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So, I bought an MSI R9 290. I installed it, and it didn't quite work. I had terrible performance, GPU Usage and core spikes. Here's my old post about that: I ran Battlefield 4. After 30 secs of gameplay at 90+ fps, the framerate started dipping. 80, 70, 50 eventually coming to 30 and then I got a blue screen. After restarting my PC, I opened Afterburner to check temps, clocks etc. The card was idleing at 48C. While in-game, gpu usage started spikeing, Looking at the clocks, I got a little bit worried. Temperatures and usage: Clocks: PC Specs: Core i5 3330 8GB dual-channel RAM r9 290 ASUS P8B75-M LE Corsair CX600 Ambient temperature was around 26C Case has 2 intake 120mm fans and 1 120mm exaust. At idle, core clock is constantly changing from 300, to 303, then a bit higher etc....but I think that's good, right? Isn't that some AMD feature? Latest Beta Drivers installed. So, they gave me a new one; same problem. I returned it, and then I got an e-mail where a guy tested it and said it's working fine, and that my CPU is bottlenecking the r9 290. My CPU is Intel i5 3330. I also got 600W Corsair PSU, 8GB 1866Mhz RAM and other is not too important now, you can check my full specs on my profile page. Really? i5 third generation is bottlenecking r9 290? Give me your thoughts, I asked this on another forum and they said it can't bottleneck...

Hi I've been looking at graphics cards and I've hit a dilemma, both the 970 and the 290 are both around the price I'm looking for and I can't see any good reason to buy one or the other. Just wondering if you could help. -James

Hey forum, With the price drop of the R9 290 down to $299, I was wondering if one of these (http://amzn.to/1rfTgI0) would be a worthwhile upgrade from a Gigabyte Windforce 7970 Ghz Edition? If not, what would be another good option? Thanks in advance!

So I bought an MSI R9 290 a month ago, and it didn't work properly. Here's a post I made about it a while ago, reading it might help. My R9 290 Twin Frozr from MSI finnaly arrived... I installed it, fired up my machine, all good. I ran Battlefield 4. After 30 secs of gameplay at 90+ fps, the framerate started dipping. 80, 70, 50 eventually coming to 30 and then I got a blue screen. After restarting my PC, I opened Afterburner to check temps, clocks etc. The card was idleing at 48C. While in-game, gpu usage started spikeing, Looking at the clocks, I got a little bit worried. Temperatures and usage: Clocks: PC Specs: Core i5 3330 8GB dual-channel RAM r9 290 ASUS P8B75-M LE Corsair CX600 For full specs, check my profile page. Ambient temperature was around 26C Case has 2 intake 120mm fans and 1 120mm exaust. At idle, core clock is constantly changing from 300, to 303, then a bit higher etc....but I think that's good, right? Isn't that some AMD feature? Latest Beta Drivers installed. I sent it back, they sent me a new one. Same problem. I told them it's not working again, they said they'd be happy to send me a Tri-x version or give me my money back. My point is - did my PC brake the gfx card? Check my system specs on my profile page, note that the parts are not really old, 2 years, everything is working perfectly. Is there any chance my PC overvolted the card or something? I'm asking this because it happened twice in a row, I'm just curious. btw, I'm gonna ask for a TRI-X version.

Hey guys! im planning on building my first gaming rig soon and just want to make sure that I will be able to make it Future "resistant" i guess. This is my current idea for a build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XQtPgs Basically i would like to someday add another 290 to the rig (maybe OC?) and I just want to be sure that i wont have to replace the PSU because of that. Will the XFX ProSeries 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply work for that or do i need to get a higher wattage (any suggestions?) seeing that will most likely be overclocking because why not.

