From my understanding the card never gets to 100% fan noise so all these posts about "ZOMG LOOK AT DAT FAN NOISE" are totally BS.For those who have not heard the noise the R9 290X makes, here is a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMGlkvSFhLQ
I'm sorry, but that is pathetic. My 760 SLI set up is just as fast as it at stock and doesn't make a peep hardly under load on stock settings. I can hear it once I rev the fan up to 70% if I adjust it manually, but it is no where near the insanity of that. Really all it is is the noise of air moving. It is not irritating at all, but for AMD to think that is acceptable is ridiculous.
The actual performance numbers are great, but seriously. I would not put anything like that in my case at all, and I'd happily pay $100 more for the 780 GTX if those were the only two cards available to buy.
For those who have not heard the noise the R9 290X makes, here is a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMGlkvSFhLQ
I'm sorry, but that is pathetic. My 760 SLI set up is just as fast as it at stock and doesn't make a peep hardly under load on stock settings. I can hear it once I rev the fan up to 70% if I adjust it manually, but it is no where near the insanity of that. Really all it is is the noise of air moving. It is not irritating at all, but for AMD to think that is acceptable is ridiculous.
The actual performance numbers are great, but seriously. I would not put anything like that in my case at all, and I'd happily pay $100 more for the 780 GTX if those were the only two cards available to buy.
I am the exact opposite. Remove you cheap ass cooling and knock off another $50 off of the final price. Aftermarket cooling is always better and AIBs usually put on better coolers on their custom cards anyways.What im saying is quite simple. I wouldn't mind if the card was $50 more if it came with a better cooling solution that allowes it to maintain its 1ghz clock better. I'm not even sure where you keep bringing up this 780 argument from.
Not sure. I am not informed enough on that test to make any comment with conviction. That said, I do feel that to test the true mettle of any GPU, it should be, well, put to the test hard. Meaning if Tesselation puts a hurting on a GPUs, then that is what we are here to test, right? Crank up everything.
From my understanding the card never gets to 100% fan noise so all these posts about "ZOMG LOOK AT DAT FAN NOISE" are totally BS.
It's 40% in Silent mode and 55% in Ubermode.
\How are they getting shafted? Unlike the nVidia cards the AMD cards should perform exactly like the review samples. No magic 1300MHz+ on boost reference cards.
That particular statement was in response to how GTX 480 fared compared to the 5870(ATI's flagship back then) vs now as to how the 290x compares to the 780 or titan & you tell me if I'm wrong or not ? The GTX 480 was super inefficient that's a fact, which eventually led to the more efficient 580, however in case of 290x you have to remember transistor density has gone up as compared to 7970 & it has 20~25% less die space than titan so it'll also be heating up a lot more as compared to Nvidia's flagship.Really, dude? Really? I don't see the 290X as being far different than the GTX 480. I never said anything negative about the 480 at launch as it was a fine card performance wise, and I think the 290X is a tremendous card in terms of performance.
But I have to laugh at the fact that you're making fun on the 480's noise and heat output when the situation is practically the same with the 290X. The 290X *is* AMD's Fermi. But that's okay. The 480 had a price premium whereas the 290X doesn't, but you still have to deal with heat and noise in a stock reference configuration.
The bottom line is that the 290X has outstanding performance for the money. The reference cooler leaves alot to be desired. This matters to some people, and to others it doesn't. I just can't believe what i'm seeing here. You poking fun at the 480. The 290X isn't much different. As I said though, that's okay for the performance and price of the card which make up for it with a pretty outstanding value (IMHO). This entire argument angle you're coming up with though, I can't believe i'm seeing it. It's really unbelievable.
Loud card, yes, but whether it's an opportunity blown remains to be seen. So far, it appears to be a fine strategy. Fine for Nvidia, that's for sure.
It appears to be working exactly as designed. That's the problem
They are voltage unlocked. Strange how you've defended nVidia's O/C inhibited designs in the past, but have issues with simply a reference cooler with unlocked boards from AMD. Ummm, Yeah?! Nvidia's cards were designed that way. And here we have an unlocked 290x but what good is it with that cooler? Get me now?
I think the fastest cards this round are going to be the 290X Lightning, Matrix, etc... I don't believe the 780ti will keep up with those. We'll see.
Well, it should have been that way now. Not then.
We'll see.
2. Everyone agrees you have to immediately spend money on a new cooler
3. You can buy 780s cheaper than 650
This is false, can keep reference cooling and have GTX 780+ performance at 680 noise level for $550. How is that bad?
New in box retail? Newegg cheapest 780s still start at $650, just looked.
That particular statement was in response to how GTX 480 fared compared to the 5870(ATI's flagship back then) vs now as to how the 290x compares to the 780 or titan & you tell me if I'm wrong or not ? The GTX 480 was super inefficient that's a fact, which eventually led to the more efficient 580, however in case of 290x you have to remember transistor density has gone up as compared to 7970 & it has 20~25% less die space than titan so it'll also be heating up a lot more as compared to Nvidia's flagship.
