Why did AMD introduce a botched solution in the name of 290X

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fanboy said:
I have the 290 and I have never heard the thing and I believe it is designed as such because AMD knows what the hell there doing better then you or the review sites as they have cooling a run of 4870x2 /5870x2 /6990/7990 with there design work.

Both have desired a card that does not need a lot of cooling and to me if it can run Heaven 4.0 at 95c means it bullet proof.. try running it with your 780GTX at 95c..
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Well stated.

Try aftermarket cooling for a real kick in the ass if you want to see some massive performance scaling. NVIDIA can't touch the 290 series with what they have to offer right now.
 
The 290/290X uses a LOT of power. Which means more heat. Which means the cooler has to work a lot harder. The blame is equally on the chip as it is on the cooler.

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SonDa5 said:
Dude if GTX 780 was the best performing card it would be the champion world over clocker but it is not. The AMD R9 290X is the champ. With driver updates its only going to get better.
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The overclocked GTX 780 is faster than Titan. Therefore an overclocked GTX 780 is faster than the 290X. You can argue that the 290X can overclock, but I think it's safe to state that the OC headroom on the 290X is somewhat limited.
This all goes back to the faulty reference design AMD is using. The 290X could be so much more than it is, but it is really held back by that cooler - I don't see how or why anyone can defend it. Nvidia created an excellent solution with their Titan cooler, and AMD should have done the same - then this entire argument about throttling at quiet fan speeds would be moot. I don't agree with Prime1 because his opinions are generally over the top - I think the Hawaii chip is great. It also gave us nvidia price cuts. But had AMD done their job properly, those nvidia price cuts would not have drove most consumers to simply buy nvidia products. Right now, I really think nvidia has the better product when you consider all metrics like acoustics and software - if AMD had created a better cooler, none of this would be an issue. None of this stuff about quiet mode throttling would be a discussion. I guess, i'm just disappointed by the 290X and I really wanted to like it, since I really enjoyed the 7970. I used the 7970 for a long while before passing it on to someone else and really enjoyed it - yet the 290X isn't really doing it for me with the quiet mode compromises.
 
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PRIME1 said:
The 290/290X uses a LOT of power. Which means more heat. Which means the cooler has to work a lot harder. The blame is equally on the chip as it is on the cooler.

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It uses 30 fucking more watts then the 780 (non-TI), a whole whopping fucking 10% more and is faster then the 780, where the fuck is the problem again? Oh wait, its you and your crapping and trolling of every AMD thread along with Xoleras.
 
mesyn191 said:
Nope. Power usage skyrockets on all high end GPU's once you OC. Also a vs a OC'd 290 an OC'd 780 can only maintain a 1fps advantage @ 1400p. This is nowhere near "passes fairly easily". Like most nV fanboys/shills/trolls infesting the AMD side you're just making stuff up.
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This GTX 780 SC ACX card is 15% faster than Titan while using 10 more watts at load. 290X matches the Titan at stock speeds, yeah? The OC 780 passes Titan fairly handily. Obvious conclusion is...................
 
xoleras said:
This GTX 780 SC ACX card is 15% faster than Titan while using 10 more watts at load. 290X matches the Titan at stock speeds, yeah? The OC 780 passes Titan fairly handily. Obvious conclusion is...................
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That chart is misleading due to boost...
That simply isn't possible thanks to physics.
 
xoleras said:
This GTX 780 SC ACX card is 15% faster than Titan while using 10 more watts at load. 290X matches the Titan at stock speeds, yeah? The OC 780 passes Titan fairly handily. Obvious conclusion is...................
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I love how you post pics which contradict your earlier statement about the 780GTX not using more than 200w while OC'd, much less stock, like they never happened. Titan also has a 250w power draw so its more like nearly 30w more at load, just like the Anandtech image that I linked. Also comparing OC'd vs stock clocked performance is at best a apples to oranges comparison so I don't know what you're trying to prove here. Especially since OC'd 780GTX vs OC'd 290 numbers were already given but here is the link.
 
