Xfx r9-290a-edbd

Lepton87

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Jul 28, 2009
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What do you think about this Radeon? It has only two fans but, it's the cheapest aftermarket Radeon I can buy. In my country it costs 1300PLN, Sapphire TRI-X costs 1550 and Vapor-X 1700, for comparison 780Ti costs about double that of that Radeon.
How would those card behave with just 2x8X PCI-E 2.0? That would probably only be temporary as I probably change the platform for HW-E, but I'm still undecided if I should wait for Broadwell-E. The CPU should be drop-in replacement, right? What I don't like about that is that new memory standard which at first will be both slower and more expensive. They can offer more bandwidth sure, but timings are going to loosen considerably. The first models will be slower then DDR3 but that is not what concerns me, RAM performance matters little anyway. Pricing is the much more serious issue for me.
UPDATE:
Does even the non-overclocked sapphire have the best cooler?
Gigabyte is OCed to 1040MHz and is 100PLN cheaper then sapphire, does it have worse cooler? Does it OC worse then Sapphire?
It goes like that XFX 1300, GB 1450, Sapphire 1550, Sapphire V-X 1700. Which one is the best value?
It seems Gigabyte is the sweet spot, I don't trust that XFX cooler.

Is it worth waiting for Maxwell, considering that I only care about performance per euro and don't care about power consumption.
 
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tollingalong

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Jun 26, 2014
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If you can wait I would considering new cards are right around the corner. If anything the current gen are going to get cheaper.

If you get an uber nice deal then go for it. I just got the xfx 290 to $280 USD. Not too bad a deal. When I hack off my chassis with a saw and get the card installed I'll let you know how it goes :D.
 

Lepton87

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Jul 28, 2009
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OK, I'm interested how that cooler copes with the thermal load that Hawaii GPU puts out considering that it's quite anemic compared to Sapphire Tree-x not to mention Vapor-X.
 

Ken145

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Aug 1, 2014
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Judging by reviews XFX DD is a decent cooler if you don't care about the temps and maximum OC as long as it stays quiet, it also has more closed air flow design than Windforce or Tri-X. Now about Windforce, yes, it should be less restrictive in terms of overclock and temps, but i believe it still not nearly as good as Tri-X, last time i used WF3 cooler was 7950 Boost and god it was terrible, especially as top card in crossfire, and i don't think they did much optimizations for Hawaii chip this time. But i agree you should wait until september and see if there will be price cuts to 290s and also i don't see much games that could justify not waiting for 390 series as well.
 

Lepton87

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Jul 28, 2009
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You've convinced me, I'll wait for the new cards before upgrading, it's not like I can get a decent price for my Titan anyway. Then I'll decide if i'll pull the plug at that half-assed
pseudo replacement for GK110/Hawaii or wait for true 20nm replacements with 70-80 percent uplift. Maybe those true replacement won't cost more then 2xR290 if they will, r290 should drop in price anyway. I can sacrifice some performance to have one card instead of 2.
 

tollingalong

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Jun 26, 2014
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LMAO
Case "adjustments" with a Dremel for more GPU performance FTW. :thumbsup:

All stores are closed so I ended up using shears. The result was some loss on my part but hey, I no longer have to sacrifice a cow as an offering.

My XFX 290 makes less noise and PSU fan (evga 850 g2 set to kill the whales non-ECO friendly mode). The memory runs close to 110C during benchmarks non-OCed. I'm running Hynix memory so I might oc someday but not right now.

I'd recommend using 13.12 drivers. The 14.4 drivers result in a black screen when Windoze boots for me. Unless you need Mantle, Crossfire profiles or OpenGL 4.4 I'd say say with 13.12 on the 290.
 

tollingalong

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Jun 26, 2014
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You've convinced me, I'll wait for the new cards before upgrading, it's not like I can get a decent price for my Titan anyway. Then I'll decide if i'll pull the plug at that half-assed
pseudo replacement for GK110/Hawaii or wait for true 20nm replacements with 70-80 percent uplift. Maybe those true replacement won't cost more then 2xR290 if they will, r290 should drop in price anyway. I can sacrifice some performance to have one card instead of 2.

I'd also recommend keeping your CPU. Unless you have a need it's pointless to get a 6 core CPU. Some games benefit but they won't benefit to the point where you'll notice a large difference afaik (70fps vs 75fps).
 

