Overclocking Sapphire Radeon R9 290x Toxic in a stable maner

WhizKid93 · Sep 2, 2014

Hey guys, so I have been using my new Sapphire Toxic 290x for a couple weeks and I want a little more out of it. I have been looking at the Trixx software and was wondering about overclocking this card.

I am new to overclocking so I am just curious of a couple things. I have searched the forums and cannot find answers to my questions for this card.

1. Should I start by upping the 'core clock' slowly first, and then the memory clock? Or should I do them both slowly in tandem?

2. Should I up the voltage? Or leave it where it is?

I am not worried really about overheating as the room it is in is pretty darn cold.

Thanks in advance for any answers

P.S.
I understand that the card is already factory overclocked, but I want to push it farther. Also, should I set the fan to automatic? Or set it to 50%-60%? Or something like that...

photonboy · Sep 2, 2014

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-5.html
and
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/01/13/asus_r9_290x_directcu_ii_oc_overclocking_review/2#.VAXnimMl-z4

That should help you.

FAN:
I'd leave that alone so it ramps up and down as needed.

CASE COOLING:
That's also very important. I recommend two fans for intake, and two fans for exhaust though they don't need to be loud. I have mine spinning about 500RPM at the lowest (connected to motherboard for speed control) and they are basically inaudible as I stopped them.

A SIDE FAN if possible is also a great idea if setup properly (I'd use it as INTAKE).

GPU/Memory frequency:
I haven't read through the guide, but in general you want BOTH to be overclocked about the same or else you get a bottleneck.

Personally, I would NOT overclock any further as the noise goes up quite a bit and you don't gain much performance on average. I'd concentrate more on tweaking the game settings.

Other:

RADEONPRO has a feature called "Dynamic VSYNC" I believe that works like NVidia's Adaptive VSYNC. It's awesome. For example, in Assassin's Creeds games I do THIS for setup:

1) Start FRAPS
2) Start AC game
3) VSYNC OFF
4) Tweak game settings until I'm above 60FPS (60Hz monitor) at least 90% of the time
5) Force on Dynamic/Adaptive VSync
6) Verify game caps at 60FPS most of the time now.

7) *If screen tearing is too frequent, drop a few settings to raise FPS to maintain a solid 60FPS VSYNC'd cap..

Adaptive VSync does cause 30FPS cut scenes (pre-rendered) to have screen tearing, but otherwise I love this feature. I don't bother if I can output 60FPS 100% of the time though, but I can't stand screen tearing so VSYNC OFF isn't an option.

**If it's not clear, if you have normal VSYNC ON and drop below the target (i.e. 60FPS) you get a STUTTER effect due to the synch mismatch between GPU output and monitor refresh rate. A handful of games auto synch down to 30FPS to solve this but most just stutter as the output frame time varies consistently between say 16.7ms, 33ms, and even 66ms roughly which is why it doesn't feel smooth.

WhizKid93 · Sep 2, 2014

photonboy :

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-5.html
and
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/01/13/asus_r9_290x_directcu_ii_oc_overclocking_review/2#.VAXnimMl-z4

That should help you.

FAN:
I'd leave that alone so it ramps up and down as needed.

CASE COOLING:
That's also very important. I recommend two fans for intake, and two fans for exhaust though they don't need to be loud. I have mine spinning about 500RPM at the lowest (connected to motherboard for speed control) and they are basically inaudible as I stopped them.

A SIDE FAN if possible is also a great idea if setup properly (I'd use it as INTAKE).

GPU/Memory frequency:
I haven't read through the guide, but in general you want BOTH to be overclocked about the same or else you get a bottleneck.

Personally, I would NOT overclock any further as the noise goes up quite a bit and you don't gain much performance on average. I'd concentrate more on tweaking the game settings.

Other:

RADEONPRO has a feature called "Dynamic VSYNC" I believe that works like NVidia's Adaptive VSYNC. It's awesome. For example, in Assassin's Creeds games I do THIS for setup:

1) Start FRAPS
2) Start AC game
3) VSYNC OFF
4) Tweak game settings until I'm above 60FPS (60Hz monitor) at least 90% of the time
5) Force on Dynamic/Adaptive VSync
6) Verify game caps at 60FPS most of the time now.

7) *If screen tearing is too frequent, drop a few settings to raise FPS to maintain a solid 60FPS VSYNC'd cap..

Adaptive VSync does cause 30FPS cut scenes (pre-rendered) to have screen tearing, but otherwise I love this feature. I don't bother if I can output 60FPS 100% of the time though, but I can't stand screen tearing so VSYNC OFF isn't an option.

**If it's not clear, if you have normal VSYNC ON and drop below the target (i.e. 60FPS) you get a STUTTER effect due to the synch mismatch between GPU output and monitor refresh rate. A handful of games auto synch down to 30FPS to solve this but most just stutter as the output frame time varies consistently between say 16.7ms, 33ms, and even 66ms roughly which is why it doesn't feel smooth.

Thank you for the excellent answer.. I like the idea for the Assassins Creed game.

I have 2 outlet fans on top. 2 intakes in front and one out back. I had a side fan but cut it to make a window!

I just personally want to overclock it to see where I can go before pushing it to far.

I will get back with the results if I succeed, thanks for the info

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Overclocking Sapphire Radeon R9 290x Toxic in a stable maner

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