The Cause Of And Fix For Radeon R9 290X And 290 Inconsistency

[Darkresurrection]

Hey Chris, thank you for the writeup. It brings up some interesting questions. Can you look into a few more details? Can you check and post the stock voltage along with the ASIC quality of each card? In addition, would you be willing to replace the thermal paste of each card and then rerunning the benchmarks in addition to providing pictures of the contact surface of each card?

Considering that there is still high variance between the two aftermarket cards after the fan calibration patch, with Asus being far inferior to Sapphire, there may be build quality concerns. For example, here are a couple images of 290X cooler, as you can see the build quality is lacking:

AMD did this out of desperation to take the lead from nVIDIA, and in the hopes that you, the buyer, was as dumb as they hoped you'd be. Their own kick in the teeth comes in the form of the 290 making the 290X obsolete with it's $150 price difference with equal performance.

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

This was a good read, Tom's. Thank you... we should all thank you.

you are a part of this show, 5 AMD cards!!!? really?!? you do not have even 1, desperately bla bla...get out of here dude... there was a slight problem with the fan RPM and now it is fixed, well tell you what, you are blind, you didn't even bother yourself to read the article, '' AMD was desperate 🙁, Nvidia is good performa, please buy Nvideo 🙁 please please...'' dude I own an r9-290 and this 400$ monster nukes gtx 780, ...''Blinda ganepora nvideo please 🙁 '' AMD did an excellent job nuking Nvidia's *** , the problem was a slender one, which was defined in the software/ driver, it is solved, now everything is fine, if you didn't understand this after reading this article ok read this one http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/170636-well-that-was-quick-amd-solves-r9-290-throttling-problem-with-a-new-driver , if you still can't understand, don't blame others, you are dumb

^And this is why I'm not a fanboy.

I linked you the link, the problem is solved, you call this famboyism? :lol: well I am a fanboy, because i said the problem is solved!!!? so isn't it solved!? because I said r9-290 demolished gtx780, well didn't it!? kick the bucket dude

 

[Darkresurrection]

who cares why , this sound to me like an excuse from amd side, for the price is a great card , but overall is rubish , way to hot and way to much perf variance, and as all ppl complain a lot of noise . For now i wills stick to my 7970 and w8 to see if any aftermarket design gets beter in term of stability and noise , if not , il just ad a 2nd 7970 for 200 pounds and the performance will be waaaaaaay beter than any other card for a small price. IF i would have to buy a new vga in that price range i will definitely choose 7990

when I say some don't know what they are saying, you say ''OMG OMG no fair, no fair, fanboysim fanboyism.'' Mr handsome, 3% variance is pretty natural and had already been announced by AMD, and 7990 costs 1000$ not 540$

 

[jurassic512]

Hey Chris, thank you for the writeup. It brings up some interesting questions. Can you look into a few more details? Can you check and post the stock voltage along with the ASIC quality of each card? In addition, would you be willing to replace the thermal paste of each card and then rerunning the benchmarks in addition to providing pictures of the contact surface of each card?

Considering that there is still high variance between the two aftermarket cards after the fan calibration patch, with Asus being far inferior to Sapphire, there may be build quality concerns. For example, here are a couple images of 290X cooler, as you can see the build quality is lacking:

AMD did this out of desperation to take the lead from nVIDIA, and in the hopes that you, the buyer, was as dumb as they hoped you'd be. Their own kick in the teeth comes in the form of the 290 making the 290X obsolete with it's $150 price difference with equal performance.

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

This was a good read, Tom's. Thank you... we should all thank you.

you are a part of this show, 5 AMD cards!!!? really?!? you do not have even 1, desperately bla bla...get out of here dude... there was a slight problem with the fan RPM and now it is fixed, well tell you what, you are blind, you didn't even bother yourself to read the article, '' AMD was desperate 🙁, Nvidia is good performa, please buy Nvideo 🙁 please please...'' dude I own an r9-290 and this 400$ monster nukes gtx 780, ...''Blinda ganepora nvideo please 🙁 '' AMD did an excellent job nuking Nvidia's *** , the problem was a slender one, which was defined in the software/ driver, it is solved, now everything is fine, if you didn't understand this after reading this article ok read this one http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/170636-well-that-was-quick-amd-solves-r9-290-throttling-problem-with-a-new-driver , if you still can't understand, don't blame others, you are dumb

^And this is why I'm not a fanboy.

