GTX670 TriSLi to R9 290 xfire watercooled

[OntarioTL]

As the old saying goes "out with the old, in with the new" time again. The damn upgrade bug bit me hard and I went back to Red camp again. I probably could have waited for Maxwell, but thats another 6 months at least. Given the value of what AMD came out with, it was hard to pass up. Yes, the 780Ti is king for single GPU again, but I'm not only getting one, I'm getting two for xfire!

And since 3 complaints that are against the R9 290 with heat, noise, and power, I can rectify 2 of those issues. As for power, I have enough and I don't really worry about electricity bills.

They finally arrived today!

 

Hard to find these suckers now. I made sure I could get these with the cards or it was no deal to upgrade

 

Neat looking cooler, but does it ever suck. I think its a melted down HD5870 shroud and fan which would explain things

 

Time to start strippin!

 

No more nickel plated for this guy. Learned my lesson no matter how much they tell me they fixed the issue.

 

Ready to go

 

One down, One to go.

 

Both done and ready for install

 

Time to disconnect the tubes from the rads, and pull the case out to remove the GTX670's

 

My external cooling setup, makes it nice and quiet since it lined out the other side of the room.

 

Bye bye, you have served me well

 

R9 290's installed

 

Had to use black sleeved 8 pin connectors as I only had blue 6 pin

 

So far with the little time I have had with these cards have impressed me beyond my expectations. I really walk on pins and needles with AMD drivers as I suffered the dreaded grey screen of death on the HD5800 series line, cold bug on the HD5970 and thats when I went back to Green. Not to say green didn't have their own issues with drivers from time to time, it was never as bad as AMD.
Again I am impressed with the beta drivers so far and look forward to maybe more performance in the coming months. I have seen a few other forum post about having issues with drivers and black screen on BF4 but so far I have been lucky.
I'm just starting to stretch its legs with overclocking and I maybe near the limit, but until Afterburner comes out with a new (or is it out already?) version to have full support for the 290 series.
I have so far reached 1.1Ghz (from 947Mhz) GPU and 3000Mhz (from 2500Mhz) Mem stable from my testing. Now keep this in mind that this is without throttling like it does on air.

Noise - 0db
Temps - default Idle 30c
Load 37c

1100/1300 Idle 31c
Load 42c

AMD what where you thinking with this OEM cooling?

 

Reserved for benchmarks. more to come later in the morning

Time to compare Tri-SLi and xfire. Have to justify my purchase

Some specs before going on.

Asus Z77 WS
3770k delided and running at 4.8Ghz
16GB G.skill 2400Mhz DDR3
Raid 0 SSD x 240Gb
Seasonic X1250W Power supply

Evga GTX670 FTW 2GB Tri SLi running at (1267Mhz,1287Mhz, and 1306Mhz GPU/3300Mhz Memory)
Xfx R9 290 xfire (default 947Mhz GPU/2500Mhz Memory)(overclocked 1100Mhz GPU/3000Mhz Memory)

Valley Benchmark (All settings max, excl AA. 5760x1200)

Evga GTX670 FTW 2GB Tri SLi

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (default)

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked)

 

Heaven Benchmark (all settings max, excl AA. 5760x1200)


Evga GTX670 FTW 2GB Tri SLi

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (default)

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked)


Rest of the benchmarking without fancy screenshots

 

Crysis Dx10 All Very high settings x86 gpu benchmark (no AA) 5760x1200

 

Evga GTX670 FTW 2GB Tri SLi   Min. fps 11.63    Max. fps 84.56  Avg. fps 61.43

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (default) Min.fps 25.86   Max. fps  83.37    Avg. fps 60.13

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked) Min.fps 48.37  Max.fps 101.84    Avg. fps 71.54

 

 

 

Tomb Raider Max settings incl. Tress FX hair (no AA) 5760x1200

 

Evga GTX670 FTW 2GB Tri SLi   Min. fps 1.8    Max. fps 62.1  Avg. fps 29.8

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (default) Min.fps 3.0   Max. fps  73.9    Avg. fps 59.3

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked) Min.fps 3.0   Max.fps 80    Avg. fps 66.3

 

 

Battlefield 4 Ultra settings Single Player(no AA) 5760x1200

 

Evga GTX670 FTW 2GB Tri SLi   Min. fps 3    Max. fps 97  Avg. fps 48.196

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (default) Min.fps 46    Max. fps 102     Avg. fps 65.79

 

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked) Min.fps 49       Max.fps 103    Avg. fps 71.15 

[AlwaysFSX]

Any chances for performance numbers soon?

[MbV93]

OMG so epic!

[OntarioTL]

Any chances for performance numbers soon?

 

See first post again

[AlwaysFSX]

See first post again

Having fun with those I see

[atrash]

That is some pretty high overclocking numbers there. Can't wait to see the oc'd results for Heaven.

[OntarioTL]

That is some pretty high overclocking numbers there. Can't wait to see the oc'd results for Heaven.

 

Yeah I was hoping for 1.2Ghz but we'll see if I can do some more tweaking. These cards state they are voltage unlocked so I'll find out.

 

Heaven o/c for 290's was nice, I can't believe I botched the upload for it to Photobucket though. The other benchmarks I did don't require screenshot such as BF4, Crysis (always have to test this one), and Tomb Raider. I wanted to test more, but I did want to get these babies installed as well.

[OntarioTL]

Sorry double post

[hiyayhi]

Sweet!

[OntarioTL]

Posted the rest of the benchmarks that I could do before removing the Tri-Sli setup.

 

See first post

[TechFan@ic]

I can feel the silky smoothness of those frame rates all the way from here.
Congrats man, killer build !

[Gunjob]

[Monty007]

Wow. Nice setup. Especially the external rad setup in the other room. You could easily sell your 670 setup and make up a good chunk of the R 9 cost.

[ShiverMePenguins]

So you are manually over clocking? Wynaut use the new system and have it reach the temps it was built for?

[OntarioTL]

So you are manually over clocking? Wynaut use the new system and have it reach the temps it was built for?

I'm used to the old way and still experimenting. I'll maybe try the new amd way but I don't know if it will actually work better.

[ShiverMePenguins]

I'm used to the old way and still experimenting. I'll maybe try the new amd way but I don't know if it will actually work better.

Well if you don't mind getting the GPU very hot its pretty nice.

[ShiverMePenguins]

Set it for a specific temp and fan speed then have fun

[danBrown]

nice. 

[jecho]

Do you think your bf4 numbers suffer from lack of enough Vram?

[OntarioTL]

 

LMAO! This kills me every time I see it 

Do you think your bf4 numbers suffer from lack of enough Vram?

It is a possibility if I upped the AA in the game. I don't so I think it has to do more with the updated engine and what it's capable of. I could be wrong, but it was much smoother because of the min frame rate jumped so it wasn't as noticeable when lots of textures were on the screen.

[iSuzak]

Awesome

[OntarioTL]

I tried pushing the gpu's some more and looks like my ceiling has hit the 1100Mhz mark. I tried upping the power limit and its a no go for now. However I did manage to squeeze a little more out of the Ram. I got it to 1400Mhz from 1300.

 

Here is the results to compare from page 1 overclocks.

 

 

1100Mhz GPU 1300Mhz Memory

 

1100Mhz GPU 1400Mhz Memory

 

1100Mhz GPU 1300Mhz Memory

 

1100Mhz GPU 1400Mhz Memory

[Raboo]

Sweet rig

[OntarioTL]

Sweet rig

Thanks 

[Hunter259]

I would have just kept the trisli. You didnt get that much more performance....