Best R9 290 Card

Chipper500 · 2 Feb 2015 at 08:04

Hello and thanks for reading my thread

I am currently building a gaming PC and i am just finalising the components....

really my last decision to make it what graphic card i should get, i am going to be purchasing a R9 290 card but my question is.....

Which one should i get?

My current build looks something like this

YOUR BASKET

1 x MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £229.99

1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99

1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £89.99

1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99

1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99

1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black (CC-9011017-WW) £69.95

1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £53.99

1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £52.99

1 x Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £44.99

1 x Raijintek Themis Black Heatpipe CPU Cooler PWM - 120mm £19.99

Total : £911.86 (includes shipping : ).

I was planning on spend approx £1000 on the rig without montior etc. given it will cost approx £60s for OCUK to build the pc for me, i need to add a DVD drive and add a internal wireless adaptor so i may go slightly over budget, is it worth it to upgrade the card from the one i have choosen? are the models of R9 290 much better than the one i am currently considering buying?

At a push i could maybe stretch to £280 for the card if its worth it

Many thanks

old gamer · 2 Feb 2015 at 08:25

my choice for a 290 would between the sapphire tri x and powercolor pcs+

RavenXXX2 · 2 Feb 2015 at 08:29

Would have to be the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X OC, cool looks and temps, quiet.

290x can be had up to you budget as well.

passey89 · 2 Feb 2015 at 08:36

the sapphire tri-x still gets hot and loud.

mine was hitting 86C and 70% fan speed and was noisey

try the vapor-X but most 290's are hot and loud.

old gamer · 2 Feb 2015 at 08:40

yep if you want to go up to your budget there are quite a few 290x to choose from and even if you can stretch another £30 the powercolor 290x 8gb can be had for £311

thefogo · 2 Feb 2015 at 09:29

passey89 said:
the sapphire tri-x still gets hot and loud.

mine was hitting 86C and 70% fan speed and was noisey

try the vapor-X but most 290's are hot and loud.

That seems much hotter and louder than any others I've seen. Sounds like you had a bad one.

I recommend the 290x Lightning LE. It's not much more than the 290p's and is the best one imo.

nitram100 · 2 Feb 2015 at 10:20

Powercolor PCS+

They use glue or something on the card to prevent coil whine, looks sexy as hell and runs very cool. Sitting here at 32c idle and it doesn't go past 59c in my room at the moment on full load.

Avoid MSI imo, wasn't impressed with the cooler and exchanged for a PCS+.

Legend · 2 Feb 2015 at 10:49

I was wondering a similar thing about which 290X was best, but with a view to Crossfire... are some better than others in this configuration?

ArchAnGeL · 2 Feb 2015 at 10:56

my tri-x is nothing like what is reported above. I think it is a very good card (although very long, as is the vapor-x)

Legend · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:00

nitram100 said:
Powercolor PCS+

They use glue or something on the card to prevent coil whine, looks sexy as hell and runs very cool. Sitting here at 32c idle and it doesn't go past 59c in my room at the moment on full load.

Avoid MSI imo, wasn't impressed with the cooler and exchanged for a PCS+.

Powercolor is a 3-slot card isn't it? Can you run them Crossfire, or would that cause issues with them being so jammed up close to each other, therefore negating the benefit of a superior cooler?

thefogo · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:02

Legend said:
Powercolor is a 3-slot card isn't it? Can you run them Crossfire, or would that cause issues with them being so jammed up close to each other, therefore negating the benefit of a superior cooler?

I had them in crossfire and they were very hot and loud. Great on their own but I wouldn't recommend two unless you have a huge gap between them.

Legend · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:20

thefogo said:
I had them in crossfire and they were very hot and loud. Great on their own but I wouldn't recommend two unless you have a huge gap between them.

That's what I was thinking. Not sure what the best Crossfire card is in that respect, as they all seem to be less than optimal for cooling once you put them close together. Unless you WC them of course, but I had no plans for that.

old gamer · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:21

yeh the powercolor is a great card but i would not want to crossfire them unless you have a realy big gap between the pci slots

old gamer · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:24

Legend said:
That's what I was thinking. Not sure what the best Crossfire card is in that respect, as they all seem to be less than optimal for cooling once you put them close together. Unless you WC them of course, but I had no plans for that.

its down to reference cards and put up with the noise although i had one when they first come out and didnt find it too bad at all for noise, or if you have space between the pci slots mabe the sapphire tri x

Legend · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:28

I have an Asus X99-S, but unsure how much space I'd actually have between slots. No idea how thick the cards are exactly. From everything I've read about the reference cards, I'd be very wary... not least because I've heard they still chuck out a fair bit of heat inside the case. The Nvidia reference cooler is far superior no doubt. I wonder if AMD will fix this for the 3xx series.

SiDeards73 · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:32

As someone that owns a 290 Tri-X i give it a vote as well, mines incredibly quiet and very cool, i used to have a Ref 290 and the Tri-X is a different beast all together.

old gamer · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:33

i rember 8 pack had a play about with the tri x in crossfire and said temps were not too bad, and there heatsinks are quite thin compared to others

Legend · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:36

The Tri-X is the Sapphire yellow one right? There's an 8GB one soon to be released I read.

old gamer · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:38

there is a blue vapor with 8gb but it looks a little thicker if im not mistaken

gibbo has mentioned getting some more 8gb cards in i believe

Legend · 2 Feb 2015 at 11:41

old gamer said:
there is a blue vapor with 8gb but it looks a little thicker if im not mistaken

gibbo has mentioned getting some more 8gb cards in i believe

Yeah hard to tell on that. If I was going X-Fire, I'd want best cooling possible tbh. WC'ing isn't an option, not least because of cost implications.