I linked you the link, the problem is solved, you call this famboyism? :lol: well I am a fanboy, because i said the problem is solved!!!? so isn't it solved!? because I said r9-290 demolished gtx780, well didn't it!? kick the bucket dude

Tom's was the reason for that quick fix you idiot. Guess what site you're on? Doesn't change the fact that AMD tried to pull the wool over our eyes with some variable fan speeds, then want to blame it on their own technology. If they weren't exposed by Tom's or someone else, you'd be buying a neutured GPU. On top of that, Hawaii was made for two cards, with the cheaper of the two making the more expensive being a rip off. MUCH worse than anything nVIDIA has ever done, if you wanna go there. PLUS that massive amount of heat output by default. I can only imagine someone buying this card living in a hot climate thinking they have the best single GPU when in their machine it's running at 700-800MHz core clock because of throttling. It's a desperate attempt made with a sub par product. That's my opinion and i'm sticking with it.

Being a fanboy makes you an idiot. In your case, it makes you use more emoticons than a 9 year old girl. Well that or you were just born with a small brain. I lost 50 IQ points just interacting with you, so buh bye.

 

[huilun02]

All the big hoo-ha about reference coolers is silly...

Just let the manufacturers release custom coolers already...

 

[somebodyspecial]

Tom's should do a 290X vs 780 Ti review when the non-reference coolers come out. In this review they should put fans to 100% and overclock both of them so we see a real world comparison...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1JOhT015ww
Both overclocked to the max. I doubt a ref cooler will change this as to the max means running both at 100% (which i don't think an aftermarket will change much). At 100% the ref cooler does a pretty decent job, you just can't stay in the room long without ear plugs...LOL.

From their overclocking doc that shows settings, you can see they set the Titan and 780 to 100% fan and 100C target temps (and many other settings), so safe to assume they mean MAXED as in fan, temps etc whatever was needed with what they had on the card (no changing fans or anything, just what can you get max with ALL changes you have at your disposal - like raising fan, target temps etc). Not sure if they mentioned the max speed in the 290x unboxing but they did for the 780ti 1256mhz, though luke mentions they got 1300+ but one game crashed so they backed off(he notes it would easily attain that and more with an aftermarket fan). I don't think they've taken the time to add 780/290/290x to the doc yet. They are all missing. But the others give you a very good idea of what they do. Raise target temps, raise fans to max etc. As it shows they did 60/70/80/90/100% on some fan stuff and basically the same for temp targets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djvZaHHU4I8
290x unboxing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k5_f_gsxJw
290 unboxing review. Note all are always oc'ed to max, or as they say "OVERCLOCKED TO THE WALL". In both they talk a bit about checking power target settings etc and how it affects you with AMD's tools etc. Note also they max settings in game (SSAO, 8xmsaa etc whatever can be maxed). I more sites would MAX the games. I don't want to turn anything off and all should report avg and MIN at least. Avg without min fps doesn't tell me what I really need to know which is does it dip BELOW 30fps and turn to a slide show when maxed?

 

[somebodyspecial]

I'll be looking at XFX for my maxwell purchase (assuming AMD doesn't get some gsync like stuff or license it).

Not going to happen, XFX and Nvidia parted ways a few years back.

Quit ruining my pipedream...LOL. I saw they didn't have anything for the launch, I was hoping they'd change which happens on occasion 😉 But yeah, seems they are totally AMD still. I haven't checked other warranty info lately, maybe someone else has long warranty also. Re-selling with that warranty isn't as important to me as I usually am handing my old cards down to my dad or nephew anyway and they live on with them for another few years at least (another reason I would not buy a 94C card...I don't think they'd get the hand-me-down to run for long at those temps).

 

[somebodyspecial]

Why are you testing a $550 flagship card vs. it's competitors in the mode designed to throttle performance in favor of acoustics (Quiet mode)? Why is this not being brought to our attention in these articles? This investigation should have been published before any of these findings made their way into your articles.

