I'll start a thread since one doesn't exist yet.
I'm planning to mine and game with R9 290x crossfire.
First impressions:
Uber Noise:
Note* I'm coming from mining with a 7950 and 6950 (both "quiet" DCUII models) which were crunched tightly next to each other.
I fired them up and waited to be deafened. There has clearly been a LOT of fud going on about noise, especially from a lot of people that don't own them. When the temperatures started rising and the fan sped up to 55% I was surprised that it's not that bad. Then again running with a 7950 DCUII and 6950 DCUII mining with no space between them has probably eased the transition vs. using the custom cards on their own.
Higher noise:
I cranked up the power and clocks slightly so the fan hit 70% and that was too loud for me, louder than the DCUII with one at 100% and the other around 70%. Even 62-64% in crossfire might be around the level that the two DCUII cards were producing. Now it's settled at 62% and it's "almost" a bit too loud.
Compared to a GTX 690 (note it's been a long time since I had it - memory is subjective)
55% is audible, and if I came from the usual 7950 DCUII gaming, it would clearly be louder. I was trying to debate but to me it "feels" like the crossfire noise at 55% was around the same level as the GTX 690 with the titanium cooler at around 1200-1250 core.
Noise conclusion:
It'll take a while to figure out exactly which noise is acceptable.
Mining:
Coming soon.
Fired up cgminer without any config except -w 256 and intensity 15 iirc, was around 1.2MH/s. Intensity at 17 was ~1.45 MH/s. Clearly it has a ways to go and I expect more by tweaking it. Bumped up the memory a bit and they're going about 1.55MH/s.
1.6 MH/s with I - 18 and it's (windows) surprisingly still responsive compared to my previous build when running at I 18 on two cards.
The memory appears to have various effects, but was clearly better at 1250 stock and around 1450 made a bigger difference. 1500 and a little above appear to drop it quite a bit. The effects in between appeared to go both up and down.
One card:
Around 1490 was ~835 Khash
1500 dropped to ~700 Khash
1625 ~830 Khash (Max afterburner OC)
The other card is mining a bit less
1490 memory & it's downlocking a bunch so I guess I need another fan in my case. It's mining around 720 kHash/s so it has a lot to go.
It appears that memory has a pretty big effect. Playing around for ~5 mins had jumps up and back down as the speed goes up. It'll take a while to hone in on the optimal speeds.
Now I've been lightly playing around with my 290x's again.
The warmer one I've been undervolting but still haven't seen any change in hash. It's now -31 core mv and AB reports ~0.95v. The other is still stock with a bump in memory.
I bumped the fan up to 65% from 55% and they are running at around 1.75 MH/s. One is still 120 kHash stronger than the other for some reason, perhaps one is elpida and the other hynix. They both (memory) clock up the AB max, but the sweet spot was 1490 MHz.
I just noticed that one of them is now under the 90c, the other is apparently still a bit too hot.
~0.95v 800 kHash (undervolted 31 mV)
~1.05v 920 kHash (stock except 1490 memory)
Power consumption:
2 x R9 290x on a 4770k with multiple HDDs/SSDs.
600w mining - stock at first stab without optimizing anything.
I put 10% more to the power limit, overclocked the memory (it can hit the max without issue mining, but the best was exactly 1490, even better than 1625- the max) and it's sitting at 700w mining at 1.55 MHash/s.
I'm planning to mine and game with R9 290x crossfire.
First impressions:
Uber Noise:
Note* I'm coming from mining with a 7950 and 6950 (both "quiet" DCUII models) which were crunched tightly next to each other.
I fired them up and waited to be deafened. There has clearly been a LOT of fud going on about noise, especially from a lot of people that don't own them. When the temperatures started rising and the fan sped up to 55% I was surprised that it's not that bad. Then again running with a 7950 DCUII and 6950 DCUII mining with no space between them has probably eased the transition vs. using the custom cards on their own.
Higher noise:
I cranked up the power and clocks slightly so the fan hit 70% and that was too loud for me, louder than the DCUII with one at 100% and the other around 70%. Even 62-64% in crossfire might be around the level that the two DCUII cards were producing. Now it's settled at 62% and it's "almost" a bit too loud.
Compared to a GTX 690 (note it's been a long time since I had it - memory is subjective)
55% is audible, and if I came from the usual 7950 DCUII gaming, it would clearly be louder. I was trying to debate but to me it "feels" like the crossfire noise at 55% was around the same level as the GTX 690 with the titanium cooler at around 1200-1250 core.
Noise conclusion:
It'll take a while to figure out exactly which noise is acceptable.
Mining:
Coming soon.
Fired up cgminer without any config except -w 256 and intensity 15 iirc, was around 1.2MH/s. Intensity at 17 was ~1.45 MH/s. Clearly it has a ways to go and I expect more by tweaking it. Bumped up the memory a bit and they're going about 1.55MH/s.
1.6 MH/s with I - 18 and it's (windows) surprisingly still responsive compared to my previous build when running at I 18 on two cards.
The memory appears to have various effects, but was clearly better at 1250 stock and around 1450 made a bigger difference. 1500 and a little above appear to drop it quite a bit. The effects in between appeared to go both up and down.
One card:
Around 1490 was ~835 Khash
1500 dropped to ~700 Khash
1625 ~830 Khash (Max afterburner OC)
The other card is mining a bit less
1490 memory & it's downlocking a bunch so I guess I need another fan in my case. It's mining around 720 kHash/s so it has a lot to go.
It appears that memory has a pretty big effect. Playing around for ~5 mins had jumps up and back down as the speed goes up. It'll take a while to hone in on the optimal speeds.
Now I've been lightly playing around with my 290x's again.
The warmer one I've been undervolting but still haven't seen any change in hash. It's now -31 core mv and AB reports ~0.95v. The other is still stock with a bump in memory.
I bumped the fan up to 65% from 55% and they are running at around 1.75 MH/s. One is still 120 kHash stronger than the other for some reason, perhaps one is elpida and the other hynix. They both (memory) clock up the AB max, but the sweet spot was 1490 MHz.
I just noticed that one of them is now under the 90c, the other is apparently still a bit too hot.
~0.95v 800 kHash (undervolted 31 mV)
~1.05v 920 kHash (stock except 1490 memory)
Power consumption:
2 x R9 290x on a 4770k with multiple HDDs/SSDs.
600w mining - stock at first stab without optimizing anything.
I put 10% more to the power limit, overclocked the memory (it can hit the max without issue mining, but the best was exactly 1490, even better than 1625- the max) and it's sitting at 700w mining at 1.55 MHash/s.
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