Should I return my Sapphire r9 290 tri - x or leave it as it is?

[Solferin]

Hey guys, in absence of ideas, made account here to ask you guys for an opinion stated in title.

My rig: ASRock 960GM-VGS 3 bios version 1.30 (manually flashed, previous version 1.20)
FX - 8350 4.0 ghz (not OC)
Intel SSD 120 gb
PSU Corsair CX 750w (Edited)
Cooler ZALMAN CNPS 5x performa
Zalman case with 4 fans
Sapphire r9 290 tri-x


So about a month ago I was fooling around with my kid and accidentally spilled coffee on my R9 280 and well it died, rest of the rig was fine since coffee didnt touch MBO or any of the parts, Rig shot down instantly...have a switch on my extension cord. I went and bought a brand new sapphire, went home, clean installed win 7 with all updates, all drivers except graphics, cause I like to install them last. Installed 14.9 or 14.12 (cant remember) graphics and bum BSOD on first restart. It was BSOD but B is black. Black screen, restart then win said its bsod. Downloaded blue screen viewer, and it says its ntoskrnl.exe which can be anything so I started to look at drivers. Anywho to make a long story short. Found that 15.4 beta worked so I left it as it is and everything was fine untill recent update that downloaded KB 3035583 or GWX.

It messed with my games as in all games started to lag randomly for a few secs. FPS 80 to 100 then random drop to 10 to 20 then back to 80 to 100. So once again i clean install and update my win to a point and just from the curiosity went and install all of the amd drivers from 13. something to 14.12, none of the drivers get me stable OS, except 15.6., and after a while I exp stuttering that Ive fixed with fan spd (100%). So the q stands, should I return my GPU to the shop for testing and possibly replacement or should I just leave everything as it is?

Ran GPUz and CPUz temps are fine i think, GPU dosnt go over 71, Cpu not over 55. Nothing is OCed. Stuttering is constant as in every few min or so my fps drops if fan is set to auto. Really dont think its the windows since i shot down most of the processes and services that arent needed.

Thanks in advanced guys and sorry for the long post

 

[stavrosmast]

Well r9 290 can cause you many many problems so yeah you should return it and get an GTX 970 or 980/Ti thats when you will never have any problems

 

[Solferin]

yeah well cant do that, i can only send it to supplier for testing and get another 290 if this one is faulty. maybe get a better one if they happen to not have the r9 290 in stock, but still an amd card. Eh should have gone with intel/nvidia 🙁

 

[stavrosmast]

Wait is your pwer supply at LEAST 750W? Never go with intel. They have only integraded graphics in their cpu's.

 

[Solferin]

PSU is 750W, the thing that bothers me is the stuttering in gaming, everything else is fine. I would return the card if the process doesnt take so long in my country, it will be weeks before they even touch it, then tests and if they find out that it works on todays beta drivers theyll send it back with "install that drivers", the process of returning is stupid here. eh nvm ill try and think of a way of fixing the stuttering untill monday then ill return it and see what they say. The question was a stupid one but i cant decide what to do. Thanks for reading and answering

 

[stavrosmast]

Download MSI Afterburner and enable monitoring your gpu,cpu usage,temps,ghz,mhz and ram usage and tell as what it says

*These will appear when you are gaming

 

[Solferin]

Download MSI Afterburner and enable monitoring your gpu,cpu usage,temps,ghz,mhz and ram usage and tell as what it says

*These will appear when you are gaming

Was monitoring the card with afterburner all through the weekend while gaming, will give you details after i get home from work because i cant remember them all, the only funny thing that i noticed during testing was whenever my card goes over 70 C i exp fps drops, and by over 70 C i mean 71 to 73, card never goes over 73, afterburner says its the highest temp, all the while my fans, when set to automatic, doesnt go over 38%. If i put my fans on 100 via afterburner i get stable fps. Playing WoW on ultra without shadows. High populated areas 30 - 60 fps, bgs 90 to 100 stable but only if fans on 100%. If not my fps starts to randomly drop and gets normal, then drops again etc..

Its like win is doing something in the background feeling, but its not doing anything when fans are full throttle! Its bugging me to hell and back.

 

[stavrosmast]

Looks like your gpu is dowlocking its mhz (decreases performance) to prevent overheating. Set the fans speed where the noise doesnt bother you and play there also tell me everything while monitoring,

 

[Solferin]

Stavrosmast thank you very much for your effort but i decided to return the gpu to the "vendor" and see what they say. I was talking to them over the phone today at work and they were "surprised" (yeah right) to hear that card only works on beta drivers and they said theyll look into it right away (at lease they promised it so i can make some ruckus if the process takes too long) so I can expect an answer by the end of this week or by the start of the next one, which is uber fast here, and i can live without pc for a week....i hope xD

Tho another q arises, if they decide that the card is "broken" they will prolly ask me to chose a different one since they dont have this one in stock. The card has to be amd and equal or better than this one (better as in not the best on the market but a class or maybe 2 better, havent been monitoring the market these days so i dont know whats what, last time i looked 980 from nvidia was the best thing on the market in my country amd with r9 290x tri x oc, today i saw titan x something something and 980ti and amd got rages or what not). Any suggestions?

 

[stavrosmast]

Tell me until how many $$ you will give so i tell you which is the best, also i strongly recomend to you going with nvidia for too many reasons and you wont have any issues. If you want me to tell you the reasons telll me

 

[Solferin]

no $$, its free of charge since this one is for the scrap, if they decide its crap. But unfortunately it has to be AMD. Cant buy anything else since my wife would kill me. So im looking at a free upgrade from them in terms of AMD gpu. They wont give me nvidia and i cant buy it.

And you were right, was checking afterburner log 10 min intervals of playing, going over and over the same area with same AFK ppl first with fan on auto, then fan on 100 % manual override:

Fans on auto:
Fan 37 % max (1700 rpms tops),

GPU usage From 100 to 0 (it goes up and down every sec, its like looking at that machine that measures earthquakes)

Gpu core clock MHz its 999 for like 4 to 5 secs then 700ish 4 to 5 sec then again 999 for a 4 to 5 secs then back to 700ish etc etc.

Mem clock is constant at 1300 mhz

Cpu Cores only core 2 and 8 show 80 % usage, all other cores are blow 20 %


Fans on 100% (not loud at all, since i use to have stock amd cooler that sounded like airplane landing)

Fan 100% 3900 rpms

Core Clock 960 to 999 constant no drops below 960 mhz

Mem Clock constant at 1300

GPU usage % from lets say 50ish, to 100% small drops mostly, lowest number is 25 but only once, mostly in the 70 to 100 % area

Cpu usage core 8 and 4 over 80 %. rest of the cores below 14%

 

[stavrosmast]

gpu usage going to 100-0 ISNT Normal neither when the clocks change you need to get another gpu

 

[Solferin]

Thank you again, thats what I thought from the start but was reluctant to do. Cheers

 

[stavrosmast]

So which gpu's can the store give you?

 

[Solferin]

I was just browsing their page and what they have in stock, hmmm they are a bit out of stock. Alot of r7s 2gb but thats worse then mine, the only cards better than mine are msi r9 380 gaming 4gb ddr5 dx12, msi 390 and 390x 8gb ddr5, and sapphire r9 380 nitro dual x oc boost 4gb and sapphire 390 nitro tri x oc 8 gbs and 390x tri x 8gb. Hmmm dont thing ill get 390s.

What about those 380s? Are they better or equal to what i have now?

 

[stavrosmast]

I Think yes they are equal the best edition from the r9 380s you mentioned is the MSI