I honestly don't know anyone who is a PC gamer that buys a $550 graphics card and runs it in it's slowest mode. If you want to prove your integrity go back and edit these articles pointing out that you decided to favor acoustics over performance. Or better yet flip the mode to Uber and rerun the tests. I know I'm not alone in assuming that the card was being run in it's performance mode when testing against a competitors flagship.

This whole situation is shady at best.

While I disagree with your "shady" characterization, I agree with your premise. No power user I know is the least bit concerned with how quiet they can make their systems. First thing I alter on my card is the fan profile, to make it as agressive as I can.

I figure running the fan at a relatively high speed keeps you from taxing your GPU by minimizing the rise in temps under heavy use.

Besides, I have a window unit in my room that runs on high all the time just to keep the room at a reasonable temp.

I am a power user that seeks SILENT pc's. I buy specific stuff to get there or as near as I can to silent. There is a reason silent PC's exist and it isn't just for people that want to run slow to get there. Nothing in my PC is turned down, though I undervolt my Xeon cpu (bought for this in mind, was far better than normal chips, so is my dads) as much as possible while keeping it at max (a great way to get silence while keeping the same core speeds). I disagree with your silent points I don't think you know many power users 😉 Sure there are power users who don't mind fan noise, but by the same token there is the other side of the coin.

 

[slomo4sho]

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

What exactly is the truth? The 290 being faster than the GTX 780 at $100 less? The reference design fan speed issues are irrelevant for anyone waiting for a non-reference card and can easily be resolved by setting a custom fan profile? The amount of ignorance in this thread is astounding. It seems every mindless zombie flocks to this site and is incapable of obtaining information from multiple sources and drawing their own conclusions. Congratulations on joining that crowd

I am a power user that seeks SILENT pc's. I buy specific stuff to get there or as near as I can to silent.

If noise is such a factor for you, why get worked up by a reference cooler? Non-reference designs and water cooling have always provided better acoustics and this applies to products from both the red and green team...

 

[technoholic]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/74131-chiphell-post-saying-nvidia-temporarily-suspended-shipments-of-780ti/

rumors rumors 😛

 

[Memnarchon]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/74131-chiphell-post-saying-nvidia-temporarily-suspended-shipments-of-780ti/

rumors rumors 😛

Nah. There is a problem with some galaxy pcb. Not entire nvidia line up. Even the op from the original source got banned from spreading false accusations.

Tips: The Author has been banned or deleted ***

Techpowerup also noticed that and they see that was just a post from some fanboi.

 

[Darkresurrection]

Hey Chris, thank you for the writeup. It brings up some interesting questions. Can you look into a few more details? Can you check and post the stock voltage along with the ASIC quality of each card? In addition, would you be willing to replace the thermal paste of each card and then rerunning the benchmarks in addition to providing pictures of the contact surface of each card?

Considering that there is still high variance between the two aftermarket cards after the fan calibration patch, with Asus being far inferior to Sapphire, there may be build quality concerns. For example, here are a couple images of 290X cooler, as you can see the build quality is lacking:

AMD did this out of desperation to take the lead from nVIDIA, and in the hopes that you, the buyer, was as dumb as they hoped you'd be. Their own kick in the teeth comes in the form of the 290 making the 290X obsolete with it's $150 price difference with equal performance.

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

This was a good read, Tom's. Thank you... we should all thank you.

you are a part of this show, 5 AMD cards!!!? really?!? you do not have even 1, desperately bla bla...get out of here dude... there was a slight problem with the fan RPM and now it is fixed, well tell you what, you are blind, you didn't even bother yourself to read the article, '' AMD was desperate 🙁, Nvidia is good performa, please buy Nvideo 🙁 please please...'' dude I own an r9-290 and this 400$ monster nukes gtx 780, ...''Blinda ganepora nvideo please 🙁 '' AMD did an excellent job nuking Nvidia's *** , the problem was a slender one, which was defined in the software/ driver, it is solved, now everything is fine, if you didn't understand this after reading this article ok read this one http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/170636-well-that-was-quick-amd-solves-r9-290-throttling-problem-with-a-new-driver , if you still can't understand, don't blame others, you are dumb

^And this is why I'm not a fanboy.

