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FAO: 280x owners

Goose

Goose

Goose

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,820
Location
Kent
I received my Gigabyte 280x yesterday and finally got to play around with it after deciding to do a clean Windows 7 reinstall and have a few questions/queries.

1. Does this Heaven score look about right baring in mind my screen res is only 1680x1050, CPU clocked at 4.5 and GPU at stock 1100/1500.

Ec8DIHV.png


2. Before running the actually benchmark and just letting the scene run through I noticed quite a lot of artifacting which wasnt present in the benchmark or the one game i've played so far (Dayz Epoch, an Arma2 mod).

3. I've been really rather disappointed with the performance in Dayz Epoch which is what i've been playing mostly for the last few weeks. With everything set to max except for AA which i left disabled I still only get on average (this is more a guestimation) 35- 40 fps, with regular dips in the 20's on certain parts of the map. GPU and CPU never get near being maxxed out and temps never even reach 70c.

4. As above temps have yet to reach 70c so i was wondering if it's safe to make a custom fan profile since cooler seems to like 65% (~3000rpm) which is actually quite noisy. I'm a bit OCD with noise quietening it down would be nice.

Sorry if this is tl;dr :)

Thanks
 
Thanks chaps.

Any advice on how to investigate the artifacting issue? As i understand it drivers can be an issue sometimes so i'd like to determine the cause of the fault, be it hardware or software.
 
Yeah like NoName says, everything looks fine right now and for your artifacting im guessing its software related because, your benchmark is fine otherwise it would be lower, so id say remove all AMD Drivers and do fresh install!
 
TheyCallMeAndy said:
Yeah like NoName says, everything looks fine right now and for your artifacting im guessing its software related because, your benchmark is fine otherwise it would be lower, so id say remove all AMD Drivers and do fresh install!
Click to expand...

I did a complete clean re-install on Win7 and installed the latest Beta drivers for my 280x. I'm going to use DDU to remove them and try the latest stable WHQL drives and see how that goes.
 
From 13.xx whql to the 14.1, 14.2 and 14.3 I've seen gradual improvements with my 290, I'm not talking huge amounts but going from whql-14.1-14.2- 14.3 I have had a gain each time, with 14.3 being noticeably better than the whql driver for me in Catzilla- Heaven4.0 and Valley.
 
A little update.

I ran Heaven benchmark again with everything still stock and I did notice some minor artifacting towards the end of the run, this is on the latest 13.xx drivers.

I started reading the AMD overclocking guide and upped the core clock by 25mhz and ran Heaven again. I got some pretty major artifacting so it would seem my card cannot be clocked higher at all.

Temps remained below 70 throughout these benchmarks.

Am i looking at an RMA situation or should i be investigating further?
 
Same CPU with a 280X but my 2500K is currently running at stock speed and I am using Windows 8.1.

I ran the benchmark with the settings and screen res above and got...

FPS 41.7
Score 1049
Min FPS 22.1
Max FPS 94.9

Not sure how much the CPU speed would help with this program.
 
Is it this one? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-122-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

It has a factory overclock, that shouldn't effect it as it should do ~1200 before it starts artifacting.

Now, this might be coincidence, a year ago i had a Gigabyte 7870, also with an 1100Mhz factory overclock, while it never gave me any artifacting it did not like running at anything over 1150Mhz, it would even crash the system at times.
Thats not normal.

It was a horrible GPU.

I now run what is apparently (a cheaper lesser quality) Powercolor PCS+ 7870XT MYST, its a Tahiti LE chip, basically a cut down 7950 with 2GB vRam and a 256Bit bus. i run that @ ~1200 / 1600 without the slightest little glitch, its been perfect and very dependable for the year that i have had it.

If i was you and found intermittent artifacting at stock, and definite artifacting at even a low overclock, i would DSR / RMA it.

Get a different one, the 280X is a very very good GPU, just not that one.
 
Thats the one yeah. I wanted a Gigabyte because my 460 was a Gigabyte and the cooler was great (i'm really OCD about noise).

I still have about 10 days to DSR it so i'll keep testing with it and see what happens.
 
Goose said:
Thats the one yeah. I wanted a Gigabyte because my 460 was a Gigabyte and the cooler was great (i'm really OCD about noise).

I still have about 10 days to DSR it so i'll keep testing with it and see what happens.
Click to expand...

I have to say, the 7870 i had had a similar 3 fan cooler, it is good, yes.

But there are others with coolers just as good.

"I still have about 10 days to DSR it so i'll keep testing with it and see what happens."

Good idea :)
 
If I do end up swapping it for another 280x which brand would you suggest bearing in mind i value good quiet coolers very highly :)

Also, are there any benchmarks that are particularly good for testing for artifacts and such?
 
Goose said:
If I do end up swapping it for another 280x which brand would you suggest bearing in mind i value good quiet coolers very highly :)

Also, are there any benchmarks that are particularly good for testing for artifacts and such?
Click to expand...


This one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-091-HS

HIS make good solid GPU's, i would rate them amongst the best, and you can't beat their coolers. its a little big though, make sure you have room for it.

Checking artefacts Heave 4 and Valley are best for that job.
 
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