SOLVED R9-290/290X caused Black Screen ?

I was planing to get a Sapphire R9-290 ( Tri-X to be specific , for now , maybe some other model if available in future ) soon.

Then I stumble upon something on the Internet that many people who had bought the R9-290X / 290 ( Mostly 290X I seen , there is one or two for 290 )
They are having Black Screen issue during Boot Up / Gaming / Benchmark
Sounds like HD 7870 all over again.

Mostly I heard it's because the fault of " Elpida Memory "
It goes same way for both OCed / Stock cards. But since currently all the 290 and 290X are only Reference Design ones , there's no aftermarket ones yet.

So anyone else have any idea what's actually going on here, is this the card problem or Driver issues ?
For that AMD themselves admitted and " SORT OF " fix this problem with their 13.12 Drivers update

" RESOLVED ISSUES
-​​​May resolve intermittent black screens or display loss observed on some AMD Radeon™ R9 290X and AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics cards "

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-12WINReleaseNotes.aspx

Anyone here owns a 290 / 290X , have you experience such problem ?
Is this hardware faulty ? Driver faulty ?
Guys think this will blow by in a few months time and Im 101% safe to purchase a 290 / 290X with problem free in future ?

Or I should just jump the gun and go ahead with the 280X Toxic instead
( THAT IS HOPEFULLY THIS ONE TOO DOESN'T HAVE ANY ISSUES )

black screen issues are wide spread and unresolved. i get them along with most people who even try to overclock the card mildly.

personally i wouldn't recommend you buy a 290/x at this time because the problem there is a good chance of having it happen to you right now amd really needs to acknowledge the problem first of all and then resolve it and if they cant resolve it do you really want to end up with a card that has this issue when you know about it before the purchase.

SF101 said:

black screen issues are wide spread and unresolved. i get them along with most people who even try to overclock the card mildly.

personally i wouldn't recommend you buy a 290/x at this time because the problem there is a good chance of having it happen to you right now amd really needs to acknowledge the problem first of all and then resolve it and if they cant resolve it do you really want to end up with a card that has this issue when you know about it before the purchase.

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But when people mentioned that they blame the batch of cards from

" Elpida Memory "

are the only ones which will suffer Black Screen ( There was another brand name of batch , but that reported less could be just Overclocking problem or something like you said ) least most the ones reported are using

" Elpida Memory "

What does " Elpida Memory " does for the GPU ??
Well if it's a fact that it's Hardware faulty hell...it will just be HD 7870 all over again like I have now , 1 Month no GPU !

Well not entire no GPU , had to use back this old HD 7870 then If so.
If it was Driver problem too could be worst , will have GPU but can't even play or maybe boot up PC till new Drivers release

Meaning I will have bought a 290 and have it place on display while I run my HD 7870 till it's fix LOL this is just so agonizing

But never mind that all , but does anyone have SOLID info what's actually the problem here I want to know that at least.

Hardware or Driver ? As I mentioned I did dig some info myself so far it's all this what I got

1) AMD Driver ( Since AMD themselves claiming to " MAYBE ABLE RESOLVE " on the Release Notes )
2) Elpida Memory batch fault ( Which I have no idea what this means , since I don't know what Elpida Memory does for AMD GPU )
3) There was only like one post , some guy said he OCed too much caused the Black Screen , since this is a " 1% " thing I doubt OCing wrongly the real issue here , BUT I know it's a FACT , OC can cause it.

It is NOT resolved and its NOT only elpidia memory its just the majority of cards have that memory even the hynix mems are blackscreening. so far NO card has been expempt to these issues.
some dont have it but i feel thats a rarity at this point.
some are caused from overclocking.
and some cards develope the issue later even at stock.

Do you really want to take a chance and end up with a blackscreening 290 that may never get fixed?

If amd knew how to fix this they would have because do you know how many RMA's have happened because of this? some people rmaing up to 3 times and still having the same exact issue.

I say if you need a card now. get a 780GTX if you can wait . wait and see if this blackscreen issue is resolved or wait and see what maxwell brings.

If you really really feel the need to buy a 290 and potentially risk having this issue then that's your call but dont say you wernt warned later if the issue creeps up and AMD doesn't issue a fix.