So I just looked at my scrypt miner client and I was astonished at what I saw. My Reference R9 290 is getting on average around 1 M/hash. This is without any overclocks. I was wondering what everybody thought about this, I had no idea this is possible. Here is some proof. http://prntscr.com/3a14gf

Alright, so here's my predicament. I just upgraded my GPU from a GTX 760, which had a DVI port with an analog output that allowed me to use an adapter to output to my old Dell monitor which only has VGA input. My new GPU is an R9 290, which does not have any sort of analog output. I'd rather not use an adapter to go from digital to analog and introduce a fair bit of latency if I don't have to, so I was wondering if it'd be possible to use the iGPU on my 3570k to power the second monitor until I can get a new one that accepts DVI. For some quick specs, I'm running an R9 290 and a 3570k on an Asus P8Z77-V Pro motherboard. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Well I'm in the market for a GPU and I was wondering if the R9 290 MSI Gaming was worth getting at like $470? I was gonna get a 780 Classy but it's really pushing the budget.

http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Some-NVIDIA-R33750-Driver-Controversy HardOCP has also witnessed some unusual behavior on the GTX 780 Ti where it's boosting to higher clock speeds with the new driver suggesting that the performance gains are coming directly from an overclock applied by the new drivers. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/04/08/amd_radeon_r9_295x2_video_card_review/12#.U0UWclfDDTc This post has been promoted to an article

Greetings fellow techies! I have to decide what to buy, and i'm really in doubt. Because i really want both, but i can only afford one of them atm. So which one would you choose? I've always said that the moment the DevKit 2 gets out, i will order it. But i would also like to boost my games on my 1440p monitor by upgrading my 670 to a 290. (leaning towards the DirectCU ii) Oculus = 504 $ (with shipping and tax) R9 290 DirectCU ii = 556 $ Thanks for voting.

Hey Guys I have recently bought 2 R9 290's and i run them in crossfire but i have been having a problem as one runs in idle at 85 degrees at GPU Load 1%, the other shows as 0 degrees and apparently is not running at all. please any information would be appreciated. The picture added is not crossfire enabled although both cards are in the pc. -Cazz

It's from Sapphire and you read that right, it comes with 8GB of GDDR5 memory on a single Hawaii GPU. It's dubbed the R9 290X Vapor-X and it packs Sapphire's class-leading Tri-X cooler. The card will undoubtedly be factory overclocked & cost quite a bit more than the MSRP. The card is black & blue with a shroud that looks identical to Sapphire's latest Toxic designs save for the different color scheme but the lack of Toxic nomenclature suggests that an even higher factory clocked version is eventually coming your way. One would wonder what you could or would actually do with 8GB of GDDR5 on a 290X outside of very specific compute scenarios. Even the latest & most intensive titles don't use more than 4GB of memory in 4K resolutions with maximum details and anti aliasing. Perhaps this is for the niche of the niche of extreme users who wish to experiment 4K eyefinity not that a single 290X will be able to handle that, you will definitely need to go CrossFire, TriFire or even QuadFire to actually get playable framerates on such an insane resolution. In any case, here are a few images of the card to hold you out before it's officially released.

http://www.amazon.com/XFX-Double-1000MHz-Graphics-R9290XEDFD/dp/B00HHIPN5A/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1401237921&sr=8-19&keywords=R9+290

So I'm selling my 7970 soon and grabbing an R9 290. Any issues I should know about when it comes to the different models ? Been reading reviews and it seems a lot of GIgabyte cards die soon afterwards & a lot of Visiontek/Powercolor cards have "blackscreen" issues.

I know that you can remove the red stickers on the R9 290x but can you also remove them on the 290? I ask because I'm thinking of getting one and I really prefer the all black look.

This is an omen. I never thought I'd witness this in my lifetime. But a non-reference R9 290x at 90$ below MSRP ? http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Version-PCI-Express-Graphics-11226-00-40G/dp/B00HJOKARI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400015469&sr=8-1&keywords=R9+290X Official MSRP for reference 290x cards is 549$ and 599$ for the Sapphire Tri-X version.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125500R

So my question is how much money can I make with 2 r9 290's mining litecoins. Please help!!!!!

