Hardware Is the AMD Radeon R9 290X too hot?

We put the 290X to the torture test, seeing whether its high running temperature affects performance in SFF systems.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/10/28/is-the-amd-radeon-r9-290x-too-hot/1

 

"It should also be noted we didn’t stuff the case full of hard drives, nor add an optical drive, instead using a single SSD for the system installation. However, we again felt this was both representative of a modern day system likely to be built in such a case and we figured airflow would be restricted enough as we only enabled the rear exhaust fan (along with the main CPU cooler and GPU fan). If you were using lots of hard drives you’d probably use extra fans. "

So you're saying that someone buying one of these cards will have a single SSD in their system for all the games they plan on playing with such expensive hardware? Is this a 1TB SSD?

 

i think the ssd is just a compromise for size and heat for the duration of the test.

Interesting article too, more like this please i`ve been missing them.

 

get one of these - wont fit in a prodigy
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18437134

stock card + super cooler still less than a 780

If i had a tiny case - I'd prolly get a 780 ti

 

Nice article, but this confirms my fears. During hot summers yuo'll suffer from both loudness and performance loss. 26°C ambiant + 79°C delta T = 95°C ... something telling me that this is the absolute safe temperature, meaning the card is close to it's maximum.

AMD, your card is absolutly fantastic for its price .... but I'm not into gambling, will it last, will it not, will I have 45 fps today ... or will I get 28 because it is damn hot outside .... will I have to dismante the heatsink every 6 month to change the thermal paste and wash the HS fins being filled with cat hair that magically dodged my fan finlters (always wonder how they find a way inside my fully filtered case).

As much as I love AMD, I'm sorry but I'd go with nvidia if I was going to buy an high end card.

 

To be fair, if I wasn't using my rig for other things as well it would be quite likely that all I'd have is a 256gb or 512gb SSD. For a pure games machine oodles of storage might not be necessary.

I keep all my games on a 1tb mirror admittedly, but I only ever play them off a single SSD. There is no reason I couldn't move my steam folder to my NAS using hardlinks and keep certain installs on the local one. The transfer speeds are more than fast enough to pull a game down while I make a cup of tea.

I think the real issue here is it is a **** cooler. For a lot of "high end" users this card may well end up under liquid or. at the very least. from a manufacture that slaps on a decent cooler.

 

Considering you can pick up a ~500GB SSD for £200-£300 now, I'd say it's reasonably likely. But, moreover, my point was about not totally overstuffing the case. To put one extra hard drive in would hardly have restricted things (bear in mind it wouldn't have been creating much of its own heat as it would've been idling while testing).

 

Also of note is that the Decibel scale is base-10 logarithmic, so worse case difference 43dB (nVidia) to 50dB (AMD uber) is almost 3 times as loud!!

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel - 40dB amplitude ratio 100, 50dB amplitude ratio 316.2)

 

So AMD made FX5800 v2 ?

 

I know its nit picking but you did put that card in a popular case as an example of a real use case scenario so adding in an additional mechanical harddisk would have been a more realistic take on it. I know at the end of the review you recommend not doing it at all but still.

Anyway its good having some point of reference. The noise concerns me much more than the heat as my case has plenty of ventilation.

 

What really shocked me is the temperature vs fan spees / uncovered / covered .... the cards seams to trottle itself to reach the targeted 95°C. Could it be uncovered, covered, 40% or 100% fan speed ... it always aims and reach 95°C. What will happens if you WC or LN2 it ? Will it try to reach 95°C ?



Will an aftermarket cooler change anything, since the card seams to always aim for 95°C ...

 

hmmm would BT like to bench an i7 haswell , with stock cooler in a sealed SSF case? - and then see when it throttles.....

 

As mentioned, AMD simply wouldn't be willing to sell something it felt might fail in large numbers so we have to assume the card can cope with the temperature. What's more important is the impact on performance and noise. As such the scenario you're describing would likely result in a small drop in performance (2-3fps), not a failure. And as also shown here, this will happen with the GTX 780 too, to a certain degree.

 

Well this is the next question of course. We suspect there is some headroom for a better cooler - be it air or water - to brings the temps down more (and possibly open up more overclocking potential) but by how much is difficult to predict right now.

 

We could, but who uses a stock CPU cooler?

 

Many people to be honest, maybe not here ... but we are enthousiasts who likes big and shiny heatsink . Not everyone OC its CPU, so Intel cooler might be OK if you're on a budget.

 

What about a real world -mid range ~corsair 600T case result.. Much more representative of the bit-tech population.

 

seems like amd is going back to their roots with running hot.

 

It'll last the warranty period but you'd be brave to buy one second hand in a year or two.

Also go to remember those tests were done with brand new cards with clean coolers Even if you do clean it there will still be dust build up which will reduce performance of the cooler. Really really needs a big aftermarket cooler or H2O to keep the temps down and the life expectancy up.