Tuning Radeon R9 290X: Replace The Thermal Paste For More Efficiency

[06yfz450ridr]

spend 120 bucks and get a full water block and try that

 

[rakadedo]

I like blower coolers when they work right, but I can guarantee that no company will produce a 290 with a top-end blower. These companies are just too lame to come up with anything like that. They'll go with triple-fan solutions to appease users who don't care about all the heat that rises up to their CPUs, or simply don't know any better. And Nvidia will remain the only supplier of cards with top-end blower coolers.

Does the HIS IceQ not count as a top-end blower style cooler?

 

[FormatC]

The IceQ is not bad and the fan is a lot better. I asked HIS but I got no answer yet. Their IceQ X² is not bad but not a DHE cooler...

 

[TeraMedia]

Somewhere at AMD there is a person responsible for the delivery of the 290 and 290X products. That person will reach a change in perspective. It will either happen because the person gets terminated, or because the person realizes that a graphics card is more than just a GPU. NV learned this with the 480. From the 580 on, they have put effort into their coolers (they also put effort into their drivers, but that's another discussion) to balance the efforts they put into their GPUs. But at AMD, they apparently have a cooler design that looks to be capable of extracting about 250 W, and they're asking it to extract 300 W or more. That's like VW / Bugatti designing the Veyron, but using a cooling system from a Passat. It's not enough for Bugatti to put in an engine capable of 1000 bhp of output. They also have to put in the cooling capacity to enable that engine to run at that output level.

The chief product manager at AMD needs to learn that a GPU is not a discrete card, and a discrete card is not a commercial product. In addition to a GPU, a discrete graphics card needs VRs, RAM, cooling, connectors, video and audio signaling circuitry and the rest. And a commercial product needs that plus drivers, manuals, support, help, etc.

Congratulations to the AMD GPU designers for building a Veyron engine equivalent. And shame on the product manager for shipping it with a Passat cooler, and an unfinished engine management computer system. That person just scuttled 20% of the work of those engineers.

 

[wdmfiber]

Well we wil have to see how the GPU performs with Gigabyte's own Cooling system.

I like blower coolers when they work right, but I can guarantee that no company will produce a 290 with a top-end blower. These companies are just too lame to come up with anything like that. They'll go with triple-fan solutions to appease users who don't care about all the heat that rises up to their CPUs, or simply don't know any better. And Nvidia will remain the only supplier of cards with top-end blower coolers.

How is that going to affect the temps of my CPU? Is anyone going to drop this high end GPU in a case with no airflow and a cheap heat-pipe cooler?

H100 and multiple case fans. You could put a 1500watt heatgun in my case, no worries.

 

[ingtar33]

what is killing me is the performance i'm seeing the r9-290x gets from the arctic accelero xtreme III, it's matching the 780ti in most benches... within 5% of the best ones. This puts the lie to AMD's claim it works best at 95C. I can't for the life of me understand what AMD is doing with this card. It's like they're purposefully handicapping it and claiming it's working as intended.

That we've not seen custom vender solutions yet is even more mind blowing. i don't know what is in their heads on this one; but whatever it is it's defying explanation.

 

[NewbieTechGodII]

I dunno...I am excited by the performance of this card, but am hella disappointed by all of the BS AMD is putting us through.

I don't want to buy a video card, only to have to spend $75+ on an aftermarket cooler (and the risk I effe things up), or do a disassemble to reapply thermal paste.

I know there are you out there who don't have an issue about either of these, and more power to you. But frankly, I am past that stage in my life and I want the damn thing to work out of the box.

And then we have the whole issue of heat and energy...both of which are important factors to me since I live in the south.

Since I don't have to make a decision in the next 6 minutes, I can wait to see if their partners can come up with something better.

 

[RedJaron]

I like blower coolers when they work right, but I can guarantee that no company will produce a 290 with a top-end blower. These companies are just too lame to come up with anything like that. They'll go with triple-fan solutions to appease users who don't care about all the heat that rises up to their CPUs, or simply don't know any better. And Nvidia will remain the only supplier of cards with top-end blower coolers.

Yet another reason I love my Raven 3 case. Any recirculated air from an axial GPU fan hangs around for maybe half a second before it's blown out the top, never coming close to my CPU.

But I know not everyone has this luxury. I share in the confusion of just what AMD was thinking with this cooler design.

 

[ingtar33]

the raven 02 and 03 are some of the best airflow cases out there. wish more cases were built like that. For a more traditional designed case the Antec numbered series cases are all outstanding.

 

[funguseater]

Lord_Orion.

My GTX480s still OC very well on the latest Nvidia drivers as well as most proven users on OCN. And you dont need to instal Nvidia Experience.

As for the 290x I also always change out the TIM on GPU's and always have. Of course I also use CPU AIO coolers for my GPUs, works GREAT on 480s cant wait to try on my new 290's next month.

 

[poik]

XFX will honor warranty on cards with new paste or even different coolers.

 

[wdmfiber]

Lord_Orion.

My GTX480s still OC very well on the latest Nvidia drivers as well as most proven users on OCN. And you dont need to instal Nvidia Experience.

As for the 290x I also always change out the TIM on GPU's and always have. Of course I also use CPU AIO coolers for my GPUs, works GREAT on 480s cant wait to try on my new 290's next month.

