RazberyBandit
Distinguished
- Dec 25, 2008
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Funny, because what I perceive happening in every review I've read is that the cards will reach that 95C thermal ceiling, then start throttling the vcore and engine clock so as not to exceed it. I can accept the fact that these cards are designed to be fully capable of running at 95C. The problem is, they don't run effectively once they reach that thermal ceiling.
Neither the R9 290 nor the 290X can maintain its maximum vcore & core-clock once the "so-called optimal" operating temperature of 95C is reached. In order not to exceed 95C, the cards are forced throttle back on clock speed, thus causing performance to suffer.
It comes right down to the two questions asked about the less-than-stellar-performing AMD-supplied HS/Fan units on these cards. It's already been shown that a more efficient and effective cooling solution allowed these cards to maintain higher core-clock speeds through the same benchmarking procedure.
Just because these cards are designed to run at 95C doesn't mean they have to. If they had a cooler capable of holding their temps below 90C, these cards would probably never throttle, and could (would?) always run at maximum vcore and clockspeed.
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