290 Reference to 390X?

[winningsince1337]

So, being a usual PC gamer, I want some more power. My 290 is a GREAT card, nothing wrong with it, besides the fact that it doesn't overclock very well, and despite my opinion that it's honestly not that loud (unless you want it to be really cool at the same time) people pretty much think it's garbage.

 

So, I want to do something. I don't know if I should upgrade, what I should upgrade to, etc. Maybe I should just change the cooler to something much more capable, and even then I don't know of anything under 2 slot width that won't stick out of my SG05.

 

Is the 390X (specifically the MSI 390X) a worthy upgrade? I honestly probably can't get a 980Ti or something ridiculous like that because that would be asking way too much for Christmas, but I can ask for a couple hundred bucks and use that plus my 290 to get a new card. That or I could spend that money on an HG10 from Corsair and a nice 120mm AIO that doesn't stick out over 2 slots with the tubing and all.

 

What do you guys think? Basically I'm unhappy with my current cooling//performance situation (even though it's not bad, this is totally a first world problem) and I'm open to suggestions on what I should do (within a reasonable budget). Thanks!

 

WP_20151215_13_32_13_Pro.jpg

 

This should give you an idea of what I'm working with. The card can't be very long, but it can be a reasonable (I think) up to 11 inches with my custom front panel. I also have space in the case for a single 120mm AIO.

 

You're in luck my friend because, I once had a reference 290 and now I have an MSI 390x! You're even more in luck because I have some benchmarks of my system with a 390x and with a reference 290. First, here's some Firestrike benchmarks: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/2193400/fs/5115729/fs/6746375

 

MSI R9 390x: 11,160

Reference 290 (default fan profile): 8669

Reference 290 (Fixed highspeed fan to prevent throttling): 9012

 

I'm not gonna hammer on noise because we both know how loud the 290 reference is but I will say the following for the MSI 390x. This is a quiet mother f**ker. If the GPU is below 60 the fans turn off entirely which will basically be anytime you're just browsing the web and what not (provided you're using a single monitor). In non triple-A titles it's really quiet and I like to turn on frame rate control to cap the fps at 120 or so just to keep it from going balls to the wall doing 300 fps for no reason. Synthetic benchmarks will make it slightly audible but it's certainly not bad at all. Mind you it is a beefy 2.5 slot card.

 

Performance: destroys everything I've played at 1080p maxed out. Is it noticeable from the 290 change? I can tell the lows are higher than before by a significant margin, and it's smooth as can be.

 

Athetics: Cooler looks good and the card feels really solid and of the highest quality.

 

While you could ghetto rig an HG10, I'd say it's worth it to trade cards. Sell the 290 and buy and MSI or Sapphire 390x

 

A good in depth review: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_radeon_r9_390x_gaming_8g_oc_review,27.html

 

TLDR: It's worlds better than a 290 and will have a longer life due to it's lower temps

 

Also, I RMA'ed my reference XFX 290 and they sent me a DD model back. EDIT: this was early fall 2014

[NannerBeans]

No it's 250W, a 290X starts at 300W.

 

Running out of options, guess I should wait until Christmas to see what I get.

It's actually 275W for 290

[byalexandr]

Look for a reference 980 if you ask me - that seems to be optimal in your small case. That or a R9 Nano

Probably too expensive, especially the R9 Nano, even though I absolutely love that card

[byalexandr]

You're in luck my friend because, I once had a reference 290 and now I have an MSI 390x! You're even more in luck because I have some benchmarks of my system with a 390x and with a reference 290. First, here's some Firestrike benchmarks: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/2193400/fs/5115729/fs/6746375

 

MSI R9 390x: 11,160

Reference 290 (default fan profile): 8669

Reference 290 (Fixed highspeed fan to prevent throttling): 9012

 

I'm not gonna hammer on noise because we both know how loud the 290 reference is but I will say the following for the MSI 390x. This is a quiet mother f**ker. If the GPU is below 60 the fans turn off entirely which will basically be anytime you're just browsing the web and what not (provided you're using a single monitor). In non triple-A titles it's really quiet and I like to turn on frame rate control to cap the fps at 120 or so just to keep it from going balls to the wall doing 300 fps for no reason. Synthetic benchmarks will make it slightly audible but it's certainly not bad at all. Mind you it is a beefy 2.5 slot card.

 

Performance: destroys everything I've played at 1080p maxed out. Is it noticeable from the 290 change? I can tell the lows are higher than before by a significant margin, and it's smooth as can be.

 

Athetics: Cooler looks good and the card feels really solid and of the highest quality.

 

While you could ghetto rig an HG10, I'd say it's worth it to trade cards. Sell the 290 and buy and MSI or Sapphire 390x

 

A good in depth review: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_radeon_r9_390x_gaming_8g_oc_review,27.html

 

TLDR: It's worlds better than a 290 and will have a longer life due to it's lower temps

 

Also, I RMA'ed my reference XFX 290 and they sent me a DD model back. 

Can I RMA the card if I'm the second buyer? I have the card registered to my account on XFX but I'm not sure if I can RMA, and can I RMA if nothing is wrong with the card? Can I give them a stupid reason like it artifacts or something?

 

It's actually 275W for 290

Shouldn't matter, my 450W can handle it. Even my old 400W EVGA PSU handled it

[don_svetlio]

Can I RMA the card if I'm the second buyer? I have the card registered to my account on XFX but I'm not sure if I can RMA, and can I RMA if nothing is wrong with the card? Can I give them a stupid reason like it artifacts or something?

 

Shouldn't matter, my 450W can handle it. Even my old 400W EVGA PSU handled it

You can break the card yourself - just touch the back of the core when charged with static and it's dead

[winningsince1337]

Can I RMA the card if I'm the second buyer? I have the card registered to my account on XFX but I'm not sure if I can RMA, and can I RMA if nothing is wrong with the card? Can I give them a stupid reason like it artifacts or something?