MTDEW

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 1999
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All stores are closed so I ended up using shears. The result was some loss on my part but hey, I no longer have to sacrifice a cow as an offering.

My XFX 290 makes less noise and PSU fan (evga 850 g2 set to kill the whales non-ECO friendly mode). The memory runs close to 110C during benchmarks non-OCed. I'm running Hynix memory so I might oc someday but not right now.

I'd recommend using 13.12 drivers. The 14.4 drivers result in a black screen when Windoze boots for me. Unless you need Mantle, Crossfire profiles or OpenGL 4.4 I'd say say with 13.12 on the 290.
You mean the VRM temps in GPU-Z? (what i put in bold)
If so, that's kinda high for stock clocks.
 

MTDEW

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 1999
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You've convinced me, I'll wait for the new cards before upgrading, it's not like I can get a decent price for my Titan anyway. Then I'll decide if i'll pull the plug at that half-assed
pseudo replacement for GK110/Hawaii or wait for true 20nm replacements with 70-80 percent uplift. Maybe those true replacement won't cost more then 2xR290 if they will, r290 should drop in price anyway. I can sacrifice some performance to have one card instead of 2.
If you just want something to "play" with, i'd grab a pair of cheap used R9 290 Tri-x's from a reputable seller since you'd get killed on resale value if you bought new now anyway.
And buying used , you can ask and be sure you get Hynix memory....screw that Elpida junk. :D
And LOL at a Titan owner saying they are "sacrificing some performance".
FYI, I own two r9 290's and they are in separate rigs simply because every game that i "need" the extra x-fire performance seems to run like crap in x-fire or not support x-fire at all. (ie: Watch Dogs runs great on one 290...but in x-fire it runs like crap...you can forget playing this game at a solid 60+fps with current AMD hardware)
 
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tollingalong

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Jun 26, 2014
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You mean the VRM temps in GPU-Z? (what i put in bold)
If so, that's kinda high for stock clocks.

I'm wondering how long it'll last at that speed. I think I might have to figure out how to increase the fan speed to keep it under 100C hopefully.
 

Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
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I'd also recommend keeping your CPU. Unless you have a need it's pointless to get a 6 core CPU. Some games benefit but they won't benefit to the point where you'll notice a large difference afaik (70fps vs 75fps).

It's not about the CPU but about only 16 lines of PCI-E 2.0. CPU is fine. NF200 will help only with 3 cards. If I want to go with M-GPU solutions I need PCI-E 3.0 and more lines or at the very least one or the other. 3 cards with 8/16/16 might work quite well but I would need cards with blowers and only usable blowers are on Titans.
If you just want something to "play" with, i'd grab a pair of cheap used R9 290 Tri-x's from a reputable seller since you'd get killed on resale value if you bought new now anyway.
Unfortunately I can only buy used reference models for a good price, but I won't be able to stand that noise.
FYI, I own two r9 290's and they are in separate rigs simply because every game that i "need" the extra x-fire performance seems to run like crap in x-fire or not support x-fire at all. (ie: Watch Dogs runs great on one 290...but in x-fire it runs like crap...you can forget playing this game at a solid 60+fps with current AMD hardware)
That's interesting, I thought CF have matured a lot. As for a single card now, there just isn't a compelling upgrade for me right now. R290X +5-10 percent more perf if that 780Ti, absurd pricing, not even worth mentioning performance.
 
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MTDEW

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Oct 31, 1999
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Lepton87,
I can answer your PCI-E 2.0 with two R9 290's @ 8x question since I have some 1st hand experience.
You lose only about 2% performance vs PCI-E 3.0.
And even then its not 100% certain that PCI-E 2.0 @ 8x is the culprit since you're always stuck comparing the performance to faster (pci-e 3.0 compatible)cpu benchmarks.

And yeah, dont buy a reference 290...anything over 55% fan speed is unbearable. (believe what you read)
Unless you wanna let it constantly hit 95C with the stock fan profile.
 
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MTDEW

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Oct 31, 1999
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That's interesting, I thought CF have matured a lot. As for a single card now, there just isn't a compelling upgrade for me right now. R290X +5-10 percent more perf if that 780Ti, absurd pricing, not even worth mentioning performance.
To be fair, Watch Dogs doesn't seem to fare any better with SLI either.

You're not new to this, you know how it works.
X-fire and SLI work best in games that are used for reviews.
Everything else is a crap-shoot.

