Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X Overclock Problems

[Heavenkiss]

So i'm new to overclocking (And PC's that matter, just built my first rig http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25990221) and before starting with my OCing my mobo / cpu I thought I would give my graphics card a shot.

Now the card I bought was the standard R9 290 Tri-X and so as it comes in an overclocked version, I thought I might of been able to push this card quite a lot.. seems not.

First of all, lets get some initial benchmarks out the way:





And my MSI Afterburner setup after Overclocking:



I went about overclocking by setting the power limit to Max and then raising the core clock slightly until I got the most stable amount. Once I got this I slowly raised Memory clock until it was stable.. turned out I could make memory clock max and it would all run fine - or so I thought.

So after this setup I ran Heaven again and got these results:



Ran perfectly as expected as I was using this as a test when editing the overclocking figures. As you can see some nice improvements too (Not sure if its a big margin but improvement nevertheless).

Next I ran Valley again and got the following:



Now this ran smoothly apart from 2 scenes were I seen some VERY SLIGHT artifacts (blue squares). Finished the benchmark though and again, some slight improvements which is great.

Now it goes downhill, I decided to run 3DMark and it all went swimmingly until it got to Firestrike. About 20secs it froze. Sound was playing but the video was stuck. Not knowing what to do I restarted my machine by power button as everything was non-responsive.

Now I set Afterburner to apply overclock on startup before I ran 3DMark as I thought it was stable but now it seems it not. On startup, I got the option to login but once I got to the desktop, 10secs later I would get black screen. Now i'm thinking that in these first 10secs Afterburner was applying the OC which was giving the black screen. Luckily i swapped to onboard graphics, diabled afterburner and now seems all ok.

Question is, how do I get around this black screen issue? It seemed so stable before 3DMark and now even lowering the clock to 1030 gives me an instant black screen before benchmarking. Scared to mess about with it anymore now. Think i've damaged my card? As the fan RPM and Temp of the card no longer register in Corsair Link and just say '0' for both.

Advice would be appreciated chaps,

Overclocking no0b.

 

[ArchAndroid]

I think the black screen is as a result of pushing the memory too far. From my experience, when you push the core clock too far, the display driver will stop working and the card will return you to the Windows desktop; when you push the memory too far, the card will lock up totally and require a reboot.

You said you have put "the clock" back to 1030MHz. I imagine this is the core clock. Have you also put the memory clock backs to its original value of 1300MHz?

If you haven't, please do so and describe what happens once the core clock and memory clock are back to their original values.

P.S. I sincerely doubt you have done any damage to your card. Damage is usually caused by continual abuse of the card e.g. running insane voltages or having it run on 100% load for ages.

P.P.S. Just saw your screenshot above. It seems you are pushing your memory clock way, way too far. The card seems fine and then black screens because it runs it low-power mode (reduced clocks) and then as soon as it needs high-power mode, it crashes because you overclock is too over the top.

Put the memory clock back to 1300MHz and work on the core clock first as this gives more benefit. Once you have settled on a stable core clock, then attack the memory clock, increasing in increments of 20-25MHz at a time. Black screen = pushed too far. Retry. No harm done.

 

[Heavenkiss]

I reset everything to defaults and it works fine mate. My GPU is http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-348-SP

Core clock is a lot lower than 1030. Off top of my head its 957. I thought 1035 was stable (was after a few benchmarks ) and after black screen i decided to try 1030 but same issue with black screen, straight away. After that i restored everything to defaults.

Just strange how it was working fine until 3dmark test.

 

[WalderX]

Hi dude, I now have the same card as you and have had great success with overclocking it you just need the right tools.

Take a look at this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18581235

Firstly you need to use 13.12 drivers to get good benchmark results (there is a powertune bug in the 14 beta drivers)

Then you either need to unlock afterburner to give voltage control or just use Sapphire Trixx program (gives you twice the voltage of afterburner by default too). The settings you have used in afterburner will likely need a little more core voltage which you haven't applied.

