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

LtMatt · 27 Jun 2014 at 14:04

I swapped my 290's round today. The card that was in slot one would only undervolt to -0.031v. Any lowering would causes flickering at idle/browsing despite it being game stable at lower voltages. Put card two in slot one (wahey) and suddenly im able to undervolt both cards to -0.056v. Passed OCCT stable and no idle flickering. Will now try for -0.062v.

JamesM said:
Sold one of my 7990s so i'm back running three reference 290s again

Don't even need to overclock them, everything runs so smooth, happy days.

Just need to get water blocks on them and i'm done for a year or so I think (famous last words)

MOOGLEYS · 27 Jun 2014 at 14:06

Why do you undervolt them is it to keep the temps down ?

LtMatt · 27 Jun 2014 at 14:07

MOOGLEYS said:
Why do you undervolt them is it to keep the temps down ?

Yep, every little helps on the reference cooler.

I can only imagine what sort of crazy low temps you'd get on a Tri-X or a PCS 290 with -0.056v.

EDIT

Nope -0.056v is the limit. -0.062v produces light flickering at idle. Nice. Now time to see how far the clock will go at -0.056v, up to 1000 core so far no issues.

JamesM · 27 Jun 2014 at 14:10

MOOGLEYS said:
You have 3 290's for a 2560x1080 screen !!

Not just for that haha

I mine on them

so they were bought with that intention, I just happen to use them for gaming now too

I prefer as high FPS as possible even on a 60Hz monitor. Anything less than 100 feels sluggish to me.

MOOGLEYS · 27 Jun 2014 at 14:16

LtMatt said:
Yep, every little helps on the reference cooler.

I can only imagine what sort of crazy low temps you'd get on a Tri-X or a PCS 290 with -0.056v.

EDIT

Nope -0.056v is the limit. 0.062v produces light flickering at idle. Nice. Now time to see how far the clock will go at -0.056v, up to 1000 core so far no issues.

I'm not going anywhere near the voltages all is working ok at the moment...

LtMatt · 27 Jun 2014 at 15:09

MOOGLEYS said:
I'm not going anywhere near the voltages all is working ok at the moment...

Understandable in your situation with your gpu luck.

Me? I like a little fiddle now and then. Anything to improve temps/performance 0.2%.

wazza300 · 27 Jun 2014 at 15:13

what are your temps like moogleys with that card?

Gerard · 27 Jun 2014 at 15:18

MAtt post up a pic of afterburner voltages so I can see what you're setting yours to.

LtMatt · 27 Jun 2014 at 15:23

Gerard said:
MAtt post up a pic of afterburner voltages so I can see what you're setting yours to.

This is what I'm using at the moment.

I recommend you first try core voltage of -0.025v and AUX voltage of -0.050v. If that is stable, then keep lowering the core voltage one notch at a time. If AUX is stable at -0.050v then try lowering it to -0.100v. Undervolting on the reference cooler make a big difference to temps and noise. You can even overclock the core a bit too, even with undervolting. I can go as high as 1050/1250 at -0.037v on both my cards. However mine appear to go higher on low volts that most other peoples.

Instability will show itself as 2d flickering and or coloured artifacts/flashing under 3d load, or a black screen.

MOOGLEYS · 27 Jun 2014 at 15:43

Nexus18 said:
BTW, I am just keeping my MSI one, happy with the current temps etc. and I haven't had any problems either.

Should a problem arise in the future, I have ocuk and MSI's great customer service

All my MSI cards that I sent back have been confirmed faulty and refunded. They are looking into the situation.

Nexus18 · 27 Jun 2014 at 16:42

MOOGLEYS said:
All my MSI cards that I sent back have been confirmed faulty and refunded. They are looking into the situation.

cool, keep me updated if you hear any more back about the problem

I just couldn't be assed with any more faff for RMA stuff

Especially when my card seems to be working as expected and temps aren't too bad for the majority of games and I have put some serious hours into gaming since getting the card with only one blue screen, which was probably related to wolfenstein..... *touch wood*

Just knowing my luck, I return and get another card which will have a more serious problem

thefogo · 27 Jun 2014 at 16:45

LtMatt said:
Yep, every little helps on the reference cooler.

I can only imagine what sort of crazy low temps you'd get on a Tri-X or a PCS 290 with -0.056v.

EDIT

Nope -0.056v is the limit. -0.062v produces light flickering at idle. Nice. Now time to see how far the clock will go at -0.056v, up to 1000 core so far no issues.

The PCS down volted is ridiculous. I had mine running at the default IDLE fan speed and it didn't even break 75C.

MOOGLEYS · 27 Jun 2014 at 16:49

thefogo said:
The PCS down volted is ridiculous. I had mine running at the default IDLE fan speed and it didn't even break 75C.

My sapphire has not gone above 75.c with default voltage and 1100mhz ?

thefogo · 27 Jun 2014 at 16:53

MOOGLEYS said:
My sapphire has not gone above 75.c with default voltage and 1100mhz ?

At idle fan speed?

MOOGLEYS · 27 Jun 2014 at 16:54

thefogo said:
At idle fan speed?

Ahh idle speed missed that bit.

mine is at whatever the default is its so quite I have not bothered to touch it.

thefogo · 27 Jun 2014 at 17:01

Yeah

On auto fan it only hit 62C. But it was louder than I would like.

Confused Stu · 27 Jun 2014 at 18:33

Any chance you could change my entry in the roll of honour in the OP?

I have definitely left the land of the reference coolers (sorry Matt) and joined the Arctic Accelero Hybrid 2 brigade. I sadly had to change my Silver Arrow for a smaller Phanteks cooler as the heatsink on card 1 was slightly larger than I thought, but other than that it's all good. Much, much quieter, cooler on the cores (60-65C rather than 90-94C), and the VRMs haven't changed too much (about 10C hotter on each, which I'm comfortable with, but VRM1 on card 2 gets warmer than I'd like at the moment so another fan may be popped in at some point).

Anyway, I did promise some pictures. They're not as stunning looking as some of your rigs, but he's always been more of a workhorse than a show pony, and I like the looks - especially the subtle lighting of the NZXT HUE when it's dark.

tayto_0 · 27 Jun 2014 at 18:38

Oh i like that. It's different.

humbug · 27 Jun 2014 at 18:41

Confused Stu said:
Any chance you could change my entry in the roll of honour in the OP?

I have definitely left the land of the reference coolers (sorry Matt) and joined the Arctic Accelero Hybrid 2 brigade. I sadly had to change my Silver Arrow for a smaller Phanteks cooler as the heatsink on card 1 was slightly larger than I thought, but other than that it's all good. Much, much quieter, cooler on the cores (60-65C rather than 90-94C), and the VRMs haven't changed too much (about 10C hotter on each, which I'm comfortable with, but VRM1 on card 2 gets warmer than I'd like at the moment so another fan may be popped in at some point).

Anyway, I did promise some pictures. They're not as stunning looking as some of your rigs, but he's always been more of a workhorse than a show pony, and I like the looks - especially the subtle lighting of the NZXT HUE when it's dark.

Love it Stu, what a nice Rig.

Orangey · 27 Jun 2014 at 19:02

Changed your entry, Stu.