Cooling my GPU.... Or choosing another

[theaterix]

So i have decided after my room turned into a furnace tonight, and my PC froze, presumably to do with my GPU overheating, that I want to do something to cool the card down to get rid of the heat issue as much as possible.
The card in question is the reference R9 290 and yes it runs hot, and noise isnt really something i care about as i wear headphones so it dosent bother me, but what does bother me is when it freezes up in the middle of an important situation in a game...
I was thinking of getting a Kraken G10 and getting a Corsair H50 off my friend, and id give him £10 for it as its brand new as he won it in a competition a couple of years ago and cant be bothered to install it.
My question is how much cooler will the card be, and will it actually be worth doing, or is it just easier selling on fleabay and putting money into a new card.

Reason ive decided to do this now is im FINALLY scratching my upgrade itch, by getting a new case as the airflow is poop in mine, and getting a 5820k, motherboard and 16gb of DDR4 and ive been questioning myself what to do about my GPU and I think ill bottle selling it and upgrading as it will be too much hassle, as it was the last time. I tried to sell my 7870 and the guy clearly had no clue what he was doing and opened a case and everything saying it didnt work. Turns out he didnt plug the Power connectors in...

I am not looking too a high budget, probably like £100 extra onto the £150 ISH ill get for the 290.. Although i can certify this WILL go higher, although id prefer it not too... Give me a reason to justify the cost and I will see if it will fit within the budget.

Cheers lads

 

[r7slayer]

Well seen as youve made your mind on the upgrade hopefully this thread will b kept soley on cooling your gpu. The 290 os a great card but the ref cooler is poo. Getting the kraken g10 and a AIO cooler would make a massive difference and allow you to overclock it a lot more than refference cooler would!

 

[Confused Stu]

Putting an AIO cooler on a reference 290 makes loads of difference, to both noise and temperature. I have Accelero Hybrid's on mine and using just one GPU it tops out at 62C under very heavy stress and my own custom fan curve which doesn't begin to ramp up until 55C+, so I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to keep it under 60C if you wanted. The Accelero is designed more for silence than cooling, so is almost inaudible in my case even at 100%, so a Kraken might well have a slightly different noise/temperature ratio.

If you can get an H50 that cheap, I'd definitely go for the AIO option and use the 290 until the next gen of GPUs finally arrives if you can hold out. Just make sure your VRMs are properly cooled, especially if you're planning on overclocking.

 

[Dave2150]

+1 to the AIO cooler on your 290.

You have to spend a lot of money to get a worthy upgrade over a 290 - probably best to wait until something much faster is out next year.

 

[CEUOTC]

I have use the NZXT G10 and the Corsair HG10 + H55 on my reference 290s. Worked a treat, with the NZXT it is also worth getting some VRM and RAM heatsinks to help with the cooling of these.