AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Owners Thread

Gerard · 20 Oct 2014 at 23:10

Panos said:
Think out of the box. That slot there doesn't have to push hot air out but can pull cold air IN. And use the front as exhaust. I have it like that on my new case. The fan is pushing cold air into the case, on that slot above the card. I have to heavily overclock it to 1190 to get to 70C while benching.

Also your case is watercooled. There is no reason to have much negative airflow (going out), because nothing generates heat, while the PCB fan is blower type and gets heat out of the case, and not in.
I have 2 case fans (front) blowing cold air IN. Also 2 Apache on the H100i are vertical set blowing cold air in (on the drive bay). The 295X2 rad fan is blowing cold air from the back, and there are 2 140mm fan on top of the case blowing cold air out. Ambient temp in case 17C, after 3 hours playing Alien Isolation just right now.

Might give it a try tomorrow but going by reviews I doubt it will make much difference, the 295x2 is billed as a 4k card yet even in eyefinity some games are pushing it to the 70c mark. If you factor in another 1080p display on top of the 3 for eyefinity id imagine that it will throttle regardless. Also the pcb blower is a centre based one so a lot of the heat is actually being dumped into the case, only some is going out the back and if you take into consideration the card has a lot of vents on it id wager more is going back into the case than exhausting, in terms of vrm temps at least.

I was intending to make the switch to 4k this year at some point but looking at things currently i'm doubting that this card would be able to maintain steady clocks at that res.

Theres also the fact that some fins are slightly damaged which is really getting on my nerves even thinking about it. £700 card and whoever assembled it seemed to have a slippery screwdriver but because of where the damage is its very hard to see.

Panos · 23 Oct 2014 at 12:56

Gerard said:
Might give it a try tomorrow but going by reviews I doubt it will make much difference, the 295x2 is billed as a 4k card yet even in eyefinity some games are pushing it to the 70c mark. If you factor in another 1080p display on top of the 3 for eyefinity id imagine that it will throttle regardless. Also the pcb blower is a centre based one so a lot of the heat is actually being dumped into the case, only some is going out the back and if you take into consideration the card has a lot of vents on it id wager more is going back into the case than exhausting, in terms of vrm temps at least.

I was intending to make the switch to 4k this year at some point but looking at things currently i'm doubting that this card would be able to maintain steady clocks at that res.

Theres also the fact that some fins are slightly damaged which is really getting on my nerves even thinking about it. £700 card and whoever assembled it seemed to have a slippery screwdriver but because of where the damage is its very hard to see.

On the last part I agree. It has some twisted fins where no screws are.

However, how did it went? Did you fit the card as I wrote before?

Gerard · 26 Oct 2014 at 17:16

Installed using the amd recommended method and if anything it makes the clocks drop quicker and further. Seen crysis 3 get down to 855mhz on core 2 which seems to be the core that's currently throttling all the time. Also noticed some very weird gpu utilisation on the card in bf4 where for periods of time 1 core or the other would be at zero load despite a lot of action going on. :confused:

Anyway its being returned on Monday, can't really be arsed messing around with it anymore. Assuming its found to be faulty I've not made my mind up what direction to go in yet.

thefogo · 28 Oct 2014 at 13:07

Gerard said:
Installed using the amd recommended method and if anything it makes the clocks drop quicker and further. Seen crysis 3 get down to 855mhz on core 2 which seems to be the core that's currently throttling all the time. Also noticed some very weird gpu utilisation on the card in bf4 where for periods of time 1 core or the other would be at zero load despite a lot of action going on.

Anyway its being returned on Monday, can't really be arsed messing around with it anymore. Assuming its found to be faulty I've not made my mind up what direction to go in yet.

Did you end up sorting it out? I'm kinda interested in getting one of these eventually but there are a few people having problems which puts me off.
I'm hoping for a crazy price drop like the 7990 had.

Gerard · 28 Oct 2014 at 14:58

thefogo said:
Did you end up sorting it out? I'm kinda interested in getting one of these eventually but there are a few people having problems which puts me off.
I'm hoping for a crazy price drop like the 7990 had.

Nope, sent it back, should have arrived today but according to parcelFARCE it was only picked up today after me bringing it to the post office early yesterday. :mad:

Tried different mounting methods and nothing changed in regards to it throttling.

A slight bit of fin damage I noticed on the opposite side of the rad, that's the side that the mounting screws go into and they're far too short to get anywhere near that so its came from the factory in that condition.

I'm pretty sure that's right next to a water channel as well, its right on the edge looking at it.

Loxa · 28 Oct 2014 at 15:06

Had all the same issues with mine, so I sent it back and was done with it. They had a good idea with the AIO but it just didn't cut the custard.

Gerard · 28 Oct 2014 at 15:10

Loxa said:
Had the all the same issues with mine, so I sent it back and was done with it. They had a good idea with the AIO but it just didn't cut the custard.

Yeah its annoying how its worked out, maybe if I had a mini tornado pushing air into the rad it would be different. Battlefield 4 is also throttling in certain occasions in eyefinity so needless to say its a card that wouldn't work well for 4k.

thefogo · 28 Oct 2014 at 15:11

Gerard said:
Nope, sent it back, should have arrived today but according to parcelFARCE it was only picked up today after me bringing it to the post office early yesterday. Tried different mounting methods and nothing changed in regards to it throttling.

A slight bit of fin damage I noticed on the opposite side of the rad, that's the side that the mounting screws go into and they're far too short to get anywhere near that so its came from the factory in that condition. I'm pretty sure that's right next to a water channel as well, its right on the edge looking at it.