I linked you the link, the problem is solved, you call this famboyism? :lol: well I am a fanboy, because i said the problem is solved!!!? so isn't it solved!? because I said r9-290 demolished gtx780, well didn't it!? kick the bucket dude

Tom's was the reason for that quick fix you idiot. Guess what site you're on? Doesn't change the fact that AMD tried to pull the wool over our eyes with some variable fan speeds, then want to blame it on their own technology. If they weren't exposed by Tom's or someone else, you'd be buying a neutured GPU. On top of that, Hawaii was made for two cards, with the cheaper of the two making the more expensive being a rip off. MUCH worse than anything nVIDIA has ever done, if you wanna go there. PLUS that massive amount of heat output by default. I can only imagine someone buying this card living in a hot climate thinking they have the best single GPU when in their machine it's running at 700-800MHz core clock because of throttling. It's a desperate attempt made with a sub par product. That's my opinion and i'm sticking with it.

Being a fanboy makes you an idiot. In your case, it makes you use more emoticons than a 9 year old girl. Well that or you were just born with a small brain. I lost 50 IQ points just interacting with you, so buh bye.

:lol: yet another joke...'' wh d t nvidieo!!? 🙁 🙁 I love in nvideo, 9 year olda girla, I am stu p nvideo 🙁'' get out of here dude!! the problem is solved, hadn't toms noticed that, users would have understood this sooner or later, I bought my r9-290 and I didn't have this problem... the problem is fixed anyhow, everything else, is babbling on about nothing

 

[Saga Lout]

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

 

[Darkresurrection]

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

we want to...really....just read his posts..

 

[yyk71200]

I wonder how 290x will do against 780ti if you supply 290x with cooling strong enough to prevent throttling. I suspect that even if 780ti may still win, the difference would be very small.

 

[SessouXFX]

Wut? With that crappy fan on the reference card, you'd be better off using a portable fan to keep things cool. This is why I'm waiting to see XFX's solution to these cards.

Wut..??
XFX..??
Are you sure..??

Yep. So far, the R9 280X hasn't exhibited the issue that their last generation has with overheating...so far anyhow. I can't see them rolling these cards out with the same flaws the 7000 series had.

Plus, that warranty...

If by chance they do, it's off to Sapphire I go.

 

[Quaddro]

Wut? With that crappy fan on the reference card, you'd be better off using a portable fan to keep things cool. This is why I'm waiting to see XFX's solution to these cards.

Wut..??
XFX..??
Are you sure..??

Yep. So far, the R9 280X hasn't exhibited the issue that their last generation has with overheating...so far anyhow. I can't see them rolling these cards out with the same flaws the 7000 series had.

Plus, that warranty...

Yeah..based on my experience, xfx is one of the crappiest card available..beside zotac, polor and HIS (not IceQ version)..
well, vrm burn on my xfx 4850 ddr5 and near 100'c gpu temp because of bad cooler design (single round heatipe..😀)..

Maybe you have better experience with this brand..

 

[SessouXFX]

Wut? With that crappy fan on the reference card, you'd be better off using a portable fan to keep things cool. This is why I'm waiting to see XFX's solution to these cards.

Wut..??
XFX..??
Are you sure..??

Yep. So far, the R9 280X hasn't exhibited the issue that their last generation has with overheating...so far anyhow. I can't see them rolling these cards out with the same flaws the 7000 series had.

Plus, that warranty...

Yeah..based on my experience, xfx is one of the crappiest card available..beside zotac, polor and HIS (not IceQ version)..
well, vrm burn on my xfx 4850 ddr5 and near 100'c gpu temp because of bad cooler design (single round heatipe..😀)..

Maybe you have better experience with this brand..

I'll knock on wood and say yes, I've had amazing luck it seems compared to others. Combine that with a well ventilated case, heat hasn't been an issue for me.

I still have two 6870's in CF right now, the micro-stutter has been hit and miss for the most part in one game, but pretty much non-exsistant in others.

 

[GOM3RPLY3R]

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

we want to...really....just read his posts..

