R9 290X and 290 Owners Club

Or some people would just call it a 290nx in that case...LOL! Curious where this is standard in 'most industries' though. Never heard of adding a letter "N" for the word non, ever, LOL!. Please lift up the rock I was under for this common notation.

Man this is very tempting because we all know if its true powercolor will change it soon so the unlocking to 290x wont be available for long.

I unlocked 2x 6950 powercolors to 6970's 2 or so years ago and they have had zero issues thus far and overclocked really well also so as far as the reliability im a believer if this is true.

a person may have to jump on one or two of these 290 non x powercolors asap if this is truly happening im so torn right now lol as i planned to watercool anyways and dont care about the ref cooler.

my biggest wonder is if the 290 oc as well as the 290x on water.

I'm not really convinced to reference cards and I doubt if any non-reference will be available in next 2-3 weeks. I guess I will wait for ASUS DCII or something similar.

Btw. are these cards making any noise during work ? I mean like whistling etc not cooler noise. I don't really care about it during benching but if I get one then I probably won't use it only for benching.
Sapphire R9 290 is actually cheapest in local stores and includes BF4 but I still wish non-reference one more.

ivanlabrie said:

Confirmed...one more guy at OCN: http://www.overclock.net/t/1442692/...r9-290-unlocked-into-r9-290x/30#post_21194328

I want two 290s!!!

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That's interesting, I'll try flashing my two 290 non x cards and see if they unlock.

Yeah, small dataset I know...I'm still getting the 290 since I find the 290X to be too expensive for what it does, and if I can flash it succesfully it'll be 100% worth it.

If not, I can still mine with the card and make 7 bucks per day, so it's still good. Maybe put the mining profits towards its big brother after selling it for a profit locally. Perks of living in the land of uber expensive hardware (Argentina).

Woomack said:

I'm not really convinced to reference cards and I doubt if any non-reference will be available in next 2-3 weeks. I guess I will wait for ASUS DCII or something similar.

Btw. are these cards making any noise during work ? I mean like whistling etc not cooler noise. I don't really care about it during benching but if I get one then I probably won't use it only for benching.
Sapphire R9 290 is actually cheapest in local stores and includes BF4 but I still wish non-reference one more.

Click to expand...

Coil whine you mean? Some samples do have it, but you won't hear it over dat blower at 60%
I think you would be better off grabbing a 290 and an aftermarket cooler like the MK-26 if you want it asap, if not wait for non ref. I wouldn't risk getting an Asus card with what they did last gen, second rev cards weren't so good and Gputweak only is kind of a PITA for ocing, and most were voltage locked too (DcuII). Sapphire or Msi seems like the best choice, at least based on last gen.

ivanlabrie said:

Coil whine you mean? Some samples do have it, but you won't hear it over dat blower at 60%
I think you would be better off grabbing a 290 and an aftermarket cooler like the MK-26 if you want it asap, if not wait for non ref. I wouldn't risk getting an Asus card with what they did last gen, second rev cards weren't so good and Gputweak only is kind of a PITA for ocing, and most were voltage locked too (DcuII). Sapphire or Msi seems like the best choice, at least based on last gen.

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My last 3 MSI cards were kinda fail and their support is pathetic.
About coil whine, I hear my MSI GTX670 all the time when it's in 3D even though case is closed.
I'm using the same D-Tek waterblock for all my cards in past 5 years so I think I will use it with R9 290 too. MK-26 is expensive , about $100 with shipping in Poland.
Sapphire R9 290 is in best price here. All other brands cost $50+ more and for next 2 days there is free shipping so I have to think if I really want it ...

My 290x has coil whine in high fps situations (talking in the hundreds to thousands for benchmarks). I don't recall it when folding.

Woomack, there were no reports of succesful Sapphire 290 shader unlocks btw...maybe you can prove them wrong?

Janus67 said:

If I understand your question correctly, those are the setting that the editors/reviewers of this site are going to use to benchmark BF4. So if you want to be in accordance with those those are the settings that they decided on.

