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

[danielmunhato]

well, due to this buzz from toms hardware, i think that it must be really hard to set the fans manually at some good speed, huh? oh, wait, it´s not...

 

[9a3iqa]

These reference coolers are one big mess. The custom cooled cards can't arrive quickly enough.

 

[abbadon_34]

This is seems like a alot of work to be nit picky. Turn up he fan, the power, the performance, and put a COVER on your case, in game explosions still be louder. You people do have SOUND cards right?

 

[Novuake]

Glad to know that drivers can fix this.

Thanks for the clarification and hard work Chris. Your integrity has never been in question in the few years I have frequented Toms. That is rare for ANY journalist.

 

[Novuake]

This kind of thing is why I use msi afterburner. Just set your own fan curve.

That is not how powertune works.

It's: Get Hot -> Get loud -> Drop clocks -> Get as loud as necessary to keep GPU from melting.

So having a 'custom' fan curve does nigh nothing.

E: I wonder what would happen if you fed the card hot air. What happens when you're at 100% fan speed and still pushing 96c+? Does it shut down, clock down even more or melt?

Hahah that would be a sin if it died. But very good point and I would love to know.

Now who has the balls to do this?

 

[Oscarcharliezulu]

Excellent job reviewing this card, finding the issues other review sites didn't, and coming up with the reason.

 

[de5_Roy]

Hahah that would be a sin if it died. But very good point and I would love to know.

Now who has the balls to do this?

might kill your swimmers!

 

[vertexx]

So, did the cost of reviewing GPUs at Tom's just go up? Now you're going to be expected to buy various retail versions in addition to the press samples - ha!

 

[Darkresurrection]

!?!?!? what!?!?!?! toms dont try to be funny.... =))

 

[Da W]

Yup. 290X with liquid cooling, i'll be in.

 

[ubercake]

With AMD, you're always left hoping.

 

[rolli59]

This calls for a comparison test again when the AMD partners release cards with other cooling solution's.

 

[tristangl]

I just want to say that this was a very very good article

you guys know your stuff!! cheers!

 

[toddybody]

The thermal/noise issues with the 290/290x are a concerning distraction from their potential performance and value. Im REALLY hoping that non-reference coolers kick this to the curb; that said, better cooling still doesnt fix the root issue

Despite the shortcomings, I still cant justify a value proposition of the GTX 780/Ti over AMD's new offerings...even though I think they're better all around cards (price comparison not withstanding).

Wonderful article, thanks so much for the consistent/scientific/ubias and greatly written piece as always Chris.

 

[Darkresurrection]

With AMD, you're always left hoping.

do you wanna start the war again really!? AMD is not a thief like Intel or Nvidia, AMD cares for enthusiasts more than Intel or Nvidia...I am not surprised to see this article at Toms, they don't like AMD and who knows why, I have my r9-290 delivered today, didn't notice such a joke, Toms is being ridiculous...

 

[jtd871]

Seriously, AMD - time to start shipping GPUs with factory-installed waterblocks instead of these loud fans. Would increase the WAF, if nothing else. I should have asked this during the recent AMA...

 

[Memnarchon]

do you wanna start the war again really!? AMD is not a thief like Intel or Nvidia, AMD cares for enthusiasts more than Intel or Nvidia...

If you are talking about overpriced products: AMD FX 8-Core Black Edition FX-9590 $829.99 plus shipping¹

I am not surprised to see this article at Toms, they don't like AMD and who knows why, I have my r9-290 delivered today, didn't notice such a joke, Toms is being ridiculous...

Really? In case you didn't notice Tom's Hardware gave an award at 290X, while in a few days, it gave nothing to the faster, colder, quiter 780ti.
And you should be glad that people like Chris are doing this, so you can have your 20% performance back, cause AMD reacted with new drivers after Chris (and maybe other reviewers too) told them about the problem.

 

[Da W]

There's still a notable difference between cards nonetheless. Is this due to chip quality and leakage differences, since this is a relatively new chip?

 

[catswold]

Funny to see these "Tom's Hardware hates AMD" posts since AMD pretty much dominates the recommended graphics card lists.

I think the problem is that Tom's insists on being accurate and factual rather than making allowances for flaws simply because they prefer on brand to another.

Time for fanboys to grow up--why on earth would anyone become so emotionally attached to a brand name product is beyond my understanding.

