[HardOCP] Asus DC II 290X max overclock versus GTX 780ti max overclocking review:

[bystander36]

If you plan to OC, then OC'ed benchmarks matter, if you don't, then stock benchmarks matter.

It's that simple.

That means different people will have different opinions. That also means every one of these threads will have people saying one or the other.

 

[UaVaj]

gk110 is a beast.

too bad 780ti only comes with 3gb.

 

[Imouto]

Here's the conclusion since some people here CLEARLY didn't read the article. Here is Brent's conclusion. I suggest reading it entirely. It covers all the incorrect statements that were mentioned by several posters in this thread.

If your card is not behaving like it is supposed to then there's something wrong with a PBCK or the card itself. Proven already with both the DCU and Windforce units having sub par cooling and/or defective press samples. This is the very same as getting one of those crappy custom Palit cards back from the Fermi era and shouting that the whole Fermi lineup was crap, overclocking, temp and noise wise.

If you go to any 290(X) Tri-X review with OC performance and temps figures you will see that all you're saying here is bogus. If you slap a good cooler on these cards they will perform as they're supposed to showing the scaling you'd expect with OC and helping you to figure out where the problem is with your OC. PCPer settled with a 1225 Mhz OC for the 290 Tri-X and it started to throttle while being power constrained. Anyone settling with a OC lower than being limited by the power throttle threshold doesn't know how these cards work. It's the only thing you can't overcome by now and it's only alleviated by lower temps that obviously can't be achieved with coolers like the DCU or the Windforce.

Every time anyone publishes something that fits your agenda it's the new holy grail and everything else is WRONNGGG. Every time you find something to bash these cards with you have the urge to let everyone know to be shot down sooner or later.

You're just looking too hard for something against these cards and that's worrisome.

 

[thilanliyan]

For some reason I think inadequate cooling would lead to throttling. No? Is that the logical conclusion? Just thinking out loud here. There are two water cooling users at H who are using 1.4V and can't get past 1100mhz.

Could also be power limitations. That could be the bottleneck rather than the cooling. AFAIK, these cards throttle when too much power is drawn as well.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Could be an inferior product for whatever reason feels the best.

 

[thilanliyan]

Could be an inferior product for whatever reason feels the best.

No doubt...the reference board for Hawaii may be inadequate to feed enough power to it if you want high OCs. People wanting massive OCs should wait for custom PCB cards like Lightning, Toxic, Matrix, etc. anyway.

 

[blackened23]

No doubt...the reference board for Hawaii may be inadequate to feed enough power to it if you want high OCs. People wanting massive OCs should wait for custom PCB cards like Lightning, Toxic, Matrix, etc. anyway.

Or we can wait for custom PCB cards like the Asus DC II 290X.

 

[24601]

Kinda off-topic but does any of you know how to get an article RSS feed of hardocp WITHOUT the news posts?

This is the only current RSS I have found of hardocp
http://www.hardocp.com/RSS/all_hardocp.xml

Google turns up this as an old RSS feed that is not kept anymore that looks like it was the articles feed.
www.hardocp.com/RSS/henthusiast.xml

 

[JoeRambo]

No doubt...the reference board for Hawaii may be inadequate to feed enough power to it if you want high OCs. People wanting massive OCs should wait for custom PCB cards like Lightning, Toxic, Matrix, etc. anyway.

Honestly I don't get this stuff. What can "more custom" board still on air cooling and 666 power phases do more? Hawaii full chip is using more power stock than oced 780TI. End of story. All else is irrelevant on air cooling.

Only cherry picked chips on water can get you somewhere with this chip. Sadly "somewhere" is not enough when OCed reference 780TI has margin of performance this big.

 

[Elfear]

Honestly I don't get this stuff. What can "more custom" board still on air cooling and 666 power phases do more? Hawaii full chip is using more power stock than oced 780TI. End of story. All else is irrelevant on air cooling.

Only cherry picked chips on water can get you somewhere with this chip. Sadly "somewhere" is not enough when OCed reference 780TI has margin of performance this big.

More phases are great for the 780. AFAIK, no other cards hit 1400+ on a fairly regular basis besides the Lightning and Classified (20 and 14 phases respectively). That is on air too.

I'm not contesting the point that the 780Ti is the faster card but a beefier PCB definitely has advantages depending on the chip being fed.

 

[OCGuy]

No doubt...the reference board for Hawaii may be inadequate to feed enough power to it if you want high OCs. People wanting massive OCs should wait for custom PCB cards like Lightning, Toxic, Matrix, etc. anyway.

How long from the launch of a reference product should people wait to jump into the market?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Binning is the case of the lightning and classified makes more sense as other cards will do the same just with a lower likelihood.

The number of these cards that will do 1300 at 1.2v also favors binning over phases.

 

[thilanliyan]

Or we can wait for custom PCB cards like the Asus DC II 290X.

Is it actually a custom PCB or just a custom cooler on a (mostly) reference PCB?

 

[thilanliyan]

Hawaii full chip is using more power stock than oced 780TI. End of story. All else is irrelevant on air cooling.

Source? From what I understand, OCed 780s, Ti, and Titan PCBs can feed 300 and more watts to the GPU. Which Hawaii chip uses more than 300w at stock?

How long from the launch of a reference product should people wait to jump into the market?

However long it takes if a custom PCB is what you want? Ideally the custom cards launch as soon as possible, but if they don't, really what can we do? If you don't want to wait, buy something else.

 

[Elfear]

Binning is the case of the lightning and classified makes more sense as other cards will do the same just with a lower likelihood.

Any evidence of binning? I've heard mixed opinions on whether the high-end cards are actually binned or not.

