At those prices they can keep them. Especially with coin mining profitability tanking you'd be silly to pay those prices.
When can I buy an R9 290 for a decent price?
I want one for 450.......when!
Does Saphire or MSI have the better cooling solution as of right now?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/r9-290x-case-performance,3710-2.html
Asus and Gigabyte suffer from their heatpipe design, which were made for the larger GK110 die, so on Hawaii, 2 pipes have no contact.. pretty damn stupid of them to release it in that condition.
Also, nice results for closed cases with good airflow, beating open bench!
Sapphire's result is particularly impressive. In our closed case test, the Tri-X registers 1-2 °C lower than in the open-air chassis.
A well-designed case won't necessarily impose higher temperatures on your graphics card, even if its GPU is notoriously hot and it employs axial fans that recirculates heat.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/r9-290x-case-performance,3710-2.html
Asus and Gigabyte suffer from their heatpipe design, which were made for the larger GK110 die, so on Hawaii, 2 pipes have no contact.. pretty damn stupid of them to release it in that condition.
Also, nice results for closed cases with good airflow, beating open bench!
Oh no!!! This is impossible. I've been told that several times when I've tried to say that the active cooling from a properly designed case is superior to the static cooling of an open bench.
Mmmm, yummy crow.
It shouldn't be long. Prices have dropped about 10$ on average over the last 2 days I have been monitoring them. You might wanna think about the 290x,they are closer to mSRP currently.
I've got 2x MSI Gaming 290 on the way ("Twin Frozr" coolers). I'm not setup for nor do I have time for a detailed review but I'll try to post first impressions + a brief head to head versus the 2x Sapphire 290 Tri-X that I have.
In my view, it will be hard to top the Sapphire cooling solution but we'll see.
That sounds great How are the 2x Sapphire Tri-x working in crossfire with that style of cooler? Are either of the cards getting overly hot because of how close they are? I have a Sapphire Tri-x 290 on the way and when the prices finally come down I might consider grabbing a second one. Also what power supply are you running with those 2 cards? Thanks.
I've got 3 slots between pcie1 and pcie2 so there is enough room between the cards for good ventilation. No crossfire bridge needed either - all over PCI-e. Gaming I find it hard to push it above 75C (top card) while the bottom card stays below 65C at acceptable noise levels. I was previously running the two cards using a Seasonic X850 but that caused it to run the PSU fan at max occasionally (somewhat noisy) so I swapped in one of my eVGA Supernova G2 1000W PSUs.
I've got 2x MSI Gaming 290 on the way ("Twin Frozr" coolers). I'm not setup for nor do I have time for a detailed review but I'll try to post first impressions + a brief head to head versus the 2x Sapphire 290 Tri-X that I have.
In my view, it will be hard to top the Sapphire cooling solution but we'll see.
I was hoping for data on vrm temps on the xfx card also but alas it is not there.
I've got 2x MSI Gaming 290 on the way ("Twin Frozr" coolers). I'm not setup for nor do I have time for a detailed review but I'll try to post first impressions + a brief head to head versus the 2x Sapphire 290 Tri-X that I have.
In my view, it will be hard to top the Sapphire cooling solution but we'll see.
The Tri-X is the only card ($450) I would consider if going AIB 290, but VRM's temps while being the best out of the AIB 290's on the Tri-X to this point still needs a better cooling solution (vrm) to help with overclocking headroom/vrm temps for gaming imo. I read a post awhile back on another forum I believe it was by a Sapphire rep which kind of made me think they are aware and I am thinking we might see a different/improved vrm cooling solution on a Sapphire Toxic card. BTW I also read a user review on the AIB MSI 290 Gamer which isn't looking to good as far temps and oci'ng and also no VRM sensors but its only one card/user review.
Re: Sapphire 290 Tri-X
I get 77C/86C/57C Core/VRM1/VRM2 under maximum load scrypt mining, OC'd with an ambient of 27C/~81F. That's far above a normal gaming load. You would certainly need more exotic cooling for a 24/7 overvolt + overclock, but it's limited by its reference PCB anyways. If your application is gaming the Tri-X is one of the better stock coolers I've tested. A Sapphire @ 2000 RPM is comparable to a Gelid Icy Vision @ 4200 RPM in cooling performance while being a quiet whoosh compared to the Gelid's roar.
Re: MSI 290 Gamer
We'll see when I get my MSIs. Supposedly also based off a reference PCB with a few component swap outs (coils + RAM - supposedly Hynix instead of Elpida).
I'll take a closer look at the components and will be sure to post on cooling/component choices/OC-ability.
IEC, looking forward to the review. I think it will be hard to beat the Sapphire Tri-X, the only other model that could, looks to be Powercolor's PCS, similar design to Tri-X but it has a beefier heatsink on it.