Any 290X Quad-Fire reviews?

[AdamK47]

Or even Tri-Fire? Looked, but didn't find any. Also couldn't find anyone running such a setup.

 

[Skurge]

I imagine its not ideal with reference cards unless they are watercooled. We will probably see more once aftermarket cards come out.

 

[AdamK47]

You mean the aftermarket coolers that exhaust into the case? I doubt there's anyone that will be making that mistake with a Tri/Quad Fire setup.

 

[Keysplayr]

You might consider water-cooling, Adam, if you're thinking of Quadfiring these puppies.

 

[AdamK47]

Or maybe I'll get three 780 Ti's. I hate the thought of having to go with water cooling.

 

[Abwx]

Or even Tri-Fire? Looked, but didn't find any. Also couldn't find anyone running such a setup.

So far there s only AMD s claims as number for 3x set up ,
the numbers for 2x have been proved accurate so we can
expect the 3x numbers to be in the same ball park as their
marketed numbers.

 

[AdamK47]

Marketing slides really don't do anything for me.

Appreciate the post though!

 

[p0rkguy]

If my math is correct and the slide holds true, it would be 3.22X for 4X.
Probably why they didn't show it.

 

[Abwx]

If my math is correct and the slide holds true, it would be 3.22X for 4X.
Probably why they didn't show it.

Would still be rougly 80% scaling , not bad for 4 cards....

 

[AdamK47]

I've read the two card CrossFire reviews and the scaling with the R9 cards is much better than the previous gen. It's even better than nVidia's SLI scaling.

 

[blackened23]

I've read the two card CrossFire reviews and the scaling with the R9 cards is much better than the previous gen. It's even better than nVidia's SLI scaling.

With the caveat that you'll need 65% fancap for that level of performance. Brent noted in his xfire review that he was using uber mode with 65% fancap to prevent throttling, IIRC. This was in 2 way crossfire - I imagine that you'll need an even higher fan cap for quadfire to prevent throttling from excessive heat. I know you've used 7970s. I know that YOU know the fan is ridiculously loud past 50% fanspeed. 50% fanspeed multiplied times four = I feel sorry for that person.

I dunno. I don't think I could live with that trade-off, but i'm not into quad sli and all that stuff. And you may have a setup to where the fan noise can be minimized or something. With the 780ti in quad sli, you could just use auto fan without any performance trade-off, while there's a significant trade-off for noise/performance on the 290X quadfire.

 

[x3sphere]

Don't think I would go 3x 290s without water cooling.

BTW if you plan on overclocking these 1.2kW might not even be enough for a 3-way setup, considering reviews show two of them pulling close to 790-800W at stock (full system load).

 

[blackened23]

Don't think I would go 3x 290s without water cooling.

That's pretty much my thought as well. But then again, there are 780ti non reference cards already benchmarked which are 15% faster than the already fast 780ti. So take four of those puppies and water cool them for a real sick setup.

I don't believe AdamK has a custom loop on his agenda, though.

 

[moonbogg]

Anyone else see an issue with quad SLI using 3gb cards? I think for very high res you are better off with 6gb titans or moving to the 290x's (gotta be water though).

 

[guskline]

Or maybe I'll get three 780 Ti's. I hate the thought of having to go with water cooling.

Why? Other than the added cost of water blocks and a custom setup, your gpus run SO much cooler. My 670s below in rig 1 which are FTWs and stock clocked at 1006 are OC'd by 50 core and 400 memory via EVGA Precision X and never exceed 49-50C no matter what game or bench I run. I could push the cards harder but why?

I think the R9 290 is an ideal card to water cool and run in CF. I just sunk some dough into my 670 water blocks but two R9 290s with two EK water blocks is REAL tempting!

 

[blackened23]

I'd imagine because custom water loops are an extreme pain to install and take a heck of a long time.

I used to be into it. I don't think I could do it now when I could just go air and "set it and forget it".

 

[AdamK47]

Why?

Don't want to invest the time, effort, and money into something that won't even last a year. Besides, last years water cooled PC is always trumped by todays air cooled. That makes the "cool" factor as some people see it as silly to me.

