R9 290X Owners Thread

melmac · 26 Nov 2013 at 16:08

Are the Sapphire versions of the 290 bad quality or something? I just ordered one and noticing that people don't seem to like them very much.

Marine-RX179 · 26 Nov 2013 at 16:12

melmac said:
Are the Sapphire versions of the 290 bad quality or something? I just ordered one and noticing that people don't seem to like them very much.

All the reference cards are made by Sapphire regardless of brand, so quality wise should all be the same. XFX, HIS, VTX/PowerColor is popular right now because of their "chance" to unlock to a full 290x.

Evil Organ · 26 Nov 2013 at 16:32

Marine-RX179 said:
All the reference cards are made by Sapphire regardless of brand, so quality wise should all be the same. XFX, HIS, VTX/PowerColor is popular right now because of their "chance" to unlock to a full 290x.

Hi Marine, just looked at your PC specs, you have a R290X with a 625watt PSU, I thought the minimum specification for a 290X was 750watt. Reason i ask is i'm in the market for a new GPU with a £400 budget, but i have a Corsair TX650 PSU, could i run a 290 or a 290X with my PSU?

humbug · 26 Nov 2013 at 16:39

Evil Organ said:
Hi Marine, just looked at your PC specs, you have a R290X with a 625watt PSU, I thought the minimum specification for a 290X was 750watt. Reason i ask is i'm in the market for a new GPU with a £400 budget, but i have a Corsair TX650 PSU, could i run a 290 or a 290X with my PSU?

750w if your PSU is junk. those recommendations always seem to assume that, over stating it.

Total system power consumption is 300 to 350w, if you have a lot of crap in your rig and a 5Ghz CPU overclock you might be looking at 450w.

http://www.techspot.com/review/736-amd-radeon-r9-290/page8.html

a good 650w PSU like the Corsair TX650 is plenty.

silversurfer · 26 Nov 2013 at 17:00

PSU can degrade by 10% a year, all depends I think is why they give a big leeway

Zeed · 26 Nov 2013 at 19:45

10%/year ye if you buy your PSU in pcworld for 35 pounds LOL

Calneon · 26 Nov 2013 at 23:16

I noticed my watercooled 290X is throttling core clock (according to GPU-Z) between 800-1000 Mhz, even though temps never go above 50C. Any idea why and how to stop it?

humbug · 26 Nov 2013 at 23:23

Calneon said:
I noticed my watercooled 290X is throttling core clock (according to GPU-Z) between 800-1000 Mhz, even though temps never go above 50C. Any idea why and how to stop it?

Have you maxed the power limit?

Calneon · 26 Nov 2013 at 23:27

humbug said:
Have you maxed the power limit?

Not sure what you mean, how would I find that out? I have a Seasonic 650W PSU if that helps.

humbug · 26 Nov 2013 at 23:32

Calneon said:
Not sure what you mean, how would I find that out? I have a seasonic 650w psu if that helps.

if your using msi ab for overclocking see pic.

if not see this

Calneon · 26 Nov 2013 at 23:55

Hmm, I'm still stock at the moment. Changing the power limit in CCC didn't seem to have any effect, though making it +20 in MSI Afterburner seems to have done the trick.

Actually, scratch that, I just saw I had it in quiet mode, I wondered what that switch did! I guess that solved my problem? Though looking at the benchmarks there hardly seems to be a difference? What's the optimal setup (I'm on water so no worries about noise).

Here's my Furmark in any case:

Avenged7Fold · 27 Nov 2013 at 00:09

If you have adequate cooling (which you do) you can just put the power limit to 50% and pump the voltage on msi afterburner to +100mv and then start clocking. I have maxed both these out under water and my temps still havant hit 50 and i got a lovely clock of 1233/1500 as a result. Wouldn't max these settings out to start with if you are rocking reference though.

Scramz · 27 Nov 2013 at 00:45

Im new to MSI AB. What would you guys say is a safe 24/7 OC.

Would Volts at 100+mV, power target max, and about 1240/1500 be a safe gaming OC.

Or do you guys recommend leaving the volts on stock and OCin for gaming?

Im under water BTW so heat is no issue.

Avenged7Fold · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:04

TBH the MSI afterburner limits are quite conservative if you are under water. Unless you got mad lucky with your chip, you wont get much better than 1250/1500 on +100mv without artefacts. If you are under water and use msi afterburner, all you need to worry about is whether the clock is stable, chip safety shouldnt be an issue since you can whack the power limit to 50% and core voltage to +100mv straight away and not even see a substantial rise in temps.

If you plan to clock this aggressively under water, you can start off with these max settings on voltage and Power limit and then set the core to 1150 and memory to 1500 right off the bat (i think someone mentioned that the memory is rated to work at 1500 with its stock voltage anyway, so even if you cant overvolt memory, you have plenty of headroom). After than try 1175, then 1200 and if artefacts start popping up, you can dial i back and fine tune it.

