Getting Newegg credit on my 970's... Which 290/290x in CF?

[lavaheadache]

the R9 295X2 is a good buy mainly because of reduced heat, noise and lower temps. the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X CF is the other option. Lightning cooler is not so great and much louder than Tri-X. the problem gets even worse in CF.

LOL, the Lightning cooler is incredible.

 

[raghu78]

LOL, the Lightning cooler is incredible.

in terms of acoustics tri-x is definitely better than lightning.vapor-x and tri-x are consistently at the top of the cooling efficiency charts

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...phics-Card-Review/3DMark-Power-Sound-and-Conc

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Lightning/23.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_290X_Tri-X_OC/23.html

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerbase.de%2F2014-05%2Famd-radeon-r9-290-290x-roundup-test%2F3%2F&edit-text=

 

[_UP_]

Had the TRI-X as single card and in CF. Now have the Lightning (all 290x). Both are great cards. That said, the Lightning is much nicer in build quality, performance and acoustics. Even at full load that thing is inaudible and that is my opinion compared to a single TRI-X. I'll have to agree with lavaheadache, this cooler is incredible. The only thing I would consider is size. The TRI-X is a 2-slot card (not over) whereas the Lightning is 2.5-slot card. Haven't tried it in CF (though I might soon, I can get another TRI-X for real cheap), but there won't be too much space between them.
Also, I think the lottery will be better with it as those are MSI's top cards where Sapphire has the Vapor-X. And as mentioned before, the warranty is better with MSI (and a year longer).
About the 295x2, I'd get that if you want to go TriFire. IIRC, it is faster than stock 290x's as it has a slightly higher core clocks (1018 MHz) than the stock 290x's, but both the cards you are considering have higher clocks.

Edit: forgot to mention, the only way I can think of that the Lightning had worst acoustics is because the original FW had an issue that prevented creating a profile and controlling the fans separately. That was fixed and a new FW is available that allows controlling the middle fan (GPU) and the other two (rest of card) separately and create a fan curve.

 

[3DVagabond]

Hmm. didn't think about those...
What about the 295x? Is it just as fast as 2 separate cards? What about resale?

I personally think the 295x2 is a far more elegant solution than 2 cards in crossfire. Much better thermals and the cores are binned for lower power. Lower leakage chips tend to not O/C as well as high leakage chips, but that's not always the case. There's still the silicon lottery that applies. I don't really think you'll run into a lack of performance though even at stock speeds @ 1600p.

Just as quiet as a single Lightning...

...and temps are great too.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Just an update: switched over from 970 SLI to 290x CF and I'm loving it. I didn't use a driver cleaner program and it was stuttering like mad in CF so I was initially very disappointed, ran the cleaner and now it's much better. I also had to go into the bios and force my motherboard into PCIe v. 3 x8 x 2 and it was defaulting at 1.1 for some weird reason.

BTW running the open coolers side by side had the top card running >10C higher and it was running it's fans much higher so I ended up swapping the top card with my son's rig (the reference 290x) and then put a Corsair H90/HG10 combo and now it runs at 55C while o/c to 1100!

Bye bye 970's!
IMG_3194 by https://www.flickr.com/people/95294823@N05/, on Flickr

Now that I'm thinking about it, I should've ran a kill-a-watt on both setups to compare the true power usage of my setup before/after. My AX850 is handling the 290x CF setup easily. I don't get why AMD's materials call for a 750 watt PS for a SINGLE 290x!

 

[Rhezuss]

You're tempting me to follow through with newegg.ca for a store credit...
The 290X is very tempting...

But losing DSR...i'm gonna be sad

 

[guskline]

Good news Pneumothorax. I had a single GTX 970 Gigabyte G1 Gamer that I sent back to Newegg for credit and bought the Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290. A slight performance performance drop BUT I'm pleased.

It is in my 3770k rig.

 

[wand3r3r]

OP which model gpus did you get?

You're tempting me to follow through with newegg.ca for a store credit...
The 290X is very tempting...

But losing DSR...i'm gonna be sad

VSR?

 

[lopri]

I would test out one 290 first before purchasing two at once.

 

[n0x1ous]

BTW running the open coolers side by side had the top card running >10C higher and it was running it's fans much higher so I ended up swapping the top card with my son's rig (the reference 290x) and then put a Corsair H90/HG10 combo and now it runs at 55C while o/c to 1100!

Thats the exact hybrid combo i use on my 290's !!! H90 + HG10 A1 was a lifesaver to noise and temps!

 

[Rhezuss]

OP which model gpus did you get?



VSR?

Oh, VSR...forgot about that.

 

[Pneumothorax]

OP which model gpus did you get?



VSR?

Sapphire Tri-X 290x and a Gigabyte (Used) Reference 290x.

The Tri-X is a quiet/cool card when it's by itself (or on the bottom of a CF config), but when stacked on top of another Tri-X it starts to run a bit hot and become audible. I've got all of them running at 1100 Mhz right now with no artifacting or crashes.

PS I really like the VRM readout on these AMD cards. I was always nervous when I was running a Kraken G10 on my previous 780ti as while I could push the core to almost 1200 and still run <60C core temp, my vrm's would burn to the touch!

 

[garagisti]

I would test out one 290 first before purchasing two at once.

Why, pray tell? Are they stuttering when you use 4gb?