Hi everyone! I've decided to upgrade my system with water cooling and I needed some advice or ideas on how my piping or options should be. I know the parts are out-dated but I've pieced together the main components for this build for the past 4 years and I am not planning to upgrade the components for another 2-3 years (Haswell-e, DDR4, X99, M.2, 4K 144Hz single GPU?). I want to overclock the i7-2600k to 5.0Ghz and the graphic cards but mainly just a project. Otherwise it's for gaming/streaming/workstation in that order from most to least. My current specs are: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard 2X SAPPHIRE 21197-00-40G Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5 Video Card Crossfire Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Desktop Processor CORSAIR DOMINATOR 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory CORSAIR AirFlow Pro CORSAIR AXi series AX1200i 1200W Digital ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply 2X SanDisk Extreme II SDSSDXP-480G-G25 2.5" 480GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 192KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card AVerMedia Live Gamer HD C985 PCI-Express x1 Interface Capture Card Replacing: NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower Computer Case CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Extreme Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler. 240mm Corsair Air Series SP120 (CO-9050014-WW) 120mm PWM High Performance Edition High Static Pressure Fan (Twin Pack) New upgrades: Phanteks Enthoo Primo Ultimate Full Tower EATX Case Black w/ Blue LED Swiftech MCP655 12V Industrial Water Cooling Pump 1/2IN Barbs (Include another one if needed?) XSPC Photon 170 Tube Glass Reservoir 170 X 75 X 75MM 3x G1/4 Ports 1x 5MM LED Hole w/ Blue LED Optional: Another - XSPC Photon 170 Tube Glass Reservoir 170 X 75 X 75MM 3x G1/4 Ports 1x 5MM LED Hole w/ Blue LED or XSPC D5 Photon 170 Glass 410ML Reservoir / Pump Combo 250 X 85 X 85MM 3x G1/4 Ports 1x 5MM LED Hole w/ Blue LED minus second mcp655 pump. XSPC Raystorm LGA1155/1366/1156/2011/775 CPU Water Block G1/4 Threads Copper w/ Blue LED - Black x2 XSPC Razor 7970 Full Cover Water Block Prepared for Crossfire With 7 G1/4 Ports Twin LED (New Style)) x2 XSPC RX480 Quad Fan Radiator V3 (was going to get one for the bottom but the Phanteks Enthoo Primo case seems to not fit a 480 rad so I need to remove the hard drive cover/panel) (Phanteks Specifies maximmum width of radiator clearance to be 130mm. XSPC RX480 is 133mm width. Squeezed it in. x2 XSPC RX240 Dual Fan Radiator V3 or replace bottom with Black Ice SR1-280 Silent Revision 1 Dual 280MM Fan 2-ROW Radiator G 1/4IN Threaded Black Carbon PrimoChill PRIMOFLEX™ Advanced LRT™ Elegant White 1/2 ID 3/4 OD Tubing (10FT) or PrimoChill PrimoFlex Pro LRT Black 1/2IN ID 3/4IN OD Tubing (10 Feet) or PrimoChill PRIMOFLEX™ Advanced LRT™ Crystal Clear 1/2 in 3/4 OD Tubing (10 Ft) Fan Options: Corsair Air Series AF120 LED White Quiet Edition 25.2 dbA 52.19 CFM 1500 RPM w/ Corsair Air Series AF140 LED White Quiet Edition 25.5 dBA 66.4 CFM 1200 RPM Corsair Air Series