R9 290 differences between the reference models from different brands, if any?

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cub_fanatic

cub_fanatic

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Nov 21, 2012
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I am shopping for a refeence R9 290. I am thinking reference since I have a Kraken G10 and they are slightly cheaper. I know that NR cards have better cooling and some even have better PCBs with beefier VRMs and such, but i'm seeing dozens of ref. 290's going for under $270 used. Most vendors have a ref. 290 including Asus, GB, XFX, Sapphire, MSI and Powercolor all which I can get used off Amazon for under $275-ish (I have quite the Amazon gift card balance going ATM). One of the sellers' descrptions mentioned that the XFX ref. card was guaranteed to have Hynix RAM. This led me to assume that there is no standard brand of RAM that AMD specifies for their ref. cards and also made me womder what, if any, other differences ref. design AMD GPUs may have. Also, do any of these vendors let you transfer the warranty to a second owner?
 
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jpbragg
I have a reference 7970 and when it ramped up the fan it was like standing near a runway. I replaced the single fan system with a triple-fan arctic cooler (much as you would find in a non-reference model) and the temperature and noise was significantly reduced. I don't know why the manufacturers continue to make reference boards but the difference is significant. The price difference is small compared to the difference in performance.
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jpbragg

jpbragg

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May 12, 2010
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I have a reference 7970 and when it ramped up the fan it was like standing near a runway. I replaced the single fan system with a triple-fan arctic cooler (much as you would find in a non-reference model) and the temperature and noise was significantly reduced. I don't know why the manufacturers continue to make reference boards but the difference is significant. The price difference is small compared to the difference in performance.
 
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cub_fanatic

cub_fanatic

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Nov 21, 2012
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I know that non-reference cards are typically better when it comes to cooling and sometimes PCB components. What I really wanted to know is if there are any differences between all the different brands of reference cards. For example, does a reference Asus R9 290 have anything better or worse on it than a reference MSI R9 290? I've read that some reference cards like the XFX R9 290 comes with better RAM, Hynix, than some other reference cards like the Sapphire R9 290 which use Elpida RAM. Besides RAM, do reference cards differ in any other way? I know that Nvidia and AMD specify that their reference cards have to meet certain design criteria but even if the Asus and Gigabyte R9 290s are identical in design, if they use different brands of components they would not be identical in quality. For me, the cooler doesn't matter because I will be removing it and putting on a Kraken G10 with a Corsair H90 which should keep it under 50C under full load. So, I see no point in spending an extra $50 or so on a non-reference card unless the VRM, RAM and other components on it is way better than what would be found on a reference card. It would also be nice to know which cards come with a back plate and VRM heat sinks already on them.
 
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