NukeDukem said:
I was under the impression the cards will only throttle after max fan speed has been reached. Is this not correct? I set my fans to 100% max and they definitely do not ramp up that high. I may just set max temp to 95c anyways. The only thing I do not want is that heat dumping in my case, and reference coolers exhaust out the back. Honestly I don't care how hot the GPU's get as long as the other components are safe.
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It throttles based on temperature and fan speed limits. I missed that you uncapped your fans. But I'm rather surprised, unless it actually isn't reaching those numbers, that you don't consider the noise bad (although this subjective) if is actually going high enough to keep it under 75C while under load. Granted if you had the reference 7970 that wasn't the quietest solution either.

Rattle said:
The gpu itself, i mean these things only have 1-3 year warranty at best right? can they handle 1000 hours of BF4 at 95c? what happens if mantle really pegs the card and makes it work even hotter and harder?
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I just wanted to make sure this wasn't another temperature vs. heat confusion issue. So I posed it as a question without just assuming it was.

Bluesun311 said:
This guy has worthwhile points all the time. I'm not sure how big of a deal the chip core temp is if the coolers are doing an adequate job of blowing almost all the hot air directly out of the case. I do believe my initial reaction was the same--I was like I don't want anything that hot in my room. But it isn't necessarily that bad. Like 85 and 95 are both hot air. How big of a difference is that in the real world? I don't know so I shouldn't try and speculate.
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Just to clarify in terms of the impact on the system the actual individual components temperature doesn't matter. How much heat it is actually generating and then transferred out is what is the factor.

So yes in actuality the blower coolers would be better for system impact than the customs despite the higher GPU temperature since the actual heat is being transferred more so outside of that enclosed system.

As to the discussion regarding whether or not the high GPU temperature is bad or not I would say the public generally does not have access to enough data to tell. Nvidia for instance raised the throttle temperature on the GTX 780ti from 80C->83C. Is it actually because of process improvements or some other inherent property that let them set it higher? Or are they just being less conservative? Laptop GPUs typically at stock are asked to sustain very high temperatures that would have been (well until now) not very accepted among the desktop crowd. Keep in mind these GPUs in general are built on the same process from the same manufacturer.
 
It is threads like this, where real people are using real 290's, that has me considering getting one. As an example, I should have gone with the FX8150 over the 1090T back in the day but did not. I believed people who did not own an FX 8150 and regretted it.

Right now, I have 2 x Gigabyte 7950's that I can still return for a refund. If Asrock and Gigabyte are unable to resolve the Ultra Fast Boot issue, I am seriously considering returning them and getting the R9 290 Pro. Thank you OP, you definitely are helping me make my decision. :D
 
ManofGod said:
It is threads like this, where real people are using real 290's, that has me considering getting one. As an example, I should have gone with the FX8150 over the 1090T back in the day but did not. I believed people who did not own an FX 8150 and regretted it.

Right now, I have 2 x Gigabyte 7950's that I can still return for a refund. If Asrock and Gigabyte are unable to resolve the Ultra Fast Boot issue, I am seriously considering returning them and getting the R9 290 Pro. Thank you OP, you definitely are helping me make my decision. :D
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My 290's will be here today, and I'm pretty excited. I know I won't tolerate the fan, my machine is as close to silent as I can make it (right now I have a GTX 580 in there and the fan is very irritating even with my headphones on) but they will be going under water in the next week or so and it doesn't matter.

The 8150 was an awful chip, be glad you skipped it. I had one and it was like a nuclear reactor in my PC and the performance was garbage. Later when I had an 8320, that chip was much, much better.
 
I bet you are super excited about those 290's being here today. :D As far as the 8150 goes, that would have been a better upgrade for me than the 1090T was. I had a Phenom II 945 overclocked to 3.615GHz and going to the 1090T was a complete waste for me. (No real world difference and it would only overclock to 3.8Ghz.)

I love all this hardware coming out and all the great options available.
 
price
my guess is end up costing them more then they thought to make and that a good heatsink would add 80 to 100 bucks the price of card just like nvidia found out
 
at "stock" the cards might be set to run 95c but apparently this is not always the case and will run below this level, hey you could always turn the fan speed cap up and it never would run at 95c OMG so hard.

