Attention MSI Gaming 290 4G Owners

[IEC]

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for bricking your card if you do this. You flash your vbios at your own risk!

It appears that the limiting factor of OCing these cards is their BIOS. I just flashed mine to a stock ASUS 290 BIOS. I am currently trying different memory settings in Heaven but so far 1650MHz+ memory is not a problem.

With the MSI BIOS, max stable clocks on two consecutive serial number cards:
~1125/1400

With the ASUS BIOS:
~TBD/1650+ (exact clocks TBD)

Suddenly, I am much happier with these cards

 

[Rvenger]

Temps still staying in check?

 

[IEC]

Idle is:
35C/24C/27C
Core/VRM1/VRM2

Load at +134mV offset, 1125/1600 @ 100% fan speed with a 24C ambient is:
85C/87C/66C

I let it loop Heaven for an hour so far at that clock with no issues so I think I can squeeze more than 1125/1600 out of it. Possibly quite a bit more once my watercooling pump arrives so I can put my waterblock on it

 

[SimianR]

Idle is:
35C/24C/27C
Core/VRM1/VRM2

Load at +134mV offset, 1125/1600 @ 100% fan speed with a 24C ambient is:
85C/87C/66C

I let it loop Heaven for an hour so far at that clock with no issues so I think I can squeeze more than 1125/1600 out of it. Possibly quite a bit more once my watercooling pump arrives so I can put my waterblock on it

The nice thing with the MSI Gaming cards is that 100% fan is audible but not loud, those fans run quiet. Looks like a big improvement with that bios flash

 

[IEC]

The nice thing with the MSI Gaming cards is that 100% fan is audible but not loud, those fans run quiet. Looks like a big improvement with that bios flash

Yes, though the cooler is definitely not built for OCing.

 

[SimianR]

Yeah, I would imagine you would have to run the fan at 100% to maintain those temps or it would be hitting 95C+ pretty fast. I'm guessing they didn't do much with the heatsink and left it at a similar size compared to the other cards. It looks like they're throwing everything behind the Lightning which has a massive heatsink (well, not that big compared to the Tri-X actually).

 

[Unoid]

Is this a ASUS hynix BIOS to a Hynix MSI? or both Elpida? or can you do it with diff Memory?

 

[IEC]

Is this a ASUS hynix BIOS to a Hynix MSI? or both Elpida? or can you do it with diff Memory?

ASUS BIOS supports both Hynix (AFR) and Elpida, as well as "Autodetect".

http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/index.php?did=1002-67b1--

Was on MSIs with Hynix. No effect on my scrypt hashing rates at same core/mem settings as with MSI stock BIOS, so timings must be similar.

 

[Unoid]

I run Gigabyte reference 290's with Elpida. I get "some" artifacting when I try mining at 1500 mem.

Do you think it's worth while trying the Asus bios?

 

[IEC]

By artifacting while mining, do you mean checkerboard patterns in some applications? 1500MHz is plenty for Elpida, and is good.

 

[Unoid]

the screen flashes a little, I havne't tried over volting which might make 1500 stable. but heat gets crazy, so does power consumption.

 

[IEC]

You're likely at your mem chip's limits and I doubt a BIOS flash would help there. Mine was prompted by recognizing that my mem chips *should* be capable of more once I took off the cooler and saw the P/N and looked up what it was rated for...

 

[Unoid]

You're likely at your mem chip's limits and I doubt a BIOS flash would help there. Mine was prompted by recognizing that my mem chips *should* be capable of more once I took off the cooler and saw the P/N and looked up what it was rated for...

I that case we know elpida is worse than hynix. I wonder if the ASUS bios feeds more/better voltage to the memory.

 

[IEC]

Update:

A side effect of flashing the card appears to be that automatic fan control doesn't work properly any more due to fan curves being different. So if you do this you'll need to manually control your fan speed or set up a custom curve (or water cool).