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290 xfire or 970

trungma

trungma

Senior member
Manage to score 2 new XFX 290 reference cards for $375 off of Craigslist. Installed them and ran some benchmark. The noise is almost unbearable. I'm looking for some suggestions from you guys.

I can do the following:

1. Sell and buy one GTX 970
2. Under volt and under clock the 290 cards
3. Buy an aftermarket cooler

My monitor resolution is 2560x1440. What do you guys think?
 
One 970 probably isn't enough for 1440p. At least not for me it isn't.

If you can install some cooling system to keep them quieter you might be happier than going to a single card.
 
I'd sell one of them and grab an Accelero Xtreme IV for the other. KitGuru tested it on an R9 290, here are the results:

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...rctic-accelero-xtreme-iv-gpu-cooler-review/6/
56°C load, 6 dB lower noise

They seem to be going for about 220 CAD on ebay...

edit: on the other hand, 1440p could warranty using both. But I'm not sure if there's a decent enough aftermarket cooler that works with two cards side by side...
 
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There is a reason people are selling off their reference 290s lol....

At this point I'd just deal with it. It's not too long now til GTX 980Ti or R9 390x come out.

Not sure how you thought you could handle it when it's well publicized how terrible the reference cards coolers are...
 
Look in my sig for the Ghetto mod. 2 water cooled R290 for dirt cheap.

If you want something more fancy, buy Kraken G10 mounts instead of using zip ties. 🙂

Cool, quiet, heat out your case. Perfect for the price.
 
Silverforce11 said:
Look in my sig for the Ghetto mod. 2 water cooled R290 for dirt cheap.

If you want something more fancy, buy Kraken G10 mounts instead of using zip ties. 🙂

Cool, quiet, heat out your case. Perfect for the price.
Click to expand...

Agreed, this x2 +this x2

Also this is a bit cheaper (after rebate) and compatible not sure about the quality but it should be fine.
 
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tential said:
There is a reason people are selling off their reference 290s lol....

At this point I'd just deal with it. It's not too long now til GTX 980Ti or R9 390x come out.

Not sure how you thought you could handle it when it's well publicized how terrible the reference cards coolers are...
Click to expand...

I have 4 x R9 290x Reference in my computer since October 2013. I knew from day 1 what I was buying.

But I agree with you, Reference coolers are bad, not that bad though but they can be loud, very loud. But it's only about the sound, because at 100% fan speed, there is no temperature issue, just noise issue.

I would just downclock them a little for less noise though (I never did that with any of my cards in my life).
 
tential said:
There is a reason people are selling off their reference 290s lol....

At this point I'd just deal with it. It's not too long now til GTX 980Ti or R9 390x come out.

Not sure how you thought you could handle it when it's well publicized how terrible the reference cards coolers are...
Click to expand...

I knew they were bad but I didn't think it would bother me. I guess I'm just getting old. I think I'll just use headphones or crank the sound. Not worth spending money on an aftermarket cooler. Kinda defeats the purpose of getting them for a good price.
 
trungma said:
Thanks for the suggestion! Think I can daisy chain them to share one larger radiator?
Click to expand...

I don't think you are able to remove any of the fittings on that kind of AIO system.

It's definitely a feasible arrangement like the stock R9 295X2 cooler.

I think you'll need to have one Rad. above the card extracting and one in-front like Silverforce11's setup.
 
You could try downclock them slightly (or turn down the fans until they are acceptable). Since you basically paid for a 970 price you could downclock them a bit (and drop the voltage) and they would be quiet and still way faster than a single 970 (at the same price).

Honestly it saddens me to have suggest such a solution on a 2013 GPU! I hope this is the last loud gpu. I use headphones for my crossfire (reference cards). 🙁

The ghetto mod looks excellent but it's up to you if you want to go that direction.
 
trungma said:
I knew they were bad but I didn't think it would bother me. I guess I'm just getting old. I think I'll just use headphones or crank the sound. Not worth spending money on an aftermarket cooler. Kinda defeats the purpose of getting them for a good price.
Click to expand...

Either ghetto mod it like these fine folks are saying, or undervolt as much as you can at 1 ghz or stock speeds and watch the temps drop. I can undervolt -31mv at 1000ghz on my reference 290. Pretty noticeable drop in temperatures at the same fan speed. I have a custom profile set up and it definitely doesn't ramp as much. I could almost get -50mv at 947 but I haven't tested it enough to say if its totally stable or not. Don't bother reducing clock speeds, it hardly changes power use unless you can also drop voltage. Dropping voltage is what actually reduces your temperatures.

One of the reasons that power consumption differences between 970 and 290 are so wildly overblown is because they pumped waaaaay too much voltage into the stock 290s, you can undervolt them quite a bit. The aftermarket models came out later with lower voltages and correspondingly lower power use and temperatures (+way better heatsinks)
 
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Headfoot said:
Either ghetto mod it like these fine folks are saying, or undervolt as much as you can at 1 ghz or stock speeds and watch the temps drop. I can undervolt -31mv at 1000ghz on my reference 290. Pretty noticeable drop in temperatures at the same fan speed. I have a custom profile set up and it definitely doesn't ramp as much. I could almost get -50mv at 947 but I haven't tested it enough to say if its totally stable or not. Don't bother reducing clock speeds, it hardly changes power use unless you can also drop voltage. Dropping voltage is what actually reduces your temperatures.

One of the reasons that power consumption differences between 970 and 290 are so wildly overblown is because they pumped waaaaay too much voltage into the stock 290s, you can undervolt them quite a bit. The aftermarket models came out later with lower voltages and correspondingly lower power use and temperatures (+way better heatsinks)
Click to expand...

Nice to know! So what program do you recommended? MSI Afterburner?
 
2x gelid aftermarket coolers, good to go. Or find someone selling the tri-x cooler or something that has water-cooling or the like. I personally find 1 card overclocked to be preferable to two though, so pick the highest overclocking / coolest running and go with that one!
 
trungma said:
Manage to score 2 new XFX 290 reference cards for $375 off of Craigslist. Installed them and ran some benchmark. The noise is almost unbearable. I'm looking for some suggestions from you guys.

I can do the following:

1. Sell and buy one GTX 970
2. Under volt and under clock the 290 cards
3. Buy an aftermarket cooler

My monitor resolution is 2560x1440. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
I have my Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290s custom watercooled with EK fullblocks.

Use a XSPC RX360 rad internally looped to an external MO RA 3-420 rad. cpu uses a Swiftech ApogeeHD cpu block. Finally use a XSPC Twin D5 bay reservoir (2 D5 pumps in series). My 290s never exceed 41C
 
cmdrdredd said:
I think msi afterburner is the best program for tuning your gpu setup right now.
Click to expand...

Installed the MSI Afterburner program and reduced my voltage to -40mV and upped my core clock to 1000MHz. Surprisingly it's noticeably quieter. Everything seems stable. I tried
-60mV but I was getting artifacts in Windows.
 
trungma said:
Installed the MSI Afterburner program and reduced my voltage to -40mV and upped my core clock to 1000MHz. Surprisingly it's noticeably quieter. Everything seems stable. I tried
-60mV but I was getting artifacts in Windows.
Click to expand...

Good job and good luck!
 
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