/noise. Though the same can be said comparing MSI Gaming 290/X cards compared to ref 290s.

If you are going multi-GPU I would recommend that at least one card (preferably both) are the blower style. That and have a well ventilated room as the eventual heat build up means your PC is re-circulating warm air.

What temps was the top at? When I got my Titans, there wasn't any blocks, so I used the coolers for most of the Summer. As soon as they hit the temp target, they would throttle but never more than 26Mhz and that was the boost throttling as well from happily sitting at 1050Mhz for instance, it would drop to 1024Mhz and go back up and back down from that being the lowest. The bottom card was fine though and didn't throttle.

My understanding is people are seeing clocks as low as 800Mhz on the 290X/290 with ref coolers and that is quite a big drop.

ICDP · 24 Apr 2014 at 15:15

Gregster said:
@ Tommy. Don't confuse the heat coming from my case with the temps of my components. It is all about heat removal and my waterblocks/Rads/pumps/fans all do a fantastic job of removing that heat. My legs do get very hot when gaming but that doesn't mean the temps of my components are hot

It's a science thing

The heat being so efficiently dumped from your case ends up in the room where your computer resides. Eventually the ambient room temperature rises and so does the temperature of your computer and all its components. If you have a large, well ventilated room it might not be a problem but a smallish room with only an open window/door will not help if the air outside is 25c + already.

I unfortunately belong to the latter group with a smallish room

Most PCs don't have a problem as it might only be a 10c+ rise in temperature. Once you have a PC with a high OC CPU and multi GPUs already running at close to thermal limits... Well, it's a science thing.

ICDP · 24 Apr 2014 at 15:29

Gregster said:
What temps was the top at? When I got my Titans, there wasn't any blocks, so I used the coolers for most of the Summer. As soon as they hit the temp target, they would throttle but never more than 26Mhz and that was the boost throttling as well from happily sitting at 1050Mhz for instance, it would drop to 1024Mhz and go back up and back down from that being the lowest. The bottom card was fine though and didn't throttle.

My understanding is people are seeing clocks as low as 800Mhz on the 290X/290 with ref coolers and that is quite a big drop.

The Titan has reference blower style coolers, so most of the hot air was dumped outside the case. MSI Gaming GTX780s were dumping all the hot air inside the case and the top GPU was hitting 85c core and throttling to ~1024, but the fan was hitting 80% which was unbearable. I couldn't tell VRM temperatures as the GTX780 doesn't have a VRM sensor.

My R9 290X CF setup doesn't throttle that badly, in fact they will happily sit at 1040MHz (stock R9 290X Tri-X). The problem was not core clock, but VRMs and the symptoms were artifacting followed by an eventual lockup.

Gregster · 24 Apr 2014 at 15:31

Fair, I misread your first post and thought you had the ref coolers. Mind you, I ran a pair of 780 Lightnings with the twin frozr coolers and they were very good.