Desktop Computers

Silence is right. Looking back at the specs now I realize it is a bit chunky but not towering which is fine with me.

290x doing better than the 780 in resolutions above 1080p, 15% to 20% or so.

http://techreport.com/news/25526/int...eating-gtx-780

Results are from AMD themselves and have yet to be tested by reviewers, but it seems to be believable.

Toms Hardware posted a couple brief benchmarks on Reddit last night, said that the NDA for a full review wasn't lifted yet, but AMD gave him the ok to post a couple things.

Official R9 290X Benchmarks : buildapc

Tomb Raider, Highest quality settings possible, 3840x2160:
GTX 780: 27 FPS
R9 290X: 30.6 FPS
BioShock Infinite, Very High, 3840x2160:
GTX 780: 46.2 FPS
R9 290X: 53.5 FPS

Those games are optimized for AMD however. Sounds like the 290x won't beat Titan, but should equal or beat the 780 pretty consistently, which is right where a $600-$700 card should be. I was hoping it would beat Titan, and really put Nvidia in a bind to drop their prices across the board.

What would be a good aftermarket heatsink and/or heatsink/fan combo to get for my box? I have seen some fancy pronged ones hehe. Any particular spec I should be on the lookout for, like sizing?

GTX 780 Ti.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7433/n...rce-gtx-780-ti

Glad I spent all that money on a Galaxy 780 Hall of Fame

Gnomedolf_sl said:

I built my small home server with the Prodigy case. Great case with lots of room for its size.

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There is a new 'Prodigy M' version coming with mATX support as opposed to mini-ITX.

Yep:BitFenix.com Prodigy M

Mire_sl said:

GTX 780 Ti.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7433/n...rce-gtx-780-ti
Glad I spent all that money on a Galaxy 780 Hall of Fame

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That's odd. I thought Nvidia was done with "Ti" cards

brekk_sl said:

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011 - Newegg.com

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That's a nice cooler. My main box has the EVO. I have the fan set to its lowest setting (inaudible) and it keeps the CPU at 83C after hours of LinX. The stock cooler would hit Tmax in 5 minutes and the CPU would start throttling.

joeboo_sl said:

That's odd. I thought Nvidia was done with "Ti" cards

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Well, they couldn't call it a GTX 790, and I'm sure they don't want to dilute the Titan brand by calling this card the GTX Titan Lite. GTX 780 ti sounds premium, and that's what they needed to slap down the R9 290x.

I'm guessing 'Titan' is a new line they will release every spring as their 'boutique' offering. Highest single GPU solution around the $1000 price point. I'd expect GTX 880 to be slower than Titan 2, and around $700

Mire_sl said:

GTX 780 Ti.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7433/n...rce-gtx-780-ti

Glad I spent all that money on a Galaxy 780 Hall of Fame

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I read some where that this is just a rebranded OEM GTX 680.

jeydax_sl said:

I read some where that this is just a rebranded OEM GTX 680.

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Find out what website you heard that from, then make a concerted effort to never go to it again.

jeydax_sl said:

I read some where that this is just a rebranded OEM GTX 680.

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That would be a GTX 770. Except that the 770 is clocked faster than a 680, but it's still a GK104. The 780s, Titans and most likely the 780 Ti are GK110s.

Mire_sl said:

That would be a GTX 770. Except that the 770 is clocked faster than a 680, but it's still a GK104. The 780s, Titans and most likely the 780 Ti are GK110s.

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Whoops, my bad! Thanks for clarifying.

Here is PC Gamers review of the 290x. Looks like a hell of a card, but boy does it chew up a TON of power and put out a LOT of heat. 383 watts at max load, compared to Nvida Titans 300, and it runs at about 95 degrees celsius. If you crossfired 2 of these things, you could probably heat your house.

AMD Radeon R9 290X review | PC Gamer

There is specific logic behind the temperature getting that high though. The card has two bios settings, quiet mode and uber mode, a lot of people are annoyed by having a loud fan so rather than forcing people to do complex tuning in the panel they simply select the bios they want. Both of them will run as hard as they can, but are thermal limited to 95 degrees and will start to lower clocks/voltage and raise the speed of the fan to keep itself under that. So the uber mode will run the fan as hard as it can and quiet mode will limit it to 2000rpm to minimize sound but handicap performance.

The card looks great and the price is awesome, but the cooling solution on it is shit imo. I'm probably going to buy one and get a water block or wait a month for the custom cooling solutions. What sucks I generally retire my current card to my HTPC when I'm done with it, it only supports blower cards (ones that vent outside the case) and generally third party cooling solutions don't go this route.

From the looks of it, the "uber" setting that is crazy loud and hot performs similar to the Titan, while the "quiet" setting that clocks it back and makes it quieter performs more like a 780

This is the best thing to happen to PCs since SSDs came out. I'm willing to swap out my monitor and video card for this shit...

The 290X beats the pulls away from the Titan at 4K it seems

Either way, it's pretty sweet that you can get Titan performance for half the price at the cost of more power/heat