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Yes, that is what I was wondering. Also, what were the settings you wanted ran which you answered above. I'm not interested in benching but I was running it for people to use as a reference so running it over and over wass not something I was interested in doing so knowing the requirements would have helped.

Btw. are these cards making any noise during work ?

Click to expand...

I have not heard any whine or noise (except for that fan) from mine so far.

Once I hear of a good amount of cards unlocking I'll probably give it a shot but a couple is just not worth it imo. I figure mine is early enough in the release that if there is something confirmed for early cards it should be part of the lot so I can do it even if they "fix" it.

EDIT: I just installed version 17 of Afterburner and it now supports voltage changes on the 290.

Hi, new member here. Just got my Sapphire R9 290 from Newegg, and I'm curious if my Heaven score looks about right? (CPU: i5 2500K @ 4.4GHz)

It sure does...for stock at least.

If you want submit with the format in the OP and I'll add you to the spreadsheet.

For that benchmark it should be set to Extreme right?

Also, I've read a couple places that people with existing 290s are able to redeem the free BF4 now offered. Has anyone tried and/or succeeded at this?

#71

Its a nice score for stock.

I never do Extreme just "normal" and 1080p.

I'm gonna post my first results in a couple of days...local guy was selling a cheap used 290 non x after benching it so I figured, what the hay!?

So far it seems from what ive read the most unlocks have been on
XFX and Powercolor cards. i have not read of a failed powercolor unlock yet but have seen 1 failed xfx on that forum.

Just ordered a powercolor 290 so i guess i will see.
I couldnt justify the 290x 150$(200+$ here in canada) difference anyways from the benchmarks I've seen.

I plan to watercool it but im not sure what full cover block i will buy yet.

so i will check for the unlock and if it works i will wait for the waterblock before putting it in the system.

hopefully it works ive had good luck unlocking in the past knock on wood .

I should add that the canadian retailers are selling powercolor 290 at 410$ vs the 290x cards at 599.99-649.99$ pretty messed up if you ask me.

Yeah, it's a no brainer man...
I might get a 290X from a bencher I know. I inquired about the max clocks he got, he has 3 for sale. Same price shipped as a new 290 would cost me, and no need to tinker with unlocks.

I was thinking about Sapphire R9 290 but all were sold out about 5 mins after my last post in this thread. I saw that Gigabyte cards are even cheaper ( about $15 cheaper in most stores in Poland ) but also out of stock.
In Poland R9 290 cost ~$500 and 290X $625+ so prices are pretty bad. I may reconsider waiting for non-reference card.

saphires so far are a negative for unlocks as are asus - msi-his and gigabyte

http://www.overclock.net/t/1443242/the-r9-290-290x-unlock-thread

Unofficial 290 -> 290X Flash Results (Click to hide)
This will be updated whenever I find someone who flashes their card.

Some of these links have official benchmarks comparing them, but most don't. Some of these are also copies from the spreadsheet above, but I'm putting them in here just in case.

Sapphire
Unlocked: 0
Locked: One, Two, Three, Four Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen , Fourteen, Fifteen

Gigabyte
Unlocked: 0
Locked: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

Powercolor
Unlocked: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten
Locked: 0

MSI
Unlocked: 0
Locked: One, Two, Three, Four, Five , Six

HIS
Unlocked: 0
Locked: One

XFX
Unlocked: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six
Locked: One, Two, Three, Four (Some of these may be suspect- GPU-Z Bug incorrectly showing correct shaders)

ASUS:
Unlocked: 0
Locked: One, Two

Overclocking your 290 from 947Mhz to 1000Mhz grants you a ~3% performance increase. Successfully flashing your bios to a 290X will give you a ~4% performance increase (this is when both the 290 and 290x's clocks are the same). Combine it, and you get a ~7% performance increase after successfully flashing a stock 290 with a 290X bios.

Powercolor is unavailable in Poland. We have Club3D which is from the same manufacturer but not on stock. XFX is also unavailable.