R9 290-290X owners thread

[800GT]

The history of the card :
First day : flashing the bios with 290x several times with different roms, all failed. Returned to original rom.

Second day gaming.

Third day try to install water cooler which didn't work. Reassemble the card. Put it in uber mode before turning on. All these failure happened.

 

[800GT]

Hey guys,

Today I've tired to install a Antec water cooler on my XFX R9 290, it didn't fit some how, then I assembled the card again but it fails to post somehow, its very strange, because earlier I've tried to re-flash it with R9 290X roms, non of them worked to I re-flashed it to original bios.

No it looks ati flash is failing to pass the test, even I can not re-flash it with any Roms i have tried, I could not find any other posts that this problem happened to anybody else! even flash type is changed, I'm not sure if I broke the board, its looks fine and I have cleaned it 2 times with cleaners and so, then dried it, you see it made me crazy and I tried all different possibilities, from short circuiting to different Roms 128kb and 64kb Roms . please Guide me.

Now I'm running on my old 7970 Asus as primary and this crap is on secondary slot.

View attachment 53304 View attachment 53305

Even tried with silent mode and uber mode both same results on atiflash.

 

[kiddagoat]

I have a reference Sapphire R9 290 and I have not had any thermal or throttling issues of any kind. I leave the fan at around 50%-55% when just idling and watching movies or other media on my machine. Doesn't get above 50C atm. When I game I turn the fan up to about 68%-70% and the card never gets above 74C. This is even with a slight overclock on the core... bumped it up from 947Mhz --> 1000Mhz.

I had a gentleman at work the other day return a R9 290X because it was dropping frames in Battlefield 4..... I asked if the card was throttling.... he didn't know so I explained how the card was supposed to run and that with using the AMD Overdrive he could change the fan to allow it to cool the card. He told me when I spend $600 for a card it should just work......

While I respect his response, as a somewhat enthusiast, I was baffled that someone would drop $600 on a card and not research or read up on it......

That's like the folks that buy the $300 plus motherboards and don't overclock or anything... they just buy it to say they have it and bitch when it isn't plug and play......... I don't get some people...

Good to see some blocks on these cards, I am very pleased with mine. If I leave AA off in BF4 and just let the post processing AA on, I maintain about ~90FPS on ultra....

 

[the54thvoid]

I had a gentleman at work the other day return a R9 290X because it was dropping frames in Battlefield 4..... I asked if the card was throttling.... he didn't know so I explained how the card was supposed to run and that with using the AMD Overdrive he could change the fan to allow it to cool the card. He told me when I spend $600 for a card it should just work......

While I respect his response, as a somewhat enthusiast, I was baffled that someone would drop $600 on a card and not research or read up on it......
.

I know what you mean but the argument that W1zzard uses for not overclocking with added voltage and running default fans profiles is exactly because of customers like that. Fact is, the 290X is not an enthusiast tinkering card. It's a bog standard cooler on a reference design card. I'd be more inclined to agree if he had bought a Lightning or Classified but even then, they will work very well out of the box.
He bought the fastest card AMD make and he expected it to work properly out the box. It's not his fault it's been slightly poorly advertised.

And I mean that in a nice way - not a bitchy way. To even it up, the GTX 780 Lightning was also mis-sold by MSI/Nvidia. To make it work properly you needed to invalidate it's warranty with a BIOS flash.

 

[techtard]

My XFX R9-290 finally shipped. Took week longer than I thought. Glad I grabbed it when I did, the price shot up 10% since I placed my order.
Looks like the waterblock I wanted will be out of stock for 4-6 weeks as well if the stores listing is accurate.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Why are they all priced at $600? I thought they were supposed to launch at $550. Not many of them selling at Newegg at that price when you can get an OCed non ref 780 for quite a bit less. I've seen them as low as $470.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127746

 

[sulfur]

Christmas coming, thats why.
After New Year it should drop to 500-520 (ref. coolers) and 540-580 non ref.

 

[erocker]

Why are they all priced at $600? I thought they were supposed to launch at $550. Not many of them selling at Newegg at that price when you can get an OCed non ref 780 for quite a bit less. I've seen them as low as $470.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127746

Bitcoin miners are buying them up.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Now that I'm water cooling, my temps are fine. Max of 70C is not so bad, but could be better. Working on that.

But what I find real troubling is VRM1 is reporting max of up to 83C after gaming a few rounds

VRM2 only goes up to about 60C. Not sure why this would be with water a block on the card.

 

[The Mac]

VRMs always run hotter than the GPU.

Nature of the beast, they have to regulate everything.

on my 7970 dual-x they ran 95 or so.

 

[manofthem]

Now that I'm water cooling, my temps are fine. Max of 70C is not so bad, but could be better. Working on that.

But what I find real troubling is VRM1 is reporting max of up to 83C after gaming a few rounds

VRM2 only goes up to about 60C. Not sure why this would be with water a block on the card.

