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R9 290 OVERCLOCKING ADVICE APPRECIATED

sunshinewelly

sunshinewelly

sunshinewelly

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3 Nov 2010
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749
I have recently bought a sapphire R9 290 vapor x which comes OC'd at 1000 on the core and with effective memory clock of 5.6 GHz (1400 memory clock).

However i am having trouble getting much more out of it which is surprising.

I can get it running at 1100 on the core and 1450 on memory but anything higher and i get artifacts in game. Does having a low PSU have any bearing on clocking. The recommended PSU is a 750 w one but i am using my 600w one. (most reviews say a 600w is fine). Also do artifacts mean that damage is being caused to a card.

My card also seems quite hot - i know that these cards with stock coolers get to 95 degrees but mine when OC'd gets to 82 degrees when using automatic fan control. I have had to place my card on the lower pc express x 16 slot due to its size which means the fans are practically touching the bottom of my pc case. I can get lower temps if using a custom fan but thought that 82 was excess
 
have you upped the power limit? also voltage?

Having it nearly sitting at the bottom means all the hot air being pushed out doesn't have a lot of places to go - and auto fan won't agressively remove that heat unless you put your own profile on there.

82 degrees is nothing to worry about as they are rated for 95c before throttling.

1000 is what its rated to run; so wouldn't be OC there unless you mean like 1030. MY PCS+ is 1040 out of the box and I've pushed it ever so slightly to 1100.....

what are you using to oc?
 
What voltage and power usage increase have u set? 1120 core 1500memory is getting towards the top wnd of overclocking for most 290's anyway.
 
stock r9 290 are at 940 i believe.

I have not messed with voltages as i am afraid i will kill my card. I have used trixx and afterburner.

Trixx has a VCCD setting and mine is stock at 50 (whatever that means).

Afterburning has a powerboost option.

Its these options that i have not messed with.

Will increasing these settings help (or will i just run into trouble due to my PSU)
 
sunshinewelly said:
stock r9 290 are at 940 i believe.

I have not messed with voltages as i am afraid i will kill my card. I have used trixx and afterburner.

Trixx has a VCCD setting and mine is stock at 50 (whatever that means).

Afterburning has a powerboost option.

Its these options that i have not messed with.

Will increasing these settings help (or will i just run into trouble due to my PSU)
Click to expand...

you should hit 1075 to 1100 on the core on stock volts easily after that you may need to up the voltage to get anymore out of it. I found that with my 290x tri-x i got 1475 on the memory before i started getting artifacts or that might just have been the core.

Your safe using +100mV on air anyway just make sure those temps don't get too high and by high i mean 85+ for a 290 series card. But check your VRMs too with gpuz to make sure they stay under 100 degrees they are fine sitting at 100 degrees easily but i prefer mine not to go over 90 degrees if i can help it.

My overclock is 1200 on the core and 1525 on the mem but sometimes i dial the core to 1180 and memory back to 1500 depending on the game. all with +100mV and +50% power limit. Card doesn't go over 82 degrees at all with my fan profile but usually sits on 72 degrees with games that stress it at around 70-90%

Also play games to test stability as i found it was stable in heaven and firestrike and such but games it would artifact with higher overclocks.

edit -

also if your worried about your PSU then let us know which brand your using! as decent 600 watt PSU are fine but may need higher watts with chepo PSU because of the amps but you may not have to worry about this.

Also no your not doing damage to your card unless you pump crazy amounts of volts through it such as 250+mV and hit 95 degrees straight away lol. Artifacts happen when your card isnt getting enough power usually, there are other variables but seen as your overclocking, power is the most likely culprit.
 
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one query i have is that my saphire shows stock volts at +50 on both afterburner and trixx. So when people talk about adding +100 do they mean adding +100 to the stock volatage ie in my case that would be +150 or +100 overall
 
Max I can get without artifacting or crashing is 1035mhz core, I know my card is ***** with it's Elpida memory :( Even memory maxes out at about 5350mhz!
 
Elpida memory isn't particularly harder to clock, just benches lower at same clocks. My two 290x Sapphires have Elpida and are reference cards. One maxes out at 1625 and the other at 1581.

I found a tiny bit of aux voltage helps with memory stability, as well as decent cooling. Maybe drop the core clock down a bit and see if you can budge memory, often its a bit of give and take with GPU clocking.
 
This seems like an interesting thread. Newbie join the study.
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