I think hes referring to you...

I don't think that babbling and incorrect grammar will get you anywhere.

Point being said, the 290x was fixed and where is stands now is it's price point. However, the 780ti was released a few weeks ago, and look at it. I checked the consistency and its right. For $200 more than a 290X, you can get a 780ti and have ~ 15-20% better performance than the 290X. The cards kinda equal out with the 290x winning in uber mode, but the temperature, sound, fan speed, and voltage in hand, Nvidia did a good job by having a back up plan.

Expect the 780ti with the aftermarket coolers to rise in price to ~$750-$800, then let the price drop like it usually does. You'll (estimate) be paying ~$600 for a card that is better than any other single gpu. Heck, the 780 Ti even beats the 690 and 670 Dual-Sli setups, its just insane. With the 680 Dual-Sli setups though, they come to about on par with the 780 ti just losing, but its just insane, There's no way the 290X can beat something like that unless every game from now on runs on that low quality OpenGL or comes with a full water cooling solution. ^_^

 

[Darkresurrection]

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

we want to...really....just read his posts..

I think hes referring to you...

I don't think that babbling and incorrect grammar will get you anywhere.

Point being said, the 290x was fixed and where is stands now is it's price point. However, the 780ti was released a few weeks ago, and look at it. I checked the consistency and its right. For $200 more than a 290X, you can get a 780ti and have ~ 15-20% better performance than the 290X. The cards kinda equal out with the 290x winning in uber mode, but the temperature, sound, fan speed, and voltage in hand, Nvidia did a good job by having a back up plan.

Expect the 780ti with the aftermarket coolers to rise in price to ~$750-$800, then let the price drop like it usually does. You'll (estimate) be paying ~$600 for a card that is better than any other single gpu. Heck, the 780 Ti even beats the 690 and 670 Dual-Sli setups, its just insane. With the 680 Dual-Sli setups though, they come to about on par with the 780 ti just losing, but its just insane, There's no way the 290X can beat something like that unless every game from now on runs on that low quality OpenGL or comes with a full water cooling solution. ^_^

No he was not, because I had not started that war, and you'd better mind your own business mate, first of all since when 200$ difference is a slender one!? if that is the case I would buy radeon hd 7990, which smokes gtx 780ti, because I noticed a price drop for hd 7990, now it is available for 690$ with 8 free games any how it makes a little sense to buy gtx 780ti, in either price range, AMD has a far better offering... I know it is hard for nvidia to keep up...and they are losing market shares, but we can't help it can we!?

 

[eddieroolz]

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

we want to...really....just read his posts..

I think hes referring to you...

I don't think that babbling and incorrect grammar will get you anywhere.

Point being said, the 290x was fixed and where is stands now is it's price point. However, the 780ti was released a few weeks ago, and look at it. I checked the consistency and its right. For $200 more than a 290X, you can get a 780ti and have ~ 15-20% better performance than the 290X. The cards kinda equal out with the 290x winning in uber mode, but the temperature, sound, fan speed, and voltage in hand, Nvidia did a good job by having a back up plan.

Expect the 780ti with the aftermarket coolers to rise in price to ~$750-$800, then let the price drop like it usually does. You'll (estimate) be paying ~$600 for a card that is better than any other single gpu. Heck, the 780 Ti even beats the 690 and 670 Dual-Sli setups, its just insane. With the 680 Dual-Sli setups though, they come to about on par with the 780 ti just losing, but its just insane, There's no way the 290X can beat something like that unless every game from now on runs on that low quality OpenGL or comes with a full water cooling solution. ^_^

No he was not, because I had not started that war, and you'd better mind your own business mate, first of all since when 200$ difference is a slender one!? if that is the case I would buy radeon hd 7990, which smokes gtx 780ti, because I noticed a price drop for hd 7990, now it is available for 690$ with 8 free games any how it makes a little sense to buy gtx 780ti, in either price range, AMD has a far better offering... I know it is hard for nvidia to keep up...and they are losing market shares, but we can't help it can we!?

Everybody, a warning has been issued via PM couple of days ago and Saga Lout has asked this thread to be kept civil. Please adhere to the rules and stay on-topic.

