• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

BIOS with the lowest voltage R9 290

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Fenix_ps3

Registered
Joined
May 12, 2014
Hello! I need your help.

I bought a R9 290 and I need a BIOS with the lowest voltage but when I go to Techpowerup they only show frequencies of memory and core.

How could I find it? I know that I can't edit my BIOS.
 
Doesn't software change it?

Without someone posting what voltage they are getting, you won't know.
 
I'm with E_D on this one as two different cards from the same line and manufacturer can have different base voltages depending on the chip itself. I have seen this first hand one card base was 1.025 and the other was 1.075, otherwise identical cards. You'd be further ahead using software to drop the voltage and test for stability on your own.
 
Bios has a voltage range based on your cards asic score. Lower asic = higher voltage. Outside of custom bioses likke the Asus pt-x special benching bios (higher voltage, no powertune, optional vdroop) or the whatshisname mining bioses with disabled rops they all give your card the same voltage.


Edit:whatshisname is TheStilt I think. Never mined so not sure
 
Bios has a voltage range based on your cards asic score. Lower asic = higher voltage. Outside of custom bioses likke the Asus pt-x special benching bios (higher voltage, no powertune, optional vdroop) or the whatshisname mining bioses with disabled rops they all give your card the same voltage.


Edit:whatshisname is TheStilt I think. Never mined so not sure

No, I'm looking for the lowest voltage on core.

Each Bios has a different voltage if the brand or ASIC is different, so, I'd like to know what is the voltage that Bios that I could download from Techpowerup.

I'm not be able to change voltage on BIOS editing it, so, I'd like to find a BIOS with the lowest voltage.
 
Every retail bios I have tried was the exact same core voltage on my cards. And I've tried at least a dozen of them. Every retail bios has a table that looks at the asic score and picks it's default bios based on the asic score.

It worked exactly the same on the 7900 series cards. When you modified your bios to change the voltage you did it based on what your cards asic was.

With the 290 series you cannot edit the bios or the card will not function. The bios has to be signed by amd. The only way you are going to get a lower voltage is if you run one of thestilts mining bioses that are terrible for gaming because rops are disabled, you use software to modify it from within Windows, or you create a custom bios then get amd to sign it for you like thestilt did.

But if you would like to try bioses I haven't tried, you can exclude the sapphire bioses, the msi stock and gaming bioses, the Asus bioses, the powercolor stock and pcs+ bioses, and the stock his bios. I've tried all of them just to see if any were more or less stable, and they all load my two separate brand cards to the same core voltage. Because default voltage is based on asic score.
 
Let me reiterate....

Why not undervolt in software lime MSI afterburner?

Also, not sure it reads the asic for voltage. I have seen the same exact card with the same (ok.. It was a point or so off, lol) asic and different voltage. The cards are binned to specific clocks under specific thresholds like tdp. While asic does have an association with voltage needed, I do not beleive makers set voltage to the asic value. I have switched bios and the voltage was different (factory bios').

As far as undervolting.. you can lose stability, certainly. However one can usually get away with some undervolting before you lose stability.
 
Well, every bios I've tried loads my cards to 1.17 +/- .03 under valley/heaven constant loads. Except pt3, which loads to 1.26. And I've tried a lot of bioses trying to figure out what is broken about dual link dvi in 290series cards and if it was bios related(it isnt). I'm admittedly assuming they still use asic for voltage because of how similar the cards are and behave to my 7950s. But 7950s 100% for sure absolutely used asic to decide voltage. You had to edit the portion of the table based on your asic value to edit your voltage.




Edit: to be clear, I'm not saying it's impossible to find a bios that will have lower voltage. But at the asic level my cards are at, all of the bioses I have tried have been so close in voltage as to be indistinguishable from each other outside of the pt3. It wouldn't be hard for a manufacturer to have their own voltage table and get it signed by amd, but if it exists I haven't found it yet and I've looked.
 
Last edited:
Back