Asus R9 290x DCII (Guru3D Review)

[n0x1ous]

The argument that NV's reference design is so much superior to AMD's was blown way out of proportion since for most of us something like a DCUII blows away the reference NV design anyway

Not for multi-gpu users. Nvidia reference performance is a big leg up in that respect.

 

[amenx]

Great card. Incredibly silly of AMD not to have let their partners go custom from the start.

 

[n0x1ous]

Great card. Incredibly silly of AMD not to have let their partners go custom from the start.

Yup no doubt. Personally interested in the MSI Gaming TF version....Course only after prices return to MSRP

 

[moonbogg]

Not for multi-gpu users. Nvidia reference performance is a big leg up in that respect.

I'm willing to gamble a giggle that two of these would work just fine in a mid tower with decent case venting and fans.

 

[blastingcap]

I'm willing to gamble a giggle that two of these would work just fine in a mid tower with decent case venting and fans.

Speaking as someone with an undervolted, underclocked 7990 that is throwing off similar amounts of heat as an overclocked 290X, I can assure you that you will need a lot of venting and cooling if you try to run a pair of them with a single-slot gap. For mobos that have only a single slot gap between cards, it won't "work just fine" in any mid tower with merely "decent" case venting and fans. Keep in mind that all that heat needs to swirl in and out of the case, so every other part of your computer winds up heating up a bit too. High-end NV reference designs are good at shoving heat out quickly. AMD could learn a thing or two about that kind of design. HIS had such a blower-style cooler on one of its aftermarket 7970 cards that worked somewhat better.

 

[blackened23]

I'm willing to gamble a giggle that two of these would work just fine in a mid tower with decent case venting and fans.

It really isn't that easy. You can make it work with a lot of hassle, and you'll lose nearly all of your OC headroom in the process due to the upper card suffocating in heat. That's the entire problem with mGPU and open air cards. IF you can get it to work (and you can't in all chassis'), you're compromising on overclocking. You will have to run stock or close to it and likely with fan speeds at high levels on both cards. And the temps on the upper card will still be high due to the lower card pushing air up towards it. I have tried this a couple of times and made it work, but it was not ideal at all due to the clockspeeds and fanspeeds being compromised because of the aforementioned reasons - and this is with a 350$ Cosmos II E-ATX case with like 12 fans. I couldn't imagine doing it in a mid tower or something along those lines.

So you're basically offsetting the benefit of an aftermarket card in the first place. Overclocking. You won't be overclocking much with open air cards if they're sandwiched. If at all. And in smaller cases it just won't work. Basically, reference is just less headache for sandwich CF or SLI.

 

[moonbogg]

It really isn't that easy. You can make it work with a lot of hassle, and you'll lose nearly all of your OC headroom in the process due to the upper card suffocating in heat. That's the entire problem with mGPU and open air cards. IF you can get it to work (and you can't in all chassis'), you're compromising on overclocking. You will have to run stock or close to it and likely with fan speeds at high levels on both cards. And the temps on the upper card will still be high due to the lower card pushing air up towards it. I have tried this a couple of times and made it work, but it was not ideal at all due to the clockspeeds and fanspeeds being compromised because of the aforementioned reasons - and this is with a 350$ Cosmos II E-ATX case with like 12 fans. I couldn't imagine doing it in a mid tower or something along those lines.

So you're basically offsetting the benefit of an aftermarket card in the first place. Overclocking. You won't be overclocking much with open air cards if they're sandwiched. If at all. And in smaller cases it just won't work. Basically, reference is just less headache for sandwich CF or SLI.

I don't OC my cards. Would it work then? I just never bother to OC them since the benefits aren't worth it to me really. CPU ocing is different with big benefits. I have a P9x79 pro and I haven't looked lately, but I think theres a lot of room between 2 cards. I think it would work for me. If it doesn't work for 95% of you guys, that's fine, but I'd still buy them, throw them in the case and it would be fine.


EDIT: Wish I had the chance to try it and come back here to say, "I told you so!" But it looks like it could be months for the 290's, so...it may not matter at all.

 

[Imouto]

I don't OC my cards. Would it work then? I just never bother to OC them since the benefits aren't worth it to me really. CPU ocing is different with big benefits. I have a P9x79 pro and I haven't looked lately, but I think theres a lot of room between 2 cards. I think it would work for me. If it doesn't work for 95% of you guys, that's fine, but I'd still buy them, throw them in the case and it would be fine.

It will work perfectly fine if you're OK with higher temps. Ppl keep saying that open cards don't work in multi-gpu setups because they don't want to give up on their mid sixties temps and these cards can run perfectly fine at 94ºC.

 

[moonbogg]

It will work perfectly fine if you're OK with higher temps. Ppl keep saying that open cards don't work in multi-gpu setups because they don't want to give up on their mid sixties temps and these cards can run perfectly fine at 94ºC.

Yeah I have a hard time thinking it would be a problem (for me). I don't OC and wouldn't mind a higher fan speed on the DCII since its so quiet anyway. Temps in the low to mid 80's wouldn't be a bother either really. I have an H80 for my CPU which draws air in from outside the case, so it should be fine.
Two of these 290's @ 1080p would let my CPU run free like all the time in BF4, which is all I care about. OCing the cards wouldn't do anything for me.