Nvidia Reference cooler and this Reference from AMD will run very nearly the same in regards to temps, noise and power draw this has been proven time and again, the silver cooler used on the Titan/780Ti is NOT a standard reference cooler, it is a custom reference cooler that as someone mentioned was provided for Titan and they HAD TO use it.

R29x series and 770/780/780Ti/Titan are VERY similar in regards to power required, thermals and such, and you know just because a card throttles some does not mean it rips apart its performance, hell I declock my 7870 as far as it will go in BF4 playing high/ultra 2x msaa and it still plays just fine.

If you actually look at the card on its own merits, it is a wonderful design, why 95c cap I do not know, 85c with a higher fan speed and less restrictive cooler would have made more sense, but alas its performance is great by what the reviewers state even with its "poor" throttling and such. Its FPS count for more then their previous gen(and in many cases is even smoother then anything Nvidia offers) it handles very high resolutions terrifically so yeh, people can look at specific things and say fail, but on a whole, this has been a great launch.

Really is a crying shame that Nvidia trolls cant bother to just keep their mouths shut and move along if they so wish, but like said, on its own merits R9-290/290x are great cards if allowed to run hotter then most of us would like, power use they use a tad more then the competition, cooler wise not quite as good as they could have been, performance wise they are the ones to beat right now period, performance per watt R9-280x-290-290x are the winners, performance per dollar they win again. Again, save the cash from buying Nvidia, get the Radeon, change the cooler, saved money and got a better card whats wrong with this?
 
Ok but the 290x even throttle at quiet fan still has AMAZING performance potential it still has a shit ton of shaders/rops/tmu at this slower clock, still has a whack of memory running at full speed on a 512bit bus. Xoleras, you can open your mouth to spit that garbage but you obviously don't know that much at all, its just flat out bs talk.

Make the fan spin faster DONE. Take your precious 780 put a reference cooler on it and see what happens. 200w more power LOL, you seriously need to go see your doctor as your meds ran out again.

Efficency is a per clock, per dollar, per transistor, per die area, power per transistor, performance per mm2 etc, there are many ways to quantify this. Fact is in many ways AMD wins much of these areas and has for a very long time.

I myself like the simple, I take my card, tell it 65% fan speed and it runs 65% fan speed, temp target with a fan speed % that I control would be nice so you know card never kills itself, and fan never kills your ears :p

Well and the whole noise factor, if your case exhausts out the back and you wear a headset I am quite certain ~70% fan speed most people can deal with, I have quite sensitive ears for me 55-76% is what I can handle and this keeps the cards quite cool, though it does mean room heats up faster.

Anyways it is a pointless butthurt thread, AMD did great this round, and they are forcing Nvidia into the defensive period, and in some way Nvidia will make AMD better as they both see where they did "poorly" and will make their stuff better the next time around, no one person or company can do things perfectly all the time.

As far as Nvidia charging $80+ for their "reference" cooler, well they really did not need to make it out of some of the materials they did as this made the BOM higher then it needed to be, sure looks nice, but that is adding to the cost of something for nothing really, better cooler check, looks nice check, makes something $ that more $$ duh no.
 
ManofGod said:
I bet you are super excited about those 290's being here today. :D As far as the 8150 goes, that would have been a better upgrade for me than the 1090T was. I had a Phenom II 945 overclocked to 3.615GHz and going to the 1090T was a complete waste for me. (No real world difference and it would only overclock to 3.8Ghz.)

I love all this hardware coming out and all the great options available.
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Yeah I can't wait. I paid $25 extra for 2 day shipping on monday, and yesterday UPS changed my delivery to today at like 5PM. Oh well, as long as I have them for the weekend!

I can see how the 1090T would be a waste there, two extra cores at around the same clocks isn't much difference. Personally I like the vishera chips, they might be a little slower at some things than the Intel stuff, but you can't reeally touch a k-chip for $160 either (unless they come out with an unlocked i3).
 
