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** GIBBO's GUIDE TO WHICH 290 SERIES CARD TO BUY!! **

Gibbo. please do a comprehensive review of the Powercolor and the MSI. :)

I'm also intrested to know if the Powercolor can be over / under volted with MSI AB, my current one can't, something apparently in this BIOS locking it to their own Power Up Tuner, in which you can.

PowerColor PCS+ HD7870 Myst

Great GPU that BTW, undervolted to 1.2v it runs 1200/1600 24/7 perfectly @ ~72 quiet 40% fan, you never stocked it, got it elsewhere for £176 with 3 Games. i would have preferd to buy it from you.
 
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Great sum up.
Only couple small niggles concerning Asus sku's.
First one, their employed IR3550 mosfet package is in fact iterationaly newer and electrically better solution than older Ior DirectFet pac.
Second - I wouldn't judge on only one review that it's subpar clocker, cause i find plenty proper reviewers achieving decent ones:

R9-290X-ASUS-54.jpg

ce471d128af8c1f9eb15c6566d363980.JPG

a470ed5526be4f3af123efddab8ff9bf.jpg

oc2.PNG

6b5b6364ff437dc4801e37fdc1aa6adf.jpg


Obviously the biggest let down is Elpida vidmem chips as well as grossly unoptimized VRM1 cooling solution, which is even more choking vram oc capabilities.
 
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l2ez4m said:
Great sum up.
Only couple small niggles concerning Asus sku's.
First one, their employed IR3550 mosfet package is in fact iterationaly newer and electrically better solution than older Ior DirectFet pac.
Second - I wouldn't judge on only one review that it's subpar clocker, cause i find plenty proper reviewers achieving decent ones:

R9-290X-ASUS-54.jpg

ce471d128af8c1f9eb15c6566d363980.JPG

a470ed5526be4f3af123efddab8ff9bf.jpg

oc2.PNG

6b5b6364ff437dc4801e37fdc1aa6adf.jpg


Obviously the biggest let down is Elpida vidmem chips as well as grossly unoptimized VRM1 cooling solution, which is even more choking vram oc capabilities.
Click to expand...

To be honest those results are inline with what I said, good core clocks or certainly not bad as I said expect 1150-1200, but the memory is simply not that great and struggles to pass 6000Mhz, which is definitely linked to either their mosfet or VRM solution, AMD's is and was simply better. Maybe Asus can extract more with a BIOS update, but right now its not doing so great. Which is a shame because cards like the Asus 280X DC2TOP are epic clockers.

I mean come on, the MSI is hitting 6600-6800MHz and the Sapphire 6600-7000Mhz. So the Asus is poor in comparison and you can't blame that entirely on the Elpida, though it does not help.

My Asus 290X Reference is sitting here at home as we type with Elpida RAM at 920Mhz core and 6000MHz memory, mining clock speeds 24/7 (1100mv). For benching it can reach 1240MHz core and 6500MHz RAM with 100% fan, it can do 6600MHz but artifacts. So right now it does look like there mosfet package or un-optimized VRM's is not doing the card any favours. Its a poor show considering its quite a bit more expensive than the reference card and clocks worse.

I get my Asus 290X DC2 on Monday, I shall be giving it a good thrashing and reporting back here, but I want to see it at least match my Asus reference Elpida card or beat it.
 
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Katanaq said:
How about 290x Lightning? Any pre-insights (probably under NDA) or ETA?
Click to expand...

I had a play with an Engineering prototype, this card hit 1240MHz core but was using less voltage than the Sapphire Tri-X at 1260MHz, so the Lightning with same voltage should match or beat it.

The Lightning too managed 7000MHz memory overclock.

The cooling solution like the Sapphires is huge, I'd say the MSI solution was able to match the Sapphire solution but with a little less noise.

A final production sample will hopefully do better, but in short the Lightning will be a match for the Sapphire Tri-X with a little less noise and will be more optimised for LN2 overclocking.

Of course what we shall do is give 8 Pack the Sapphire Tri-X card I've being playing with and a Lightning when they come in and he can do a showdown between the two.

As it would be interesting to see how AMD's own built PCB components compares to MSI's own attempt with overclocking in mind. I think a lot of people under-estimate how good the AMD OWN Design actually is.
 
LtMatt said:
Quoted for truth.
Click to expand...

They only got the cooler wrong, unless your a bencher or miner that is. For quiet gaming its very poor.

Its obvious Sapphire realised this, take the AMD PCB and their components and don't change a thing!

Write a great BIOS, stick a huge cooler on it and the result is a very impressive package. :)
 
tommybhoy said:
Fantastic info gibbo.:)

I might give the 290X Tri-X bios a spin, it may spin up my AC Xtreme fans better than the Asus bios.
Click to expand...

The Tri-X is different from others there is no quiet or uber(fan speed) they have better uefi support.I flashed my ref card with this bios and it seems more stable toward mem clocks.I had a few blast at 1125/1690 at stock volts.
 
Just to be clear Gibbo, all reference can be flashed to the asus 290x bios regardless if they are unlockable or not? i.e with a locked on it obviously wont unlock but you get more voltage to play with?
 
ArchAnGeL said:
Just to be clear Gibbo, all reference can be flashed to the asus 290x bios regardless if they are unlockable or not? i.e with a locked on it obviously wont unlock but you get more voltage to play with?
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Yes you can flash any kind of them with the Asus.All ref cards are the same,but you can use the new Trixx now which gives +200mV to play with that should yield 1450mV.So you dont need that crap gpu tweak which is awfull.
 
I notice a distinct lake of the local muppets from the green side voicing their opinions on this thread, i love my 290, its ref, its loud if not controlled properly but it kicks out so much performance its mad.
 
Stanners said:
Which manufacturer do you get the most returns from due to the black screen issue, are you seeing a pattern ?
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No pattern at all to be honest and the returns percentage wise are quite low.

The issue is that the 290 launch and continuation has being hugely successful for AMD, certainly one of the better launches in recent year. We at OcUK alone have sold thousands, so the UK sales numbers must be very impressive. Across the pond in the US they are completely sold out.

So yes whereas some suffer black screens there is no pattern to it.

I've probably tested over hundred 290 cards myself and the only time ive had a black screen is from trying to push the memory too hard overclock wise.
 
Gibbo said:
No pattern at all to be honest and the returns percentage wise are quite low.

The issue is that the 290 launch and continuation has being hugely successful for AMD, certainly one of the better launches in recent year. We at OcUK alone have sold thousands, so the UK sales numbers must be very impressive. Across the pond in the US they are completely sold out.

So yes whereas some suffer black screens there is no pattern to it.

I've probably tested over hundred 290 cards myself and the only time ive had a black screen is from trying to push the memory too hard overclock wise.
Click to expand...

That's what i found when i went looking for the black screen issue on two difference cards as well. I think cards that do this at stock are faulty and assuming the memory itself is not faulty i think its a lack of voltage on the IMC which causes the black screen. A voltage bump fixes it, assuming there is nothing physically wrong with the card.
 
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