Sapphire Releases Performance-boosting BIOS for its R9-290

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I think AMD really shot themselves in the foot by not just letting the board partners make custom coolers, their stock coolers are honestly quite crap.
 
It would not take much to substantially increase AMD's reference cooler's efficiency: simply rotate the fan's blade 5-10 degrees counter-clockwise.

The way they are on the reference fan, each blade is scooping up air in a direction perpendicular to rotation and flat in the wake of the next blade in front. Maximum noise, minimum airflow. The slight blade angle change deflects the wake outwards and bites into incoming air on the inner edge. Quieter with better airflow.
 
Or here's an idea, allow the fan to reach 100% RPM in certain scenarios. It's sad that the GPU clocks down, reducing computation before the fan even reaches 50% speed.
 
the most obvious flaw with these blower type coolers is that since the fan is only exhausting in one direction over useful components, it is LITERALLY half as effective as it should be
 

Well you have a point there if turbulence just increases instead of increased CFM? But if it does increase air flow significantly then I think it should be an option. Power to the people

 

My bet is that noise would ramp up much faster than CFM does, which would be consistent with complaints about how quickly noise ramps up for little to no apparent cooling gain.
 
I would have put on a better stock fan and released it to the media first and let them know that the stock cooler is being re-worked for better cooling efficiency. This way you release a better quality cooler to the reviewers and have a bit of time to get all of your stock coolers re-done. But how it is right now the stock cooler is crap for these cards and it affects the noise and general impressions.
 
amd really released a dynamite gpu... i mean the benching results of the r9-290x under water show it's just as fast as the 780ti at the same clocks... and it seems to hit roughly the same top end as the 780ti (1300-1400) under water. So we're talking about what should be the top gpu on the market... or atleast tied as the best gpu on the market, and they handicap it with a worthless gpu cooler and call it a feature!!

Seriously sometimes i think AMD likes to shoot itself in the foot just for the fun of it.
 
As soon as the aftermarket coolers come, the r9 290(x) will remove the "hot" label it has. The cooler just sucks! It isn't enough to keep it cool and it is loud. At least we have the 'peace of mind' that the gpu core can handle 95c that it will never see when the partners get it right.
 
How bout we put this up on the front page so people know that the coolers ARE coming this year. Lots of sites are saying late January.
 
The heatsink itself is most likely perfectly fine. What kills it is the fan.
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No, the entire thing is just horrible for these GPUs. It's the same heatsink design used on the HD4890 by AMD (excuse me, ATI) five years ago. The 4890 is a sub-200W TDP GPU, and it also suffered fan noise complaints at any setting greater than 40%. The R9 290 & 290X have TDPs much closer to 300W TDP than 200W, making the heatsink itself entirely insufficient.
 
All I have to say is: Performance Boosting Bios - Now Known As A Faster Fan... >_> Wonder how many more points in 3DMark you can get with that sweet new fan speed... How does fan overclocking work?

Idiots.
 
Call me a fool, but I went ahead and got a stock HIS r9-290 the other day. I gotta say, I'm not sure where all of the noise complaints are coming from. It's hella quick, and you can barely hear it while playing BF4 at 1080p. It's quieter, and less whiny than my pair of old gtx 460s.
 
All I have to say is: Performance Boosting Bios - Now Known As A Faster Fan... >_> Wonder how many more points in 3DMark you can get with that sweet new fan speed... How does fan overclocking work?

Idiots.
 
Hmmm. I supose that Saphire use that special Bios in their own board with their own cooling system (like it is said in the end of article.
"Sapphire has announced that in the coming weeks it will be coming out with various different R9-290 graphics cards built on its own designs, with better cooling solutions."
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) . Nice to see some real 290 stuff coming and not these not so great standard versions!
 
I think a problem like this can be overcome by having more positive air pressure inside your case. Just configure more of your case fans to be intakes instead of exhaust and voila, you have a better performing graphics cards. Although gains will probably be marginal it's worth a try.
 

For GPUs with front-to-back airflow and rear IO plate exhaust, positive pressure would likely help quite a bit with maximizing the amount of GPU fan airflow that gets dumped outside the case through the slot vent. Some positive pressure into the poorly designed stock fan would likely help with displacing stagnant air in the blades' "scoop" profile.
 
"Previously, the default maximum fan speed that the cards operated at was 40 percent. "
Not True!!
That's only for the quiet setting.

We already know there is a problem with poor application of the heatsink compound, so...

Don't use the quiet mode and re-apply the compound.
 
Am I the only one around here having a hard time even finding a retailer who has the Arctic Accelero Xterem III without it being over priced? EVERYONE seems to be sold out... Or charging over $100 for it.
 
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