Don't try to twist words in favor of AMD. It is what it is. The chip throttles at the speeds that it was intended to run. So much for your self defined efficiency. I can cut a card board box and say its efficient from my perspective. Doesn't mean it is.


mesyn191 said:
They decreased clocks and widened the bus which resulted in less die use for the memory controller but that doesn't mean its simpler at all. You don't know what you're talking about.


That is power density, which still has nothing to do with efficiency. You don't know what you're talking about.


There are many ways to measure efficiency. Die size, power usage, IPC, etc. A significantly smaller die size for similar performance is a pretty big win here for AMD which is much more important than spending a extra 40-60w of power which is perfectly acceptable for a high end GPU. Its probably the key reason they're able to offer such performance for such a low price point. If we were talking about something for use in a mobile or power constrained platform you'd have a point, but we're not, so you don't. It'd be funny if it weren't sad that you quoted the definition for efficiency but still don't understand it.
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madgun said:
Don't try to twist words in favor of AMD. It is what it is. The chip throttles at the speeds that it was intended to run. So much for your self defined efficiency. I can cut a card board box and say its efficient from my perspective. Doesn't mean it is.
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Wow, you are just making my decision a bit easier every time you post. Thank you. :D
 
ManofGod said:
Wow, you are just making my decision a bit easier every time you post. Thank you. :D
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Well it's not an Nvidia vs. AMD debate. So whatever suits your needs, you should get that. But I am trying to convey a message to AMD to put more effort in polishing their end product. They should go the extra 5% and really make it a point to create a compelling product that can stand toe to toe with the competition.

As of right now, the 290X looks like a poor man's high end card. It's just not acoustically compelling and also comes with it's fair share of throttling issues.
 
i dont mind, it gave me an excuse to actually buy an aftermarket gpu cooler.
 
madgun said:
Well it's not an Nvidia vs. AMD debate. So whatever suits your needs, you should get that. But I am trying to convey a message to AMD to put more effort in polishing their end product. They should go the extra 5% and really make it a point to create a compelling product that can stand toe to toe with the competition.

As of right now, the 290X looks like a poor man's high end card. It's just not acoustically compelling and also comes with it's fair share of throttling issues.
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Yep. The chip deserves better than the crap cooler reference design it's using. But daring to say that here will just get you called an "nvidia fanboy", blah blah blah. Whatever. It's like the people here don't want a better product from AMD....shit cooler is status quo, you know? 290X would be so, so much better than it is had AMD made an attempt to put a good cooler on it, the quiet mode throttling makes this pretty obvious. It blows my mind that people find that situation acceptable.

A R9-290 with a cooler on par with the Titan cooler is a product I would buy. The R9-290 with the current cooler is not - I agree that this is criticism that AMD needs to hear loud and clear; what was acceptable 4 years ago in terms of cooling acoustics is not acceptable today, ESPECIALLY when the chip is currently throttling by hundreds of mhz with the existing reference cooler at quiet mode fanspeeds.
 
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xoleras said:
A R9-290 with a cooler on par with the Titan cooler is a product I would buy. The R9-290 with the current cooler is not - I agree that this is criticism that AMD needs to hear loud and clear; what was acceptable 4 years ago in terms of cooling acoustics is not acceptable today, ESPECIALLY when the chip is currently throttling by hundreds of mhz with the existing reference cooler at quiet mode fanspeeds.
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But it was acceptable 3 years ago, it was acceptable up to a year and a half ago...
Just not acceptable once Nvidia designed a new expensive cooler.
 
xoleras said:
Yep. The chip deserves better than the crap cooler reference design it's using. But daring to say that here will just get you called an "nvidia fanboy", blah blah blah. Whatever. It's like the people here don't want a better product from AMD....shit cooler is status quo, you know? 290X would be so, so much better than it is had AMD made an attempt to put a good cooler on it, the quiet mode throttling makes this pretty obvious. It blows my mind that people find that situation acceptable.

