R9 290 which one though?

shankly1985 · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:13

My first choice is the Gigabyte Wind-force, but they is also MSI and Sapphire.

Are these Voltage unlocked? what one gives the best cooling/fan noise?

And am I pushing it running two on 850w I think I may need to change PSU? OCUK have under the Gigabyte 600W or better PSU and that's for one card.

Gibbo · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:18

Hi there

If you want maximum performance, Asus, Sapphire or Powercolor.
If low noise if high importance, the above are also very quiet, but MSI and Gigabyte are very quiet units.

An 850W Gold/Platinum unit might just cut it.

LtMatt · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:20

shankly1985 said:
My first choice is the Gigabyte Wind-force, but they is also MSI and Sapphire.

Are these Voltage unlocked? what one gives the best cooling/fan noise?

And am I pushing it running two on 850w I think I may need to change PSU? OCUK have under the Gigabyte 600W or better PSU and that's for one card.

850W will be fine for two 290 Pro's. I've been getting by on 750W, though my psu does shut off if i go for big overclocks.

Sapphire are out of stock and ive heard the MSI cards aren't so good in crossfire, so if you don't mind the extra id go for the gigabyte 290's in crossfire.

EDIT

As above powercolor might be worth a shout. Looks a lovely card. Don't know much about it though.

fowler002 · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:20

According to gibbo it's sapphire tri-x followed by the msi gaming edition, he tested the asus 290x and said in terms of cooling performance it's better than the tri-x so would assume it's similar for the 290.

What is the make/model of the psu?

Edit: I'm too slow typing

Gibbo · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:23

fowler002 said:
According to gibbo it's sapphire tri-x followed by the msi gaming edition, he tested the asus 290x and said in terms of cooling performance it's better than the tri-x so would assume it's similar for the 290.

What is the make/model of the psu?

Edit: I'm too slow typing

Powercolor is a very similar cooler, hope to test one when I get 30 mins or so spare.....

Ragnahex · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:24

I ran a 850 hx psu for a bit with 2 of these and it was fine.. You could just tell it was under heavy load by the fan ramping up

Avenged7Fold · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:25

What memory is on the Powercolour ones?

shankly1985 · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:26

Gibbo said:
Hi there

If you want maximum performance, Asus, Sapphire or Powercolor.
If low noise if high importance, the above are also very quiet, but MSI and Gigabyte are very quiet units.

An 850W Gold/Platinum unit might just cut it.

LtMatt said:
850W will be fine for two 290 Pro's. I've been getting by on 750W, though my psu does shut off if i go for big overclocks.

Sapphire are out of stock and ive heard the MSI cards aren't so good in crossfire, so if you don't mind the extra id go for the gigabyte 290's in crossfire.

EDIT

As above powercolor might be worth a shout. Looks a lovely card. Don't know much about it though.

PSU is Corsair HX850w and its rated Silver

Not sure if it will run two Gigabytes R9-290

@Gibbo When you say Max performance what do you mean by this? Do the other cards perform better than the Gigabyte or something.
Thanks

LtMatt · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:28

shankly1985 said:
PSU is Corsair HX850w and its rated Silver Not sure if it will run two Gigabytes R9-290

@Gibbo When you say Max performance what do you mean by this? Do the other cards perform better than the Gigabyte or something.
Thanks

Of course it will, it will be fine. If i can run 1100/1400 on 290 crossfire with my cpu at 4.8ghz on a 750W psu with no issues then you'll be fine with an extra 100W-150W to play with.

shankly1985 · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:31

LtMatt said:
Of course it will, it will be fine. If i can run 1100/1400 on 290 crossfire with my cpu at 4.8ghz on a 750W psu with no issues then you'll be fine with an extra 100W-150W to play with.

Are your cards rated 600w min also?

Ragnahex · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:37

Are my posts invisible? I had your psu and your cpu and it ran fine (with hefty overclocks) so unless your psu has deteriorated a fair bit it will run

shankly1985 · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:39

Ragnahex said:
I ran a 850 hx psu for a bit with 2 of these and it was fine.. You could just tell it was under heavy load by the fan ramping up

Ragnahex said:
Are my posts invisible? I had your psu and your cpu and it ran fine (with hefty overclocks) so unless your psu has deteriorated a fair bit it will run

Opps missed your first post.

Was it the Gigabyte card you have yeah?

LtMatt · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:39

shankly1985 said:
Are your cards rated 600w min also?

The power requirements are the same. After all the 290 Gigabyte is just a normal 290 with a small overclock.

shankly1985 · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:46

LtMatt said:
The power requirements are the same. After all the 290 Gigabyte is just a normal 290 with a small overclock.

That's good to know

Tell you what its a pain trying to find reviews of this line up because the naming. I want 290 and I keep getting 290x etc

Pain lol

Ragnahex · 5 Feb 2014 at 15:55

Gibbo posted the best comparison a while back. They were one line summaries of the differences

Avenged7Fold · 5 Feb 2014 at 16:00

Oh my question about memory was to do with the powercolor LCS card rather than the PCS+, though they are likely going to be the same.

Gibbo comparisons are on page two of this forum, unfortunately no info on which memory is used on the Powercolo ones.

shankly1985 · 5 Feb 2014 at 16:23

After reading Gibbo's thread I think the MSI is a better choice.

Steampunk · 5 Feb 2014 at 16:46

shankly1985 said:
After reading Gibbo's thread I think the MSI is a better choice.

It depends on what you want to use it for. I bought the MSI as a good, all around general single card, and it does have a lot of good features:

- very quiet even at load.
- much cooler than stock (never throttles the GPU), though not as cool as some of the other AIB cards with huge heatsinks.
- Proper VRM heatsinks. This isn't a cooler taken from an older card.
- Hynix memory.
- 3 year warranty.
- much cheaper (especially if you bought it last week on the "one day only" sale).
- sensible sized heatsink that is two slots and not insanely long.
- backplate for support and looks.
- MSI Afterburner.

All the AIB cards are pretty good, but some are a bit better for huge overclocks, mining, crossfire or noise.

Gibbo · 5 Feb 2014 at 18:01

shankly1985 said:
PSU is Corsair HX850w and its rated Silver Not sure if it will run two Gigabytes R9-290

@Gibbo When you say Max performance what do you mean by this? Do the other cards perform better than the Gigabyte or something.
Thanks

PSU should be fine, decent brand.

I mean overclocking potential, Sapphire, DC2 and Powercolor have very powerful coolers with powerful fans.

MSI and Gigabyte are not designed to be powerful cooling wise, but quiet, they all perform the same out the box, so if its quiet gaming and just a single card, MSI is a very good choice.

Steampunk · 5 Feb 2014 at 18:04

It's also worth carefully checking the size of the cards. The Tri-X is very long, the Powercolor is quite thick with a two-and-a-half-slot cooler. Make sure you can fit them in your case.