I RMA'ed mine without a receipt and I bought it second hand from a miner. However, I remember they were very thorough with their test results and they charge you for shipping back if it's not broken so I wouldn't. Given the card has been out for over 2 years now, you'd probably need a receipt.

[byalexandr]

You can break the card yourself - just touch the back of the core when charged with static and it's dead

Yes, but I purchased the card on eBay, not sure if I can even RMA it if I'm the second owner. That and it uses a PowerColor reference cooler, not sure if XFX would care as it's the exact same cooler with a different sticker...

[byalexandr]

I RMA'ed mine without a receipt and I bought it second hand from a miner. However, I remember they were very thorough with their test results and they charge you for shipping back if it's not broken so I wouldn't. Given the card has been out for over 2 years now, you'd probably need a receipt.

Damn.

[TheRandomness]

You can break the card yourself - just touch the back of the core when charged with static and it's dead

I could never do that to any card D:

[byalexandr]

I could never do that to any card D:

Neither could I.

 

I could OC it far beyond waht's it's capable of though, if I was guaranteed I would get a newer better card. Even then it would be very hard to kill the card.

[byalexandr]

I'm really thinking about the HG10 now, but I need help finding the proper AIO to go with it. What I'm afraid of is that even though the tubing is on rotating coupling on the waterblock, it won't rotate far enough so that it takes up less than 2 slots of space (or 2.5, just so the tubing doesn't stick out of my case). Can you guys help me find the right Corsair AIO that will mount to the HG10 and be low profile enough that it won't stick out of the side of my SG05?

 

Like I said the 290's performance is good enough for me, but I would like a cooler and quieter card even though I honestly don't mind the reference cooler.

 

Edit: The H55 seems to be a good choice, what do you guys think?

 

@don_svetlio

[SteveGrabowski0]

Why not an i5 if you're not happy with performance? Running my Xeon E3-1231v3 as a 3.8 GHz i3 (by leaving on HT but shutting off two cores) holds me back from full gpu usage on a GTX 970, while running it as a 3.6 GHz i5 (by enabling all cores but disabling HT) still keeps me at full gpu usage in the vast majority of games. With the 290 being really close in performance to the 970 I imagine you're being held back a bit by your i3 also.

[byalexandr]

Why not an i5 if you're not happy with performance? Running my Xeon E3-1231v3 as a 3.8 GHz i3 (by leaving on HT but shutting off two cores) holds me back from full gpu usage on a GTX 970, while running it as a 3.6 GHz i5 (by enabling all cores but disabling HT) still keeps me at full gpu usage in the vast majority of games. With the 290 being really close in performance to the 970 I imagine you're being held back a bit by your i3 also.

Only in games like ARMA. I do plan on getting the E3-1231v3 soon but for now my i3 is fine.

[NannerBeans]

Can I RMA the card if I'm the second buyer? I have the card registered to my account on XFX but I'm not sure if I can RMA, and can I RMA if nothing is wrong with the card? Can I give them a stupid reason like it artifacts or something?

 

Shouldn't matter, my 450W can handle it. Even my old 400W EVGA PSU handled it

XFX warranty is not transferable so you won't be able to RMA it. 

 

Also when I talked about wattage I didn't mean it as how much you would need but as how much you had to cool. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

Only in games like ARMA. I do plan on getting the E3-1231v3 soon but for now my i3 is fine.

 

Arma 3 runs like crap on my 1231v3 too, I'd be surprised if your performance improved much from a cpu upgrade in that game unless you went with a 4690k and overclocked the hell out of it. That game is enormously bound by single thread performance. I guess I'd look at the watercooler then, going 290 to 390x probably isn't worth the price but I'd imagine you can extract significant extra performance out of a reference 290 with a Kraken G10 or with that Corsair unit. Though maybe not with a 450W psu.

[byalexandr]

XFX warranty is not transferable so you won't be able to RMA it. 

 

Also when I talked about wattage I didn't mean it as how much you would need but as how much you had to cool. 

Yeah, TDP is 250W.

 

 

Arma 3 runs like crap on my 1231v3 too, I'd be surprised if your performance improved much from a cpu upgrade in that game unless you went with a 4690k and overclocked the hell out of it. That game is enormously bound by single thread performance. I guess I'd look at the watercooler then, going 290 to 390x probably isn't worth the price but I'd imagine you can extract significant extra performance out of a reference 290 with a Kraken G10 or with that Corsair unit. Though maybe not with a 450W psu.

I thought it was multi-threaded. It ran great when I had an FX 6300.

 

And I went ahead and asked for the HG10 and an H55, hopefully I can get some good performance and temps/noise.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I thought it was multi-threaded. It ran great when I had an FX 6300.

 

I haven't played it in a while, but I seem to remember it leaving 4 threads idle on my Xeon and requiring drops in draw distance to get to a consistent 55-60 fps. I'll have to try it out when I get some DDR3-2400 RAM though, as it wouldn't surprise me to see it having the same kind of optimization issues as Ryse.

[NannerBeans]

Yeah, TDP is 250W.

It's 275W

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2397/radeon-r9-290.html

[byalexandr]

It's 275W

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2397/radeon-r9-290.html

Huh, wouldn't have guessed.

[NannerBeans]

Huh, wouldn't have guessed.

It was actually a question in a recent Awesome Hardware ep lol. It's the only reason I remember it. 

[byalexandr]

It was actually a question in a recent Awesome Hardware ep lol. It's the only reason I remember it. 

I thought it was 250W is all. It's well beyond that now that I have it OC'd.