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R9 290 question from a prior Nvidia user

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Infinite66

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Jun 27, 2012
Hello everyone. I recently purchased a R9 290 from power color. The PCS+ edition. It has been performing amazingly using the 13.12 drivers. (14.4 still causes black screen on boot). It is clocked at 1040 my out of the box and I have yet to overclock at all. Msi afterburner has the voltage slider greyed out even with the allow voltage tweaking box checked. Does that mean this a voltage locked card? If so, no big deal. What would be considered a safe voltage if I can adjust it? No more than 1.2 v was recommended for my SLI gtx 670s. Is this a universal "safe" voltage?

And lastly, I know the 290 series cards don't use a physical bridge for xfire configurations, so with that in mind, would running 1 card in a x16 and one in a x8 slot cause problems? My motherboard has 2 x16 slots, but then the cards would be smashed together. Moving it down a slot would help them a lot as far as heat is concerned. Would am fx-9370 @ 4.6 get bottleneck the 2? I have no intention of buying a 2nd card soon, but would like to know when or if I ever really do. Would hate to find out 2 cards won't work properly after spending $500.
 
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You need to go to the settings and enable voltage control, let's get that working before worrying about safe levels.
 
ATMINSIDE said:
You need to go to the settings and enable voltage control, let's get that working before worrying about safe levels.
Click to expand...

Solid reasoning. I didn't expect a response so quick. Currently at work, will post results later tonight. What I do know is I checked off allow voltage control and it remained greyed out. Does that change usually require a restart of the program or Windows? New to this part because even my reference stock model 670s had voltage tweaking allowed from the get go.
 
Sapphire trixx should change voltages if Afterburner can't.
AB won't change my 270x's voltage, but trixx will.

Post back if afterburner work before switching to trixx or something else. ;)
 
My 290s don't really scale at all beyond about +100mv, which will be fine even on air. +50mv gets me from 1100 to about 1160, +100mv gets me to about 1200/1225 for the worse/better card, +200 mv won't even get me 1275 on the better card.

Small sample size of course, so ymmv.
 
Ok everyone. I got MSI to unlock voltage on my r9 290. Sorry for the delay! I was going back and forth with Powercolor Tech support. Turns out they were shipping their r9 290 pcs+'s with outdated BIOS! Newer games were crashing to desktop every other minute and older games that are normally butter smooth were jittery. All fixed after I flashed BIOS over. Not to mention afterburner actually unlocked the voltage with the option checked off unlike before. Ok so here is a pic of my card's information. How far can I push? Max safe voltage for this card?

gpu info.JPG
 
you have to keep me posted on how well this card is. I chose to go with a Sapphire Vapor-x 290 but this was a very close 2nd if the price was not $30 more. But if i remember correctly you only want to overclock in increments of 10-20mhz at a time on both core and mem. Make sure to stress test and use a good bench. u can get to a point that even with a bench u can hit a wall and dosent matter if you overclock past it. But that card will still get toasty so keep a close eye on the temps and u might have to respread better paste on it. My 290 is still stock at the 1030core and 1400 mem. I will be overclock eventually but im only running a 24" 1920x1080p Asus monitor. Really depends on a couple of things, 1. good chip, 2. good mem moduels 3. good card. I think that the PCS+ runs Epdi mem vs the Hinnix. So you might be limited. but there should be no issue with you mostlikely hitting 1100 core and 1400 mem. Hopefully
 
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Kemosabe89 said:
you have to keep me posted on how well this card is. I chose to go with a Sapphire Vapor-x 290 but this was a very close 2nd if the price was not $30 more. But if i remember correctly you only want to overclock in increments of 10-20mhz at a time on both core and mem. Make sure to stress test and use a good bench. u can get to a point that even with a bench u can hit a wall and dosent matter if you overclock past it. But that card will still get toasty so keep a close eye on the temps and u might have to respread better paste on it. My 290 is still stock at the 1030core and 1400 mem. I will be overclock eventually but im only running a 24" 1920x1080p Asus monitor. Really depends on a couple of things, 1. good chip, 2. good mem moduels 3. good card. I think that the PCS+ runs Epdi mem vs the Hinnix. So you might be limited. but there should be no issue with you mostlikely hitting 1100 core and 1400 mem. Hopefully
Click to expand...

OK sounds good. I'll come back with my results. What would you say the max safe voltage is? And gpuz says I have hynix memory.
 
First thing is to identify what exactly you are using the GPU for. Unless your just wanting to push the limits on the card just for fun.
 
