OcUK Staff
The Matrix series of cards by ASUS have often been seen as class leaders by high end gamers and overclockers alike.
For the gamer they offer High factory clocks, great cooling and excellent aesthetics. The overclocker gets a strong PWM, cherry picked components and again the uprated DC2 style cooler.
For me they have also always offered some extra innovation to the pack when it comes to supporting xtreme overclocking with very little modification. This card continues in that tradition with even more features that can assist you. Short a jumper on the back of the card and switch to LN2 bios and you have literally limitless Voltage control options from software to totally max out the card. Not just the standard GPU, MEM and PLL control but control of the individual rails also. LLC. PWM frequency the list is endless.
Short a second jumper on the card opens up an even more interesting feature the memory heater!! Basically what this does under LN2 cooling is warm the memorys on the card to prevent cold bug. I will be testing this feature when I hit up full LN2 late next week. But this and the individual rail adjustment are features that will help on the 290X to hit absolutely max clocks under sub zero conditions.
So lets take a look at the card with some pics.
As you can see the card looks the business and with a two slot cooler can be used in anything upto 4 way Xfire.
Here is a pic of the Rig on test. Digital Volt meter attached to check power delivery and full hotwire mods for ROG panel connectivity. This was rock solid on all rails through out testing and changes on GPU Tweak where made instantaneously at hardware level. On previous product launches often GPU tweak has not been as good as it might have been, but here ASUS have got it spot on all working from day one.
All testing was done on Normal Bios and thus top voltage available was 1.41v Core through GPU tweak which is very safe on an air cooler of this type.
Test Rig
ASUS RIVE BE
4930K
Corsair Dominator plat 2666C9
ASUS AMD R290X Matrix
Win 7 64Bit
AMD Catalyst 13.12
Antec 1200w HCP
So here are the results in the 8Pack punishment suite!!!
11
FS
FSX
Heaven Hwbot Version
Heaven Valley
So from the above we see some great benching results given air cooling with a stable clock of 1220 Core and 1625 been hit on the RAM at only 1.325v. This is very similar to the best high end cards I have tested in terms of overclocking.
GPU Tweak gave me more but it did not help the GPU scale any further in terms of clocks. This scaling is GPU dependent so some like volts others don't. Those who do on standard bios expect to see 1250+ easy which is a massive air clock. Temps throughout testing topped out at 74 C which on a dual slot cooler is also top notch.
In short I would recommend the Matrix card for all users.
Its a great gaming card and fun to bench on air with the clocks reaching as high as any other card in this high end segment of the market. The card looks amazing too and is both cool and quiet in operation. The PWM is outputting exactly the correct voltages as set by software and is stable even when placed under heavy loads.
For the bencher even more features are evident such as the dam right innovative memory defroster and the total control of all voltages running into the card without hardware based modifications. Also we have a safe mode button which defaults the card at hardware level should you push it too hard!! or for me when I do push it too hard.
The R290X is the choice for LN2 benchers in Heaven because of its efficiency so when I next touch this card I will see how it hits the highs on this tough DX11 Benchmark.
Well done ASUS another great looking, performing and Innovative / unique product.
For the gamer they offer High factory clocks, great cooling and excellent aesthetics. The overclocker gets a strong PWM, cherry picked components and again the uprated DC2 style cooler.
For me they have also always offered some extra innovation to the pack when it comes to supporting xtreme overclocking with very little modification. This card continues in that tradition with even more features that can assist you. Short a jumper on the back of the card and switch to LN2 bios and you have literally limitless Voltage control options from software to totally max out the card. Not just the standard GPU, MEM and PLL control but control of the individual rails also. LLC. PWM frequency the list is endless.
Short a second jumper on the card opens up an even more interesting feature the memory heater!! Basically what this does under LN2 cooling is warm the memorys on the card to prevent cold bug. I will be testing this feature when I hit up full LN2 late next week. But this and the individual rail adjustment are features that will help on the 290X to hit absolutely max clocks under sub zero conditions.
So lets take a look at the card with some pics.
As you can see the card looks the business and with a two slot cooler can be used in anything upto 4 way Xfire.
Here is a pic of the Rig on test. Digital Volt meter attached to check power delivery and full hotwire mods for ROG panel connectivity. This was rock solid on all rails through out testing and changes on GPU Tweak where made instantaneously at hardware level. On previous product launches often GPU tweak has not been as good as it might have been, but here ASUS have got it spot on all working from day one.
All testing was done on Normal Bios and thus top voltage available was 1.41v Core through GPU tweak which is very safe on an air cooler of this type.
Test Rig
ASUS RIVE BE
4930K
Corsair Dominator plat 2666C9
ASUS AMD R290X Matrix
Win 7 64Bit
AMD Catalyst 13.12
Antec 1200w HCP
So here are the results in the 8Pack punishment suite!!!
11
FS
FSX
Heaven Hwbot Version
Heaven Valley
So from the above we see some great benching results given air cooling with a stable clock of 1220 Core and 1625 been hit on the RAM at only 1.325v. This is very similar to the best high end cards I have tested in terms of overclocking.
GPU Tweak gave me more but it did not help the GPU scale any further in terms of clocks. This scaling is GPU dependent so some like volts others don't. Those who do on standard bios expect to see 1250+ easy which is a massive air clock. Temps throughout testing topped out at 74 C which on a dual slot cooler is also top notch.
In short I would recommend the Matrix card for all users.
Its a great gaming card and fun to bench on air with the clocks reaching as high as any other card in this high end segment of the market. The card looks amazing too and is both cool and quiet in operation. The PWM is outputting exactly the correct voltages as set by software and is stable even when placed under heavy loads.
For the bencher even more features are evident such as the dam right innovative memory defroster and the total control of all voltages running into the card without hardware based modifications. Also we have a safe mode button which defaults the card at hardware level should you push it too hard!! or for me when I do push it too hard.
The R290X is the choice for LN2 benchers in Heaven because of its efficiency so when I next touch this card I will see how it hits the highs on this tough DX11 Benchmark.
Well done ASUS another great looking, performing and Innovative / unique product.