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R9 290X Owners Thread

Posted by codinghorror -
You don't need to have a noisy fan -- one easy tin snip or dremel and you improve fan outflow on the R290X by 100%:

aSzp66V.jpg

I have two 290X in crossfire and both of 'em have this easy mod. *Massively* improves cooling performance, reduces noise, and keeps the cards at 1000 Mhz even over long play sessions.

Done and done.

http://techreport.com/discussion/25611/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-ti-graphics-card-reviewed?post=776154

Any takers? - outflow always struck me as somewhat restricted!

Now if gibbo could get some back-plates made with this mod on them - they might sell like hot cakes.
 
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I did something similar to my geforce 480, then I think evga released some "high flow brackets" which had less metal over the vent, it made a small difference to my cards maybe a few degrees.
 
So after trying to resist my natural urge to overclock... and failing, I went about trying to see what I could do with this card under water.

First off my card has the Elpedia RAM :( (I have the 290X Sapphire non BF4) so how much I'm gonna be able to really push the memory on this thing is up in the air if what I've read about the Elpedia RAM vs Hynix RAM is accurate.

I flashed the Asus ROM and was able to get the following Clocks using GPU Tweak (Sorry no screenies as I've now gone back to the Sapphire ROM) -

Asus ROM + GPU Tweak -

Core: 1250
Memory: 6000
Power Target: 150%
Core Voltage: 1.35

I did my tests by playing games, I'm not a benchmarker, so I'd rather see stability in games than in benchmarks.

NOTE: Battlefield 4 would always crash to black screen, regardless of clock speed after about 10 mins unless I was on stock.
Stable in all games I tried -

  • FFXIV - which surprisingly makes 100% GPU usage when you're in any dungeon boss battles
  • Tomb Raider @ Ultimate
  • Grid 2
  • CoD: Ghosts (I got mine free on promo... don't judge me :( )

All ran just fine with a solid hour or so play on each with no artifacting or any other noticeable glitches

Temps:

Idle: 33oC
Load: 49oC (highest) avg 47oC

What I found odd was that the temperatures I got were pretty much always the same throughout testing, regardless of the amount of voltage I put through. Food for thought maybe?

Now as for the reason I went back to the original Sapphire ROM was because of the Battlefield 4 black screen crash. After searching and reading many forums, one thing that came up was that it was because of the Asus GPU Tweak software.

So I uninstalled that, and tried just overclocking with MSI afterburner (so no voltage control here). No more black screen crashes, solid gameplay. So with no use for GPU Tweak, I found there being no point in staying with the Asus ROM, so went back to the Sapphire ROM and will just wait for an updated Afterburner release.

My currrent overclock which is stable as a rock is shown below -

fGJiXDE.jpg.png

My memory will not do 6000 on MSI Afterburner without line artifacting - but it would on Asus GPU Tweak. Thoughts?

Screenshot taken after running Heaven benchmark (so I could show temperature and GPU usage) at the following settings:

oHDEUHf.jpg.png

And with this result:

krePOdU.jpg.png


Feed back on the results would be appreciated :D ~ I'm hoping that with a fully voltage unlocked card I can push this thing a little bit further, I'd be happy with 1300 / 6000 :P


Guess we'll see
 
jinxpad in relation to your afterburner log,, I take it that log was a loop of heaven?
If so could you explain the throttling of the gpu core speed and gpu usage?
As the first half of the log theres a lot of spikes, but the right half of the log theres a good period of flatline stability?
 
**** those new 13.11 beta 9 drivers.. With those i started to have BLACK SCREEN CRASH !!! Rolling back beta 8

Falkentyne You can add that to Your list mate.. I did not had single black screen before 13.11 beta 9.2
 
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Davedree said:
jinxpad in relation to your afterburner log,, I take it that log was a loop of heaven?
If so could you explain the throttling of the gpu core speed and gpu usage?
As the first half of the log theres a lot of spikes, but the right half of the log theres a good period of flatline stability?
Click to expand...

Hmmm I'm not sure why it would spike tbh, I ran a single Benchmark run of Heaven.

It definitely isn't temperature related, so I guess it would come down to the drivers maybe? I'm running the 9.2 beta's.
 
Yeah your temps are a beaut, it just seems strange that it's doing it with good core temps, I've noticed it in a lot of other threads too Maybe something on the power reg side was getting hot because you're water cooled?
 
Davedree said:
Yeah your temps are a beaut, it just seems strange that it's doing it with good core temps, I've noticed it in a lot of other threads too Maybe something on the power reg side was getting hot because you're water cooled?
Click to expand...

Mmm I don't think it would be the vram side getting hot, they are getting actively cooled by the block too as far as I'm aware:

"This water block directly cools the GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under high overclocks."

I really think it's down to the immaturity of the drivers, because there's plenty of headroom to go I reckon :)
 
Gibbo: Is there any chance you could ask OCUK contacts at AMD if this black screen is a real thing? Here are the links again:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040363655#post1040363655
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf...065218069487298/last/post_2955065218199968194
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=383104
http://www.simology.co/forums/gaming-platform-pc/3302-r9-290x-display-black-screen?limitstart=0

... and also more in here.

If it's a known issue that does not need the card RMAing, i'm happy to wait, but i'd really like to know. I understand their are politics at play, but the vast, vast majority of customers would happier with transparency and upfrontness, if there is a issue.

Perhaps we are just a vocal minority with awful systems, but i really dont think so.
 
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