KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
To overclock the R9 290X we used AMD Catalyst Control Center and had the BIOS set to the UBER mode.
If you have read the whole review from the start then you will already be aware of AMD OverDrive changes to accommodate the new R9 290X hardware. Our testing today has highlighted that the R9 290X is a hot running card – set by default by AMD to hold at 95c, even if this means downclocking the core speed.
The higher we set the ‘maximum fan speed' the better chance we have of holding the core clock speed at a constant 1,000mhz. We didn't reduce the 95c ‘target GPU temperature' as it means that the GPU core is more likely to downclock under any given circumstance.
To overclock we set the Maximum fan speed to 85% and the target GPU temperature at 95c.
We set the power limit settings to 15% and the GPU clock settings to a 10% increase (+100mhz to 1,100mhz). High Performance memory clock settings were also increased by 10.5%.
It is worth reiterating that the maximum fan speed needs to be increased to get any benefit from these overclocked settings – so we found 85% was a good position to ensure adequate cooling. Sadly, the noise levels were close to 44dBa under load which may not be bearable for many people. I would have a hard time living with it myself.
The clock increases deliver substantial benefits to the 3DMark 11 graphics score, increasing from 15,309 points to 16,670 points. This is around 2,600 points more than a GTX Titan at reference clock speeds.
Wow for AMD to able defeat Titan thats really something, maybe i will buy this card if its available in my country. But not AMD reference card, maybe from MSI or Gigabyte.
good honest review! amazing hardware but that cooler should not be on this card – will they ever listen!
Quite a few AMD favoured games in this, but good to see a few others added recently. Interesting to see the fan and cooler seem to struggle to handle the heat. Ill wait on the Vapor X model end of year and upgrade then.
I am impressed with the performance., no question – its an uplift after the 280x and 270x – but the only thing is that today it seems to be only reference cards.
Any ideas when MSI, Sapphire XFX etc will have modified versions out to buy? hope they keep them well below £500. Nvidia will drop 780 prices soon
AMD reference coolers have always sucked. I remember the 4870 days when they said 105c was ok long term too and my card basically melted within 3 months. ill pass on this one until they sort out a good cooler
I didnt think the TITAN cooler was that good – I wanted a modified cooler for that card from day 1. this is a fantastic solution, but it needs watercooled by the looks of it. that driver change in CCC is bonkers – no need for it, and no need to try and fool us into thinking this change is anything but a requirement to try and get the card stable at the rated speed. its not a driver ‘addition’ for any other reason.
In my honest opinion the reference coolers on the 7XX cards are some the best they have done. The 290x temps warrant an aftermarket cooler for sure. Impressive performance non the less, i hope to see some great results from alternative cooling solutions.
The 780s are out-performing the Titan with all the new drivers so i personally expected to see 290x surpass it from the get go. Lets see what AMD next! 🙂