Pretty much did this till 1250, was stable in Valley but extended gaming sessions turned up an odd shadow glitch or some artefact every few hours. Dialled it back to 1233/1500 and now i haven't seen an artefact or glitch (haven't played bf4 though, wouldn't want to use that glitchy thing to test my card stability)

Whether its worth it is up to you. It is a free performance boost and life of your card will be fine due to low temps (watercooling) and quite coonservative MSI AB limits. If you play just 1080p 60Hz, likely you wont need the boost in performance but higher resolutions/refresh rates and multi-monitor set ups would see significant improvements from both memory and core overclocks. My clocks on GPUs are not set to auto and has to be manually set, so unless i want the extra grunt, i dont bother applying the clock. I dont do this for GPU life though, but rather to stop loads of programs opening on start up and to stop it messing with other overclocking and tweaking programs.

K1LaW8tt5 · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:10

Calneon said:
Hmm, I'm still stock at the moment. Changing the power limit in CCC didn't seem to have any effect, though making it +20 in MSI Afterburner seems to have done the trick.

Actually, scratch that, I just saw I had it in quiet mode, I wondered what that switch did! I guess that solved my problem? Though looking at the benchmarks there hardly seems to be a difference? What's the optimal setup (I'm on water so no worries about noise).

Here's my Furmark in any case:

lol quiet mode is just a different fan profile since you are on water its irrelevant.
its probably power limit

Scramz · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:12

Avenged7Fold said:
TBH the MSI afterburner limits are quite conservative if you are under water. Unless you got mad lucky with your chip, you wont get much better than 1250/1500 on +100mv without artefacts. If you are under water and use msi afterburner, all you need to worry about is whether the clock is stable, chip safety shouldnt be an issue since you can whack the power limit to 50% and core voltage to +100mv straight away and not even see a substantial rise in temps.

If you plan to clock this aggressively under water, you can start off with these max settings on voltage and Power limit and then set the core to 1150 and memory to 1500 right off the bat (i think someone mentioned that the memory is rated to work at 1500 with its stock voltage anyway, so even if you cant overvolt memory, you have plenty of headroom). After than try 1175, then 1200 and if artefacts start popping up, you can dial i back and fine tune it.

Pretty much did this till 1250, was stable in Valley but extended gaming sessions turned up an odd shadow glitch or some artefact every few hours. Dialled it back to 1233/1500 and now i haven't seen an artefact or glitch (haven't played bf4 though, wouldn't want to use that glitchy thing to test my card stability)

Thanks for the info mate. I have push the card hard underwater already. Just benching, hitting over 19k graphics score on 3Dmark 11 and all that. But now I'm pulling back for gaming. I have been gaming on stock volts @ 1160/1450 with no issues.

I removed Asus GPU Tweak and installed MSI AB as I'm aware that it doesn't let you push as far.

Would you so running volts at 100mV+ is safe for 24/7 gaming overclock, or return it to stock volts.

Basicly, it's either stock volts @ 1160/1450 or 100mV+ pulling about 1.3 volts @ 1240/1600. What would you go with?

Avenged7Fold · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:13

weldon855 said:
lol quiet mode is just a different fan profile since you are on water its irrelevant.
its probably power limit

Probably power limit. I think having both MSI AB and CCC mess with each other, so one will override the settings of the other.

Avenged7Fold · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:15

Either overclock is safe. Save each profile and activate them manually if you need the extra grunt. If i wasnt so sure that half my GPU tweaking software would rebel if i switched afterburner on auto start, iw ould have my 1233/1500 24/7.

Going to flash to Asus bios soon (prob wait for a mantle supported benchmark tool or for mantle to be patched into some mainstream games) and then really abuse the 540mm of radiator thats cooling one CPU and one GPU.

Scramz · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:17

Great will do. I have been going on stock volts @ 1160/1450. I gaming at 144hz 1080p.

Edit: and I play BF4 so I test with that

Scramz · 27 Nov 2013 at 01:21

Avenged7Fold said:
Either overclock is safe. Save each profile and activate them manually if you need the extra grunt. If i wasnt so sure that half my GPU tweaking software would rebel if i switched afterburner on auto start, iw ould have my 1233/1500 24/7.

Going to flash to Asus bios soon (prob wait for a mantle supported benchmark tool or for mantle to be patched into some mainstream games) and then really abuse the 540mm of radiator thats cooling one CPU and one GPU.

I have the Asus card on stock bios, but I want to flash to PT3 and push it hard, like wise I have a EX360+EX240 with D5 pump cooling my GPU and CPU