Pretty naff that you couldn't stop it throttling. I'd say you possibly got a bad one but it seems a few people have the same problem.

I just realised you're the guy I sold my 290 to

Did you get sick of the noise?

Gerard · 28 Oct 2014 at 15:13

thefogo said:
Pretty naff that you couldn't stop it throttling. I'd say you possibly got a bad one but it seems a few people have the same problem.

I just realised you're the guy I sold my 290 to Did you get sick of the noise?

My cousin ended up buying it, he has a raven case so the intakes at the bottom keep it pretty cool and not as loud

Ayahuasca · 28 Oct 2014 at 15:16

Pleased I didn't bother now, seems throttling is pretty hard to stop. Shame because for sub £600 when working at it's full potential it's only beaten by separate card SLI/CF setups.

thefogo · 28 Oct 2014 at 15:25

Gerard said:
My cousin ended up buying it, he has a raven case so the intakes at the bottom keep it pretty cool and not as loud

Ah nice

Panos · 29 Oct 2014 at 07:21

Guys, when you put the card on the read top slot, I hope you use it to blow cold air to the radiator not as an exhaust. Is pointless to blast warm air to the rad.

As for someone said positioning doesn't matter in general for AIOs, the H100 if put horizontal on the case roof top, generates +20C on my CPU compared to having it vertical hanging behind the drive bay.

Same applies to the 295X2 cooler. I never get more than 55C, while overclocked at 1100 after many hours on both GPUs working in Crossfire more at full load.

As for noise who someone mentioned, this card is dead silent under heavy full load.

Gerard · 29 Oct 2014 at 15:48

Ive tried multiple installs, moving the card down in the pcie slots so the rad was above the gpu in terms of height with the rad mounted behind the front intakes, nothing changed. The amd recommended install is as follows:

And if anything installing it that way made the card throttle faster. To me it just seems this is the 7990 playing out all over again, review cards managing to play at 4k with ease and not running into thermal issues while only being the same case for some retail cards. I'd imagine even for this card some kind of binning for the cores had to be done to ensure the aio cooler wouldn't be overwhelmed. They don't seem to have done a good job of it in my opinion.

Its a great looking and quiet card, and pretty unique looking as well but for me at least its disappointing.

My card was found to be faulty by ocuk, now to play the waiting game with it being sent back to sapphire

. Would have thought with it being gimped id have a replacement right away but apparently not

Loxa · 29 Oct 2014 at 16:21

Gerard said:
Ive tried multiple installs, moving the card down in the pcie slots so the rad was above the gpu in terms of height with the rad mounted behind the front intakes, nothing changed. The amd recommended install is as follows:

And if anything installing it that way made the card throttle faster. To me it just seems this is the 7990 playing out all over again, review cards managing to play at 4k with ease and not running into thermal issues while only being the same case for some retail cards. I'd imagine even for this card some kind of binning for the cores had to be done to ensure the aio cooler wouldn't be overwhelmed. They don't seem to have done a good job of it in my opinion.

Its a great looking and quiet card, and pretty unique looking as well but for me at least its disappointing.

My card was found to be faulty by ocuk, now to play the waiting game with it being sent back to sapphire . Would have thought with it being gimped id have a replacement right away but apparently not

That is strange

Gerard · 29 Oct 2014 at 16:32

Loxa said:
That is strange

Something to do with it not being doa in a certain period of time. I find it odd myself, I could understand the 7990 having to go back as it was eol. But they have stock of plenty of 295's, was considering paying the extra and switching to a pair of 980's as this is 2 flagship amd cards this year that have went screwy on me.

Waited over a month earlier this year for a refund, now I've another presumably long wait ahead.

Not at all happy about it, thought it would be a case of ok cards faulty, old one goes back new one gets sent out at the same time. =/

Panos · 29 Oct 2014 at 17:37

Gerard said:
Something to do with it not being doa in a certain period of time. I find it odd myself, I could understand the 7990 having to go back as it was eol. But they have stock of plenty of 295's, was considering paying the extra and switching to a pair of 980's as this is 2 flagship amd cards this year that have went screwy on me.

Waited over a month earlier this year for a refund, now I've another presumably long wait ahead.

Not at all happy about it, thought it would be a case of ok cards faulty, old one goes back new one gets sent out at the same time. =/

Remove the card and look if the little white connector showing behind the PCB fan is attached/connected. You will see earlier in this thread, some had same issue as you, and either that wasn't connected or some of the cables where cut off.

Given the issues you have, I would advice you to RMA it. Because believe me, mine with the stock fan never went above 50C when I placed it properly, without overclocking. Have you tried to replace the fan with an Apache or similar?

Is sad that you have such bad experience with yours, because is truly an amazing card when is working.

Gerard · 29 Oct 2014 at 17:41

Its at ocuk currently,being sent back to sapphire.

Infekted · 31 Oct 2014 at 22:49

Hey guys,

Looking to glean some info. Just purchased a 295x2 and I was wondering if any of you chaps were running a 850w PSU. I am running a rm 850, any chance one of you is running with that combo?

Thanks in advance

Neil79 · 31 Oct 2014 at 23:00

What case is that Gerard?

Gerard · 31 Oct 2014 at 23:06

Neil79 said:
What case is that Gerard?

Corsair 750d.

As an update to the thread my new 295x2 should be here Monday. Needless to say if this also throttles it's getting chucked out the window. Would have preferred to pay the extra and switch to a pair of 980's to be honest but that option isn't available for whatever reason.