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Hardware AMD Radeon R9 290 Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Meanmotion, 5 Nov 2013.

  1. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

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  2. Kovoet

    Kovoet What's a Dremel?

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    Cannot wait to see this setup with Asus cuii cooling. It's very cheap. Graphics market now is like a yo yo with the prices. Well done amd
     
  3. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    It's definitely on the way.
     
  4. SAimNE

    SAimNE What's a Dremel?

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    well gpu for next system has been decided.... i'd like to get a sapphire one, but may get msi or asus depending on performance. anyway once this thing gets aftermarket cooling it's going to be even more of a beat :F

    probably going to have to spring for an eisberg 240L or an h100 or something for the cpu.... not going to rely on air cooling when there is a near 100c card in my case lol
     
  5. Kovoet

    Kovoet What's a Dremel?

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    Can't wait and have almost everyone in the top AMD since it came out. So quiet as well.
     
  6. Waynio

    Waynio Relaxing

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    Nice price for nice performance, lacking on power efficiency & cooling so it's down to the users preference & patience, be happy with a toasty component, mod it or wait for better cooling.

    4GB+ VRAM is an essential for me with knowing consoles have that amount of VRAM, I'm highly impressed with how excellent they managed 256MB VRAM, massive difference, will be like going from a relic of a GPU to the newest. :D
     
  7. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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  8. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    Just like the X version .... stock model is barely usable : 25•C over ambiant at idle is way too much.

    Lets wait for third party cooler .... but power consumption is an issue to me. Electricity bill will see a 20% increase between 2014 and 2016 in France. Brute force is not the way to go.

    It's not that I'm the targeted audiance, can't justify spending 400+€ in a gpu now (I did it before, when I wa younger :D).
     
  9. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

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    Excellent price & performance but why couldn't AMD have designed / fitted a better (read: quieter) cooler? They managed alright with the 7990 so why did they lumber their new flagship with such a half assed effort?

    Tempted to try one of these out in the future, only with a decent cooler though. My 780 is already somewhat faster than a Titan so it would be an interesting match up.
     
  10. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    I guess you`ve never had any top end card on a new process then at any point EVER.

    since gtx 480/ 4890/ gtx 285/ all of the 5800 range all ran hot and loud.


    If you want bleeding edge you know what your getting.
     
  11. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    I had an HD5870 on my oced Q6600 ... never had such heat issue. Overall the 5870 was better balanced and the stock cooler was not an issue.

    And before that I had a 3DFX voodoo2, at release date .... I know what HIGH end hardware is, I owned several of them, but seriously AMD should focus on their architecture instead of fighting nvidia with overvoltage.

    I'm at a point where I try to find the best perf + price + efficiency + heat + loudness balance, instead of just perf + price.
     
    Last edited: 5 Nov 2013
  12. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

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    Whilst this is awesome performance for the price, I still wouldn't put something that hot anywhere near my rig...
     
  13. Kovoet

    Kovoet What's a Dremel?

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    Not our size rig that's for sure
     
  14. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

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    I'm interested to see how watercooling these would change things. I mean I know you can set the target temperature lower but you must sacrifice a lot of performance trying to keep this, say, closer to 80ºC.
     
  15. teppic

    teppic What's a Dremel?

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    According to Gibbo at ocuk:

    Water-cooling will be the solution to cool these bad boys if you intend on doing extreme overclocking, as a water-blocked card will see upto 1300MHz core and 6600-6800MHz on the memory, plus be about 30-40c cooler and silent.
     
  16. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    I think WC will be the best solution, as always :D. I have a friend with a GTX760, which has a fan that is wider than the PCB ... the heat is dumped right at the CPU cooler. He added a small curved cardboard to deflect the dumped air to the back of the case (istead of blowing it to the cpu) ... the CPU temp decreased by 4°C.

    I can't imagine these AMD card blowing their heat directly toward the CPU. Crossfire will need serious exhaust capabilities with non-blower type cooler.
     
  17. The_Crapman

    The_Crapman World's worst stuntman. Lover of bit-tech

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    So the R290 slots in just where it's supposed to, in between the 770 and 780. Yes 'good price : performance ratio' it may be, but it sits neatly on the scale of price : performance we always end up with once both parties have shown their hand. Got about £350? 290. Got about £400? 780. got about £450 290x.... and on and on and on (and ariston).

    However I for one couldn't ignore those temps, especially on air. Even though an aftermarket cooler will keep it cooler at lower noise levels, it'll also dump all that hot air in your case. That will get your VRM's nice and toasty so you might have to tone down the OC on your CPU a bit, or crank up your case fans to take all the hot air out of the case, but in doing so will make more noise anyway. Even if you manage to shovel all the hot air out of your case, it's goin to spill into the room raising the ambient temps (as would watercooling).

    My suggestion would be to buy/rent the house next to you and turn it into a turkish baths, buy a bucket load of systems filled with 290's to mine bitcoins, funneling all that hot air into the baths to negate the need for boilers. Money money, steamy steamy :naughty:
     
  18. teppic

    teppic What's a Dremel?

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    High core temp doesn't mean more heat generated.
     
  19. Dogbert666

    Dogbert666 *Fewer Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    It may well be that in order to hit the good price-performance points we've seen from this series that this is where a sacrifice had to be made. I certainly couldn't see the cards being as cheap as they are were they to feature as high quality cooling as Nvidia's GTX 780, for example.
     
  20. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    unless you wantd to toast it, yes ! But if you want lower core temp, you'll have to get that heat of it ... and dump it somewhere
     
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