Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Questions/ £300 budget

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 03:04

Hi

After the 970 debacle I just cannot get the feeling of "damaged goods" from my mind, so I'm going to sell my card and get something that has the full advertised 4GB. I was going towards the 980 but the pricing is quite frankly ridiculous for what is a modest step up from a 970 so I'm not going there.

I was looking at this card:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-344-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

My concern is that my PSU is 600 watt and this states that you need AT LEAST 600 watt. Am I going to have a problem running this card?

I had my eye on the £200 Powercolor model but what on earth is up with that 750 watt PSU requirement?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-166-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

I'm quite confused.

If you guys could get me as close to 970 power levels or above at no more than 600 watt and no more than £300 you would be doing me an almighty favour. I'll be buying tomorrow or the day after so week-only deals are applicable. Thanks.

triss · 11 Feb 2015 at 03:45

I'd get the powercolour for that price if it was me.No real reason for the difference in specs for the power supplies IMO card should be within a few watts of the other. One of the clever people will say ya or nay on your 600watts.
Brand and model of your power supply will help

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 03:58

Corsair GS 600 watt.

Marine-RX179 · 11 Feb 2015 at 04:35

Shampoo said:
Corsair GS 600 watt.

You SHOULD be fine. I'm running a 290x on my Sapphire 625W (OEM is Enermax...or at least the design was). At stock, my 290x pull about max 230W-270W on average...it is only when I raise the voltage by +150mv and power limit by +50 and pushing high overclock that it would hit around 330W.

The Corsair GS600 has 48A (576W) on the 12v rail, so it should be more than enough to coup...so long as you are not running the Intel 6 cores 12 threads or AMD 8 cores platform, but just a standard Intel Sandy/Ivy/Haswell i5/i7 platform.

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 05:07

I'm running a i7-4790K and 2 mechanical hard drives.

Marine-RX179 · 11 Feb 2015 at 05:13

Shampoo said:
I'm running a i7-4790K and 2 mechanical hard drives.

Should be fine, so long as you are not using crazy voltage on pushing extreme overclock on the 4790K.

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 05:15

Good to know. Guess I'll be picking up a bargain then!

Marine-RX179 · 11 Feb 2015 at 05:22

Shampoo said:
Good to know. Guess I'll be picking up a bargain then!

But it still worth bearing in mind that even if PSU powerful enough to run the system, they can still fail over time or randomly; Kaap on the other thread has been running multiple-GPUs system on his Corsair AX1200i perfectly fine, and the same PSU decide to crap out on him when he used it in a system with just a single GTX960

Good thing about branded PSU of reasonable quality as oppose to some cheap generic nasty ones is that when they fail, it would usually just be the PSU itself rather than killing your other hardwares along with it. All you have to do is send the PSU back for a replacement under warranty, or if it is out of warrantly, just grab another PSU to replace the broken unit.

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 06:18

Just read in a review that the card does not support VGA analog even with the adapter. Gutted. Back to the drawing board in the search for a card.

snips86x · 11 Feb 2015 at 06:28

What about a new monitor too?
YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 290 PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
1 x BenQ GL2450 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £107.99
Total : £307.98 (includes shipping : ).

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 06:32

Monitor I have is simply too good to sacrifice unless the replacement was exceptional. Flat screen (Triniton) 1080 and above res and glorious image quality.
I'll need to find something else that has DVI-I support. I can't believe it's not in the 290. Just about everything Nvidia puts out has one.

triss · 11 Feb 2015 at 07:03

Shampoo said:
Just read in a review that the card does not support VGA analog even with the adapter. Gutted. Back to the drawing board in the search for a card.

Pop Amdmatt a trust message about it, he's likey to know if there is a workabout/ adaptor that will work

Flashes the Matt Symbol!!

sprite1275 · 11 Feb 2015 at 07:03

Shampoo said:
Hi

After the 970 debacle I just cannot get the feeling of "damaged goods" from my mind, so I'm going to sell my card and get something that has the full advertised 4GB. I was going towards the 980 but the pricing is quite frankly ridiculous for what is a modest step up from a 970 so I'm not going there.

I was looking at this card:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-344-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

My concern is that my PSU is 600 watt and this states that you need AT LEAST 600 watt. Am I going to have a problem running this card?

I had my eye on the £200 Powercolor model but what on earth is up with that 750 watt PSU requirement?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-166-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

I'm quite confused. If you guys could get me as close to 970 power levels or above at no more than 600 watt and no more than £300 you would be doing me an almighty favour. I'll be buying tomorrow or the day after so week-only deals are applicable. Thanks.

I did some power tests with my 290x lightning at stock. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18654193

LtMatt · 11 Feb 2015 at 11:12

Shampoo said:
Just read in a review that the card does not support VGA analog even with the adapter. Gutted. Back to the drawing board in the search for a card.

Shampoo said:
Monitor I have is simply too good to sacrifice unless the replacement was exceptional. Flat screen (Triniton) 1080 and above res and glorious image quality.
I'll need to find something else that has DVI-I support. I can't believe it's not in the 290. Just about everything Nvidia puts out has one.

triss said:
Pop Amdmatt a trust message about it, he's likey to know if there is a workabout/ adaptor that will work

Flashes the Matt Symbol!!

What's the maximum resolution of your monitor? A StarTech.com DVI-D to VGA Active Adapter Converter Cable might work, google is your friend.

The maximum supported resolution for that cable is 1920x1200P though.

thebennyboy · 11 Feb 2015 at 15:54

Something like this should work: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-060-SR

Diddums · 11 Feb 2015 at 16:02

thebennyboy said:
Something like this should work: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-060-SR

I've tried this on my 290. No dice.

Shampoo · 11 Feb 2015 at 23:09

Man, if nothing decent in the red camp is VGA, I'll have to go 980 which is a disaster.

I'm basically having to go from £199.99 for the Powercolor to £469.99 for the OCUK 980 (best components).

Why does the 970 have to have been gimped!!!

J.D · 12 Feb 2015 at 01:44

Shampoo said:
Man, if nothing decent in the red camp is VGA, I'll have to go 980 which is a disaster.

I'm basically having to go from £199.99 for the Powercolor to £469.99 for the OCUK 980 (best components).

Why does the 970 have to have been gimped!!!

snips86x said:
What about a new monitor too?
YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 290 PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
1 x BenQ GL2450 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £107.99
Total : £307.98 (includes shipping : ).

Still cheaper than the 980, plus you get a free screen

.

You could just use the new screen till the new cards come out and then either sell the screen and upgrade to a card that can use your Triniton again?.

Still £160 better off than the 980 which imo, is insane. Nvidia's pricing for their top cards are usually off the mark.

Shampoo · 12 Feb 2015 at 02:06

I'll have to think about that now. Seems like a fairly valid option.

Confused Stu · 12 Feb 2015 at 08:29

Why not simply get an Active Displayport to VGA adapter? So long as it's active and not passive it will work perfectly to enable VGA output from a 290.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-059-SR
StarTech's site lists this as an Active adapter

Or have a look round for a StarTech DP2VGA2 or an Accell B101B-003B - both of which are Active adapters but not sold by OcUK so I can't give you any links I'm afraid.