The 480 was a space heater! Quite the debacle.
Nvidia fixed it on the refresh(GTX 580).
But the 480 and 470 were actual GPU's to avoid, something that hadn't happened in years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qspdnAYiiug
____________________
edit, didn't make sense with your credentials(why would u have that GPU?)...
I was speed reading, missed that you swapped out the OEM cooler on 480's. Not just something for Radeon 290X. Anyway, the 480 was powerful and worked well in SLI. The 470 was just weak, vs. the successful 460.

 

[ASHISH65]

The title of topic is epic - Take off your top!r9 290x gets naked :lol:

 

[ASHISH65]

Really informative article

 

[youssef 2010]

Keep it up, guys. The past few articles were incredible. Great job

 

[Cazalan]

Are there security seals? I don't see any. How does it void the warranty?

 

[turbhrus]

Interesting measure - 5 Watts/FPS is the same as 5 Joules/frame.

 

[thechief73]

Wow... Really, this is your best AMD? With every Tom's article about Hawaii I am more disappointed and wondering if I should take my first leap to Team Green for my next GPU purchase. On the other hand, Nvidia has some nicely engineered cards but also present their own unique set of issues. The GPU14 Livestream was just a disappointment, as well as the messed up pre-order launch and the BF4 bundle fiasco.

I was really looking forward to buying a AMD's next flagship GPU since I caught ear of Hawaii probably over a year ago. I wanted to replace my XFX 7970 DD Black, that honestly has yet proven to me why I invested in it. Low ASIC's, limited or no further OC, later on voltage locked cards across the board!?! The TIM was gobbed on worse than one Tom's has photoed, but the coolers surface did look better. That one should have been tossed in the defect bin without a thought. What gives? I get the feeling like we are paying to cover chip development and everything else is a careless, untested, cost cutting afterthought. ie. consistently terrible cooling solutions generation after generation. Or evidence of a clueless Exec or CFO getting their hands on the projects they have no business being a part of. I still have hope for the non-reference designs, for some reason, and will wait for a detailed verdict on their performance and quality.

From the photos the cooling chamber surface looks similar to my 7970, and IMO still looks cheap and poorly designed. Maybe from the looks the chamber is hydro-formed? But still, CPU coolers had and have much better engineering. I did replace TIM on the 7970 with XFX's blessing and with good results. But if you don't get the amount perfect you have air gaps between the two surfaces and you overheat. Too much and it oozes out the sides and makes a risky mess. I honestly think the tolerance between those two surfaces is far too loose which leaves you no choice but to fill that space with TIM. It is a fine balance and takes some trial and error, which takes time. Disassemble, clean, re-paste, reassemble, and bench. But if this is going to void the 290x's warranty, no thank you. And no way am I buying a separate cooling solution, that's just says to me "you fix it, we don't want to". That is unless prices are adjusted to take that into account.

As others have said, at these prices and calling them "Flagship GPU's", they should be perfect. The best than can be out of the box, bar none. They should be treated like the finest Venetian glass in every step of the production process. They should be proud of them. I would be ashamed to say I was a part of this product development. Without Tom's extensive testing these GPU's and line of communication with the manufacturers, AMD and Nvidia, us consumers would be none(or not much) the wiser about the products we are buying and they would probably get away with selling us these issues with no recourse without a site like Tom's.

AMD, to me, seems to have been struggling to find performance they wanted or the market expected with Hawaii and they decided to find it buy raising the temps and this ridiculous power tune software. If it doesn't run 100% at that frequency don't advertise it to run at said frequency. 94c is a joke to me, a cop out, and I wouldn't want that even in the best flowing case. It makes me think they just gave up somewhere in the development.

Maybe AMD and Nvidia should get together and develop a new standard for mounting these large cards into a PC case. Remote PCI-E and mounting maybe? Allowing proper space and airflow for Multi GPU's and room for more advanced and better engineered cooling solutions. Factory or aftermarket, it seems like it would be welcomed by enthusiasts.

Just my $.02

 

[eddieroolz]

The state of assembly of the 290X is disturbing to say the least. A $550 card used to mean you'd get top-notch performance, cooling and acoustics - like the GTX 680. I think AMD pursued performance too much and sacrificed the finer things in life that draws the line between a good product and an amazing product.

 

[maxinexus]

Why doesn't Tom use water block on these babies?

 

[FormatC]

Because it is not very realistic. How many percent are using waterblocks? The normal user uses the good old air cooling

 

[witcherx]

any water cool benchmarks?

 

[overlandpark4me]

What this comes down to is they are releasing a sub standard, and imo a defective product.

 

[Relayer]

Wow, it throttles in quiet mode! Wait, didn't we already know that? Isn't that why they have Uber mode? Just add a few well planted, OMG Tom's, you guys are so awesome outing this evil company" posts and "I've always bought AMD but I'll only buy nVidia from here on out" and the con is complete.

Do people really believe this stuff is legit?

 

[Relayer]

Just to add. You can improve the performance of almost any cooler by replacing the stock thermal paste and most companies won't void your warranty for simply applying new tim or even replacing your cooling solution. If you have to RMA you just need to send it back with the original cooler properly installed.