Nothing to worry about really, as those temps vrm look better than air cooling anyway. My guess is that the vrm temps are higher only because your less extensive loop; your gpu temp is a little warmer than a more extensive loop so naturally the vrm temps will be higher also.
Regardless, you're enjoying better temps, less noise, more awesome

@freeleacher: congrats on your purchase, it looks awesome! and welcome to TPU, fill in your system specs too to share the goodness

 

[PatoRodrigues]

Still getting some random black screens. I'll RMA it today or tomorrow.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Hi im new here so hello to all
Thx to everyone who has been sharing there ideas and cooling solutions.
Got 2 290 xfx cards for 600 pounds, less than a single 780ti and i hope one day to flash them to the 290x if im feeling brave enough.
I allso plan on water cooling mine when i can because there mega loud..

My benchmark results below.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7671243

Thanks for the videos. One was more than loud enough for me. This gives people an idea of what they are getting into with these cards.

If noise doesn't bother you then fine. If it does, get a water block or wait for 3rd party coolers.

Performance wise there is no complaint. I'm playing Crysis 3 on Very High (maximum), and not having any trouble with frame rates 40-60 at 1440p.

My single card best score on 3DMARK11 is just over 13000. Your result is very nice.

Congrats on the cards.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Yeah I was setting the fan around 60% and it kept the card temp in the low 80s.

Will check radeonpro out. Looks interesting.

 

[halninekay]

Hi guys,

my R290 from XFX just arrived. I have an odd problem, thee cards fan is spinning with 47% all the time while I'm on the desktop. After I log onto in to my machine, the card starts turning up the speed of the fan.
Installed latest beta drivers from AMD.

If you have any ideas?

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm so stupid^^ I had a GTX 580 from EVGA before, and the precision X software was still installed....

 

[Pixrazor]

Hey guys look at this, it's coming... first review of non ref card, coming from asus
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_290x_directcuii_oc_review,1.html

 

[adulaamin]

We measured a top stress temperature of 77 Degrees C on the card, coming from 94 Degrees C on the reference coolers

Can't wait for the other non-ref cards to show up...

 

[Norton]

Here's another review (Sapphire 290 w/custom cooler):

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...ire-r9-290-tri-x-oc-review-1600p-ultra-hd-4k/

 

[Solaris17]

Anyone try aftermarket paste? like higher then A5? or lapping it? Apparently the stock copper block is pretty rough

 

[Solaris17]

I just picked up some MX-4 im out of all my good pastes, and apparently it still does well. I didnt really want to play with the liquid pastes yet. I will see how bad the block is and consider lapping it if the time comes but thats a small section idk if ill be able to get a block that small to put sandpaper ove. Pics of course.

 

[EarthDog]

...what is up with the triple posting? I also assume you meant BF4?


Also, a 2 780ti's beat 2 290s in most* gaming tests last review I saw that covered it... That is until you get to 4K resolutions anyway, but who has those monitors now or in two years when they may be affordable for the masses?

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gtx_780_ti_sli_geforce_review,17.html

 

[the54thvoid]

I had plenty to say so whats wrong with multiple posting and whats the point in pointing out the fact i posted 3 posts isnt that pointless pointing that out,

It's against forum rules to multi post as you are doing now. All you need to do is hit the "edit" option in your most recent post and add new text. It saves post spamming - which I am sure you're not doing and also helps prevent people from accumulating false post count ratings.

Hope this is helpful.

As for the 3GB memory - I can agree with that. My 1440p res on BF4 has seen between 2.5-2.8GB average memory usage.

 

[EarthDog]

I had plenty to say so whats wrong with multiple posting and whats the point in pointing out the fact i posted 3 posts isnt that pointless pointing that out,

Oh it's clear you had plenty to say, LOL! And also what should be clear is I posted something meaningful immediately below it to which you responded to. Stop being so defensive, I was trying to help out (in my own special way, LOL!). As was mentioned it is against the rules here and forum etiquette in general is all. Move on... sorry I mentioned it...


I have never tested at that resolution. I am also at 2560x1440 and see similar amounts of ram use as 54th does (default Ultra settings, note). That said, the difference in pixel count between the two resolutions (~10%) doesn't seem to warrant a 50% increase in vRAM use. Do you have anything changed in your settings from Ultra default?

EDIT: Though, come to think of it BF3 showed vram scaling which was quite peculiar and I never got to the bottom of it. In that at 1080, 2GB cards would show 2.5GB and 3GB would show more at the same settings/maps etc, even those there was still vram available with the 2GB card. Were you seeing a lot of hitching with the 780 at that res?

 

[EarthDog]

So, I'll bite........ what 'were you after'?

I have the 13.12 beta and it shows 13.11 as well (Im reviewing an AMD card ATM).

 

[PopcornMachine]

It was just pointed out to me that prices on the R9 290 have gone way up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709 600473877&IsNodeId=1

Early adoption is a gamble, but I feel real good paying $400. All are going for $500+. Some include BF4, but not worth an extra $130.

Kind of unfortunate really. AMD seems to be having trouble getting this card out there, and supply and demand is driving price up.

They have a goldmine on their hands if they can put it on the shelves. Hopefully things pick up when the 3rd party cards come out.