And i can GUARANTEE that any R9 290 X-fire owner would easily trade both of his cards for your Titan. :thumbsup:
 

Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
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Lepton87,
I can answer your PCI-E 2.0 with two R9 290's @ 8x question since I have some 1st hand experience.
You lose only about 2% performance vs PCI-E 3.0.

Good to know, I was worried that the performance hit would be much more substantial because all the communication happens over PCI-E. As for reference models, are there any aftermarket coolers for a reasonable price? I can buy reference 290 for 1000PLN and the cheapest aftermarket card costs 1300PLN.
I even found one for 780PLN that's very cheap and another one for 845PLN, two cards for the price of the Radeon R290 Vapor-X. Sounds unbeatable in terms of performance for dollar, but those coolers. AMD, why? Can they be under-volted and under-clocked? I should be able to sell my titan for at least the price of those two cards. If I under-clocked them to 900MHz and under-volted they would loose just 10 percent performance and would still be faster then a single Titan and at those clocks if I could lower the voltage low enough maybe I could make them bearable, what do you think?
Can anyone with R290 underclock it to 850-900MHz and under-volt it until it loses stability and see if it's enough to make it quiet? And overall how much it lowers the power draw?
UPDATE: Because at stock the reference R290 is just too load, do you think that underclocking and undervolting it, if even possible, warrants its own thread? Undervolted R290 at 900MHz with 25* percent lower power draw should be usable, what do you think? Is that even possible?
*figure out of thin air
 
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MTDEW

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 1999
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I'm just gonna be straight forward and honest about my opinion.
And I hope you don't take it as an insult or the wrong way.

1: Now is not the time to "downgrade" to less V-ram
2: There isn't a single game your Titan cannot play as well as two r9 290's in x-fire
3: two R9 290's will be worth "duck squat" in less than 3 months from now compared to your Nvidia 6gb Titan.

4: My wife says you remind her of me, you're too addicted to hardware and it's clouding your judgement. :thumbsup:
(ie: you wanna upgrade...but there is really nowhere to upgrade to that makes any sense...so you're "searching" for an upgrade)

EDIT: I mean, don't tell me it hasn't been hard holding onto your 2600k rig, when you KNOW its not worth upgrading yet.
I'll bet you have had a new cpu and mobo in your cart at Newegg just as often as I have...LMAO
 
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Lepton87

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Jul 28, 2009
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EDIT: I mean, don't tell me it hasn't been hard holding onto your 2600k rig, when you KNOW its not worth upgrading yet.
I'll bet you have had a new cpu and mobo in your cart at Newegg just as often as I have...LMAO

Not entirely accurate, It was hard to keep holding onto my old trusty 2500K CPU ;) I just had to upgrade, now I got the itch to replace my Seagate 4TB 5900RPM with 2x Seagate 3TB 7200RPM and make them work in RAID 0. The deal is done, tommorow I'm replacing that HDD which now leaves me with an unused 64GB sandforce SSD drive, any idea how to use it? What really keeps me with 1550 socket is my top of the line MOBO which costs as much as an i7. If I had a cheap mobo I would probably be rocking a HW or IB-E.
Tomorrow my storage will be satisfactory for at least 5 years for magnetic storage and 2 years for SSDs. I listed my titan for sale, but maybe you're right, not worth it when the next gen is just around the corner, but if it was a true next-gent I wouldn't have any dilemma. But something akin to GK104? It's a disgrace listing something like that as top-of-the-line card. Flagship chip should be 420-550mm2 big and with a TDP to much, 300W would be fine for a single card. It's like releasing 2.0T R4 300KM car and then after 6 months a true high-end comes along with 4.2 V8/3.0T with 450HP. The first is satisfactory for most but some want more, don't hold those big chips from us. If someone will buy my titan for the price I want for it I want to buy 2x290 for just 30 percent more. What makes it easy for me is that my Titan doesn't OC almost at all, so a single overclocked R290 should be faster than it with a meager OC of about 10 percent. If it OC-ed well like 1.3-1.4GHz then I wouldn't even think about a replacement but it's a dud. As for DP and 6GB, I have no use for the first and the second it's a gimmick for all but 4-way set-ups where 4GB can be limiting. But I just use a single 2560x1440 display where even 3GB should suffice but I wouldn't settle for 2GB.
BTW. My percent character under 5 does not work, strange... $#! etc. works fine. What's more perplexing I don't even use percent that much, to be fair hardly at all.
Give your wife my best regards. Great for you that your wife keeps your company even on a forum. My cheated on me with her best girlfriend. Divorced now. Shopping spree time!
 