Kemosabe89 said:
First thing is to identify what exactly you are using the GPU for. Unless your just wanting to push the limits on the card just for fun.
Click to expand...

Primarily just to know how far I can safely push this card for gaming purposes. Like 1 or 2 games actually bring that card under 60 fps. As games get heavier and heavier I would like to be able to keep up. Hence an overclock profile

Also I've been on and off the fence about going back to liquid cooling. I'm leaning towards doing a full loop again. How do these cards perform under water? Do the 290s usually hit their overclock wall because of stability or heat first?
 
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My 290s run about 15c above water temp, so heat isn't really an issue at all, and it doesn't make much difference temp wise if I'm at 0mv offset or 200mv offset, just a few degrees. That's with ek blocks and fujipoly thermal pads for the vrms.

My cards don't get along with my overclocked pcb on my catleap if I add voltage for some reason, but my secondary monitor (and my catleap before I changed to the overclock pcb) were fine so I could run them up to 200mv offset. The highest I could go through 3dmark with them in crossfire was 1260mhz core 1500mhz men. Gaming I kept them at around 1225/1400 I think.
 
Farwalker2u said:
As to how far a Powercolor r9 290 PCS+ can be OC'd?

This article got GPU clock to 1130MHz; and memory to 1500MHz.
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/3...-powercolor-pcs -r9-290-4gb-reviewed?start=13

I've been running my Gigabyte R9 290 (GV-R929OC-4GD) GPU clock at 1140MHz Folding for a few weeks.
Click to expand...

WOW the PCS+ on benches hits a lil under the Vapor-X but still a heck of a card. But on note: With your voltages i would do +5 at a time and check stability. last thing you want to do is fry the pcb or chip. i know with a little overclocking WE are looking at the same or better performance of a gtx 780. Which considering we both spent about $150 less that's fricken awesome. But as far as going Watercooling you arnt looking at too much of a difference unless we are talking 2-3 cards +. The cooling on these are pretty sweet but like i said before, you might want to dismember it and check the thermal paste and check the thermo tape on the vrm. If its tape and 1 solid piece you can cut it to fit better directly over the mem models. This will add a little better cooling to the overall performance. Luckily if there's any issues there are many better educated people on here to help out. But i would not worries bout temps unless you get to the 90c threshold. Then theirs a bigger issue.

BTW happy to hear you have a PCS+ with hinnix, head some stories that they do tend to ship with Elpida mem. So you clocks should be a lil more solid on the mem side of things.
 
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Ok thanks for all the tips guys. I'll try and overclock it this saturday. As for the VRMs, VRM1 is the only one that gets hot. Around 75C when running stuff like heaven benchmark. Where would I get that Fujipoly thermal pad?
 
With higher end GPU's it should already have a type of thermo pad. Take off the cooler and see what you got. Then cut it to the right size so your not just covering the gaps and it will allow for a little bit better air flow through the vrm moduels.
SARCON-Gap-filler-pad-GR-Hd_03.png
 
Kemosabe89 said:
With higher end GPU's it should already have a type of thermo pad. Take off the cooler and see what you got. Then cut it to the right size so your not just covering the gaps and it will allow for a little bit better air flow through the vrm moduels.
SARCON-Gap-filler-pad-GR-Hd_03.png
Click to expand...

OK thanks. Will look into it tomorrow
 
Ok everyone! Finally had the chance to stop running around and sit still for more than 5 minutes! Got around to overclocking my r9 290 pcs+.

Stock speeds are core-1040 mhz and mem - 1350 mhz. I left all voltage options and power target at completely stock and I am blown away by how much I got out of this card at stock settings. core is now at 1150mhz and mem at 1600mhz. Both of these clocks are active at the same time, and was even Heaven Bench stable for the full 26 frames, no stop, stutter, artifacts, or driver issues. Card temp never exceeded 77C. VRM1 temp reached a max of 75C. Both these temps were after 5-6 full runs of Heaven.

Core speed will not exceed 1150 mhz though. and Mem won't go beyond 1600. At all. Regardless of how much voltage I apply. I get a shaky screen at anything beyond 1600 mhz memory and rainbow artifacts beyond 1180 ish mhz. (1180 was achieved with small voltage bump.) Pics included.
Note: my 2 gtx 670's overclocked to 1030 mhz and underwater struggled to reach 58 average fps on this same bench. I do not regret my r9 290 purchase AT ALL. Thing is a beast.

Afterburner specs.png
OC Heaven bench.png
 
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