A R9-290 with a cooler on par with the Titan cooler is a product I would buy. The R9-290 with the current cooler is not - I agree that this is criticism that AMD needs to hear loud and clear; what was acceptable 4 years ago in terms of cooling acoustics is not acceptable today, ESPECIALLY when the chip is currently throttling by hundreds of mhz with the existing reference cooler at quiet mode fanspeeds.
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i have owed a card from pretty every manufacture, even the matrox millenium. the fact is the 290x is a half assed attempt. while i glad it caused nvidia to lower prices, it really is a poorly executed product. I certainly hope AMD does a better job during the next gen.
 
LordEC911 said:
But it was acceptable 3 years ago, it was acceptable up to a year and a half ago...
Just not acceptable once Nvidia designed a new expensive cooler.
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I would reiterate that throttling on out of the box setting has never been an accepted metric.
 
I agree that AMD should have kept the ATI name for their graphics division...ATI had brand awareness...when people think of AMD they think of CPU's (under-performing CPU's for the past few years)...they screwed up by killing off the ATI name
 
madgun said:
I would reiterate that throttling on out of the box setting has never been an accepted metric.
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When has it ever been possible before in regards to boost/powertune?
People were upset with AMD about how conservative they clocked 7970 and then get upset about Powertune's implementation, now they are upset that AMD listened to the grumbling... fully deterministic vs non-deterministic.
They can't do right in your eyes, and many of the people complaining, which I guess doesn't really matter since very very few of you would even be open to choosing an AMD card.

Edit- I would like to point out that Nvidia was the one that started with this implementation and AMD simply took it up a level.
 
Notice everyone who is bitching about the 290 cooling doesn't own one but act like they know how it is to have one just from reading a few articles. I recently sold my crossfire 7950s just to get the 290. I'm just waiting for a good deal to pull the trigger. I'm using an old videocard til then. I don't mind waiting for a good deal to come along.
 
LordEC911 said:
When has it ever been possible before in regards to boost/powertune?
People were upset with AMD about how conservative they clocked 7970 and then get upset about Powertune's implementation, now they are upset that AMD listened to the grumbling... fully deterministic vs non-deterministic.
They can't do right in your eyes, and many of the people complaining, which I guess doesn't really matter since very very few of you would even be open to choosing an AMD card.

Edit- I would like to point out that Nvidia was the one that started with this implementation and AMD simply took it up a level.
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Well guess what, Nvidia's cards don't throttle as much. Why couldn't AMD just keep a realistic temperature target with their GPUs. Probably they determined that such a step would make their cards loose out handily to the competition. And then why would they need to send an updated BIOS before the launch of the R9 290 and hence sacrificing the noise + heat / performance ratio.

I don't really agree with their tactics and have swayed away from them for the time being. They should have let the overclockers work their magic on the R9 290s and should have refrained from creating an undesirable BIOS switch in the first place.

And I am not sure if you know anything about me. I was until very recently using an AMD 7970 Direct CU II. So please cut the slack.

I am not sure any one in their right mind would support AMD with the throttling cards. AMD should be made to improve and not encouraged to produce such blunders in the future.

polonyc2 said:
I agree that AMD should have kept the ATI name for their graphics division...ATI had brand awareness...when people think of AMD they think of CPU's (under-performing CPU's for the past few years)...they screwed up by killing off the ATI name
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I completely agree. AMD has come to be known as poor man's hardware company and ATIs brand name was far far superior ( Cool looking cards, great coolers, superior technology than the competition, heck I even loved Ruby ). Probably AMD's marketing team over-estimated their brand value while changing the name of their newly acquired graphics division.
 
LordEC911 said:
But it was acceptable 3 years ago, it was acceptable up to a year and a half ago...
Just not acceptable once Nvidia designed a new expensive cooler.
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I can't believe you defend this shit. A race to the bottom price isn't the best approach when you're dealing with a 500$ GPU, if you can create a 500$ GPU with quality, then great. But if you sacrifice quality as AMD did with the 290 and 290X for that price point, then fuck that. AMD should have spent 30$ or so more in creating a cooler that doesn't necessitate the throttling for quiet operation. Like I said. I've bought TONS of AMD GPUs in the past, including the 7970 and 6970 - I praised both of those cards and I liked them very much. But the fact that quiet operation on the 290 cards requires throttling and losing 15% performance? Yeah no thanks. That isn't a quality product. Sure i can turn the fans, but my personal experience is that 55%+ fan on the AMD reference cooler is too loud for ME.

