PSA: Powercolor 290x reference model using non reference board

[lavaheadache]

For those that are sticklers about these kinds of things like me, I just wanted to get the information out there.

I will post a picture when I get home from work tonight, as the package arrived as I was walking out the door.

Aside from the obvious non reference pcb, the first thing that I noticed was that on the pcb right above the pci-e slot fingers there were two boxes in white paint saying 4g and 8g with the 4g box being colored in with a sharpie.

Seems as though the "reference" card I got will soon be available in an 8 gb flavor.

The other thing that I noticed right off the bat is that the bios switch isn't at all indicated which position is "uber" mode or quiet mode.

I didn't even have time to pop the card in since I was in a rush. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a brick in the box. Funny thing is that I placed the order from New Egg for the plain Jane version but ended up getting the BF4 oc'ed version (1030 mhz) and 2 BF4 codes. One was in the shipping box the a New Egg employee must have put in there as a promotion and the other one was in the Power color box. YAY me!

 

[wand3r3r]

Thanks for the info!

That's the first I've heard of the non-reference PCB while using the reference cooler. I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing?

I'm curious about your noise impressions.

While 55% fan isn't as bad as I was expecting, I'm getting sick of my cards fans since I have to raise the fans a bit 60% or more depending on my tolerance to keep mining temps in line even with my open bench. I really wish I had gone aftermarket myself due to multiple cards, but if you are only gaming on it or if you have it in a spare room somewhere it might not matter as much. The open bench is also creating an echo like effect when it's right there in a closet type space where I sit so I guess I'm getting the worst effect possible.

I'm accustomed to aftermarket cards though. For me mining is their saving grace. I won't go reference again though unless I decide to sandwich them in a case (was my plan).

 

[thilanliyan]

Yeah I really don't like the noise of my reference 290s. Thankfully I don't have to listen to them most of the time. And before summer comes I will watercool them.

 

[Rvenger]

For those that are sticklers about these kinds of things like me, I just wanted to get the information out there.

I will post a picture when I get home from work tonight, as the package arrived as I was walking out the door.

Aside from the obvious non reference pcb, the first thing that I noticed was that on the pcb right above the pci-e slot fingers there were two boxes in white paint saying 4g and 8g with the 4g box being colored in with a sharpie.

Seems as though the "reference" card I got will soon be available in an 8 gb flavor.

The other thing that I noticed right off the bat is that the bios switch isn't at all indicated which position is "uber" mode or quiet mode.

I didn't even have time to pop the card in since I was in a rush. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a brick in the box. Funny thing is that I placed the order from New Egg for the plain Jane version but ended up getting the BF4 oc'ed version (1030 mhz) and 2 BF4 codes. One was in the shipping box the a New Egg employee must have put in there as a promotion and the other one was in the Power color box. YAY me!

Oh yeah, typical of Powercolor to release a reference PCB then switch it midway through cycle. If you read through newegg reviews you will find that this is more common. Their PCB contains the same reference components its just they make their own PCB in house it seems. Instead of the AMD logo you get a check box of 4gb or 8gb. The 7970 reference had a 1.5gb check box.

 

[lavaheadache]

After pulling the heatsink I can confirm that even though the pcb is aftermarket it seems to be 100% reference design with matching components and is packing Hynix memory which I've so far gotten it up to 5600 MHz and climbing.

Now the core has proven to be tricky. My card seems to have a fairly low VID. 1.08? it fluctuates a little up and down but usually it is right about there. I get artifacts in Crysis 3 above 1060 but BF4 is fine till about 1080. I have tons of head room regarding temps and fan speed and seemingly power limit yet if I up the voltage even a smidge I get clock speed throttling that gets more aggressive with volts.

Why isn't sliding the power target over alleviating this?

 

[RaulF]

After pulling the heatsink I can confirm that even though the pcb is aftermarket it seems to be 100% reference design with matching components and is packing Hynix memory which I've so far gotten it up to 5600 MHz and climbing.

Now the core has proven to be tricky. My card seems to have a fairly low VID. 1.08? it fluctuates a little up and down but usually it is right about there. I get artifacts in Crysis 3 above 1060 but BF4 is fine till about 1080. I have tons of head room regarding temps and fan speed and seemingly power limit yet if I up the voltage even a smidge I get clock speed throttling that gets more aggressive with volts.

Why isn't sliding the power target over alleviating this?

Dude, pictures man. We need some pcb porn .

 

[Alusan]

After pulling the heatsink I can confirm that even though the pcb is aftermarket it seems to be 100% reference design with matching components and is packing Hynix memory which I've so far gotten it up to 5600 MHz and climbing.

Now the core has proven to be tricky. My card seems to have a fairly low VID. 1.08? it fluctuates a little up and down but usually it is right about there. I get artifacts in Crysis 3 above 1060 but BF4 is fine till about 1080. I have tons of head room regarding temps and fan speed and seemingly power limit yet if I up the voltage even a smidge I get clock speed throttling that gets more aggressive with volts.

Why isn't sliding the power target over alleviating this?

I've had the same experience as you on my Sapphire 290-loads of temp head room, but as soon as any voltage is added I get clock throttling. It seems to be a bug in the 14.x beta releases, since I don't get the throttling in 13.12s. No matter what, the power limit controls in CCC, Trixx or RadeonPro don't seem to do anything for single card configs in any of the beta drivers. I noticed a slight performance improvement in the games I'm playing with the 14.x drivers so I'm using those for now and I'm good up to 1100MHz/5600MHz on stock volts of ~1.11 with Hynix memory. Hope AMD fixes it by the time the WHQL drivers are out.

For what it's worth LtMatt posted a temp fix over at overclockers.co.uk using RadeonPro: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25719851#post25719851
Didn't work for me though.

 

[lavaheadache]

porn added to op