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R9 290X Owners Thread

Stuen4y said:
Just to update the community. I bought the MSi R9 290X Lightning LE. As of today, it runs on 1160/1650 at +113mV/+0mV. The fans are quite noisy at those settings though and the temperatures get up to 80-81 degrees on the core at 70% fans. I will probably have to take it apart and change the thermal paste. Has any one of the owners tried this and does any of the owners have problems with temperatures and noise. My ASIC is relatively high (79.7) so I should be able to get it stable at higher clock speeds if I manage to keep it cooler ans quieter at the same time. Surprisingly, the good old Corsair HX520 still does not skip a beat and even does not spin its fan fast at load with overclock.
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Sounds like something must be wrong there. I run mine at 1100 and after an hour of BF4 my max temp was 66C ad 47% fan.
 
290X putting up good performance on dying light VS the almost twice as expensive GTX 980, we haven't even had update driver yet, so with new driver optimization on dying light this could improve even more.

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sprite1275 said:
Disappointing. I've just ordered one of these. How is the fan noise and heat at stock?
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I managed to edit the fan curve, now it's a lot better. 50% fan max at load and <80 degrees. I guess it can go even quieter as the card does not seem to care that much about airflow. Will also change the paste and report.
The card is a beast, I really like it and will recommend it to anyone. I just run it heavily overclocked atm at 1160/1650 with +120mV on the core.
thefogo said:
Sounds like something must be wrong there. I run mine at 1100 and after an hour of BF4 my max temp was 66C ad 47% fan.
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Case and its fan config have a big play too. And the fact mine has been overvolted quite a lot too.
 
Okies, Nvidia user here. Always used to be an AMD card user but thought I'd give the 970 a go. Now I'm going to be getting a 1440 monitor which puts me smack in the middle of the situation with this Vram prob associated with the slow part of memory. So my questions are these:

Is a 290x 4gb better at 1440 than a 970 overall?
Is a 290x 8gb worth the extra dosh for 1440 or will there be issues with insufficient gpu grunt to run the extra 4gb on the 8gb card?
Whats the coolest, quietest 290x ?(with either 4gb or 8gb amount of Vram)

any opinions welcome.:)
 
pieman109 said:
Is a 290x 4gb better at 1440 than a 970 overall?
Is a 290x 8gb worth the extra dosh for 1440 or will there be issues with insufficient gpu grunt to run the extra 4gb on the 8gb card?
Whats the coolest, quietest 290x ?(with either 4gb or 8gb amount of Vram)
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For a single card, I don't think there's much in it. Personally, if I was happy to stick with a single card, I'd probably keep my 970. I don't think a move to 290X would be particularly beneficial, and that applies to both 4GB and 8GB cards. Like you say, there isn't enough GPU grunt to utilise 8GB on a single card, so it's a bit pointless. HOWEVER, if I was thinking of SLI, I'd definitely move away from the 970 and get x2 8GB 290X in Crossfire. This would be the best move from everything I've read, and offer the most future proofing.
 
Happy to put up any required gaming benchmarks of a 290X stock or overclocked if needed, they're fast cards. :)

Unless you play a lot of Shadow Of Mordor at 1440P with the high res texture pack then a card that can use all of its 4GB allocation without suffering performance drops is going to be sufficient vs a 8GB card. However 8GB cards do give you plenty of future proofing against future games with greedy video memory requirements. At present though, these games are rare.
 
Well I'm deffo not going to Xfire or Sli in the near future as I can't justify the cost against the amount of gaming I do, more a casual gamer here, so its single card for me. But I don't want to be sitting in front of a monitor displaying a stutter fest! Theres one particular game I'm looking forwards to playing and thats "Homeworld remastered" in HD, but I have no idea how its gonna run (nor does anyone else I reckon for that matter unless some opinions, facts that I don't know about) with my current 970.
I'm also going to be looking at the new 3** series of cards from AMD later this year when they're released for sale, especially due this new Vram, HBM is it?
 
AMDMatt said:
However 8GB cards do give you plenty of future proofing against future games with greedy video memory requirements. At present though, these games are rare.
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Would you not agree though that a single card will run out of grunt before you utilise that extra memory? I agree the 8GB offers more future proofing, but only really in X-Fire.
 
pieman109 said:
^^^^^^^^^^what he said.:) As I said, does a 290x 4gb outperform a 970 at 1440 resolution, or would a 8gb versh be a better bet?
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This is from the Anandtech review...

"...the GTX 970 is still fast enough to race the R9 290X to a dead heat – at 1440p the GTX 970 averages just 1% faster than the R9 290X. Only at 4K can AMD’s flagship pull ahead, and even then the situation becomes reversed entirely in NVIDIA’s favor at 1080p."

I don't see 8GB will come in to play on a single card. For single card, if you have a 970, I say keep it, unless you plan on getting SLI in which case jump to an 8GB 290X now (with a view to getting x2 of them in Crossfire), while you can still get full value for your 970.

However, if you want MAXIMUM performance from a single card and have no plans for SLI, just get a 980! They are the best single card performers at 1440p, but do come with a price premium.
 
I think that proves what I've suspected, theres so much conflicting info on that 970 Vram thread, I find it all a bit confusing. So the 970 stays (for the time being0 and I'll look at the 3** cards when they come out. I won't be buying Nvidia next time round, I think the way this debacle is being handled by Nvidia is very poor indeed, they really need to put their heads above the parapet and say to something, even its just an apology.
 
Legend said:
Would you not agree though that a single card will run out of grunt before you utilise that extra memory? I agree the 8GB offers more future proofing, but only really in X-Fire.
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I do agree yes Legend. However Shadow Of Mordor can use all that video memory and keep fps playable, so it's still within the realms of possibility. I think we can expect memory requirements to increase, but typically you will need two or more cards to use all that video memory and keep playable fps.
 
AMDMatt said:
I do agree yes Legend. However Shadow Of Mordor can use all that video memory and keep fps playable, so it's still within the realms of possibility. I think we can expect memory requirements to increase, but typically you will need two or more cards to use all that video memory and keep playable fps.
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With that in mind, do you expect the 3xx series to offer an 8GB option from the off, or will they play Nvidia's game and only release 4GB cards and have 'special premium' 8GB versions further down the line (as it seems they are likely to do)?
 
Legend said:
With that in mind, do you expect the 3xx series to offer an 8GB option from the off, or will they play Nvidia's game and only release 4GB cards and have 'special premium' 8GB versions further down the line (as it seems they are likely to do)?
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I can't talk about the specifics of unannounced products I'm afraid. Like everyone else here you'll just have to wait and see.
 
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