SP120 PWM Quiet Ed. High Pressure 1450RPM 37.85CFM 23DBA Cooling Fan Dual Pack Aerocool DS 120mm x 25mm Dead Silent Cooling LED Fan - White w/ Aerocool DS 140mm x 25mm Dead Silent Cooling LED Fan - White Silverstone FF141 Magnetized 140MM Fan Filter Black Optional/Extra: x2 XSPC Razor SLI Flow Bridge 4 Slot Compatible GTX670/680/690/7970/TITAN Swiftech Hydrx PM 2 16OZ/473ML Coolant Algae Control Corrosion Inhibitor Blue or distilled water (may change to a non-conductive coolant or replace tubing) IandH Silver KillCoils - Antimicrobial .999 Fine Silver Tubing / Reservoir Strip Swiftech 8W-PWM-SPL-ST 8 Way PWM Splitter With SATA Connector Swiftech 3/8IN X 5/8IN LOK-SEAL™ Compression Fitting G1/4 - Black Swiftech 45 Degree Swivel Elbow LOK-SEAL™ Adapter - Black Swiftech 90 Degree Swivel Elbow LOK-SEAL™ Adapter - Black Quick Disconnect Coupling / Nozzle I also have access to sleeving tools and will order some so I can fabric the power supply and other cables. Here are video reviews of the case’s options: Phanteks Phanteks Enthoo Series Black w/ Blue LED ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Product Tour Water Cooling - Pt.1: Features - Pt.2: Functioinality - Pt.3: I have no limiting budget currently. Here’s the setup layout with the optimal areas where I can fit the radiators, reservoirs, and pumps. I’m still not sure if I’ll need a single or dual pumps. I could cut a hole in the gray area (bit of a hassle but I have access to the tools necessary) and mount the reservoir to the front radiator and have it shown through the side panel’s smaller window. Not sure if I can mount to onto the cover shroud beside the motherboard to fit above the cards (they may be too long). I could fit a reservoir with the combo D5 pump attached to it onto the rear under the rear fan beside the graphics cards. I’m also not sure if I need push/pull if I set all my fans to low rpm. If it’s necessary to the temperatures since they are pretty thick radiators. The LEDs for everything may be swapped out for white in the future so a white scheme is the choice but for the moment blue fits. I may also have the front radiator just replaced with a thinner one and not have the reservoir mounted on the front just to be able to have the hard drive bays available. (But it looks much more special and beautiful with the idea to have the cut-out at the front. I may also mount 2 120mmfans on the opposite cable management side panel if it’s needed for extra HDDs or pump. There’s also the option of instead having a single tube reservoir and mounting a Dual Bay reservoir on the front 5.25 bays and I will add a 5.25 SD Card reader (Thunderbolt?) and Blu-ray Writer. I may also have both side panels repainted. Plasti-Dipped since it’s mainly for protection. This will be the first water-cooling build I do for myself but I love the support and suggestions from the community. If you have any specific ideas, missed anything or want to imaginatively draw out over or your own lay-out feel free to message me on the forums or add me on Steam. Otherwise I'll keep you guys up to date with pictures and decisions. Thanks, Vypre