Was into it 6 years ago. Then for the reasons I mentioned, I stopped doing it.

 

[Tempered81]

Quadfire 290X is the fastest PC in the world currently. But if you're just running them on the stock coolers bunched up inside a PC case without water/LN2, you may as well stick to Titan 3-4 way or 780TI 3-4 way since they have that ultra smexy cooler and are just a couple % behind. Even if your 30" is a 1600P or 1440P, the 780Ti's might be faster most of the time, since 290X multigpu only command a lead in UltraHD 4K.

obligatory pic:

 

[guskline]

I went to a custom water loop when I jumped to the 2011 3930k chip. Excellent chip but puts out tons of heat when OC'd.

Big difference in cooling between the AIOs and a serious custom cooler. BrightCandle has explained it many times.

 

[AdamK47]

Quadfire 290X is the fastest PC in the world currently. But if you're just running them on the stock coolers bunched up inside a PC case without water/LN2, you may as well stick to Titan 3-4 way or 780TI 3-4 way since they have that ultra smexy cooler and are just a couple % behind. Even if your 30" is a 1600P or 1440P, the 780Ti's might be faster most of the time, since 290X multigpu only command a lead in UltraHD 4K.

obligatory pic:

Yeah, I'm sure that system is 24/7 stable like that. An endless stream of LN2.

 

[Tempered81]

Yeah it's pretty stable that's actually a fake LN2 pot on the CPU and the steam and stuff comign out of the top is for visual effects. That setup is at Sm0ke's grandmother's house and she mainly uses the 290X quadfire on air for solitair and minesweeper at 900P.

But you should see Sm0ke's actual benching rig. It even has LN2 Tek 9s on the video cards too. (And they're real just like his CPU pot). So he has to fill them constantly all 5 of them. Going for suicide runs like that usually is never stable, but he could probably slap the air coolers back on the 290x's if he wanted to do a 10 hour gaming session.

 

[AdamK47]

I went to a custom water loop when I jumped to the 2011 3930k chip. Excellent chip but puts out tons of heat when OC'd.

Big difference in cooling between the AIOs and a serious custom cooler. BrightCandle has explained it many times.

I was also able to reduce my CPU temps and gain more performance. Custom water cooling wasn't required in the process.

 

[AdamK47]

Yeah it's pretty stable that's actually a fake LN2 pot on the CPU and the steam and stuff comign out of the top is for visual effects. That setup is at Sm0ke's grandmother's house and she mainly uses the 290X quadfire on air for solitair and minesweeper at 900P.

But you should see Sm0ke's actual benching rig. It even has LN2 Tek 9s on the video cards too. (And they're real just like his CPU pot). So he has to fill them constantly all 5 of them. Going for suicide runs like that usually is never stable, but he could probably slap the air coolers back on the 290x's if he wanted to do a 10 hour gaming session.

That would impress me more than the db drag style benching.

 

[Tempered81]

Once you have 4 7970 aircoolers on 4 290x's locked inside a PC case back-to-back with no room to breathe, you cannot expect 1000mhz clocks. You're gonna get a crappy experience at 600mhz-700mhz. Thats why 780Ti/Titan QUADSLI would be better for air cooling because Nvidia's air cooler is 1000 times nicer, and the GPUs could actually boost to what their claimed speed is. If you arent on ultra HD 4k, then 780ti/Titan obliterates the competition at most 1600P benches in 3 & 4way. Also the need to see gaming benches on 290x quadfire on Air is why people came out of the woodwork in this thread mentioning watercooling. 290X only makes sense on water, especially in 4way, whereas the 780ti/Titan cooler might struggle, but could handle the heat and at least get you to boost clock. 290X quadfire on air in a case for hours of gaming is probably a stuttering mess at 700mhz x 4.

 

[AdamK47]

I'm not sure what to believe about Tri/Quad 290s. People say that it'll be to hot to maintain boost on the stock blower cooler. Where is the hard data from such a setup to back that up? I don't see any. I've searched for it.

Maybe I'll just get a used Titan, a 1500W power supply, and a quad SLI bridge.