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

Just to add,

I am on my 2nd RMa now in 6 months. 1st was faulty on arrival (temp sensor), on the second, the vram appears to have died (and has been returned to manufacturer for RMA so I am without a card for a few weeks)

VTX3D 290, x-edition (non-flashed).

If I were buying again, I would be tempted to go 780
 
ArchAnGeL said:
Just to add,

I am on my 2nd RMa now in 6 months. 1st was faulty on arrival (temp sensor), on the second, the vram appears to have died (and has been returned to manufacturer for RMA so I am without a card for a few weeks)

VTX3D 290, x-edition (non-flashed).

If I were buying again, I would be tempted to go 780
Click to expand...
May be you should choose the brand as when when buying a card?

Had you bought a Palit (for example) GTX780 you might have problem as well. Should stick with brand like Gigabyte if you want fast reliable UK rma service and quality assurance.
 
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I did 3 Rma's in 6 weeks, 2 with blackscreen issues and 1 with a broken fan, all Power Color 290 PCS cards, just for reference.

I don't think the 290 range is bad on the whole, but 3 failures was enough to make me go to Nvidia.
 
LtMatt said:
As the ying to his yang, i have two of those reference VTX 290 cards and they've never skipped a beat.
Click to expand...
Yea but reference VTX PCBs are made by Sapphire...what about the current PCB that VTX are using for the 290? Are they still reference PCB made by Sapphire, or have they started making custom PCB and cut corner on components yet (like how XFX always do)?
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Yea but reference VTX PCBs are made by Sapphire...what about the current PCB that VTX are using for the 290? Are they still reference PCB made by Sapphire, or have they started making custom PCB and cut corner on components yet (like how XFX always do)?
Click to expand...

Here's a VTX 290 reference pcb. It does not say AMD on the bottom, but it appears to be identical to AMD reference pcb's in every other way.

kQs5M3z.jpg
 
LtMatt said:
Are you using vsync and bouncing off the 60 fps limit? Because otherwise you're at cpu bottleneck central and the population is you.



Word. Another Nvidia user converted to Mantle. :cool:
Click to expand...

No vsync at all for it or the other games.


My last two GPU's have been AMD :p Although I was strongly wanting to move to nvidia this time but couldn't justify the extra price.
 
LtMatt said:
Word. Another Nvidia user converted to Mantle. :cool:
Click to expand...

Judgement day is coming for Mantle.

The test will be can it run Civilization beyond earth maxed out with a huge empire on a huge map late in the game.

This is something that has brought every DX11 based PC I have owned to it's knees running Civ5.

Bring on the challenger.

kOkIWwD.png
 
LtMatt said:
I expect Civilization beyond earth will probably show the biggest difference yet in performance between DX and Mantle. A lot more than Battlefield will I'd have thought.
Click to expand...

The worrying part is DX11 runs better on very high end setups.

If the game devs mess this up it will not be good publicity for Mantle.

Memory usage I think is one of the problems in Civ5.
 
Kaapstad said:
The worrying part is DX11 runs better on very high end setups.

If the game devs mess this up it will not be good publicity for Mantle.
Click to expand...

That's only due to Dices memory management though. Civ is developed by different developers and they seem to love Mantle vs DX. :cool:

https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/460051252773396480
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/459430605764427776
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/469655823283924992
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/472525545776095232
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/469664899384479746
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/466354972385624064

I think you're going to be in for a treat Kaap. ;)

Here's the Intel GPU bloke Alatar loves to quote from Beyond3d. Sounds a little jealous. :D

https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/465937127080198145
 
Marine-RX179 said:
May be you should choose the brand as when when buying a card?

Had you bought a Palit (for example) GTX780 you might have problem as well. Should stick with brand like Gigabyte if you want fast reliable UK rma service and quality assurance.
Click to expand...

That's a fair point. Some have better reps and certainly much better RMA service.

However, from my personal experience I have bought loads of cards over the years and many have been low end brands, particularly if buying a reference design. I've never had to RMA one before yet I have sent two back of this design. A read of this thread suggests 290 and RMA is quite common. More common than other designs, more common with certain manufacturers, reference vs non-reference? No idea? I feel I see a lot more 290 problems on these forums than 780's though but maybe that's just me.
 
LtMatt said:
That's only due to Dices memory management though. Civ is developed by different developers and they seem to love Mantle vs DX. :cool:

https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/460051252773396480
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/459430605764427776
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/469655823283924992
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/472525545776095232
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/469664899384479746
https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/466354972385624064

I think you're going to be in for a treat Kaap. ;)

Here's the Intel GPU bloke Alatar loves to quote from Beyond3d. Sounds a little jealous. :D

https://twitter.com/JJcoolkl/status/465937127080198145
Click to expand...

That is Mantles weakness though, AMD rely on the game devs to get it running correctly.

The game devs never got DX11 and Civ5 running correctly so this is quite worrying.

Having said that if they do get it right with Mantle on the new Civ game then AMD will have huge bragging rights. What happens now on Civ5 in a huge game with DX11 is the tiles lose their improvements and eventually the game won't even load.
 
Kaapstad said:
That is Mantles weakness though, AMD rely on the game devs to get it running correctly.

The game devs never got DX11 and Civ5 running correctly so this is quite worrying.

Having said that if they do get it right with Mantle on the new Civ game then AMD will have huge bragging rights. What happens now on Civ5 in a huge game with DX11 is the tiles lose their improvements and eventually the game won't even load.
Click to expand...

Your confusing relying on Game Devs with allowing Game Devs the freedom to do what they want with it.
 
~Mike~ said:
That's a shame. I received a Sapphire 290x Tri-x which had bent fins on the heatsink also quite dusty as well and before you ask the box was sealed so it hadn't been used before.
Click to expand...

Bit miffed with it tbh. I have had one with chew marks in it and this one bent badly. I think MSi' quality control department must be blind or on holiday permanently.

I think I will order the 290 Vapor X and hope it arrives un chewed and straight... :)
 
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