Question R9 290X What is the best optimal settings?

[Apex Wynn]

Hello

As mentioned in the title, I have an R9 290X 4GB VRAM and currently my settings:

https://imgur.com/a/B2CbHWH

They are mostly set in Dynamic and in automatic to avoid my PC crashes that's been happening and so far these settings have been mitigating it so far. I don't have that much knowledge in PC building especially overclocking, can anyone help or tell me what's the best setting for my video card?

 

[RememberThe5th]

Have it happened before you accepted for overclocking via Amd software?

 

[Apex Wynn]

Have it happened before you accepted for overclocking via Amd software?

Not really, it happens often in games. I previously used MSI Afterburner to Overclock, but I noticed Wattman was already installed the moment I got the PC (Gaming PC was given to me by my brother) so I felt really clueless on MSI because when I installed an update for MSI, it just gave me a blackscreen. It driven me to the point I rather just use Wattman since MSI was giving me problems.

Fast forward today, everything was fine until I started having crashes I do not really know why but 90% of it happened when I was gaming and it happened in totally random occurrences in which I'm not even sure if it's the CPU, Power Supply, GPU etc.

 

[RememberThe5th]

I know that when I oced my Vram on R9 280 that it started to stutter a bit (When i got black screen at failed OC) and kinda still happens.
Have you tried doing DDU to ensure its not driver issue.

 

[Apex Wynn]

I know that when I oced my Vram on R9 280 that it started to stutter a bit (When i got black screen at failed OC) and kinda still happens.
Have you tried doing DDU to ensure its not driver issue.

Yeah, I did just awhile ago. But then again it still crashes. But if you're talking about the MSI afterburner, it also crashes as well when I did that too.
Currently, I'm still using the settings above with no problems so far... still I'll let you know if I crash again because it really will happen randomly just like a Final Fantasy encounter.

Do you think undervolting will help?

 

[RememberThe5th]

I would rather start to play with core and memory clock as "underclocking" to see what causes issues (Like first underclock the core then test, and repeat with memory). Rather than increasing voltage and burning it up more.
Which specs would be in question?
Brand and psu model?

 

[Apex Wynn]

My Specs:

RAM: 16GB RAM DDR4
VGA: AMD R9 290X
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690
PSU: Thermal Take Smart SE 730W

 

[pete_101]

I use to have a R9 290X, it was a 2 fan ASUS Direct CUII, and it ran hot (80-90C), but never crashed unless I overclocked it. However, I found that underclocking it to 950 MHz max, only resulted in about a 2% drop in performance over stock settings, according to a few benchmark tests I ran. The main benefit of underclocking was quite a drop in temperature.....looking at your settings, you've set the max temp to 80C which is low and probably unrealistic at stock speed but should be achievable if underclocked.

 

[Apex Wynn]

I use to have a R9 290X, it was a 2 fan ASUS Direct CUII, and it ran hot (80-90C), but never crashed unless I overclocked it. However, I found that underclocking it to 950 MHz max, only resulted in about a 2% drop in performance over stock settings, according to a few benchmark tests I ran. The main benefit of underclocking was quite a drop in temperature.....looking at your settings, you've set the max temp to 80C which is low and probably unrealistic at stock speed but should be achievable if underclocked.

Oh about the 80C limit, I did that months ago too alleviate crashes that seemed to worked out fine for me. However now it has changed and I think it has to do with the overclock/undervolt. As mentioned before, I set it in dynamic and automatic mode that doesn't seem to result in crashes. Still, I know anytime soon it will crash so it's my anxiety is going nuts at the moment.
So, do you think I should underclock it to 950 Mhz?

 

[pete_101]

Oh about the 80C limit, I did that months ago too alleviate crashes that seemed to worked out fine for me. However now it has changed and I think it has to do with the overclock/undervolt. As mentioned before, I set it in dynamic and automatic mode that doesn't seem to result in crashes. Still, I know anytime soon it will crash so it's my anxiety is going nuts at the moment.
So, do you think I should underclock it to 950 Mhz?

The reason I underclocked was because of the high temperatures I was seeing.....I was replacing the thermal paste every 12 months, had 6 case fans and was still seeing it get above 90C at times. The loss of 2% performance wasn't noticeable, but it made a huge difference to the temperatures.

There is one important thing to remember, not all GPUs are made equal, and I think I had a poor one as anything above 950 MHz only made it run hot with little benefit. Yours might be different, but give it a try and see what you think....run a few benchmark tests and see it it hurts the performance.

 

[Apex Wynn]

The reason I underclocked was because of the high temperatures I was seeing.....I was replacing the thermal paste every 12 months, had 6 case fans and was still seeing it get above 90C at times. The loss of 2% performance wasn't noticeable, but it made a huge difference to the temperatures.

There is one important thing to remember, not all GPUs are made equal, and I think I had a poor one as anything above 950 MHz only made it run hot with little benefit. Yours might be different, but give it a try and see what you think....run a few benchmark tests and see it it hurts the performance.

I see, well I should try it out but just to clarify: By 950 MHz, is this the GPU or Memory or both of these options?

 

[pete_101]

I see, well I should try it out but just to clarify: By 950 MHz, is this the GPU or Memory or both of these options?

950 MHz on the GPU, I didn't touch the memory.

 

[Apex Wynn]

950 MHz on the GPU, I didn't touch the memory.

So far I did what you suggested and realize a drop on temperature so I decided to just keep the limit to its original state which is the default 95 degrees. I will update this thread should any crashes occur.
Thanks!

 

[Apex Wynn]

UPDATE: I was able to install MSI Afterburner to get it up running again in order to fight the black screen crashing. It worked well than many months ago where I would startup my pc but the program just becomes blank forcing me to rely on Wattman.

However I found a fix upon watching this video when I decided to give MSI Afterburner a try

Apparently it was some bad profile there, so at least I was able to reset my MSI profile to get it back working. With that one fixed, I still had concern if this would fix my pc restarting so I tested and ran a few games like FFXV, Sekiro, and Sunset Overdrive which one of these tend to be heavy.

NOTE: My pc restarting 90% happens when I play video games, and even though the video games themselves aren't that graphical demanding or causing my GPU to reach high temp it will still crash.

So, unfortunately I thought the crashing would fix the PC restarting but then it happened again. I thought it could be the simultaneous MSI Afterburner and Wattman running, so I ended up uninstalling AMD through DDU (safe mode) and reinstalled it to the latest drivers hoping the issue would go away if I didn't accept to use WATTMAN in the AMD Control Center.

I was wrong, the PC restarting still occurred and now I have no idea what the problem is. I was checking my GPU Temp as well as CPU and they ran fine.
GPU never went above 80degrees thanks to @pete_101 help about underclocking the GPU to 950. Other notes to include is that I cleaned my PC just recently so I'm not really sure what's going on.

These are the settings I ran with my MSI Afterburner:

https://imgur.com/a/PZiPSdM

Is my power supply at fault here?