May sound dramatic but this issue is going on 2 months and no fix. and the .12 drivers are not a fix i think AMD released those under a different name from the beta drivers just as a Token HEY WERE TRYING STUFF ordeal.

SF101 said:

It is NOT resolved and its NOT only elpidia memory its just the majority of cards have that memory even the hynix mems are blackscreening. so far NO card has been expempt to these issues.
some dont have it but i feel thats a rarity at this point.
some are caused from overclocking.
and some cards develope the issue later even at stock.

Do you really want to take a chance and end up with a blackscreening 290 that may never get fixed?

If amd knew how to fix this they would have because do you know how many RMA's have happened because of this? some people rmaing up to 3 times and still having the same exact issue.

I say if you need a card now. get a 780GTX if you can wait . wait and see if this blackscreen issue is resolved or wait and see what maxwell brings.

If you really really feel the need to buy a 290 and potentially risk having this issue then that's your call but dont say you wernt warned later if the issue creeps up and AMD doesn't issue a fix.

May sound dramatic but this issue is going on 2 months and no fix. and the .12 drivers are not a fix i think AMD released those under a different name from the beta drivers just as a Token HEY WERE TRYING STUFF ordeal.

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Seriously it's just like HD 7870 all over again , even back the HD 7870 some people RMA it over 3 times and yet no fix , luckily I only had to do it once.

This is just sad even when you have the money for it there are still obstacles

Well I ain't gonna touch anything from the Green Camp , I think you know the reason

O F*$# it , I guess I will just settle down with a 280X Toxic instead I guess if things don't get any better. I most probably gonna change it within a Year or so lol , same goes with my HD 7870 now , it's only 1 Years old LOL ! This is the PC World , we don't dwell on old stuff.

By fact my rig it's pretty outdated from my view
Alright , CASE CLOSE !

or you could get a 780GTX for around the same price and have no glaring issues and much more performance than a 280x and right now amd pricing is crazy.

I don't usually recommend nvidia but as of right now until amd fixes this i have no issue recommending them ive seen some 780GTX's on sale for close to 400$ which is a pretty good price.

SF101 said:

or you could get a 780GTX for around the same price and have no glaring issues and much more performance than a 280x and right now amd pricing is crazy.

I don't usually recommend nvidia but as of right now until amd fixes this i have no issue recommending them ive seen some 780GTX's on sale for close to 400$ which is a pretty good price.

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Even if I want to put aside my fanboytism and go for NVIDIA , the pricing here has always been " crazy " for NVIDIA it's super overprice

For a GTX 780 , MSI , Palit and Gainward is the cheapest but I will have to pay at least 584$ - 645$ it's basically same price as previous one in USA , but this price has been cut actually , before GTX 780 we selling is for 769$ - 800$
Which is ASUS and Gigabyte is still at that price now....

The closes I can come to the price of a 290 is only
GTX 770 price at around 399$ - 430$
( MSI Lighting / Gaming , Palit Jetstream , Gigabyte and ASUS )

But Sapphire R9-280X Toxic it's around 384$

For GTX 780 definitely out of the question , for that price , I better off with 290 which is cheaper yet stronger too.

But if MSI GTX 770 Lighting maybe , have to pay bit extra , can it go up against the 280X Toxic ? You do know the Sapphire 280X Toxic is the strongest of all HD 7970 and 280X.

If I recall correctly the 280X Toxic is slightly stronger than all the other normal GTX 770

We too have Zotac and Galaxy it's rare have to ask the shop for pricing , I can't find it online.

Zotac GTX 770 AMP , it's about 461$ ( It's 250 more in my currency compared to the 280X Toxic , which is alot , you must understand we are discussing this over in my currency , in USD will make little difference indeed )

I had similar issues on my HD7970. After RMA, 2nd card was working better and finally drivers made it stop when card was on stock ( after OC it was still happening from time to time ).
I'm not on any side and now I wanted to get R9 290X but I see that 1st non-reference GTX780Ti in local stores cost not much more ( like Gigabyte ~$50-70 more than ref. R9 290X ) so I will probably get another nvidia.

There are better 280X than Sapphire. Point is only if you want it to run on stock or overclocked.
GTX770 is about the same as R9 280X or HD7970 ... but GTX780 is much faster. If you had prices like in EU or US then you could buy it for not much more.