 

[Silverforce11]

The 2nd best option besides full water cooling blocks for SLI/CF: Slap on a AIO cooler on it, with side/front/bottom case fan blowing cool air onto both cards to keep the VRM cooled.

All the hot air exit via the radiators, case is kept cool with a strong airflow onto the PCB. Even an old Antec 620 keeps the card very cool AND quiet.

Otherwise your case need to have insane airflow to handle 2 GPUs dumping 300W each into the case.

 

[Aikouka]

Comparing temperatures is stupid and pointless.
When you have a card designed to operate at a specific temperature at the lowest noise level it can, comparing temperatures is stupid.

Wow... are you seriously suggesting that we don't care about thermal headroom in coolers anymore? I'm sure the people that would like to overclock the card would most assuredly disagree with your sentiment.

 

[blackened23]

I don't OC my cards. Would it work then? I just never bother to OC them since the benefits aren't worth it to me really. CPU ocing is different with big benefits. I have a P9x79 pro and I haven't looked lately, but I think theres a lot of room between 2 cards. I think it would work for me. If it doesn't work for 95% of you guys, that's fine, but I'd still buy them, throw them in the case and it would be fine.

You can give it a try if you have a super large EATX case. It is certainly easier to do this on an x79 platform as opposed to something like Z77/Z87 - most of the latter boards have strict placement requirements for x8/x8 SLI and CF. Whereas, x79 has more PCI-E lanes and are more flexible in that respect. You may want to look at your mobo manual to see what kind of placement you can get away with - some x79 boards will allow you to spread the cards out, whereas most Z87 boards require you to use the upper 2 slots and that's that. That's how my asus motherboard is. If you want x8/x8 sli or CF, you're using the upper two slots. Don't like it? Too bad. Or I should say, if you don't like it....you'd have to use x4/x4 or something really stupid like that. Most mainstream platform boards are like this, unless they have a PLX chip. But like I said....X79 is far more flexible.

You *might* have to use x8/x8 crossfire speeds if you switch slots around, but that isn't a big deal. There isn't a meaningful performance difference between x16/x16 and x8/x8 anyway.

I didn't realize you were on x79 when I posted that. Double check your motherboard manual. Like I said.....you'll likely have an easier time because you can pick and choose your PCIE slots, whereas most mainstream motherboards don't have that flexibility due to having fewer PCIE lanes. If you can spread the cards out enough to where you have 3-4 slots of clearance in between you'd be good to go. Whereas, with 1 slot of clearance in between (sandwiched, in other words) you would have problems because of the lower card drowning the upper card in tons of heat.

 

[Imouto]

Wow... are you seriously suggesting that we don't care about thermal headroom in coolers anymore? I'm sure the people that would like to overclock the card would most assuredly disagree with your sentiment.

A card running cooler at stock or overclocked doesn't mean a thing.

I see quite often reviewers saying that they would prefer the sample running warmer and being less noisy. For example custom coolers keeping Kepler cards way under the 80ºC mark is a waste in therms of acoustics. Same with this DCU card kept at 78ºC when it could have done way better at acoustics at 90ºC (as quiet mode is showing). But the 20% cooler sticker seems to be a powerful selling point.

 

[Silverforce11]

A card running cooler at stock or overclocked doesn't mean a thing.

I see quite often reviewers saying that they would prefer the sample running warmer and being less noisy. For example custom coolers keeping Kepler cards way under the 80ºC mark is a waste in therms of acoustics. Same with this DCU card kept at 78ºC when it could have done way better at acoustics at 90ºC (as quiet mode is showing). But the 20% cooler sticker seems to be a powerful selling point.

It does make a massive difference, GPU dies hitting 90C start to leak more and hence, become wasteful. Take the reference R290/X, review sites have shown a reduction of 40W when it runs below 70C compared to 95C. Thats a ~20% reduction. So temps do matter, but 70 or 80C, probably not. 95C? Heck yes.

 

[Imouto]

It does make a massive difference, GPU dies hitting 90C start to leak more and hence, become wasteful. Take the reference R290/X, review sites have shown a reduction of 40W when it runs below 70C compared to 95C. Thats a ~20% reduction. So temps do matter, but 70 or 80C, probably not. 95C? Heck yes.

Kind enough to provide a link? Because the 290X DCU running at 78ºC doesn't save a single watt by HC, Guru3D or ComputerBase.de reviews.

Anyway I said 90ºC.

 

[Silverforce11]

Kind enough to provide a link? Because the 290X DCU running at 78ºC doesn't save a single watt by HC, Guru3D or ComputerBase.de reviews.

Anyway I said 90ºC.

Because its running at higher clocks out of the box and doesn't throttle. R290X throttles down to ~850mhz in some games and still consumes so much power.

There's toms and a few other sites that looked at power use with aftermarket coolers, it drop big time, google it I am too busy watching Doge fly to find it now.

 

[chimaxi83]

A card running cooler at stock or overclocked doesn't mean a thing.