 

[jasonpwns]

I just absolutely love how the 400 series gets blasted for heat and noise when AMD has the same issue on their hands here. Suddenly the AMDrones are in full defense of AMDs heat issues making pathetic excuses.

 

[sanilmahambre]

It really helps to know that someone somewhere is working hard for you.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Another example of AMD basically lying to us. I swear they knew about crossfire issues, but did nothing to fix them until someone noticed. And now they're lying about the performance of their new card, someone noticed, and now they'll "fix" it. But they knew.

The CF issues aside, they cannot know how their partners boards will perform. Remember even though its the same PCB and everything, each partner has their own BIOS which will act a bit differently to the drivers.

Currently the 13.11 v9 beta drivers are not able to change my HD7970 Vapor-Xs fan speed but the 13.10s were.

Shame on you AMD. Shame. Too much promise, too big of a GPU die, and an inadequate cooler. It just seems that all the changes since letting go of Dirk Meyer have lead to a less competitive and less honest company.

That was a mistake. Dirk was the one who started all the things that are now making AMD able to continue.

But the past is the past.

Hey Chris, thank you for the writeup. It brings up some interesting questions. Can you look into a few more details? Can you check and post the stock voltage along with the ASIC quality of each card? In addition, would you be willing to replace the thermal paste of each card and then rerunning the benchmarks in addition to providing pictures of the contact surface of each card?

Considering that there is still high variance between the two aftermarket cards after the fan calibration patch, with Asus being far inferior to Sapphire, there may be build quality concerns. For example, here are a couple images of 290X cooler, as you can see the build quality is lacking:

Sapphire is their main for making the reference PCBs and also tend to have better coolers than Asus. Not to say Asus makes bad cards but look at the R9-280X DCII vs the Toxic. The Toxic has the best thermals and also best clock speed.

AMD did this out of desperation to take the lead from nVIDIA, and in the hopes that you, the buyer, was as dumb as they hoped you'd be. Their own kick in the teeth comes in the form of the 290 making the 290X obsolete with it's $150 price difference with equal performance.

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

This was a good read, Tom's. Thank you... we should all thank you.

you are a part of this show, 5 AMD cards!!!? really?!? you do not have even 1, desperately bla bla...get out of here dude... there was a slight problem with the fan RPM and now it is fixed, well tell you what, you are blind, you didn't even bother yourself to read the article, '' AMD was desperate 🙁, Nvidia is good performa, please buy Nvideo 🙁 please please...'' dude I own an r9-290 and this 400$ monster nukes gtx 780, ...''Blinda ganepora nvideo please 🙁 '' AMD did an excellent job nuking Nvidia's *** , the problem was a slender one, which was defined in the software/ driver, it is solved, now everything is fine, if you didn't understand this after reading this article ok read this one http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/170636-well-that-was-quick-amd-solves-r9-290-throttling-problem-with-a-new-driver , if you still can't understand, don't blame others, you are dumb

Who are you to say he hasn't bought AMD cards for the past 5?

What if I said I did? I can even list them all for you:

All Sapphire
9700 Pro
9800XT
X850XTX PE
HD2900Pro 1GB
HD4870 1GB
HD5870 1GB
HD7970 Dual-X (Now in wifes machine)
HD7870 Dual-X (was in Wifes machine)
HD7970 Vapor-X (Current with plans to go to R9-290X when they have a decent cooler)

Would you like to fight me on what I am saying? Tell me I haven't bought those GPUs and that I am a liar?

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

What exactly is the truth? The 290 being faster than the GTX 780 at $100 less? The reference design fan speed issues are irrelevant for anyone waiting for a non-reference card and can easily be resolved by setting a custom fan profile? The amount of ignorance in this thread is astounding. It seems every mindless zombie flocks to this site and is incapable of obtaining information from multiple sources and drawing their own conclusions. Congratulations on joining that crowd

I am a power user that seeks SILENT pc's. I buy specific stuff to get there or as near as I can to silent.

If noise is such a factor for you, why get worked up by a reference cooler? Non-reference designs and water cooling have always provided better acoustics and this applies to products from both the red and green team...