The number of these cards that will do 1300 at 1.2v also favors binning over phases.

Maybe, but clean power delivery also helps at 1.2V. I'm not saying you're wrong but I haven't seen any conclusive evidence of binning.

 

[Imouto]

Source? From what I understand, OCed 780s, Ti, and Titan PCBs can feed 300 and more watts to the GPU. Which Hawaii chip uses more than 300w at stock?

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx780ti/16.htm

 

[el etro]

Sad when AMD non ref boards are completely outclassed by nvidia reference boards that people called cheap, and lacking power delivery.

Don't know about other card instances(79xx vs GTX 670/680), but the components of all GTX 78x cards are all premium-class, and are really Halo-class compared to r9 290 components.

Here's the conclusion since some people here CLEARLY didn't read the article. Here is Brent's conclusion. I suggest reading it entirely. It covers all the incorrect statements that were mentioned by several posters in this thread.

This card overclocks so bad compared to other cards i see(like in Hardware Canucks/PcPer)....


-----------------------------------------------------------



For information purposes, the proof that PCBs of R9-290 and 7970 have similar thermal headroom:

Five power phases supply the GPU, with an individual power phase for the memory, resulting in a total of 6+1 power phases. Intriguingly, there’s also space for an additional power phase on the PCB that AMD has chosen to leave off; could we perhaps see an even faster version of the card in the future?

Meanwhile, at the far side of the card you can see the SVI2 voltage controller that replaces the CHiL CHL8228 found on the HD 7970 and R9 280X cards. This is connected to the card's six main power phases, one of which is reserved for the memory while five are for the GPU, which makes for a 5+1 phase power design. This is less R9 280X, which features an additional phase for its memory chips (5+2 phase power).

Even r9 280x have a better power system than its two more power hungry sisters:

Moving on to XFX board, it looks like XFX isn’t doing anything particularly exotic here. XFX is using their standard Duratec high-end components, which includes using solid caps and chokes (typical for all cards in this power category) along with their IP-5X dust free fan. A quick component count has us counting 7 power phases, which would be the reference amount for a 280X, meaning we’re looking at 5 phases for the GPU, and another 2 phases for the memory and I/O.

 

[thilanliyan]

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx780ti/16.htm

I see an OCed Ti using more power than a stock 290X AND the OCed 290X in that link, which is not what the poster I responded to said. He/she said that a stock Hawaii chip uses more power than an OCed 780 Ti.

 

[JoeRambo]

Source? From what I understand, OCed 780s, Ti, and Titan PCBs can feed 300 and more watts to the GPU. Which Hawaii chip uses more than 300w at stock?

Review in OT? But actually that is 1050Mhz, so not "stock" for 290X, but stock for Asus.

I see an OCed Ti using more power than a stock 290X AND the OCed 290X in that link, which is not what the poster I responded to said. He/she said that a stock Hawaii chip uses more power than an OCed 780 Ti.

Why don't we stick to OT review, cause in that link TI is on 1291MHz/ 1940MHz. Forum members have long demonstrated that to milk that last 100Mhz out of GK110 you need 100w+.

 

[el etro]

I'm not even sure what you're going on about here SF. Just answer these questions. Does the Hawaii throttle when cooling is inadequate? Yes or no? If VRM temps go dangerously high, willt he Hawaii throttle or BSOD/crash? Yes or no?

IMO, THIS is what's happening. Bad cooling with a card working closer to its total capacity and heating so much, helped with a imperfect powertune algorithm(None god of computing can make powertune workaround all the issues of the card). A experiment from a guy from my country that solved the card problem can help on investigate the reference board letdowns:

Resumo do dia.

Recebi minha 9 290x.

Instalei e tive problemas de congelamento, só resetando.

Instalei o software pra controle do Fan e setei o bicho a 40% mínimo.

Depois disso Testei por 2 horas com games pesados e não tive mais congelamentos mas...

O Coller parece uma Turbina de Avião... :damn:

Acho q já estou saudade da minha GTX 760.:feelbad:

The first guy is saying that he made a automatic and more aggressive fan profile in afterburner for its 290 and his problems stopped. Other user with the same problem provided a screen for his afterburner fan control profile that solved the blackscreens problem on 290(s):

This guy said a BIOS upgrade solved its problems with its 290:

Eu tbm tive este problema de congelamento no Windows até mesmo em idle e temp baixa... Minha placa é uma r9 290 da xfx.. Resolvi o problema atualizando a bios dela para a mais recente, desde então não tive mais estes congelamentos e já faz uma semana..

-AMD's way of to do a Great Video Card!-

 

[Silverforce11]

Why is it computerbase.de had to flash to new bios on their ASUS R290 sample to prevent it from throttle? As per SKYTML on HC.

Did [H] flash theirs?

Why is ASUS releasing such a crap product.

 

[thilanliyan]

Why does that R290X card have Xfire connectors? I thought no Hawaii cards had those?

 

[el etro]

Why does that R290X card have Xfire connectors? I thought no Hawaii cards had those?

OOps!
The original picture shows the same thing(In the power department):

 

[SiliconWars]

Only getting 11% more performance for a near 30% bigger chip with a much heftier overclock is pretty sad. It would have been a tie overall had the BF4 Mantle patch been ready...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Only getting 11% more performance for a near 30% bigger chip with a much heftier overclock is pretty sad. It would have been a tie overall had the BF4 Mantle patch been ready...

What's really sad is AMD resigned itself to second place on yet another node. How did second place workout for them in CPUs?

No new big cores and now their fans argue over trash APUs instead of high end performance, sad indeed.