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

[Jamous]

I'll be joining on Friday VTX3D R9 290 X-Edition...hopefully I get lucky in the lottery and get some 290x action for free

Does anyone have a link to everything I need to attempt the bios flash etc?

Bought one from OCUK a few days ago and it doesn't unlock, good luck!

 

[jrodga2k5]

Bought one from OCUK a few days ago and it doesn't unlock, good luck!

This one isn't from OcUK so hoping I've gotten lucky

 

[LtMatt]

Bought one from OCUK a few days ago and it doesn't unlock, good luck!

This one isn't from OcUK so hoping I've gotten lucky

Probably stand a better chance elsewhere. OcuK are not mugs.

 

[Jamous]

This one isn't from OcUK so hoping I've gotten lucky

Here's hoping for you it unlocks, if so I'll be following lol

 

[Orangey]

Thanks toms.

Thinking of changing the "bench data" field to an Afterburner screenshot or something. Be nice to have a record of clocks/volts so people can get an idea about average max OCs.

 

[Apache14]

2nd R9 290 is waiting for me at home ...... hoping that its got the hyinx ram or at the very least is stable at stock clocks.

Iv gone MSI over VTX this time as it was on offer

 

[LtMatt]

2nd R9 290 is waiting for me at home ...... hoping that its got the hyinx ram or at the very least is stable at stock clocks.

Iv gone MSI over VTX this time as it was on offer

Doubtful. I think Hynix ram is reserved for 290X's generally. Its not the end of the world if you get Elpida. Because of the 512bit bus you don''t need to overclock the ram as much to get massive bandwidth. My Elpida overclocks by 15% at stock (not tried further, quite possible it will go further) on both my cards and 1400mhz is a hell of a lot of bandwidth. It makes very little difference in games btw, a few fps if that. It can help a bit in certain benchmark scores though, but generally you don't get much from memory overclocking unless the card has a 256bit bus or lower.

 

[SimonKa]

Anyone with gelid icy vision v2? Could you post comparison pics like Terminal_Boy did on the previous page? (comment #102)?

I'm trying to figure out which cooler to go with. Which one (gelid vs xtreme 3) takes more slots? I'm hoping for CF in a couple of months.

 

[Apache14]

Doubtful. I think Hynix ram is reserved for 290X's generally. Its not the end of the world if you get Elpida. Because of the 512bit bus you don''t need to overclock the ram as much to get massive bandwidth. My Elpida overclocks by 15% at stock (not tried further, quite possible it will go further) on both my cards and 1400mhz is a hell of a lot of bandwidth. It makes very little difference in games btw, a few fps if that. It can help a bit in certain benchmark scores though, but generally you don't get much from memory overclocking unless the card has a 256bit bus or lower.

Im not bothered about any OC (the 290 is quite a beast anyway)

The reason I hoped for the hynix RAM was that it seems that very few (or even no) cases of the black screen at STOCK CLOCKS. And there seems to be a lot of cases of the other ram (elpida) not being to cut it even at stock clocks.

My last 290 (VTX) had to be slowed down to 1000mhz for the ram from 1250mhz to play BF3 or finish 3DMark

 

[ICDP]

Anyone with gelid icy vision v2? Could you post comparison pics like Terminal_Boy did on the previous page? (comment #102)?

I'm trying to figure out which cooler to go with. Which one (gelid vs xtreme 3) takes more slots? I'm hoping for CF in a couple of months.

I have tested a Gelid version 2 on a friends R9 290 and while it is a great cooler the problem is there is no PWM fan control so it is always at your specified fan speed. 100% fan speed is required for any decent overclocking and while it is not that loud in gaming it is far too loud for normal use. Though 100% fan on the Gelid is much quieter than reference at 45% fan speed IMHO.

If you don't plan to overclock then 60% fan speed on the Gelid is inaudible over normal case fans. At this setting the GPU and VRM temperatures are kept quite low as long as you are at stock, or overclock without bumping voltage top 1GHz. IIRC 75c core clock and 80c on VRM1 was achieved with 60% fan speed on my friends R9 290 at stock voltage with 1050MHz core and 1250 VRAM.

If PWM fan control is required then the xtreme 3 may be a better option.

PWM fan control means the fan speed ramps up and down with GPU temperatures.

 

[ICDP]

Im not bothered about any OC (the 290 is quite a beast anyway)

The reason I hoped for the hynix RAM was that it seems that very few (or even no) cases of the black screen at STOCK CLOCKS. And there seems to be a lot of cases of the other ram (elpida) not being to cut it even at stock clocks.

My last 290 (VTX) had to be slowed down to 1000mhz for the ram from 1250mhz to play BF3 or finish 3DMark

I have used 3x R9 290s with Eplida VRAM and none of them black screen at stock clocks. Try to remember that reading a lot of reports on the internet is not the same as widespread. Though it clearly is a problem for some, it is not the majority.