Yes, it absolutely does. Less power usage.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Power draw of a GPU acts exactly the opposite of what you might think, the higher the temps the more power it draws. There is a "tipping point" where wattage goes up dramatically.

 

[Teizo]

It really isn't that easy. You can make it work with a lot of hassle, and you'll lose nearly all of your OC headroom in the process due to the upper card suffocating in heat. That's the entire problem with mGPU and open air cards. IF you can get it to work (and you can't in all chassis'), you're compromising on overclocking. You will have to run stock or close to it and likely with fan speeds at high levels on both cards. And the temps on the upper card will still be high due to the lower card pushing air up towards it. I have tried this a couple of times and made it work, but it was not ideal at all due to the clockspeeds and fanspeeds being compromised because of the aforementioned reasons - and this is with a 350$ Cosmos II E-ATX case with like 12 fans. I couldn't imagine doing it in a mid tower or something along those lines.

So you're basically offsetting the benefit of an aftermarket card in the first place. Overclocking. You won't be overclocking much with open air cards if they're sandwiched. If at all. And in smaller cases it just won't work. Basically, reference is just less headache for sandwich CF or SLI.

I don't have any issue with my SLI set up in the Define R4. Granted my top card does go over 80C at times, but that is because I have it set that way with my power target. I can maintain 1293/7400 with no issue and not very much noise due to the high quality cooler from MSI. An Asus DCII 290X card will be fine as well with a custom profile, but the quiet profile will indeed cause overheating in CF since the card is designed to run at it's max thermal limit.

 

[jj109]

Power draw of a GPU acts exactly the opposite of what you might think, the higher the temps the more power it draws. There is a "tipping point" where wattage goes up dramatically.

How is it intuitive that a hotter IC runs more efficiently? I never understood that train of thought.

An Asus DCII 290X card will be fine as well with a custom profile, but the quiet profile will indeed cause overheating in CF since the card is designed to run at it's max thermal limit.

I don't like the Asus DC II heatsink fin orientation for multi-card setups. It exhausts some air out the back of the cards but far more through the front. If your front intakes are feeding cool air into the case, then the Asus DC II will do it best to ruin any airflow coming from that direction .

Source: My experience with 2x Asus DC II 280X.

 

[moonbogg]

Anyway, like I said this might not matter if these cards take 3 months to show up and don't go for the intended price point. I'd get them because they would be a great price/perf ratio. But if that gets ruined then forget it. If they come too late, then i'll hang on until next gen. I like to time my GPU upgrades well and feel good about getting them.

 

[3DVagabond]

Great card. Incredibly silly of AMD not to have let their partners go custom from the start.

Do you know that they would not let them? It's possiblr that the GPU was too new for the AIB's to have had a chance to design the boards.

 

[blastingcap]

I don't like the Asus DC II heatsink fin orientation for multi-card setups. It exhausts some air out the back of the cards but far more through the front. If your front intakes are feeding cool air into the case, then the Asus DC II will do it best to ruin any airflow coming from that direction .

Source: My experience with 2x Asus DC II 280X.

I think ASUS heard your complaints because...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=totFkHQftaI

Supposedly it is on their aftermarket R9 290X DirectCu II design and should help eject more air instead of recirculating it inside the case.

 

[3DVagabond]

It really isn't that easy. You can make it work with a lot of hassle, and you'll lose nearly all of your OC headroom in the process due to the upper card suffocating in heat. That's the entire problem with mGPU and open air cards. IF you can get it to work (and you can't in all chassis'), you're compromising on overclocking. You will have to run stock or close to it and likely with fan speeds at high levels on both cards. And the temps on the upper card will still be high due to the lower card pushing air up towards it. I have tried this a couple of times and made it work, but it was not ideal at all due to the clockspeeds and fanspeeds being compromised because of the aforementioned reasons - and this is with a 350$ Cosmos II E-ATX case with like 12 fans. I couldn't imagine doing it in a mid tower or something along those lines.

So you're basically offsetting the benefit of an aftermarket card in the first place. Overclocking. You won't be overclocking much with open air cards if they're sandwiched. If at all. And in smaller cases it just won't work. Basically, reference is just less headache for sandwich CF or SLI.

When we position the thermal camera outwards we can see that despite what we all say and thing about the cooler, it is NOT exhausting significant enough hot air inside the PC. The hottest point is the actual exhaust and at the top of the card there is some residual PCB heat detected. So yeah, that's pretty nice cooling.

Guru3D hasn't been doing thermal imaging that long, so we don't have a big database to reference from, but here's there results. I'd like to see hardware.fr thermal imaging because they've been doing it longer and it's easier to reference their other results. Also they do it in a closed case, not an open board.
Seems like they believe their results show most of the heat does exhaust out the back. Interesting!

 

[3DVagabond]

Wow... are you seriously suggesting that we don't care about thermal headroom in coolers anymore? I'm sure the people that would like to overclock the card would most assuredly disagree with your sentiment.

I can remember reviews comparing the 7990 to the 690 and everyone commenting on how much quieter the 690 was. The 7990 running 10°C cooler was not important, just the fact that the card was noisier.

7990 temps

690 temps.