For working with known game engines like unreal engine 4 or cry engine 3. which card would be a better performer? I am not a game developer and to be fair I do not know much about development but my interest is high and Seeing as I will be buying a gpu soon and the licencing price on these engines doesn't seem too bad i would just like to get the hardware that would be better suited for these applications.

Hey forum, just ran the Unigine Valley benchmark over both my monitors at 3840x1080, just to see how well my R9 290 would do. I noticed that my GPU usage, as shown in Afterburner, is jumping around like crazy and not staying at 100%, as I had expected, Vsync disabled. I'm running an i5 4670k @ 4.4GHz, (see signature for full specs), so I doubt that this is a bottleneck. I also noticed that my GPU frequencies drop as soon as the GPU usage drops, but I don't think my card should be throttling @ just over 80°C, should it? Also, wouldn't the GPU usage stay at 100% while the card throttles? Why are both the usage and the frequencies dropping here? Here's a screenshot from afterburner: (the large gap in the middle is between two runs in Unigine Valley) Sorry for the german btw, "GPU Auslastung" means GPU usage and "Prozessortakt" means core clock.

So about two weeks ago I bought myself a MSI r9 290 GAMING Edition GPU. The problem is that is runs extremely hot for a non-reference cooler. Here is what GPU-Z is saying. These are the temps I would expect to see from a reference designed r9 290. Why are my temps so high? Everything is at stock settings and I have tried many different fan configurations in my case and none of them help. I even overhauled my cabling to make the case have more airflow. Nothing helps. Does anyone have any idea as to why this is happening? I have already called MSI and they just told me the temps were in range of normal operational usage. Additional Specs- GPU - r9 290 GAMING Edition @ stock settings Drivers - Official 14.4 CPU - i5 2500k @ 4Ghz PSU - CorsairTX 750w Bronze Plus PSU OS - Windows 8.1 Motherboard - Asus p8p67 LE motherboard Memory - 16gb G. SKill 1600 Ram

Hey guys I'm looking for some advice regarding my future upgrade when it becomes available. I'm planning to upgrade my Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB GPU to crossfire Sapphire R9 290 Vapor X editions since I'm playing games on a 5920*1080 resolution. At the moment I'm using the Antec Current Gamer 620W which isn't enough for dual cards. So I'm looking into the Corsair AX 860i with a 80+ platinum certification and the useful Corsair Link Software which I'm already using for my H80i CPU cooler. But some time ago I read on the official Sapphire page that one Vapor X card requires a 750W PSU and dual 8 pin PCIe connectors. I'm aware that the 750W counts as a full build PSU requirement and is applicable to lower quality PSU's but I don't know which recommendation they would make for dual cards with a 80+ certified PSU. I'm worried the PSU wouldn't quite get there considering the upgrade and the rest of my system. I already did a calculation on the coolermaster site, which was recommended in a Tech Quicky video, and it said around 740W but with normal 290's and I don't know how much more power the Vapor X's would draw. Can someone give me advice whether the Corsair 860W will be enough or I should look into a 1000W PSU? Thnx Rest of the system Intel i7 2600K (now stock setting, but looking forward to overclock it in the future to at least 4.5 GHz) Corsair H80i cooler (don't know how much power the pump and stock fans draw) Asus P8Z68V-Pro (Probably standard power usage like any other MB as I've not changed anything in BIOS) 2 sticks DDR3 RAM 1600 MHZ 1.65V 5 normal SATA 7200 RPM HDD's 1 Flash SSD (Samsung 840 Pro) 2 LED 200 mm case fans which use molex adapter connectors 1 Blu-ray reader drive No other PCI or PCIe cards.

Should I go with build A- http://pcpartpicker.com/user/lcater95/saved/4MBi -4770k -R9280X or B- http://pcpartpicker.com/user/lcater95/saved/4MBr -4670k -R9290 This will be a purely gaming build. Normally I would choose option B but I keep hearing people say that games will soon start to utilize 8 cores because PS4 and Xbone do. I'm 1080p now but will crossfire and go 4k when it's ready. Will two 280Xs be able to accomplish this? PS: If you can recommend a better Z97 mobo for the price or less that would be great.

ASUS has announced the Asus Strix Radeon R9 280, armed with 3 GB of memory (model: STRIX-R9280-OC-3GD5). The card appears to feature the same exact DirectCU II based cooling solution as the one on the GTX 780 Strix, and likely a similar PCB to the R9 280 DirectCU II series. The cooler offers 0 dBA cooling when the GPU is running at temperatures below 65 °C, and begins to spool up only beyond that. So handling most desktop and mild 3D loads should be completely quiet. The card also offers a factory OC. The GPU is clocked at 980 MHz, and the memory at 5.20 GHz, compared to reference clocks of 933 MHz core and 5.00 GHz memory. Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, the Radeon R9 280 offers 1,792 GCN stream processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. ASUS didn't reveal pricing. http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/asus_radeon_r9_280_strix_oc_edition_graphics_card.html