The worst that will happen if you get a card that black screens at stock is you RMA it.

 

[Apache14]

I have used 3x R9 290s with Eplida VRAM and none of them black screen at stock clocks. Try to remember that reading a lot of reports on the internet is not the same as widespread. Though it clearly is a problem for some, it is not the majority.

The worst that will happen if you get a card that black screens at stock is you RMA it.

Haha stop making sense

You are correct, forums do tend to represent a bias view (in this case "black screen" threads).

But after one 290 already RMA'ed because of the issue im a little uneasy about the situation

If this new card survives 2-3 runs of 3Dmark and heaven ill be happy that is working fine

 

[BubbySoup]

Well mine are driving me crazy right now. Crashes/black screens seem so random. Everything is at stock and I can run through loops of 3Dmark/valley/heaven without a hitch, however loading up Metro (the latest one) crashes out after a few minutes at random places, Star Wars:TOR will play ok for about 15 mins then will black screen for about 2-3 seconds before throwing me back in the game and carrying on as normal (prob display driver recovering after a crash I'm guessing). Strangely BF4 seems fine for the 20 mins or so I tested it, and last but not least is Skyrim which seems quite happy but throws up a nice, multi coloured corrupted screen every now and again for literally a frame and then carries on - if you blink you miss it.

Very frustrated atm. The last ATI cards I owned were 6970's and they never gave me a single issue in crossfire.

Going to try down clocking the ram tonight

Both my cards are Sapphires

 

[SiDeards73]

I have to say my Sapphire 290 has Elpida Ram, i have run it at stock and at much higher clocks while benching and it has NEVER blackscreened on me ever.

I think the blackscreen issue is unfortunatley pot luck for people, i heard people saying playing with the cards voltage can ease blackscreen and other issues, not touched mine as ive not had issues with it other than BF4.Exe has stopped working due to BF4 being so buggy.

Only issue i did have was pushing the card too high and too many volts would cause my PC to reboot when playing BF4 or Heaven but that was due to my PSU being not up to the job. Since i dropped the clocks and volts back to stock ive not had a single issue, i can apply half decent clocks and not get issues, its only when i force the card hard i get it, so i believe its a PSU fault rather than the card.

 

[LtMatt]

I have used 3x R9 290s with Eplida VRAM and none of them black screen at stock clocks. Try to remember that reading a lot of reports on the internet is not the same as widespread. Though it clearly is a problem for some, it is not the majority.

The worst that will happen if you get a card that black screens at stock is you RMA it.

Yeah have to agree. I've got two 290's with Elpida ram and i get no black screens at stock or when overclocked. However if you run unstable overclocks or the gpu gets too hot then either of these can cause a black screen. However they're easily avoided by anyone with just a modicum of common sense. This may not be the case for all though and they're probably exceptions to the rule.

My advice would be to run a custom fan profile and keep temps at or below 90c.

 

[Smudge]

My sapphire hasn't black screened either, elpida ram. I can push it to 1130/1450 with the power sliders maxed but I just run it at 1070/1300 with no extra power for now until I can get it under water or some custom cooling.

 

[ICDP]

Well mine are driving me crazy right now. Crashes/black screens seem so random. Everything is at stock and I can run through loops of 3Dmark/valley/heaven without a hitch, however loading up Metro (the latest one) crashes out after a few minutes at random places, Star Wars:TOR will play ok for about 15 mins then will black screen for about 2-3 seconds before throwing me back in the game and carrying on as normal (prob display driver recovering after a crash I'm guessing). Strangely BF4 seems fine for the 20 mins or so I tested it, and last but not least is Skyrim which seems quite happy but throws up a nice, multi coloured corrupted screen every now and again for literally a frame and then carries on - if you blink you miss it.

Very frustrated atm. The last ATI cards I owned were 6970's and they never gave me a single issue in crossfire.

Going to try down clocking the ram tonight

Both my cards are Sapphires

As a test I just tried Metro last Light and I got a black screen after only a few minutes at stock. Even though I was running at stock according to Sapphire Trixx) I unloaded the software. I have had no black after 15 minutes of running MLL. I will test some more and report back.

 

[ICDP]

I just did another test in MLL with no 3rd party ovrerclocking utility loaded and after 20+ minutes of play there were no black screens. I will test again with MSI AB running with stock clocks profile.

 

[orange_smurf]

Has anyone tried SAPPHIRE "TriXX OC Utility" v4.8.2?

• Add the support on R9 200 series
• Support overvolt of R9 290 and R9 290X in offset mode
• Minor bug fixes

 

[Orangey]

Has anyone tried SAPPHIRE "TriXX OC Utility" v4.8.2?

• Add the support on R9 200 series
• Support overvolt of R9 290 and R9 290X in offset mode
• Minor bug fixes

I like the jib of your cut.