Best stable results I have had:

Core: 1190 Mhz
Memory: 1700mhz
Voltage: +200mv (max in trixx)
Power limit: +50%

To unlock voltage in afterburner go.into the settings and tick both the voltage options (unlock and monitoring). Apply +100mv and +50 power limit and try 1150 core and 1625 mem - should be stable. Temps won't go above 75 (65 on mine with custom fan profile)

EDIT: I should say that I have Hynix memory on my card which clocks better. It sounds like you might have Elpida memory. There are tools that can tell you, Hawaii info or memory info ( I think trixx does too)

 

[Heavenkiss]

Hi dude, I now have the same card as you and have had great success with overclocking it you just need the right tools.

Take a look at this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18581235

Firstly you need to use 13.12 drivers to get good benchmark results (there is a powertune bug in the 14 beta drivers)

Then you either need to unlock afterburner to give voltage control or just use Sapphire Trixx program (gives you twice the voltage of afterburner by default too). The settings you have used in afterburner will likely need a little more core voltage which you haven't applied.

Best stable results I have had:

Core: 1190 Mhz
Memory: 1700mhz
Voltage: +200mv (max in trixx)
Power limit: +50%

To unlock voltage in afterburner go.into the settings and tick both the voltage options (unlock and monitoring). Apply +100mv and +50 power limit and try 1150 core and 1625 mem - should be stable. Temps won't go above 75 (65 on mine with custom fan profile)

EDIT: I should say that I have Hynix memory on my card which clocks better. It sounds like you might have Elpida memory. There are tools that can tell you, Hawaii info or memory info ( I think trixx does too)

Thanks for this breakdown mate. I'm going to gather all the software you said tonight and test it out. Do you have any figures for not messing with the voltage? That's the only thing I'm hesitant to to do as I don't want to damage the card being new to OC.

I'll check my memory too and let you know.

 

[Heavenkiss]

I think the black screen is as a result of pushing the memory too far. From my experience, when you push the core clock too far, the display driver will stop working and the card will return you to the Windows desktop; when you push the memory too far, the card will lock up totally and require a reboot.

You said you have put "the clock" back to 1030MHz. I imagine this is the core clock. Have you also put the memory clock backs to its original value of 1300MHz?

If you haven't, please do so and describe what happens once the core clock and memory clock are back to their original values.

P.S. I sincerely doubt you have done any damage to your card. Damage is usually caused by continual abuse of the card e.g. running insane voltages or having it run on 100% load for ages.

P.P.S. Just saw your screenshot above. It seems you are pushing your memory clock way, way too far. The card seems fine and then black screens because it runs it low-power mode (reduced clocks) and then as soon as it needs high-power mode, it crashes because you overclock is too over the top.

Put the memory clock back to 1300MHz and work on the core clock first as this gives more benefit. Once you have settled on a stable core clock, then attack the memory clock, increasing in increments of 20-25MHz at a time. Black screen = pushed too far. Retry. No harm done.

Thanks for this mate. Like I said the screenshot of afterburner worked fine for Valley and Heaven and only caused black screen for 3dMark so I'm guessing this caused the card to need more power and hence the black screen here and not on other tests. Just strange that after 3dMark triggered the black screen, i couldn't boot to desktop unless I used onboard graphics and then disabled afterburner. Lesson learnt, don't have afterburner setup for startup when you are testing.

Can you recommend benchmarking tools that will give me let me know if i'm stable? Seems Valley and Heaven arn't up to the job. I'd use 3DMark but I only have free version and it takes forever to get to Firestrike. Time consuming if i'm altering figures up slowly.

 

[WalderX]

Thanks for this breakdown mate. I'm going to gather all the software you said tonight and test it out. Do you have any figures for not messing with the voltage? That's the only thing I'm hesitant to to do as I don't want to damage the card being new to OC.

I'll check my memory too and let you know.