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Elfear

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May 30, 2004
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I'm just gonna be straight forward and honest about my opinion.
And I hope you don't take it as an insult or the wrong way.

1: Now is not the time to "downgrade" to less V-ram
2: There isn't a single game your Titan cannot play as well as two r9 290's in x-fire
3: two R9 290's will be worth "duck squat" in less than 3 months from now compared to your Nvidia 6gb Titan.

1) Unless the OP is running at 4k with everything maxed I don't see 6Gb vs 4GB coming into play for awhile.

2) A single 290 is only 5-7% slower than a Titan. So what you're saying is that a pair of Titans will provide no better gameplay experience than one Titan? Unless the OP plays at 720p or only non-demanding games than I can't see where that would be true.

3) 290's have already depreciated a lot over the past 6 months. I doubt they will lose that much more value in the next three months, especially if you buy them used.

OP - Seems like a smart idea right now to sell the Titan for a chunk of change and buy a used 290 for a fraction of the sales price. You'll get essentially the same game play experience and have money in your pocket for future upgrades.
 

tollingalong

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Jun 26, 2014
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1) Unless the OP is running at 4k with everything maxed I don't see 6Gb vs 4GB coming into play for awhile.

2) A single 290 is only 5-7% slower than a Titan. So what you're saying is that a pair of Titans will provide no better gameplay experience than one Titan? Unless the OP plays at 720p or only non-demanding games than I can't see where that would be true.

3) 290's have already depreciated a lot over the past 6 months. I doubt they will lose that much more value in the next three months, especially if you buy them used.

OP - Seems like a smart idea right now to sell the Titan for a chunk of change and buy a used 290 for a fraction of the sales price. You'll get essentially the same game play experience and have money in your pocket for future upgrades.

1) Agreed
2) Not all games work well with SLI/Xfire. I swore off multi gpu setups ever since my 7800 GTs. Too many headaches imo.
3) They didn't depreciated, they deflated from their actual values because the financial leeches of society ruining our gaming experience for their modern day e-tulips.

Here is what one of the developers of bind once told me:
Wait and be lazy. You'll get something better and when you do get something you need and nothing more.

BTW
I returned my 290 after seeing it overheat and turn into a second space heater. The place I bought it from ran out of 290s T.T so they're giving me my $280 back.
 

Elfear

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May 30, 2004
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2) Not all games work well with SLI/Xfire. I swore off multi gpu setups ever since my 7800 GTs. Too many headaches imo.
3) They didn't depreciated, they deflated from their actual values because the financial leeches of society ruining our gaming experience for their modern day e-tulips.

2) True, profiles can be hit and miss with mGPU. I have first hand experience with that in Skyrim. The point I was contesting was the statement saying no game would see a benefit . That simply isn't true. I have plenty of games that see 80-90% scaling with a 2nd card.

3) I thought the two could be used interchangeably in the common vernacular but you're probably right. Been a few years since I took any Econ classes.
As a miner for a couple years I made my own small contribution to the decline of our gaming experience. ():)
 

Elfear

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May 30, 2004
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All will be forgiven if you hand over your coins to me.

Sadly the last Bitcoin I mined I traded for Asiacoins and things went downhill rapidly.


Lepton - The XFX DD 290 has gotten much better reviews than the DD 7970. Sounds like XFX took the criticism well and reengineered their cooler.
 

MTDEW

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 1999
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If you read through the thread, you'll see that what I was implying was that a Titan should play any game out now just fine with settings pretty much maxed out with maybe the exception of Watch Dogs.
There is no doubt the OP knew what i meant, since we were posting back and forth our thoughts about the upgrade.

And in Watch Dogs case, it just doesn't run well with multi-GPUs, so going x-fire with a pair of 290's isn't going to help in the one current game that could use the performance boost the most.

I personally would still hold onto the Titan and see what happens in the next few months, and use its resell value to buy a better single GPU upgrade.

By the end of the year people will be dumping off their previously owned 290's that they bought cheap and selling them even cheaper to fund their own upgrades by then....they're not going to hold their value like the Titan will.

I know me personally....over the next few months, I'd have a lot more confidence in a Titans resell value to fund a new single GPU upgrade than I would a pair of R9 290's...(especially previously used reference models)
 
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