 

[FlyingAsianZ]

To be fair for AMD, it has much weaker control over the 3rd party boards (heatsink/fan?) compared to their internally manufactured ones. When I worked as a co-op student for quality assurance, we used internally made boards. I guess something went wrong in communicating the fan speeds...

 

[ubercake]

With AMD, you're always left hoping.

do you wanna start the war again really!? AMD is not a thief like Intel or Nvidia, AMD cares for enthusiasts more than Intel or Nvidia...I am not surprised to see this article at Toms, they don't like AMD and who knows why, I have my r9-290 delivered today, didn't notice such a joke, Toms is being ridiculous...

You haven't gotten the X edition of the card, so that should be ok.

But, Yeah. AMD cared for people when for years all of us AMD customers had to deal with microstutter issues caused by dropped/runt frames on their crossfire setups (among other persistent driver-related issues). AMD 'enthusiasts' were very quick to point out that all multi-card solutions have the same issues. For those of us that got fed up and made the switch, we no longer had to deal with it and we found out this wasn't the case. In this way, AMD really did help enthusiasts years ago with the 5000 series by convincing us to switch. While we had our AMD cards, we always hoped the next driver release would fix existing issues, but the new drivers often caused new issues.

Now, they convincingly release a card in the R9 290x (really with no microstutter in crossfire which is a good thing) that is supposed to be the best and when it comes down to picking one up at the store, it's a far different experience than those sent to benchmark/test sites. Surprise!

Now it's 'Hopefully, they'll get the fan-speed thing worked out'.

Didn't AMD send the spec to these manufacturers or were the manufacturers winging it?

Again, AMD offering people hope. Lip service != Performance.

 

[Memnarchon]

Time for fanboys to grow up--why on earth would anyone become so emotionally attached to a brand name product is beyond my understanding.

I think fanboys get emotionally connected with their product in the same way fans are with their supported teams (like Barcelona, Real, ManU, Arsenal, etc etc).

 

[Mousemonkey]

With AMD, you're always left hoping.

do you wanna start the war again really!? AMD is not a thief like Intel or Nvidia, AMD cares for enthusiasts more than Intel or Nvidia...I am not surprised to see this article at Toms, they don't like AMD and who knows why, I have my r9-290 delivered today, didn't notice such a joke, Toms is being ridiculous...

How is a company being a thief when it's up to you whether you buy their products or not? And as AMD only care about profits just as any other company does its only you who is being ridiculous really.

 

[FlyingAsianZ]

This kind of thing is why I use msi afterburner. Just set your own fan curve.

That is not how powertune works.

It's: Get Hot -> Get loud -> Drop clocks -> Get as loud as necessary to keep GPU from melting.

So having a 'custom' fan curve does nigh nothing.

E: I wonder what would happen if you fed the card hot air. What happens when you're at 100% fan speed and still pushing 96c+? Does it shut down, clock down even more or melt?

Former Co-op student from AMD here!
Please note that if the fan was at 100%, it would sound like a vacuum cleaner... I doubt AMD would put 100% as their maximum fan speed in the VIOBS. Maybe 60%~70% is more realistic.

Once the limit is hit and the card is not able to cool down due to extreme conditions, the fan speed maximizes, and the clocks drop to it's lowest state. Hypothetically, if the card is still going over the limit at maximum fan speed and lowest clocks, after the board hits 104~105C, the board shuts down. This is controlled by both software(drivers) and hardware. The hardware trigger is a bit higher (110C I think?). So even if the drivers fail at that time for some reason, the built-in thermal detecting hardware would shut the board down to prevent damage.

 

[Maxx_Power]

I never understand why ANYONE will buy the reference design cards.... even for the GTX780, the aftermarket cooler is way better and quieter than the stock fan.

Reference coolers are usually far better at multi-GPU configurations, or in tight cases. They directly exhaust hot air to the outside, which is a big plus for hot running GPUs. When you stack these cards for SLi/Crossfire/mining/etc, the open air coolers (nearly all aftermarket coolers) perform very poorly, because they require at least 1 to 2 open slots below to circulate air. If you only use 1 card, and your case has a good ventilation (push, mostly), you can exhaust that warm, re-circulated air caused by open air coolers, and get the benefit of the aftermarket coolers.