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want to upgrade my graphic card in 2 weeks

AMD has good products and I am convinced that a lot of people are just brainwashed with so much crap on the internet.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25749917&postcount=12

Quote from Gibbo on the site.
Our returns rate is less than 5%, same for a card like GTX 780, so I think that maybe the black screen issue is overly talked about but in reality can't be that bad when the statistics for returns seem pretty much around the same as other high-end cards from AMD and NVIDIA.

I don't think there is any issue with the reference board, I've got one in my home PC, I only get a black screen if I try to push the memory from its stock 5000Mhz to beyond 6200MHz, anything under 6200MHz and there is no issue. I've tested cards at OcUK upto 6600-6800MHz with no black screen issues. Several members of staff here have 290's in crossfire and tri-fire, again no black screen issues.

If there was a failure in the design we'd have a 100% return rate. So AMD's design seems perfectly fine and until more custom cards come out, there is nothing to say that cards not using AMD designs won't suffer the same black screens. What it could most likely be is the simple fact Hawaii is a brand new architecture and some of the game coders are still adapting their software to run properly on it, hence why we see both game patches and AMD software to address the issue. Which obviously has some truth to it as newer cards still using AMD reference design seem to be having less issues which is no doubt down too because new purchases are using new software, later AMD drivers, games already patched. But more importantly it was probably something to do with the BIOS on the cards.

My Asus 290X reference at home before would only benchmark upto 6200MHz and was only game stable and black screen free upto around 5800-6000MHz. Asus released a new BIOS and I can now game upto 6200MHz and benchmark upto 6500Mhz.

So I personally feel that the issue is a mix of BIOS not correctly optimised for the memory fitted to the cards and drivers/software patches not correctly optimised for Hawaii architecture.
 
maybe but im speaking from experience.. i have owned AMD cards for the last 4 years all been brilliant, but your quoting a post from 6 month ago and people are still encountering problems now. would be interesting to find out return rate of r9 series since launch to current date.
 
maybe but im speaking from experience.. i have owned AMD cards for the last 4 years all been brilliant, but your quoting a post from 6 month ago and people are still encountering problems now. would be interesting to find out return rate of r9 series since launch to current date.

Gibbo made that post because the same rhetoric had already been doing its rounds for a long time then and the same question was asked.

The difference between AMD and Nvidia cards is Nvidia cards are very limited in what they can do out of the box in terns of overclocking, the main thing being limited cores volts (1.21 i think), no Vram over volting and only 6% extra power.
By comparison AMD GPU's will let you pump 1.4v or more into them and they will let you apply upto 50% more power.

The result is Nvidia GPU's as they are don't hold solid overclocks, they will only clock as high as that extra 6% power allows, if the GPU wants to draw more it will down clock, so it never actually draws more power, AMD GPU's will draw more power to stay with the Overclock you set, so some people, especially if they are used to Nvidia GPU's will tread the AMD GPU as tho no overclock is too high and then blame the GPU when problems start.

The only way AMD will ever protect themselves is if AMD lock their GPU's up in the same way Nvidia have, i hope they never do but it seems to me that they have to and probably will soon.

NVIDIA do not support overclocking or overclockers!! Titan is awful without external VRM you put 1.35 in most instances its bang and boom!!! AMD stock VRM 1.55 no problem!! This tells you what Nvidia is about low return rates and low power states!!
 
hmmm guys this is getting off topic

it's nothing about overclocking....

i just want a stable working card at stock. any OC is a bonus.

anyway the retailer has received the card. they said they would test it today. hopefully tomorrow they'll contact me, i already told them that i want a PowerColor R9 290X PCS+ instead and the woman said thats ok.
 
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hmmm guys this is getting off topic

it's nothing about overclocking....

i just want a stable working card at stock. any OC is a bonus.

anyway the retailer has received the card. they said they would test it today. hopefully tomorrow they'll contact me, i already told them that i want a PowerColor R9 290X PCS+ instead and the woman said thats ok.

Good luck with it.
 
Good luck with it.

well they've not even testing the card i sent back. yesterday i contacted them and the woman said they'll be testing it on that day (yesterday) but today i contacted them and they said it's not been tested yet...

so it looks like won't be getting a card till Tuesday or Wednesday. it's getting sily.
 
just a update

i contacted the retailer at 1pm today and they've still not tested the card. so the tech guy had a word with his boss and his boss said he'll get a guy to test it right now. then the tech said i should hear something by later today (which i haven't) or tomorrow......
 
another update

contacted the retailer again today. they said they've tested it and said it's not faulty, but i know 100% it is faulty because has i said the first card didn't have any artifacting, only overheating but the replacement card overheats slightly more and artifacting even with fans at 100%. also the artifacting goes if i underclocked the core to 1000mhz.

anyway i told them i don't want that card back, i want a PowerColor R9 290X PCS+, and they said ok but i'll have to pay £10 because they didn't find a fault with a card so i said fine (even tho i know it's faulty, i just want to get it over with) so they asked for debt details to take the £10, so i did that and then they said it'll take 1 to 2 days before they'll send the PowerColor R9 290X PCS+ because they need to receive the £10 from the bank...

it really doesn't sound right..

surely taking £10 from my account it would be instant?

tbh it's the worse retailer ever..... i really should have bought it from here (ocuk)
 
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finally i should receive the PowerColor R9 290X PCS+ tomorrow. it should have been today but they didn't ssend it out yesterday because they didn't sort the credit note payment ..

once i get the card, i still have to contact them because they haven't put £26 credit note on my account has this card is £26 cheaper.
 
i received the PowerColor R9 290X PCS+ at 1.47pm, I've been testing it and so far it's 100% better than the asus card. the core temp doesn't go over 68c also no artifacting at stock.

1 question tho. at stock the voltage offset is at +50. im guessing it's at that on all PowerColor R9 290X PCS+? i tried setting it at 0 and it seems still stable and no artifacting.
 
i received the PowerColor R9 290X PCS+ at 1.47pm, I've been testing it and so far it's 100% better than the asus card. the core temp doesn't go over 68c also no artifacting at stock.

1 question tho. at stock the voltage offset is at +50. im guessing it's at that on all PowerColor R9 290X PCS+? i tried setting it at 0 and it seems still stable and no artifacting.

All PCS+ run with +50mv because they are factory overclocked.

If i set mine to 0mv it black screens, so your lucky to have a better one than mine :)
 
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