Am I alone in thinking AMD's Hawaii GPU has aged really well?

[Mercennarius]

AMD's Hawaii GPU has been on the market since October 2013 starting with the 290X and has been updated and tweaked over the last 2+ years. Look how well the 390X performs today and consider its basically a glorified 290X OCed with 8GB of VRAM. The 295X is still a powerhouse as well. Just sharing my Friday morning thoughts on a slow work day

 

[Geforce man]

You aren't wrong. Its too bad they didn't release them with just a touch lower power consumption, like 20w even, would have made a huge difference for some people that were so on the fence about them. I'm still using an r9 290 for my main gaming rig, holds up just great.

 

[fourdegrees11]

The 290x power consumption under load really isnt even that bad. The heat they put off could be less, in the summer time at least.

 

[Pinstripe]

+1

Hawaii for teh win. And the incredible thing is it hasn't reached it's zenith yet. DX12 and GCN optimized next-gen ports should give it another push.

 

[Mercennarius]

The 290x power consumption under load really isnt even that bad. The heat they put off could be less, in the summer time at least.

Newer non-reference designs have much better cooling.

 

[96Firebird]

The 290x power consumption under load really isnt even that bad. The heat they put off could be less, in the summer time at least.

Power consumption and heat output are one in the same, barring the slightly higher power consumption when the chip runs at higher temps...

Hawaii has been a great GPU, it's too bad mining prices drove me away when I was looking for a new GPU for BF4. I might have been in the same boat with the same GPU for years.

 

[fourdegrees11]

Power consumption and heat output are one in the same, barring the slightly higher power consumption when the chip runs at higher temps...

Hawaii has been a great GPU, it's too bad mining prices drove me away when I was looking for a new GPU for BF4. I might have been in the same boat with the same GPU for years.

A quick look at the Anandtech bench comparing a 290X vs a 780ti shows a different story of load power vs load temp

I have an XFX DD 290x it still goes over 90C with furmark

 

[Mercennarius]

I have an XFX DD 290x it still goes over 90C with furmark

My Sapphire Tri-X 290X has never seen over 80C on the GPU in all my benchmarking. VRMs do get in the 80s occasionally.

 

[tviceman]

Hawaii and Tahiti have both done really well. I believe AMD's current state with a slowed product release has helped them to focus on driver improvements, and I also believe that the console wins are favoring AMD on the PC side. I also think Nvidia is spreading out their engineers too thin coding drivers and Kernels for Kepler, Maxwell, Pascal, Denver/Tegra, AI, deep learning, and automotive. Nvidia currently doesn't have a big incentive to reinvest in DX driver development with market share at an all time high and no signs of short term dipping.

 

[fourdegrees11]

My Sapphire Tri-X 290X has never seen over 80C on the GPU in all my benchmarking. VRMs do get in the 80s occasionally.

Not sure how you have yours setup, I have my power limit set to max in Afterburner so it doesnt throttle. Stock voltage, 1100mhz clock.

 

[Mercennarius]

Not sure how you have yours setup, I have my power limit set to max in Afterburner so it doesnt throttle. Stock voltage, 1100mhz clock.

Stock voltage, power limit set stock, 1050/1400.

 

[NTMBK]

Newer non-reference designs have much better cooling.

All that does is make it pump out heat even quicker and more efficiently. You're still dumping 200W of heat into your room.

 

[Mercennarius]

All that does is make it pump out heat even quicker and more efficiently. You're still dumping 200W of heat into your room.

But you're still cooling the card. I could care less if i'm pumping a 1000W, as long as the card stays cool that's all I care about. I can turn on the fan or crank the A/C if I actually notice it starting to pump heat into my room.

 

[moonbogg]

Those are the Jack LaLanne of GPU's right there. Old as hell but they will STILL play Crysis, even to this day. They don't weaken and loose strength over time. Regular humans weaken over time. Nvidia GPU's weaken over time. But not Jack, and not Hawaii.

 

[tential]

Hawaii is definitely an amazing gpu.

 

[poofyhairguy]

DX12 and GCN optimized next-gen ports should give it another push.

Yup, which is crazy to think about. At the end of it's life a 290 non X might beat a 780 Ti.

 

[zlejedi]

That's a common misconception - the only reason it ages well is because AMD got console contracts which pushed game developers into direction to favorises strong points of GCN.

 

[96Firebird]

A quick look at the Anandtech bench comparing a 290X vs a 780ti shows a different story of load power vs load temp

I have an XFX DD 290x it still goes over 90C with furmark

As NTMBK pointed out, the amount of power consumed is being converted into heat and dumped into the room, almost 100% of it...

But you're still cooling the card. I could care less if i'm pumping a 1000W, as long as the card stays cool that's all I care about. I can turn on the fan or crank the A/C if I actually notice it starting to pump heat into my room.

Right, but he said heat output and then made a comment about it being worse in the summer, which means he is concerned about the room heating up.

But this is getting off-topic, we can take it to PMs if you'd like.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Staying power of Hawaii and Tahiti is amazing. My 7970 keeps delivering

 

[Headfoot]

That's a common misconception - the only reason it ages well is because AMD got console contracts which pushed game developers into direction to favorises strong points of GCN.

That's one theory. I highly doubt that's the only reason. I'm sure its one of the reasons, but things are hardly so black and white in the real world

 

[moonbogg]

Actually I think it aged normally. The only cards that didn't age normally were Kepler, because Nvidia's driver team packed it up and moved into the Maxwell office and they are getting ready to pack it up again. Out with the old and in with the new people. Nvidia should just charge its customers a subscription fee and send new GPU's each year in the mail. That's what its like now. Nvidia GPU's are like magazines. Read once, throw away.

 

[arredondo]

Two months ago, I took advantage of a nice sale+MIR and upgraded my five-year old 6970 to a 390 Tri-X Nitro. It's the single most dramatic PC component upgrade, in terms of performance, that I've ever had.

My Unigine Heaven results jumped from an average 19 fps (473 score) 57 fps (1425 score). My 3DMark Fire Strike results on this baby are just as impressive, and this is all on my old-man CPU:

That's with highly acceptable 70 degrees max temps while under load. So I figure with its 8 GB of VRAM muscles, I'll likely be happily gaming another five years or so before upgrading my GPU again. Keep in mind I have zero interest in replacing my 60 in. 1080P display for one with higher resolutions.

Any one on the fence for a Hawaii card? I give it my highest recommendations. :thumbsup:

 

[DeathReborn]

In it's reference disguise it's still a power hungry & loud graphics card. Allow people to actually put a better cooler onto it or redesign the PCB (Sapphire, Asus etc) and yes it has aged well.

 

[thilanliyan]

I'm on 2x290s right now that I got in December 2013 mainly for mining and I don't see myself upgrading for probably another year. that is about a year longer than I would normally keep a video card. I also have less time to game though.

 

[cyclohexane]

My r9-390 is a beast