Does Radeon R9 290X Behave Any Differently In A Closed Case?

[Stevemeister]

Toms - please run a test a card that is properly watercooled with a full cover waterblock (EK or equal). I think that would be very interesting (at least for me given I have watercooled GPU's since the days with my 8800GT's

 

[Treynolds416]

Now, back to working on our round-up of aftermarket-cooled Radeon R9 290-series cards!

Yessssss

 

[coolitic]

And this is why i dont by from AMD. If they worked on their many problems, they may have better standing.

 

[Guest]

I'm glad to see Tom's Hardware being so critical of the AMD boards and the partners. This will help make my overall decision on a new card and hopefully get AMD and partners working together to squeeze out more performance and fine tune any issues. Thanks for the article and please be just as critical for every other company (Nvidia).

 

[RedJaron]

A well designed case will properly vent the heat and provide a good environment for the computer, a poorly designed case will trap heat and prematurely burn through components.

Yep, makes me think I can drop just about anything in my Raven 3 and have great thermals.

 

[Gurg]

And this is why i dont by from AMD. If they worked on their many problems, they may have better standing.

So I guess you bought inferior second quality Nvidia chips at a premium price in their 780s while they horded their good quality chips for the 780ti.

 

[pezonator]

Well that's very interesting, thanks for the article! I was seriously considering the Asus card specifically for some external venting due to the shape of the fins and it's shorter length. Back to the drawing board.

 

[masmotors]

i miss my saberttoth 990fx i sold it to get my current 4670k rig i have a fx 6100in my 2nd pc but its on a lowend biostar 760g chipset so no overclocking at all but looking at those pics it made me kinda sad to not have that beast mobo cant wait to try out the r9 290 soon in tax time

 

[Avro Arrow]

I find it really strange that the Windforce cooling solution did so badly because it works beautifully on my twin Radeon HD 7970s. There must be a defect in the card you got because how can it be so effective on the HD 7970 / R9-280X but so ineffective on the R9-290X? It just doesn't make sense to me. I know that the R9-290X is probably a hotter card but I can't believe that the difference is of such magnitude. We're talking two flagship cards separated by only one generation here. It boggles the mind.

 

[eddieroolz]

It's good to see that board partners are able to squeeze more power out of the Hawaii boards. Makes both parties much more competitive.

 

[lowguppy]

I know that the open air test bench is convenient, but this shows that Tom's really should test in a closed case for better "real world" results. Next case round up pick the most average performer and make that the standard test case. I'm kinda glad the R9 cards have inflated prices right now, it makes them easy to avoid. It really sounds like PowerTune is over-managing them to the point that performance is just too unstable to properly benchmark. Every little environmental detail can have a significant impact.

 

[nikoli707]

de-lid the gpu and water cool it, throw a custom bios on it and your golden. why is this so difficult. people who buy this card want performance, give us real benchmarks.

 

[Gurg]

I find it really strange that the Windforce cooling solution did so badly because it works beautifully on my twin Radeon HD 7970s. There must be a defect in the card you got because how can it be so effective on the HD 7970 / R9-280X but so ineffective on the R9-290X? It just doesn't make sense to me. I know that the R9-290X is probably a hotter card but I can't believe that the difference is of such magnitude. We're talking two flagship cards separated by only one generation here. It boggles the mind.

Guess you didn't read my post or the article. Gigabyte has stopped production and evidently is recalling the 290x windforce cards because the heat sink is not fitting properly on the GPU so there is inadequate contact for good cooling. Rumor is that they may have used a Windforce designed to fit a 780. There is a pic in the article linked below that shows that only half of the heatsink is touching the GPU.http://www.hardwarepal.com/gigabyte-stop-r9-290x-windforce-3x-production/

 

[apache_lives]

Check out the flex with the gigabyte card (and some with the others)Card flex = death

 

[gallovfc]

So Sapphire was the best. What kind of OC and performance can we get when bearing the 95°C from the refference card ? How far can we go until that ??

 

[Isaiah4110]

is that an optical illusion or the gigabyte gtx 780 card is about to succumb to gravity... the asus card seems to be bending a bit as well...

I thought that same thing. Take a look at the bit of the top of the case that is visible in that picture though. It looks like some of the pictures were simply taken with a camera that wasn't leveled to the case.

 

[FormatC]

@wussupi83
You're wrong. I don't hate the 290(X) - I'm only annoyed by the stress and shitloafd of problems around this card. This is the first card with more than 5 articles from me per card. And the reference card is a really f..in loud bangshe

BTW:
Water cooled here:
http://www.tomshardware.de/r9-290-umbau-wasserkuhlung-review-tutorial,testberichte-241464.html

Gigabyte press sample vs. mass production here:
http://www.tomshardware.de/gigabyte-windforce-r9-290x-cooler,testberichte-241469.html

is that an optical illusion or the gigabyte gtx 780 card is about to succumb to gravity... the asus card seems to be bending a bit as well...

Haha, but the card is realy warpen. This was the upper card of a SLI and the follow is visible. Gigabyte has re-designed the cooler of this early sample complete after my first tests and changed from aluminum to a steel frame.

Read more:
http://www.tomshardware.de/Gigabyte-GTX780-Windforce-Review-Revision2,testberichte-241337.html

This was a longer discussion - Gigabyte's crew and I in Taipei:

 

[Gurg]

@formatc I read the translated article review on the Kracken G10 on the 290. Too bad you didn't use it in this review although it would probably put all the board partners out of business. Also too bad the Kracken review wasn't run on the American site.

 

[FormatC]

May be we can manage a translation

I'm just sitting here to update the translation for the R9 290(X) roundup with a lot of data too. With VRM temps inside and videos.
The other question: I have problems to get XFX samples here because it seems that XFX is not interested in to send me cards for reviews.

 

[RedJaron]

de-lid the gpu and water cool it, throw a custom bios on it and your golden. why is this so difficult. people who buy this card want performance, give us real benchmarks.

Right, because all those things are just so easy to do for every user. Swapping the cooler isn't too tough, and making your own custom BIOS may not be too difficult either, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find a lot of people who de-lid their GPUs.

 

[Gurg]

May be we can manage a translation I'm just sitting here to update the translation for the R9 290(X) roundup with a lot of data too. With VRM temps inside and videos. The other question: I have problems to get XFX samples here because it seems that XFX is not interested in to send me cards for reviews.

Doubt if any of the OEMs are interested in reading that the Kracken G10 froze the card 30-40ºC better than their air heat sinks. What was the height of the little heat sinks you put on the memory? Enzotech on NE has both a 9mm and a 14mm height.

 

[FormatC]

9mm are enough

 

[redeemer]

Sapphire Tri-X OC is the best 290 at the moment

 

[PanzerIV]

Interesting article. What a shame for lazy guys at Asus/Gigabytes. So now it's all about MSI or Sapphire for the non-reference R9 290 I want to get since over 2 months. When the hell are they gonna be in stock ffs! They better be priced normally as the major mark-up due to miners is p*ssing me off big time as in the meantime I'm stuck with onboard vga.

 

[FormatC]

Please note, that Gigabyte sent us one of the early press samples with a wrong BIOS. I've re-benched a retail card from mass production and the results were a lot better. One of the reasons was the high voltage that I reported to GB:

Gigabyte has decreased the voltage and re-designed the fan profile in their advanced mode (quiet mode):

The target temperature of 84 °C is the same, so you get less noise at the same temperatures.

More here:
http://www.tomshardware.de/gigabyte-windforce-r9-290x-cooler,testberichte-241469.html