videocardz AMD Radeon R9 290X Memory Bus: 512-bit

You're absolutely right, a teacher would have to have at least a shred of knowledge about the subject. A tip if you follow your own advice, neither 'How do I make ROPs run a hashing algorithm' nor 'How do I make fixed function hardware do something it doesn't' are likely to get too many hits.

 

Though it would seem that what you've described, I mean, it could just as easily be ascribed to overheating VRMs. So maybe you don't even need to get into any technical details, and instead just say the card is behaving as expected, by protecting itself. Oh and by the way, doing compute-heavy tasks such as XYZ really stresses the VRMs and they are overheating independent of the GPU, so XFX should have put a VRM cooler on their card because of the specific layout of their custom PCB doesn't allow for much room in VRM heating. Or something like that. Just would be nice to have some concrete numbers to characterize what is going on inside the card when these problems manifest.

I could understand if you were describing some kind of weird issue like a division by zero overflow or whatever that just confuses the card, and I think that's what you were getting at, but really what you describe may just be a heat problem exacerbated by a custom PCB design that is intended for gaming/general use and not a power virus.

 

Am I going to have to lock another thread? Stop the thread crapping and get back on topic.
-- stahlhart

 

I noticed you made a lot of these blanket statements about AMD's cards failing once ROPs are loaded, etc. failing during compute workloads, etc.

I have run HD4890/6950@ unlocked and nearly 10x 7970 cards @ 1150mhz all fully loaded in various compute workloads (MilkyWay, Seti@home, bitcoin mining). None of my AMD cards (nor NV) ever failed in any of these, never downclocked in GPU speed, never overheated. The 4890 and 6950 were reference designs and 7970 were Sapphire. Your own experience sounds like a pure outlier, or you are just generalizing without any evidence.

What I don't understand is what does ANY of this have to do with R9 series? Even if every single Fermi/Cypress/Tahiti/Kepler card failed from compute, we cannot assume that Volcanic Islands/Maxwell will suffer from something similar. You are again making an assumption based on conjecture.

 

Looking buff doesn't mean anything don't you watch UFC =P

You cannot judge someones fighting spirit or abilities based on how they look many people have lost fights that way!

And back on topic.

When are the reviews of this card suppose to show up?

 

3 pm ET or a little after.

 

I thought reviews weren't coming out today, only a press announcement of the cards? I guess we'll see in a few hours.

I'm not so sure reviewers have cards yet.

It's the KCCO (Keep Calm Chive On) logo, something pretty popular here in the states. Even though I have no idea what it means.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On

 

Oh. Learn something new every day.

 

HardOCP reviewer Brent said he didn't have a card yet. This event will probably be some spec info, perhaps some performance comparison slides, and a lot of talk about HSA and similar GPU compute stuff.

Although it's possible there will be actual reviews or more in depth previews by select sites.

 

This is what I am counting on.

 

Pictures
http://videocardz.com/45890/amd-radeon-r9-290x-pictured-final-design



2x DVI

Launch date is supposedly October 20th.

 

Decent looking reference cooler, if that's what that is. Looks like two DVI-D dual link connections.

 

Intakes in the back of the card look to help cooling in cramped crossfire situations.

 

Nice looking, but I think it will be just as noisy as the 7970 one as there looks like the same fan design. Not that it ever bothered me, but I think it will come worse of than the recent nVidia coolers.

 

That leaves 9 days.

 

That is seriously ugly, and the sticker on the back looks like it says 280X, not 290X.

 

I actually like that new reference cooler. Looks pretty nice IMHO - nice aesthetics and a definite improvement over their prior ref cooler. Although i'm more curious about how well it cools - I don't mind reference coolers, I just hope it is quieter than the reference 7970 (and 6970, 5870) coolers.

 

Unless one is going 4x SLI/CF, water cooling, I really don't understand why enthusiast gamers who drop $500+ on GPUs want reference cards. After-market cards tend to use more premium components, often come factory pre-overclocked by 5-15%, have superior coolers in terms of temperatures and noise levels, and tend to have higher resale value too.

Once the card is upside down in a case, what difference does it make how it looks?

 

Exactly.


P.S. This guy is better than RossMan and all the others put together!

 

Actually, looking now. The ports on the back of the card have to be exhaust, and not intakes. I wonder how this effects the noise levels of the card. That is the only reason they could be there. Interesting, and I can't wait to find out how the noise levels are.

 

That reference design looks dead sexy,makes me wanna build a red and black themed tower which would have a maximus gene board,some red memory modules,a black heatsink all housed in a black case with a clear window with red led fans with one of these puppies in there as well.

Doubt the cooling will be good enough for most people,myself included but still not a bad looking card and i had a 7970Ghz shortly after launch,the reference cooler for 7900 series is absolutely dreadful,we are talking 747 on take off if you overclock that thing to 1200+ core@1.25v like i did.

 

I agree with you on all counts but I Do think having a great ref cooler is a net benefit - super small form factors are becoming really popular and in that type of case, reference cooling is really the only option (especially with SLI/CFX).

I like the overall look but i'll be more impressed if they improve the noise levels of their prior ref design which was used for three generations; I remember the old AMD reference shroud could get fairly loud at high fan RPMs. Ridiculously loud, in fact - far louder than either the 680 or Titan shrouds at high fan RPMs.

So I can really see arguments on both sides on this. I love aftermarket cards myself, but I do think having a great reference cooler will be a net benefit for quite a few users.

 

They also tend to dump heat into the case as opposed to exhausting it.

None really, but everything else being equal I'd rather have a graphics card that looks professional and mature over one that's half cheap and plasticy and half overly masturbatory with weird bits stuck on just for the hell of it. As much as the design was terrible for multiple graphics cards, 6970/50 were easily the most aesthetically pleasing reference designs AMD produced. All that was needed was for the area around the fan to be slightly recessed. There's something to be said for minimalism in design.

 

Did anyone see Anandtech at AMD's Hawaii event?