AMD 2xx series how did they get it so wrong?

[Ian Evey]

I may be misinterpreting the situation but would believe that Amd's partners would prefer room to differentiate their differently (better) cooled products from standard cooled - they can eke out a little more profit this way

I agree, but it does not have to be such a cheap cooler in the first place, Just 10 to 15 Celsius lower than the current one so the card does not throttle or get as high temps as it does currently, then let the partners have the other 15 Celsius to sell more of there cards.


Dont get me wrong, if it was not for this heat / cooler inefficiency i would be buying a 290 right now, instead i am considering just getting a 780, or waiting a month and getting an non ref 290.

 

[Final8y]

http://cdn4.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/AMD-Radeon-R9-290X-Cooler.jpg

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6760/GeForceGTX_Titan_3Qtr2a.jpg

The heatsink itself might be marginally larger on the titan cooler, but AMD's reference fan looks very shallow compared to the one on Titan. That has to be the biggest difference. Titan's fan is putting out more CFM, and probably has a better acoustic profile at the same RPM.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2352532&page=5

The NV fan looks almost twice the height to me plus the AMD gpu has a smaller surface area for contact with the heatsink so that is 3 reasons right there .

 

[Randomface74]

surprising how much difference that makes

 

[Martini1991]

The cooler tbh can give good performance, it's just that it's ridiculous loud to do so.

 

[EdgeDs]

Still the biggest problem with the card will be corrected with 3rd party versions then nvidea will have nothing to rival s 290 price /performance. Hopefully this will force nvidea to dtop prices again

 

[Ian Evey]

EdgeDs , Hope your right, but the added cost to reference coolers will make the price of a 290 go up to a 780's level. It may still have the performance and over clock ability but not as much as it is now at £309 ( damn you crappy cooler ).

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Running my HIS R9 290 in Quiet mode, latest beta driver and max fan speed set to 50%.

Fan noise is clearly more noticeable than that of the HIS 7950 Boost IcyQ it replaced.

More of a hum than the whine of the 7950 though and due to the new mode of operation, the fan speed builds up and remains constant. The 7950s fan used to ramp and down constantly before I passed fan control over to Afterburner and re-profiled.

While I'm very happy with the performance of the 290 for £300, I'd suggest waiting for cards with non-reference cooling system designs to get reviewed before splashing the £££..

As it is, I can see my purchasing an aftermarket cooler which will make the HIS 290 slightly less of a bargain.

 

[Boomstick777]

I think the 290's an absolute beast of a card in pure performance, and tremendous price/performance.

I can do 1200MHZ 24/7 on my core, my memory clock's a little weird, with GPU Tweak I can do 1650MHZ, but MSI Afterburner craps out over 1500MHZ.

I can out bench lower clocks 290X's (Say 1100MHZ) so it's absolutely storming performance.

But I would want a third party cooled one.

Think I'm set on a 290X, it looks a beast of a card, just want some non ref cooling, hopefully some sort of dual / triple fan with backplate. Will probably put it under water at some point, but I think the re-sale value of the non ref cards will be higher later on.

You planning on keeping yours or swap it out for non ref?

 

[EdgeDs]

Of course the none reference coolrr will reduce the bargain factor but it should still be somewhat cheaper than the 780. It could be argued that the games make up for the extra cost of the 780 but i would rather have the money in my pocket