All I want is for AMD to create a better product. That is all. Nothing more. I don't know why you're so offended - I really hope some of the idiot marketers at AMD that probably venture to this forum now and then read this and take this feedback to where it can matter. The 290X could be such a better product, like I said, a race to the bottom price isn't everything. If low price makes your product a lesser quality product, then that is the wrong approach.

I'll also add that once again, a 290 with a cooler on par with the Titan is absolutely a product that I would buy. Hell, I would buy two of them - I am not a PRIME1 or Elios. I like AMD GPUs. But I demand quality in a product - I thought the 7970 was a quality product, but I can't get past the throttling issues on the 290 for quiet operation. Can't you see the problem here? AMD created a fantastic chip but the overall product isn't well rounded - that is a problem that should not be.
 
I think it is a very balanced design.
Price and performance is very attractive.
Cooler isn't the best but the only reason it is getting so many complaints is because of Nvidia's new cooler, it is actually quite a bit better compared to past cooling solutions from AMD in the same TDP range.
You have a silent mode and a performance mode that perform similar.
You can replace the cooler with a highend aircooler and still come in cheaper than the competitor.
You can replace the cooler with a FC waterblock and still come in cheaper than the competitor.

I complained about the GTX480 back in the day and I ended up putting one in my old system.
The cooler and the power/TDP requirements were something to balk at, especially compared to what AMD was competing with at the time, but from a gamer/OCing-enthusiast/silent-enthusiast POV they can all easily be reconciled.

Edit- I remember the good ol days when almost NO ONE on enthusiast PC hardware forums would even consider running their hardware on stock cooling and now it is the end all - be all of your purchasing decision.
 
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So is everybody going to stop bitching when 3rd party cards come out with a $50-$60 premium with more effective coolers? The price will still be extremely attractive, and the heat/noise issues should be fixed. Or will the Nvidia fanboys just find something else to whine about?
 
mdp said:
So is everybody going to stop bitching when 3rd party cards come out with a $50-$60 premium with more effective coolers? The price will still be extremely attractive, and the heat/noise issues should be fixed. Or will the Nvidia fanboys just find something else to whine about?
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it has nothing to do with fanboy-ism or a double standard...Nvidia got hammered the same way when the GTX 480 cards were first released
 
i wish amd made a louder cooler, would ve brought the car enthusiast and video card enthusiast together. Faster it goes louder it gets. Flames at the exhaust and some backfire when it throttles back.
2x 290x videocard better have some flame decals on the top of the fan shroud
 
mdp said:
So is everybody going to stop bitching when 3rd party cards come out with a $50-$60 premium with more effective coolers? The price will still be extremely attractive, and the heat/noise issues should be fixed. Or will the Nvidia fanboys just find something else to whine about?
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Any time anyone criticizes AMD, even if he's using or used an AMD card, is categorized as an NV fan boy.

People need to grow up and get the gist of this thread. If you feel offended then I couldn't care less. I want AMD to get their shit together and improve on all fronts.
 
throttling by hundreds of mhz

You will never notice in gaming as it still keeps the game play 100% smooth and like Brent said there really is no set clock speed with the 290 .. I love the card in it stock form with the ref cooler and may send my aftermarket cooler back once it comes in.
 
madgun said:
Don't try to twist words in favor of AMD. It is what it is.
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Denial doesn't impress or convince anyone of anything.

madgun said:
The chip throttles at the speeds that it was intended to run.
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Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. There are people running 290/X's in Uber mode just fine. Others have to up the fan cap to 60% to prevent clock throttling, sometimes more if they overclock, but you have reasonable options here. Actual card users have pointed this out time and again, if you want to still try and deny that, well...good luck.

edit:
That is from the Anandtech R9 290 review with the fan at the default 47% fan cap which most will tell you isn't noisy at all. Its actually reasonably quiet. Only 1 game had any clock throttling going on at all and it was very minor.
 
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