• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

AMD R9 290 (Non-X, Pro, etc) Owners Club

paulm71 said:
what are the r9 290 non ref fan noise like under normal conditions not overclocked in games like bf4 , cant stand fan noise and im looking for a quiet card, or are the gtx 780 better for noise levels.
Click to expand...

Very quiet in comparison. The MSI is considered to be the quietest, as it has two larger, quiet fans. It makes a slight "whooshing" noise under load, but it's air noise only with a good tone that's difficult to hear over case fans. At default settings it does trade some noise for heat compared to other cards that have more fans, but never gets much beyond 75 degrees. You can set custom fan profiles with the MSI afterburner app that supports it.

You will need a case with decent cooling (preferably temp controlled fans) as all the 290 card are capable of throwing out a lot of heat.
 
paulm71 said:
what are the r9 290 non ref fan noise like under normal conditions not overclocked in games like bf4 , cant stand fan noise and im looking for a quiet card, or are the gtx 780 better for noise levels.
Click to expand...

My Msi R9 290 Gaming running flat out hits 75c with 53% fan, cant hear it above my case fans, so silent for me, I wear headphones when gaming so silent anyway. Really impressed with this card so far. :)
 
rolypolyman said:
My Msi R9 290 Gaming running flat out hits 75c with 53% fan, cant hear it above my case fans, so silent for me, I wear headphones when gaming so silent anyway. Really impressed with this card so far. :)
Click to expand...


has mantle made a difference to performance in bf4, would i be able to knock back the card some how to lower temps to reduce fan noise whilst still getting a good fps in game, as im still not sure r9 290 or gtx 780 and the case im getting is a nzxt h440 when it comes out or a corsair 650d or 750d.
 
umm the new AIB 290's dont suffer so much from noise and heat due to improved coolers, like the new MSI or Sapphire Tri-X versions, so i wouldnt worry anymore about the noise and heat.

It was the Ref boards that suffered the worst.
 
paulm71 said:
has mantle made a difference to performance in bf4, would i be able to knock back the card some how to lower temps to reduce fan noise whilst still getting a good fps in game, as im still not sure r9 290 or gtx 780 and the case im getting is a nzxt h440 when it comes out or a corsair 650d or 750d.
Click to expand...

If anything, I've heard reports that Mantle can increase temps because it can increase GPU utilization.

It's a non-issue though, as the cards with non-stock coolers are very quiet compared to the stock cooler. At 55 percent fan, I can barely hear the MSI in a very quiet case, and it's a good tone of noise that's not noticable or intrusive. I've not been able to get the fan above that even with Heaven or Furmark. Just make sure you get a case with good ventilation options.
 
Steampunk said:
If anything, I've heard reports that Mantle can increase temps because it can increase GPU utilization.

It's a non-issue though, as the cards with non-stock coolers are very quiet compared to the stock cooler. At 55 percent fan, I can barely hear the MSI in a very quiet case, and it's a good tone of noise that's not noticable or intrusive. I've not been able to get the fan above that even with Heaven or Furmark. Just make sure you get a case with good ventilation options.
Click to expand...


so the nzxt h440 prob be no good then what would you recommend , sorry if ive gone off topic
 
What are you looking for in a case? high air flow? Im sure that NZXT case is a winner in all honesty, alternatively you could look at the Corsair Carbide 540 Air although the stock fans are noisy im told so you might want to look also at the cost of swapping the stock fans for the low noise versions that Corsair do.

Also depends where you have the case, do you wear a headset etc etc, but tbh with the new cards mostly the noise is a low woosh of air rather than the hairdryer on steroids noise from the Ref coolers.

For the 290 If it was me, right now, i would buy either the MSI or the Tri-X or the Powercolour, all 3 are great card, low noise and brilliant performance.
 
Right so my 290s don't clock well at all (won't do 1100MHz on stock volts, at least one of them won't, maybe both) so I'm thinking of selling my 7950s while the price still seems quite good (try to cover most of my original cost) and bumping the dud 290s down to my 2nd rig (which is full of 'meh' parts) and then getting new cards for my main.

My decision now is, do I wait and get a couple of the Tri-X 290s (Gibbo seemed to suggest they clock well) or do I get a couple of reference 290X's before they run out? I mean even poor clocking 290Xs should beat good 290s right?

Or do I just suck it up and stick with the 7950s and 290s until Maxwell or whatever AMD call their next gen cards and try my hand at the silicone lottery again?
 
1500 you mean?! Would be an insane overclock otherwise ;)

Got trifire 290 Tri X, haven't benched them yet as they're for mining but I'll throw some up when I get time to play. All have Hynix memory :)
 
am i only person who had black screens with 290 sapphire tri-x, card worked fine 99% of the time but got black screens every so often they seemed to be totally random
 
Allnamestaken said:
Is it right that when I run a render test with GPU Z it says -

290 - PCIE 16x @ 8x

290 - PCIE 16x @ 4x

Does this mean one card is running at 4x???!?!!?

Might that be the issue?
Click to expand...


That would be down to your motherboard. Most boards have to divide up the available PCIe lanes when you start using more than one graphics card. It shouldn't result in much performance drop.
 
Last edited:
Allnamestaken said:
Is it right that when I run a render test with GPU Z it says -

290 - PCIE 16x @ 8x

290 - PCIE 16x @ 4x

Does this mean one card is running at 4x???!?!!?

Might that be the issue?
Click to expand...

When i had a x16 x4 chip the second gpu never saw 99% usage because it was bandwidth limited. This was on a 7950. 290's don't have a crossfire bridge so need more pci-e bandwidth. I would recommend pci-e 2.0 x8 x8 as an absolute minimum.
 
I'm not sure how to configure that. I just put the cards in slot 1 and 2. My board should be able to handle it so I'm at a loss. I'll try switch the cards about and see.

Still though bF4 causes driver to crash which is odd.

Hmm I might try a bios flash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom