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The AMD R9 290 (non x) Thread

I'm going to controversially call BS on the whole noisy fan thing. I've just been raiding in WoW, played a lot of Arkham City, even had a bash on Metro and i'm still yet to get the fan to ramp up to anything close to irritating, and i'm running without a case!

Is there something i'm missing here? I've supported Anandtech for about a decade but i'm starting to think they got their 290 review all wrong.
 
Tute said:
I'm going to controversially call BS on the whole noisy fan thing. I've just been raiding in WoW, played a lot of Arkham City, even had a bash on Metro and i'm still yet to get the fan to ramp up to anything close to irritating, and i'm running without a case!

Is there something i'm missing here? I've supported Anandtech for about a decade but i'm starting to think they got their 290 review all wrong.
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This is no surprise to anyone who's used that same reference cooler before. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story though.
 
LtMatt said:
This is no surprise to anyone who's used that same reference cooler before. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story though.
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gm :)
it is interesting to me that some users say its not loud at all, if thats a difference in retail version or them defending their purchase or review sites using them wrong and trying get them temps down -

personally i think its a great card thats been spoilt by some terrible decisions on release, marketing people are meant to make something look better not worse lol

maybe its not just marketing, but i dont think its bad hardware, its just all the other decisions have sucked ><
 
No one is denying the cooler is crap, but its not as bad as has been made out. It will still allow you a decent overclock while keeping fairly quiet. Anything more than that and you'll need water or an AIB cooler though. At 50-55% i bet its considerably quieter than my His Ice-Q's with my custom fan profile and no one complains about them.
 
Tute said:
I'm going to controversially call BS on the whole noisy fan thing. I've just been raiding in WoW, played a lot of Arkham City, even had a bash on Metro and i'm still yet to get the fan to ramp up to anything close to irritating, and i'm running without a case!

Is there something i'm missing here? I've supported Anandtech for about a decade but i'm starting to think they got their 290 review all wrong.
Click to expand...

I ran firestrike at auto fan and my card throttled, it needs to be audible to avoid throttling.
 
LtMatt said:
No one is denying the cooler is crap, but its not as bad as has been made out. It will still allow you a decent overclock while keeping fairly quiet. Anything more than that and you'll need water or an AIB cooler though. At 50-55% i bet its considerably quieter than my His Ice-Q's with my custom fan profile and no one complains about them.
Click to expand...

At 55% it's louder than my Gigabyte Windforce ever was
 
LtMatt said:
No one is denying the cooler is crap, but its not as bad as has been made out. It will still allow you a decent overclock while keeping fairly quiet. Anything more than that and you'll need water or an AIB cooler though. At 50-55% i bet its considerably quieter than my His Ice-Q's with my custom fan profile and no one complains about them.
Click to expand...

lol right but whoever makes the decisions there hasnt done anything to lessen the problem, its like theyve gone out of their way to point a big bullseye on it

when underneath all that its a fast card, they took a good product held it down while another kicks it between the legs :o
 
Martini1991 said:
At 55% it's louder than my Gigabyte Windforce ever was
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That's not surprising though, that's one of the best air coolers out there.

Mei said:
lol right but whoever makes the decisions there hasnt done anything to lessen the problem, its like theyve gone out of their way to point a big bullseye on it

when underneath all that its a fast card, they took a good product held it down while another kicks it between the legs :o
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You can't beat a swift knee to the groin Mei. ;)
 
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Mei said:
lol right but whoever makes the decisions there hasnt done anything to lessen the problem, its like theyve gone out of their way to point a big bullseye on it

when underneath all that its a fast card, they took a good product held it down while another kicks it between the legs :o
Click to expand...

I think AMD are nerfing the cooler as a ploy to see what Nvidia bring in response to a thermally limited 290 series using the less than efficient blower fan. Nvidia's response predictably, was to slash the prices of its entire range (except Titan which is an entry level compute Card.) and to release the now impressive full fat Gk110 chip at the totally unimpressive 600 quid mark......


My hunch is that AMD intentionally want to release the Hawaii performance in stages to remain competitive throught the 290;s life cycle until 20nm is here; and one way initially is to restrict the cooling parameters of the fan.

AMD will counter the 780ti release when board partners fit uprated good cooling sub systems, uprated 7000Mhz Vram modules and bump gpu core speeds.

If my understanding is correct the 780ti's 16Gb/S bandwidth lead is solely down to the use of fast vram, which is easily bettered by AMD with faster Vram and a bump in gpu core speed.

What ever happens be sure that the reference 290's are only the beginning of the gpu wars this autumn/winter.


Edit

I have a question? Can I use the 270x or 280x with 7950's as they are virtually identical?
 
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dmferrett said:
I think AMD are nerfing the cooler as a ploy to see what Nvidia bring in response to a thermally limited 290 series using the less than efficient blower fan. Nvidia response was slash the prices of its entire range (except Titan which is an entry level compute Card.) and to release the now impressive full fat Gk110 chip at the total unimpressive 600 quid mark......


My hunch is that AMD intentionally wanted to release the Hawaii performance in stages and one way initially is to restrict the cooling parameters of the fan.

AMD will counter the 780ti release when board partners fit uprated good cooling sub systems, uprated 7000Mhz Vram modules and bump gpu core speeds.

If my understanding is correct the 780ti's 16Gb/S bandwidth leads is down to the use of fast vram, which is easily bettered by AMD with faster Vram and a bump in gpu core speed.

What ever happens be sure that the reference 290's are only the beginning of the gpu wars this autumn/winter.

I have a question? Can I use the 270x or 280x with 7950's as they are virtually identical?
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You're probably spot on here to be honest.

280X should work with a 7950. But ideally id stick with 2x7950 or 2x280X.
 
This whole launch has made me sad. I was patiently waiting for the non ref 290x boards to come out, but then I saw the price/performance of the 290 and knew that I couldn't justify spending the extra. Now I have to wait even longer for non ref 290s! Sad times. :(
 
benjii said:
This whole launch has made me sad. I was patiently waiting for the non ref 290x boards to come out, but then I saw the price/performance of the 290 and knew that I couldn't justify spending the extra. Now I have to wait even longer for non ref 290s! Sad times. :(
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lol yeh amd are crazy frustrating
they should hurry up release some news on them atleast to keep interest
*sulk*
 
My problem is I want a quiet card, not just one that's as noisy as the others. I built a very quiet, aircooled Haswell system a few months back. Now the noisiest thing is the stock cooler on my 6950. I liked the stock coolers because they exhaust air out of the case.

The card has the extra quads enabled, and runs at max settings in CCC, but it idles at 24 percent on the radial fan. The fan itself has an annoying whirring quality about it, that moves to annoying whining when it speeds up. It's just the nature of a small radial fan. A bigger fan, better blade design, better airflow, better bearing, etc would stop that. so it's a missed opportunity by AMD to revise the stock cooler. It needs upgrading to properly deal with a denser, hotter chip whilst keeping the noise down to the levels that are expected today.

It could have and should have been done, especially given that the 290s performance and noise is now closely tied into it's temperature.
 
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I finally got a chance to try my 290 Pro on COD and BF4, I am will impressed. Now I'm going to cancel my 290x as the extra £80 isn't worth it over the 290 Pro.
 
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