I agree that it doesn't matter except that they do need better reference coolers. It just looks bad.

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

we want to...really....just read his posts..

I think hes referring to you...

I don't think that babbling and incorrect grammar will get you anywhere.

Point being said, the 290x was fixed and where is stands now is it's price point. However, the 780ti was released a few weeks ago, and look at it. I checked the consistency and its right. For $200 more than a 290X, you can get a 780ti and have ~ 15-20% better performance than the 290X. The cards kinda equal out with the 290x winning in uber mode, but the temperature, sound, fan speed, and voltage in hand, Nvidia did a good job by having a back up plan.

Expect the 780ti with the aftermarket coolers to rise in price to ~$750-$800, then let the price drop like it usually does. You'll (estimate) be paying ~$600 for a card that is better than any other single gpu. Heck, the 780 Ti even beats the 690 and 670 Dual-Sli setups, its just insane. With the 680 Dual-Sli setups though, they come to about on par with the 780 ti just losing, but its just insane, There's no way the 290X can beat something like that unless every game from now on runs on that low quality OpenGL or comes with a full water cooling solution. ^_^

No he was not, because I had not started that war, and you'd better mind your own business mate, first of all since when 200$ difference is a slender one!? if that is the case I would buy radeon hd 7990, which smokes gtx 780ti, because I noticed a price drop for hd 7990, now it is available for 690$ with 8 free games any how it makes a little sense to buy gtx 780ti, in either price range, AMD has a far better offering... I know it is hard for nvidia to keep up...and they are losing market shares, but we can't help it can we!?

Actually he was. I have the same exact feelings as he does right now.

 

[Darkresurrection]

Another example of AMD basically lying to us. I swear they knew about crossfire issues, but did nothing to fix them until someone noticed. And now they're lying about the performance of their new card, someone noticed, and now they'll "fix" it. But they knew.

The CF issues aside, they cannot know how their partners boards will perform. Remember even though its the same PCB and everything, each partner has their own BIOS which will act a bit differently to the drivers.

Currently the 13.11 v9 beta drivers are not able to change my HD7970 Vapor-Xs fan speed but the 13.10s were.

Shame on you AMD. Shame. Too much promise, too big of a GPU die, and an inadequate cooler. It just seems that all the changes since letting go of Dirk Meyer have lead to a less competitive and less honest company.

That was a mistake. Dirk was the one who started all the things that are now making AMD able to continue.

But the past is the past.

Hey Chris, thank you for the writeup. It brings up some interesting questions. Can you look into a few more details? Can you check and post the stock voltage along with the ASIC quality of each card? In addition, would you be willing to replace the thermal paste of each card and then rerunning the benchmarks in addition to providing pictures of the contact surface of each card?

Considering that there is still high variance between the two aftermarket cards after the fan calibration patch, with Asus being far inferior to Sapphire, there may be build quality concerns. For example, here are a couple images of 290X cooler, as you can see the build quality is lacking:

Sapphire is their main for making the reference PCBs and also tend to have better coolers than Asus. Not to say Asus makes bad cards but look at the R9-280X DCII vs the Toxic. The Toxic has the best thermals and also best clock speed.

AMD did this out of desperation to take the lead from nVIDIA, and in the hopes that you, the buyer, was as dumb as they hoped you'd be. Their own kick in the teeth comes in the form of the 290 making the 290X obsolete with it's $150 price difference with equal performance.

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

This was a good read, Tom's. Thank you... we should all thank you.

you are a part of this show, 5 AMD cards!!!? really?!? you do not have even 1, desperately bla bla...get out of here dude... there was a slight problem with the fan RPM and now it is fixed, well tell you what, you are blind, you didn't even bother yourself to read the article, '' AMD was desperate 🙁, Nvidia is good performa, please buy Nvideo 🙁 please please...'' dude I own an r9-290 and this 400$ monster nukes gtx 780, ...''Blinda ganepora nvideo please 🙁 '' AMD did an excellent job nuking Nvidia's *** , the problem was a slender one, which was defined in the software/ driver, it is solved, now everything is fine, if you didn't understand this after reading this article ok read this one http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/170636-well-that-was-quick-amd-solves-r9-290-throttling-problem-with-a-new-driver , if you still can't understand, don't blame others, you are dumb

Who are you to say he hasn't bought AMD cards for the past 5?