I personally don't give a flying EFF about efficiency, if I did I wouldn't overclock my CPU which adds 200W+ at load. What I do care about is noise, I don't care why it makes noise (25% die space? Who cares?), I just don't like it.
As I said I think the card performs outstanding for the cost. I cannot dispute that , it is a beast of a card. But AMD really should have spent 10-20 more bucks improving that reference cooler. I don't care about efficiency, I do care about noise.
What are you talking about? That is not what he asked.
What he is saying is, AMD "should have" charged more money for the card and put a much better cooler on it. People would have paid it. I don't know man it just seems like AMD isn't confident enough that they could've gotten 599.00 for the card with a kick ass cooler on it. Performance speaks for itself in it's current crippled state so I could imagine, and I SURELY would have paid more for a better cooler. Card would have been even faster than it is.
Whole point. Acknowledge it.
The thing about efficiency is that you might not care about it but without a quarter of a die space saved(vs the titan) or how AMD put more transistors on the same process node(vs the 7970) you wouldn't have a 290x & certainly not at this price point! This was also debated in the CPU forum but efficiency is what has lead Intel to where they are now & I'm not preaching this to you but you're certainly making it sound like it "doesn't matter" when in fact it does, most certainly to the engineers that make these stuff.I personally don't give a flying EFF about efficiency, if I did I wouldn't overclock my CPU which adds 200W+ at load. What I do care about is noise. Now, the card doesn't make as much noise as some of the 100% fan videos floating around but I know for a fact - having used 7970s - that it is definitely audible at 55% fan speed. And that is what I would use if I owned a 290X (uber mode, 55%).
As I said I think the card performs outstanding for the cost. I cannot dispute that , it is a beast of a card. I think it's outstanding. But AMD really should have spent 10-20 more bucks improving that reference cooler. I don't care about efficiency, I do care about noise.
One word "price" & you really think an improved cooler with better thermals & less noise will cost AMD a mere 10~20$ or do you think the likes of Arctic cooling are ripping their customers off by selling their stuff at insane prices of ~100$ or so?Yet, IMHO, AMD really should have spent 10-20 more bucks improving that reference cooler. Had they done this, no reviewers would be even mentioning anything about noise, right? Here's a better question: why is it, under the hood, that AMD has used the EXACT same reference cooler since the 5870? That's what truly boggles my mind
They didn't. Want to know why? Just looks at your sig. You took $10 more expensive evga ACX cooler over "Titan cooler".
Then why even bother?
Why wasting money?
Why being competition to your own board partners? Why pissing them?
Just to have whole rooms filled with "epic reference design cooler" that doesn't sell?
Kind of odd seeing the roles reverse from the 480 GTX with AMD people saying the same thing back then. I guess noise and heat are no longer a concern as long as your favorite e-peen is on top...
Goes both ways though, because others said the noise and heat from the 480 was ok back then...or defended it due to it's solid performance.
Anyway, for the lulz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5YJsMaT_AE
And here we go again, I wonder why no one complains about the cheap stuff that comes along with Intel's 1000$ chips :whiste:That argument doesn't hold because there is no reference cooler that is as good as aftermarket in terms of overclock capability, noise output and thermals. As good as the Titan cooler is, it isn't as good as aftermarket. I don't see an overlap there. AMD could have spent 20$ more to get a better reference shroud, but it still would not be as good as aftermarket boards.
Yet there are many folks that *require* reference cooling - think of the guys with mITX cases, with tri crossfire, etc. For those folks, unless they go water, they have to put up with the noise without an alternative. The way I see it, the 290X is a hell of a high performing card that almost hits that grand slam. But doesn't because of the reference cooler. I can understand AMD wanting to save a few bucks here and there, but in this they really shouldn't have. IMHO. They almost hit the grand slam. And they did in terms of price and high performance - only to come short in noise output.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying it's a bad card. I think it's great in terms of value and performance, and I also love the competition it has brought with the NV price drops, NV game bundles, and what not. But this COULD HAVE been the AMD home run. They came up short because of that stupid cheap cooler. You know what i'm saying? If AMD is going to go all-out, go all-out. They could have made this the card that nobody could say anything negative about - yet here we are with people expressing disappointment at the reference cooler.
I noticed this straight away.....meh, what do I care, I certainly wouldn't want a card designed to run at 94c in my case, no matter what the performance is..
In all those youtube videos, at what volume setting is one supposed to listen to them?
Should the youtube slider be at 50%? Should my headset or speakers be at some specific setting?
R290X so far hasn't enjoyed any significant clock speed advantage with water, it seems to be core limited by voltage and even with lower temps it isn't gaining much in the way of MHz. It also seems to have a very hard ceiling on vram speed, and it isn't set high.
Fermi even on air had an overclocking advantage over similar AMD products, on water the gap only widened.
However the price different isn't all it has been cracked up to be. The R290X is $586 shipped without any games, while the GTX 780 is roughly $650 with an aftermarket cooler and Batman AO.