Yeah sure, well you don't need to worry about memory clock really (it will give better scores in benchmarks but not noticeable in games, assuming you have 1 screen at around 1080p res), but if you do have Hynix memory it will clock well with no problems anyway. I have flashed the Tri-X OC bios to my 290 and it handles those clocks no problem (no change in voltage). The OC bios has clocks of 1000 and 1300 for mem.

I would say you should be able to achieve 1050 core and 1400 memory on stock volts - make sure power limit is set to +50% always when overclocking - it allows your card to draw more power when needed.

 

[Heavenkiss]

I would say you should be able to achieve 1050 core and 1400 memory on stock volts - make sure power limit is set to +50% always when overclocking - it allows your card to draw more power when needed.

Going to try this now mate. Thanks for the OC Version defaults too. If these don't work i'll defintly give them a go. Do you recommend 3DMark for satability test? Seeing as though that's where I crashed last time and valley / heaven were fine.

I'm having trouble seeing what type of memory I have, however I do have the wrong drivers (trixx tells me im using 14.1). Downloading 13.12 from sapphire site now... strange as it's were I got the driver from origianlly and now it's changed (They only have 1 on option). They must have changed the download section maybe.

Will let you know how it goes.

 

[Heavenkiss]

Yeah sure, well you don't need to worry about memory clock really (it will give better scores in benchmarks but not noticeable in games, assuming you have 1 screen at around 1080p res), but if you do have Hynix memory it will clock well with no problems anyway. I have flashed the Tri-X OC bios to my 290 and it handles those clocks no problem (no change in voltage). The OC bios has clocks of 1000 and 1300 for mem.

I would say you should be able to achieve 1050 core and 1400 memory on stock volts - make sure power limit is set to +50% always when overclocking - it allows your card to draw more power when needed.

Was crashing at 1050 core and 1400 memory mate. So i knocked core to 1035 (What i originally thought was stable) and crashed during 3D mark. Tried 1030 and crashed again. 3DMark takes forever to to get to firestrike (Where it crashes) and so i lost patient and knocked it right down to OC figures - Core 1000 and 1300 mem and power limit at 50. Firestrike completed and stats below:

before: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/1829493

after: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/1853517

Slight improvement so can't complain. Just so annoying and time consuming OCing that I think best to leave it to the weekend.

What software do you use for stress testing mate. 3DMark is taking too long and Valley / Heaven seems to run stuff 3Dmark fails at.

 

[Threepwood]

You are only at the first step still.

Now you know how far it will go on stock voltage you need to unlock your voltage [as described by WalderX] and begin stage two!

 

[Ripshod]

Drop the vRAM overclock til you have a stable overclock on the core. If you have a copy of GPU-Z it'll tell you which vRAM you have. Samsung is better than Hynix is better than elpida.

Concentrate on one clock at a time and you'll get a lot further

 

[WalderX]

Drop the vRAM overclock til you have a stable overclock on the core. If you have a copy of GPU-Z it'll tell you which vRAM you have. Samsung is better that Hynix is better than elpida.

Concentrate on one clock at a time and you'll get a lot further

^^ This

Just leave the mem at 1250. Concentrate on the core clock as that is where you will see 90% of performance increases. Especially on the 290 as it has a 512bit mem bus and very fast ram already.

You need to unlock the voltage control in afterburner to go further. It only allows +100mv max so can assure you it is absolutely safe to do.

Try:

+75mv
+50% power limit
1100 core
1250 mem (stock)

I use Heaven to test and then Firestrike. I have 3D Mark pro version so can skip straight to firestrike!

 

[Gameruk]

Hi can you flash the tri x 290 oc to an 290x?

 

[Doogles]

Hi can you flash the tri x 290 oc to an 290x?

If you download HawaiiInfo and Memory checker you can test to see if it is unlockable before you do it, I googled it for myself and found a forum with it on. Unfortunately mine isn't able to, I'll see if I can find the thread for you.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1443242/the-r9-290-290x-unlock-thread

I think it was only reference cards that could unlock but you might get very very very lucky.