R9 290 & 290x Owners thread.

[Zanovar]

Is that an arc midi i detect there?anyways saxy setup:thumbsup:

 

[chimaxi83]

I ended up trying an open bench but the cards were pretty wobbly so I dropped them back in the case and did a little cable mgmt...


BF4 64 player stats for a little while. It was the Operation locker map.
I'm wondering if it logs GPU memory usage correctly 3.8 GB is pretty high!

The FPS were 100-200 FPS the whole time, and the core was pegged on both cards without throttling at 44% and 51% fan speeds. GPU usage varied quite a bit.

It's using right around 600 watts.

As far as your memory usage is concerned, Afterburner is basically reporting usage across both cards, which we know is just mirrored. In reality, it's using half that.

 

[wand3r3r]

Is that an arc midi i detect there?anyways saxy setup:thumbsup:

Thanks! It's a Fractal, the smallest ATX case I believe. I should have probably gone bigger for 4x crossfire in hindsight, however the case has been fine and I didn't want anything ginormous. For gaming it's pretty nice, for mining I feel like going with an open bench and quad card crossfire. I barely got the second 290x to fit, I thought I was going to have to do some case modding since it was actually longer than what the case says it supports but under the HDD case lip there is a tiny bit of room. I took the secondary HDD case out since I could cram the HDDs above and below.

As far as your memory usage is concerned, Afterburner is basically reporting usage across both cards, which we know is just mirrored. In reality, it's using half that.

Yeah, so each card is using near 2 GB. I am sure glad I'm not stuck with the gtx 690 any longer with only 2 GB per card! Whether the FPS suffer a lot Idk but something has to be compromised to halve the memory usage.

 

[wand3r3r]

Let's gather the information about different cheapouts on the 290/x's and name and shame the manufacturers for their efforts (good or bad). If you have any links to sources please include them.

So far the gigabyte apparently had VRM sensors on press samples but not on retail cards, or switched them? The gaming reportedly does/doesn't have VRM sensors? The gigabyte and asus have poor contact with the heatpipes?

 

[IEC]

Gigabyte is missing VRM sensors on at least some cards, and is using a retrofitted Windforce cooler not specifically designed for a 290 (read: hack). It's noisy and doesn't cool that well.

MSI Gaming uses cheaper inductors and its cooler is inadequate for anything beyond stock settings or maybe a mild OC. They optimized for quietness and it shows. Also at least some cards missing VRM sensors.

Asus is using a cooler not specifically designed for the 290 and thus has poor heatpipe contact.

 

[blastingcap]

MSI Gaming does have VRM sensors, just that GPU-Z screws up and can't scroll all the way down if your dpi setting is more than 100%. This has been confirmed on Overclock.net. So just adjust dpi down temporarily even if it makes text too small to easily read, if you want to look at VRM temps.

 

[wand3r3r]

MSI Gaming does have VRM sensors, just that GPU-Z screws up and can't scroll all the way down if your dpi setting is more than 100%. This has been confirmed on Overclock.net. So just adjust dpi down temporarily even if it makes text too small to easily read, if you want to look at VRM temps.

Good news, I hate to think MSI would cheap out.

 

[Silverforce11]

MSI Gaming uses cheaper inductors and its cooler is inadequate for anything beyond stock settings or maybe a mild OC. They optimized for quietness and it shows. Also at least some cards missing VRM sensors.

Asus is using a cooler not specifically designed for the 290 and thus has poor heatpipe contact.

Looking at your mining temps on the MSI Gaming i am very impressed, core not too hot, VRM at 82C is a winner. Just as long as its a single card.

I equate mining load to a pretty high gaming OC so its a good "Gaming" card.

So far the ones to avoid: Asus and Gigabyte for being lazy with re-using their GK110 optimized coolers on Hawaii. It's a sin for heatpipe coolers to not have heatpipes making contact and they both need to get this message loud and clear and hurry up with a version 2.