What if I said I did? I can even list them all for you:

All Sapphire
9700 Pro
9800XT
X850XTX PE
HD2900Pro 1GB
HD4870 1GB
HD5870 1GB
HD7970 Dual-X (Now in wifes machine)
HD7870 Dual-X (was in Wifes machine)
HD7970 Vapor-X (Current with plans to go to R9-290X when they have a decent cooler)

Would you like to fight me on what I am saying? Tell me I haven't bought those GPUs and that I am a liar?

My last 5 cards have been AMD, but that doesn't make me blind to the truth.

What exactly is the truth? The 290 being faster than the GTX 780 at $100 less? The reference design fan speed issues are irrelevant for anyone waiting for a non-reference card and can easily be resolved by setting a custom fan profile? The amount of ignorance in this thread is astounding. It seems every mindless zombie flocks to this site and is incapable of obtaining information from multiple sources and drawing their own conclusions. Congratulations on joining that crowd

I am a power user that seeks SILENT pc's. I buy specific stuff to get there or as near as I can to silent.

If noise is such a factor for you, why get worked up by a reference cooler? Non-reference designs and water cooling have always provided better acoustics and this applies to products from both the red and green team...

I agree that it doesn't matter except that they do need better reference coolers. It just looks bad.

Keep it civilised please, gentlemen. You can disagree with a comment but remember the first rule - attack the post, not the poster.

At the moment I have an itchy finger on my temporary ban hammer

we want to...really....just read his posts..

I think hes referring to you...

I don't think that babbling and incorrect grammar will get you anywhere.

Point being said, the 290x was fixed and where is stands now is it's price point. However, the 780ti was released a few weeks ago, and look at it. I checked the consistency and its right. For $200 more than a 290X, you can get a 780ti and have ~ 15-20% better performance than the 290X. The cards kinda equal out with the 290x winning in uber mode, but the temperature, sound, fan speed, and voltage in hand, Nvidia did a good job by having a back up plan.

Expect the 780ti with the aftermarket coolers to rise in price to ~$750-$800, then let the price drop like it usually does. You'll (estimate) be paying ~$600 for a card that is better than any other single gpu. Heck, the 780 Ti even beats the 690 and 670 Dual-Sli setups, its just insane. With the 680 Dual-Sli setups though, they come to about on par with the 780 ti just losing, but its just insane, There's no way the 290X can beat something like that unless every game from now on runs on that low quality OpenGL or comes with a full water cooling solution. ^_^

No he was not, because I had not started that war, and you'd better mind your own business mate, first of all since when 200$ difference is a slender one!? if that is the case I would buy radeon hd 7990, which smokes gtx 780ti, because I noticed a price drop for hd 7990, now it is available for 690$ with 8 free games any how it makes a little sense to buy gtx 780ti, in either price range, AMD has a far better offering... I know it is hard for nvidia to keep up...and they are losing market shares, but we can't help it can we!?

Actually he was. I have the same exact feelings as he does right now.

is it important now!? aren't you supposed to be a moderator!? you want to start a war here? dude I don't need to remind you that you are supposed to extinguish the fire not set the whole place a fire... when I posted my thread his post was there, no way he had seen my thread.... he was or he wasn't...now what is it? you wanna defy me?

 

[anthony8989]

I just absolutely love how the 400 series gets blasted for heat and noise when AMD has the same issue on their hands here. Suddenly the AMDrones are in full defense of AMDs heat issues making pathetic excuses.

Yeah it's pretty damn funny. This R9 series just seems entirely ill-conceived. The idea was great; the execution was poor. It would be fantastic if AMD got back on track in the GPU race. The fact that retail cards showed a ~15% variance from the press-card is just ridiculous. And now to compensate they have to violate 2 key selling points of the cards.

Although on the plus side, they fooled nVidia into thinking they had better equipment than they really did, forcing them to lower their ridiculous pricing. Now I get 770's SLI for X-mas. So thank you AMD! <3 <3