Woomack said:

I had similar issues on my HD7970. After RMA, 2nd card was working better and finally drivers made it stop when card was on stock ( after OC it was still happening from time to time ).
I'm not on any side and now I wanted to get R9 290X but I see that 1st non-reference GTX780Ti in local stores cost not much more ( like Gigabyte ~$50-70 more than ref. R9 290X ) so I will probably get another nvidia.

There are better 280X than Sapphire. Point is only if you want it to run on stock or overclocked.
GTX770 is about the same as R9 280X or HD7970 ... but GTX780 is much faster. If you had prices like in EU or US then you could buy it for not much more.

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Well I don't OC , I usually use Out of the Box performance.
Which why I think somehow the 280X Toxic is best 280X for me now. Even in terms of OC I think it's still the best 280X , it still have 15% more headroom from what I saw on reviews. But the card it's just super power hungry...
Since the 280X Toxic it's already heavily overclocked by factory which I think it's the top card now on my list , besides the 290.

Check out Benchmarking and all , by default the GTX 770 is slightly stronger than the HD 7970 Ghz Edition , but the 280X Toxic is more than slightly stronger even so I think they both pared up ( I mean the 280X Toxic vs GTX 780 Lighting / Jetstream / Amp Edition etc )
If that's the case and Im more of an AMD Fanboy , I think Im most likely to be leaning towards the 280X Toxic ( Not to mention that sweet triple fan , LED lighting Sapphire logo and awesome looking backplate ! )

Unless if GTX 780 is able to sell low as 500$ here at least...then I might consider going to Green Camp. Which sadly isn't as I mentioned at the price even for now , I rather take my chances with a 290 then lol...

EDIT : Well I saw this video comparison with Sapphire Dual-X 280X and the MSI GTX 770 Gaming , both most basic card on the range. Both are the exact same performance. So case close , my strategy now
1) Wait few months to see if the problem be solve
2) If yes then I will just got with a 290 if not , 280X Toxic it is then

Look, the GTX 7xx/Titan series has been out a lot longer than AMD brand new Radeon R9 290/280/270/260X. NVidia's cards are more stable because their drivers are more mature. AMD will keep releasing updated drivers for your glorious speed-demons and everything will eventually be OK. By the way, I'm an nVidia fanboy.

But I check that NVIDIA too have hand full of problems , black screen , artifacts etc
Even for some the card doesn't even work !
I guess I just say F@$# it , YOLO , I can't dodge everything , might just as well go ahead and buy it and solve the problem if it exist.

Downside is still have to face all this ludacris headache problems even after paying so much for a damn piece of plastic ! That I might be changing again less than a year = ="

At this time, I would say Nvidia cards/drivers seem to be working better out of the box, at least compared to the 290/290x cards anyway. Since you are not really going for that card, its problems you listed do not really matter, do they?

We also have a 290/290x owners thread which people have mentioned these issues. May want to search for that for a quick read (or before you post as it was covered quite a bit in that thread).

EarthDog said:

At this time, I would say Nvidia cards/drivers seem to be working better out of the box, at least compared to the 290/290x cards anyway. Since you are not really going for that card, its problems you listed do not really matter, do they?

We also have a 290/290x owners thread which people have mentioned these issues. May want to search for that for a quick read (or before you post as it was covered quite a bit in that thread).

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At first I wanted to get 290 Tri-X then I agonize it over the price per performance and also there' this Black Screen problem existence.
So I ending up just getting a 280X Toxic instead (Soon that is not yet buy)

But then again , seems like there are also quite hand full of problems with the 280X ,mostly are Dual-X owners I've seen , but I think may affect Toxic too or likely there are less owners for Toxic so maybe less complains.
But I did heard that the Toxic used a totally different BIOS or something something.

Anyways once a person told me you can avoid every faulty hardware on the market. I will only end up stuck at the same thing for past years and never changing to a new one ever again.

I had my share of faulty hardware experience before it's frustrating indeed.

1) Faulty RAM on the first day
2) Black Screen of Death on my HD 7870
3) My G700 left click gone after 1 Month

Luckily all was able to solved with just RMA without fuss , except I can' avoid the 1 Month long wait for the RMA process that's the biggest headache there...but we all have to face our problems head on I guess , we can't run away forever